In his inaugural “state of the state” address Tuesday night, Gov. Scott Walker urged fiscal austerity to meet Wisconsin’s budget crisis even as he announced he would move up by two years the start of the massive Zoo Interchange highway project.
n his inaugural “state of the state” address Tuesday night, Gov. Scott Walker urged fiscal austerity to meet Wisconsin’s budget crisis even as he announced he would move up by two years the start of the massive Zoo Interchange highway project.
Any activities still going on tonight are the rare exceptions. They include the UW Badgers men?s basketball game, a Snoop Dogg concert at the Orpheum, and snowmobile trails in Sauk County. Nearly everything else is locked down for an expected blizzard.
Drivers are urged to stay off the roads as a blizzard barrels toward southern Wisconsin. Gov. Scott Walker has declared a state of emergency across southern Wisconsin ahead of the storm. The executive order activates the Wisconsin National Guard to help local authorities. Walker also ordered state offices and University of Wisconsin System campuses across southern Wisconsin to close to the public.
As Gov. Scott Walker makes his first “state of the state” speech Tuesday, he will look out at a friendly Legislature that has already helped him pass half of his opening agenda in a frenetic first month. With five jobs bills already sent to him and several more speeding through the Capitol, the new Republican governor will be able to tout tax cuts and broad new protections for businesses from lawsuits as early accomplishments and campaign promises filled.
STEVENS POINT — Proponents of the Wisconsin voter ID bill deserve credit for piquing college students? interest in current events. Of course, this is accomplished by proposing to make students jump through hoops to exercise their right to vote. Granted, students stayed away from the last election in droves, but deny them something and they?re likely to suddenly desire it more.
….Up this way, the UW-Stevens Point Student Government Association, representing the voting rights of about 9,500 students, issued a statement calling ?ongoing attempts of legislators in Madison to disenfranchise student voters unacceptable.? Going further, the student group specifically objects to the repeal of same-day voter registration, calling it ?a direct assault against the voting rights of citizens statewide.? They got that one right.
Column by political science professor David T. Canon and public affairs professor Donald P. Moynihan.
Companies that relocate to Wisconsin won?t have to pay income taxes for two years under a bill signed into law Monday by Gov. Scott Walker. Walker, a Republican, has seen his legislative agenda speed through the Republican-controlled Legislature even though he has yet to explain how he?ll pay for everything in light of the state?s projected $3 billion budget shortfall….Aid to public schools, the University of Wisconsin system, local governments and Medicaid programs were all expected to be big targets for cuts in the budget Walker will release on Feb. 22.
One place that won?t be taking a snow day Tuesday is the Capitol. Gov. Scott Walker says the State of the State speech will go on as scheduled.
A new analysis shows Wisconsin will end the current budget year in better shape than previously thought, but big problems remain.
Gov. Scott Walker plans to plow ahead with his first State of the State speech Tuesday, despite predictions of heavy snowfall in the state?s capital and in southeastern Wisconsin.
Almost a month after taking office, Governor Scott Walker will deliver his first State of the State Address tonight to lawmakers at the Capitol. UW-Madison Political Scientist Charles Franklin says the speech gives Walker an excellent opportunity to further outline and restate his goals, although he says it?s rare that a governor provides any concrete plans during the annual speech.
Have the inevitable discussion about rising tuition with one of your well-informed peers, and chances are they?ll read you a veritable riot act of legislative abuses that the state?s flagship school did nothing to deserve: prison spending now totals roughly three-quarters of education funding, and state support of UW-Madison, currently hovering around 18 percent, is at an all-time low.
The new governor and Legislature have fast-tracked a bill requiring a photo ID to vote in Wisconsin. Opponents say the law would do little to prevent alleged fraud at the polls, while supporters say it is necessary to protect the integrity of the system. Some version of this bill is almost certainly going to be signed into law. If photo ID is going to be implemented, it needs to be done right.
(By UW-Madison professor of political science David Canon and associate professor of public affairs Donald Moynihan. Also mentioned are political science professors Barry Burden and Ken Mayer.)
Forcing concessions from state employees is a popular talking point for Gov. Scott Walker and one that likely will find a central place in his first State of the State speech Tuesday.
Publicly at least, union officials say they want to keep talking with Walker. Privately, they worry he will circumvent the bargaining table and go for an all-out evisceration of their right to negotiate over health care and pension costs.
Almost as fast as the high-speed rail scuttled by Gov. Scott Walker have been his actions to dismantle the biofuel project for UW-Madison?s power plant and the discouragement of wind power project construction throughout Wisconsin.
As I listened to the president?s State of the Union speech, it became clear how at odds our new governor is with the initiatives that will shape our country and return us to a sound economy. I believe the president has it right in looking at innovation, technology and new green industries as having a huge and saving influence on our long-range future. Gov. Scott Walker, however, does not seem to understand or appreciate these issues…UW-Madison planned to add a co-generation power plant, giving the state an opportunity for new markets in biomass fuels and energy research, while providing clean energy. Walker turned it down.
Our governor is dealing with the Madison liberal left problem about as rapidly as can be expected. He is looking into all the high-cost foolishness of past administrations…Walker also eliminated the proposed biofuel boiler at the Charter Street heating plant for a substantial cost saving. UW-Madison gets rid of its dirty coal pile and the planners want to replace it with piles of wood chips, corn stalks and the like. Using home-grown products as a fuel source may be desired, but it can be just as effective at a rural location as it would be near the center of our capital city.
A state lab says the 200 steers that died this month in Portage County were done in by tainted potatoes. Peter Vanderloo is an associate director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, which is run on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He says the cows tested positive for a toxin that?s found in moldy sweet potatoes.
The UW-Madison Morgridge Center for Public Service has given $334,739 to UW-Madison education, environment and health faculty through 11 matching grants.
To provide more support for underserved students, the Morgridge Center for Public Service at the University of Wisconsin awarded 11 grants totaling $334,739 to faculty members launching community-based service learning projects.
It wasn?t pneumonia that killed 200 cows in Portage County earlier this month.It was toxic sweet potatoes. The steers who died Jan. 14 at a feedlot were initiallly thought to have died from pneumonia, but the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Lab in Madison did more testing and discovered the cows had eaten moldy sweet potato waste that contained a toxin.
MADISON, Wis. — A state lab says the 200 steers that died this month in Portage County were done in by tainted potatoes.
Peter Vanderloo, an associate director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, which is run on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. said the cows tested positive for a toxin that?s found in moldy sweet potatoes.
MADISON — The 200 cows recently found dead in a Portage County farm field were killed by a toxin found in moldy food, according to the UW Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory that examined the dead animals. The sweet potatoes apparently were mixed in with potato waste fed to the animals. Tests on feed samples revealed the presence of the toxin, ipomeanol.
While the plan builds on voter ID bills of years past, David Canon, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says this one is different.
“This version?is more restrictive than any bill we’ve had in the past. Indeed, if this bill passes, it would be the most restrictive in the United States.”
A Republican-supported bill to crack down on voter fraud by requiring photo identification to vote is drawing ire from Democrats and other organizations who claim the bill would do more harm than good.
The state?s health care programs for the poor face a shortfall of $214 million this year and a whopping $1.8 billion more over the next two years, the state?s top health official told a congressional committee Wednesday in high-profile testimony.
Dear Editor: There is great news coming out of a recent study by the UW-Madison Carbone Cancer Center. Researchers found smoke-free ordinances in Wisconsin had no negative impact on businesses, including bars and restaurants.
Early last month I sat in on a discussion UW-Madison School of Pharmacy Dean Jeanette Roberts was having with about 35 high school students who are considering becoming pharmacists. She told the students what it?s like being a pharmacist and what it takes to become one — the classes they?ll need to take, the grades they will need to achieve — and then she answered their individual questions, the first being, of course, how much do pharmacists make?
What was interesting is that Roberts and the students were miles apart from each other. She was in a small sound and video studio operated by Access Wisconsin on International Lane near the Dane County Regional Airport and the kids were comfortably seated in their school libraries. Some were at desks in Mellen, some in Green Bay and Arcadia. Several were in the Adams Friendship High School library, a couple were listening and talking from Grantsburg High.
Madison Area Technical College has done a solid job in recent years landing outside dollars to fund a range of initiatives. But Madison College leaders have decided to team up with the state?s other tech schools in an effort to land some of the $500 million in grants recently made available for community colleges by the Obama administration.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor David Canon, who studies election law, said the proposal would be the most restrictive in the country.
This week I had the pleasure of hosting long-time friend and Sconz commenter Patrick McEwen on the Sconzcast. McEwen, who studies nuclear engineering at UW, is a genuine energy policy geek, which makes him the perfect guest for a discussion on the UW?s Charter Street Heating Plant, a topic I addressed in a post on Monday.
The Chronicle of Higher Education released a nifty interactive map which shows the percent of those 25-and-older with at least a bachelor?s degree in each county across the United States. This remarkable tool, which relies heavily on Census Bureau data, not only allows one to break college attainment figures down by gender and race (Asian, black, Hispanic, white) in each county, but also lets one compare these statistics decade to decade.
The good news is 44.4 percent of all residents 25-and-older in Dane County now have at least a bachelor?s degree. That?s the highest percentage of any county in the state and ranks among the national leaders.
Quoted: Sara Goldrick-Rab, assistant professor of educational policy studies and sociology at UW-Madison.
Add the insolvent and still hemorrhaging Unemployment Insurance Reserve Fund ? and a looming $50 million in annual interest payments due the feds ? to the list of economic challenges facing the Walker administration. Due to the high number of applicants and a failure to salt away enough money during the good times, Wisconsin since February 2009 has been forced to borrow nearly $1.5 billion from the federal government to cover weekly benefits for the unemployed.
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, UW-Madison professor of public affairs and applied economics
Wisconsin?s fourth- and eighth-grade students as a whole scored above average on a national science assessment in 2009, but results released Tuesday raise concerns about the state?s African-American student achievement and about scientific literacy in general.
Quoted: “I was surprised he wasn?t more specific,” said Charles Franklin, UW-Madison political science professor. “He stuck to some very broad conservative principles.”
Of course, a bill to require photo ID at the polls isn?t aimed at disenfranchising demographically Republican voters like me. It?s aimed at voters like 22-year-old Andrew Flowers, a UW-Madison senior from Denver, Colo.Flowers has voted in two elections while living in Madison. To register, he needed nothing more than a piece of mail to verify his address, he said. But under the bill, Flowers would almost certainly need a Wisconsin photo ID, something that itself would require his certified birth certificate and Social Security card and a trip to the DMV. Would Flowers be likely to go through all that just to vote? “If I had to go wait in the DMV line, no,” he said.
Governor Scott Walker?s recent decision to stop the conversion of a coal-fired power plant to renewable biomass is another in a string of actions by Walker which will kill jobs. That?s the view from Jennifer Feyerherm of the Sierra Club, on Walker?s decision to pull the plug on converting UW Madison?s Charter Street Power plant from coal to biomass.
In an up-and-coming podcast, I will be discussing the controversy surrounding the Charter Street Heating Plant with a guy who knows a little more about energy policy than I do. But until then, I will point you to one interesting fact: Biomass may be less environmentally beneficial than natural gas, which is the other option that the plant is pursuing.
Approximately 70 students gathered at a forum Monday as administrators explained the general goals of the New Badger Partnership and addressed students? concerns with the proposed state relationship model.
Chancellor Biddy Martin outlined her vision for the New Badger Partnership and addressed student concerns Monday night during a forum hosted by the Associated Students of Madison.
Following up on his promise to cut wasteful spending, Gov. Scott Walker issued an executive order Friday requiring Cabinet secretaries to meet with state workers to identify instances of fraud, waste and abuse.
Plans to build a biomass boiler on the University of Wisconsin campus were nixed Thursday, leaving proponents of the plan dismayed at the loss of a potential new energy industry in the state.
Putting out cigarettes in Wisconsin bars and restaurants did not have a detrimental effect on the hospitality industry, according to a study released Monday. The study, conducted by the Carbone Cancer Center at UW-Madison, looked at five Wisconsin cities, including Madison, where smoking bans went into effect before the statewide ban took hold last summer.
Results showed bars and restaurants in the smoke-free cities continued to do well under no-smoking ordinances, and the number of class B alcohol licenses increased after the ordinances took effect.
Among the priorities for the year: Create more jobs. Cheerleading is fine. Controlling taxes is great. But our new governor also needs to get solidly behind Wisconsin?s growing technology sector while working closely with UW.
A team of UW-Madison researchers landed a grant worth nearly $4.7 million to teach students in rural parts of Wisconsin how renewable biofuels such as wood or switchgrass can be used to produce energy and thereby reduce the country?s dependence on fossil fuels and imported oil.
“Merging science education with the realm of energy is very important for our students and for our future,” says UW-Madison biochemistry professor Rick Amasino, one of the principal investigators who helped secure the funding along with UW-Madison?s Hedi Baxter Lauffer, the director of the Wisconsin Fast Plants Program, and John Greenler, the education outreach program director with the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center.
Ironically, just two days after this grant was announced, Gov. Scott Walker’s administration killed plans to spend $100 million on a boiler that would burn plant-based fuels at UW-Madison’s Charter Street power plant.
Saul Richman?s prospects were not good. In November 2009, after what he thought was the flu turned out to be leukemia, he underwent a week of 24-hour chemo. When that didn?t work, more chemo sent the cancer into remission, but with an 80% chance that it would return. Richman needed a bone-marrow transplant and, even then, his prospects were grim.
The Walker administration has canceled plans to build a biomass power plant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The power plant, a priority of former Gov. Jim Doyle, will burn natural gas instead.
A plan to spend $100 million on a boiler that would burn plant-based fuels at UW-Madison?s Charter Street power plant was axed Thursday by Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch. The DOA is overseeing the rebuild of the plant. Work will continue on outfitting the plant with new natural gas boilers. According to a 2008 university study, converting the plant to burn biofuel was the most expensive of the options considered and would be about twice as expensive as using other coal-burning technologies or natural gas.
Gov. Scott Walker scrapped plans Thursday to convert a power plant to run on natural fuels such as wood chips and paper pellets, a move that could save up to $100 million but drew stern criticism from at least one environmental group. The decision affects the Charter Street Heating Plant on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Its coal-fired burners will be retired next year and were to be replaced with two boilers that run on natural gas and a third that would burn biomass, state officials said.
2010 was a good year for Wisconsin agriculture, according to half a dozen UW-Madison agricultural experts speaking to about 150 agriculture folks at the 2011 Ag Outlook Forum.
The occasion was the 25th year of the issuance of ?The State of Wisconsin Agriculture? report compiled by the UW-Madison Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics with the assistance of specialists from a variety of farming enterprise areas.
UW System Board of Regents President Charles Pruitt and UW-River Falls Chancellor Dean Van Galen outlined plans for the future of the UW System and how to help the state see an increase in the number of college graduates and more jobs.
Gov. Scott Walker scrapped plans Thursday to convert a power plant to run on natural fuels such as wood chips and paper pellets, a move that could save up to $100 million but drew stern criticism from at least one environmental group.
As expected, Gov. Scott Walker?s administration kills a plan to use biofuels at a UW power plant.
The state has ended plans to convert a Madison power plant to run on biomass fuels such as wood chips.
As Wisconsin?s projected budget deficit approaches $3 billion, the UW System is preparing for significant cuts in coming years.
Around this time last semester, the University of Wisconsin administration introduced the idea for the New Badger Partnership, an equivocal vision of the university?s future, to the campus.
Mike Crane was recently named director of Wisconsin Public Radio after having served as interim director and operations director. He worked in public radio and television in Vermont, New York and Florida before moving to Wisconsin three years ago.
Wisconsin?s private colleges and universities are reporting strong enrollment figures, despite the sluggish economy. And many are seeing record numbers of first-year undergrads.
….A sober but determined focus on improving, strengthening and assuring the relevance of our educational system, from kindergarten through university or technical college, is crucial. If that means streamlining while strengthening and improving, then so be it.
