Category: Business/Technology

Some experts believe there might be more organizations in the state that could use their investment muscle in a similar way.

“The SWIB announcement may start a new Wisconsin trend toward increased venture investing among public endowments, such as the UW Foundation and WARF the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation,” said Tom Hefty, former top executive of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Wisconsin and a longtime advocate of strategies for luring more venture capital to the state.

Gov. Scott Walker has released more details about what he wants Wisconsin lawmakers to do in a special session he?s calling that will officially begin on Tuesday.

Economists and commodity specialists from UW-Madison and UW-River Falls will review the financial condition of the state?s farm sector at the fourth annual Agricultural Economic Outlook Forum on Jan. 19 at the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St.

The Center on Wisconsin Strategy always offers a different spin on the numbers and its latest “Wisconsin Jobs Outlook” suggests just how bad the recession has been on Milwaukee.

Or more specifically, we’re talking about the Milwaukee Metropolitan Statistical Area or MSA, which includes Milwaukee, West Allis and Waukesha.

When Gov. Jim Doyle announced in July that a high-speed rail line from Milwaukee would stop in Madison near the Monona Terrace Convention Center, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz saw vast potential for downtown.

….Susan Schmitz of Downtown Madison Inc. says her group of downtown business owners saw the rail station as a major boon for bringing in new customers, adding that the events of recent weeks have been disheartening to those business owners. Moreover, she says, the rail line would have connected Madison businesses and institutions, such as the university’s Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery, to the global economy.

“That’s such an amazing place and that’s going to be an attraction to people all over the world,” she says. “How are they going to get here and move around? Not everyone is going to rent a car. We need to think about being connected to the world.”

Incoming Gov. Scott Walker has praised a Wisconsin Economic Summit report titled “Be Bold – The Wisconsin Prosperity Strategy.” Among its many smart recommendations, “Be Bold” calls for helping University of Wisconsin System schools speed research and patents into start-up companies.

The Environmental Protection Agency is investigating 15 state-owned power plants, including several on University of Wisconsin System campuses, to determine if they are in violation of the federal Clean Air Act. The federal agency sent the state Department of Administration a letter Thursday requesting information about the plants. They include power plants on UW campuses at Eau Claire, La Crosse, Oshkosh, Platteville, River Falls, Stevens Point, Menonomie, Superior and Whitewater. The state?s power plants first came under scrutiny in 2007 when the Sierra Club sued the state for similar violations at the Charter Street Heating Plant on the UW-Madison campus. A finding in favor of the environmental organization resulted in the state signing a consent decree that saw the elimination of coal at Charter and at the Capitol Heating Plant in Downtown Madison.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notified the state of Wisconsin this week that it was starting an investigation into 15 publically owned power plants to determine if they were violating clean air laws. The EPA sent a letter to the state Department of Administration asking for information about the plants “to determine whether the emission sources at these facilities are complying with the Clean Air Act.” The EPA letter comes after Doyle?s administration acknowledged that as many as eight state-run plants have violated the Clean Air Act in recent years. The state is already spending more than $250 million to convert a coal-fired plant that powers the University of Wisconsin-Madison to run on natural gas and biomass after a federal judge agreed with the Sierra Club that it was violating the Clean Air Act.

The new monthly report from the Center on Wisconsin Strategy shows little improvement on the jobs front. The state gained 5,400 private sector jobs and 2,300 government jobs from September to October 2010, according to figures compiled by the liberal UW-Madison think tank. But those 7,700 jobs weren?t enough to push the state unemployment rate down from 7.8 percent.

Gov. Jim Doyle and other leaders broke ground on the Wisconsin Energy Institute last week, a building on the UW-Madison campus that will house research on renewable energy resources. The Wisconsin Energy Institute will be located at 1552 University Avenue, the site of the former University Health Services building. It is funded with $50 million from the state and $50 million from gifts and grants. In other building news, planning is moving forward on a new School of Music performance center for UW-Madison.