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The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday overruled controversial ballot-counting decisions in Mequon and Madison, ordering the cities to revise final tallies in their Wisconsin Supreme Court election results.

Madison counted 23 late-arriving ballots that the commission voted should not have been included, while Mequon threw out five ballots the commission said should have been counted. The commission voted 6-0 to investigate both city clerks’ offices and ordered changes to the counts — voting 5-1 to require Madison and Dane County to exclude the 23 ballots and 6-0 to require Mequon and Ozaukee County to count the five.

The deadline for the state to certify the election is May 15, but some commissioners acknowledged the likelihood that lawsuits over the decisions could come before then.

In Madison, poll workers on Election Day counted 23 absentee ballots that arrived at four polling places after 8 p.m. Tuesday, despite a state law requiring that absentee ballots be “delivered to the polling place no later than 8 p.m.” in order to be tallied.

There was some debate ahead of the Madison vote because Commission Chair Ann Jacobs and Commissioner Mark Thomsen, both Democrats, said they felt uncomfortable disenfranchising the 23 voters. But Jacobs said she was following the law in ordering Madison to redo its count, adding that she hoped “those voters will perhaps appeal this decision.” 

“We’re going to disenfranchise 23 people,” said Thomsen, the lone no vote. “I don’t think the law requires us to do that.”

Voting in favor, Don Millis, a Republican commissioner, said the commission is bound by state law not to count those ballots.

“There has to be some accountability,” he added, “for the failure to get these ballots to the polling places in a timely manner.”

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell, a Democrat, told Votebeat that he’s considering suing over the agency’s order. McDonell previously voted to count the late-arriving ballots during the county’s canvass.

“It’s disappointing that the Wisconsin Election Commission’s directive is to reject ballots that were properly cast by voters,” Madison Clerk Lydia McComas said in a statement.

This marks the second significant error from the Madison clerk’s office in recent elections. In 2024, officials didn’t count 193 ballots that arrived at the city well ahead of Election Day, leading to investigations and a lawsuit.

Mequon redo comes amid confusion over clerk’s standard

The decision to investigate Mequon came after City Clerk Caroline Fochs decided not to count five ballots under an unusually strict standard for the witness address field on absentee ballot envelopes. Commissioners and staff found that decision to be an abuse of discretion.

For years, Fochs has used a standard contrary to the commission’s guidance, which is to consider a witness address valid if it includes a street name, number and municipality.

Instead, if a witness lists a municipality that shares a name with another elsewhere in the country and does not include a ZIP code or state — even though the absentee envelope doesn’t call for them — Fochs told Votebeat she does not count the ballot. If the municipality name is unique, she will count it without a ZIP code or state. 

In this latest election, those municipalities were Baltimore, Fox Point, Verona and Houston.

“The idea that someone would Google to find out whether or not there’s multiple Veronas in the United States, but not Google the witness’s address to confirm where they were located just strikes me as an odd choice, and contrary to the applicable law,” Jacobs said.

A Votebeat review of Mequon ballots rejected since 2024 found that Fochs in some cases appeared to have misapplied her own standard — rejecting ballots from municipalities that didn’t share a name with any other city, like Chicago and Fox Point.

Referencing Votebeat’s reporting, Jacobs said those people’s votes “were not counted for any good reason.”

Fochs and her city attorney have defended the city’s standard as a proper use of discretion despite coming under fire for it. Fochs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Speaking with Votebeat after the votes, Millis said that although mistakes happen from time to time, clerks need to understand that there can be consequences for errors “if you don’t follow the law and take reasonable efforts to make sure that all ballots are counted.”

Pointing out that he was a Republican commissioner, Millis said he also has a partisan interest in making sure votes in Mequon, a traditionally GOP city, are counted.

“We shouldn’t be doing things to make it difficult for anyone to vote, but here, from just even a partisan standpoint, on average, it’s hurting Republicans more than Democrats.”

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Wisconsin Elections Commission overrules ballot-counting decisions in Madison and Mequon is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The latest North Dakota Poll takes a closer look at how residents are responding to major national issues and reveals some notable divides across the state.

Listen here:

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In this episode of The Backstory, host Sabrina Halvorson talks with reporter Michael Standaert about the latest North Dakota Poll results, which examine presidential approval ratings along with opinions on issues such as the war in Iran, immigration, and the economy. The conversation highlights how responses break down across party lines, regions, and independent voters, groups that often signal shifts in broader public opinion.

“People were pointing out this kind of east-west divide and what it might mean going forward,” Standaert said. He noted that approval ratings differed sharply between Fargo-Cass County and western parts of the state.

The results show that while party affiliation remains a strong predictor of opinion, independent voters and regional differences continue to shape the political landscape. In particular, the contrast between eastern population centers and western communities offers insight into how demographic growth may influence future elections and policymaking.

The episode also underscores how statewide polling helps move beyond assumptions about North Dakota as a single group of voters, offering a clearer picture of how residents across different regions view national issues and leadership.

Learn more about how the poll is conducted.

As the worst snowpack in half a century kindles potential for a devastating wildfire season on Colorado’s 24 million federal acres, Colorado has lost more federal land management workers than any other state.  

A new analysis of federal workforce data by two policy-watchdog groups — Prospect Partners and Hawk Eye Strategies, consulting firms made up of former government employees, including advisors in the Biden administration— shows that Colorado ranks at the top of states for public lands agency job cuts last year. Colorado lost 1,753 positions from agencies including the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management amounting to a 26% loss in the public lands workforce in 2025. 

The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts of nearly 300,000 federal jobs by the Department of Government Efficiency included 6,000 public lands jobs at 10 federal agencies in six Western states. 

“We are heading into a summer of heightened risk with unprecedented low federal capacity,” said Bernie Kluger, a coauthor of the analysis with Prospect Partners and a former senior consultant for the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Biden administration, in a statement. “At a moment when federal agencies should be surging in capacity to protect Colorado communities from drought and fire, the Trump administration’s cuts instead eliminated the scientists who forecast the risk of these disasters.”

About 60 Forest Service jobs were cut from the 2.3 million-acre White River National Forest, the busiest forest in the country with more than 8 million annual visitors who stir an economic impact of more than $1.6 billion in Colorado’s high country communities.

Scott Fitzwilliams supervised the White River National Forest for 15 years before resigning last year as visitation soared and he was forced to slash his workforce. 

A year later he still can’t make any sense of the cuts. 

“There was no rhyme or reason that I could see. They did not have any kind of strategic approach to the downsizing. If they tell you differently, they are lying,” he said in an interview with The Colorado Sun. “It just seemed random. When you think of the type of visitation we get and the needs of our forests, it’s just disheartening to think about how fewer people are out there doing this critical work.”

More than a third of those job losses in Colorado last year were newly hired or probationary employees on the frontlines of the agencies, including workers in visitor services, field operations and emergency operations. Another third of the job losses came from the reassignment of Interior Department staff from regional offices to the department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

And now the Forest Service, as part of a “sweeping restructuring” will be moving its headquarters from D.C. to Salt Lake City in a move that will close all 10 of its regional offices across the country, including the Region 2 headquarters in Lakewood, where the Federal Center employs more than 6,000 workers in 28 federal agencies. The Forest Service also is consolidating all of its research centers into a single operation in Fort Collins. 

“We need these foresters and oil and gas specialists on the ground here in Colorado,” Fitzwilliams said. “I really do worry about the work getting done. I’m not sure they have a plan. It’s like their war plan: ‘Let’s bomb these people and figure out what happens later.’”

BARRE — When a flood swept through David White’s neighborhood in July 2023, the water went all the way up his front steps. It inundated the first floor of his house, where he has lived for about 15 years, leaving high-water marks that reached about two feet up the walls and a layer of putrid mud in its wake. 

White lives in Barre’s North End, a low-lying residential and industrial neighborhood along the Stevens Branch and Route 302, roughly bounded by the Berlin Street bridge on one end and the Willey Street bridge on the other. The neighborhood saw intense flooding in the July 2023 and 2024 storms. The July 2023 storm damaged over 200 homes in Barre, according to the city. 

In the destruction, Gov. Phil Scott, who was born and raised in Barre, also saw an opportunity. An infusion of federal recovery funding could do more than just help Barre clean up from the floods. It could also be used to transform one of the city’s flood-prone neighborhoods, creating new housing to replace what was lost and making the surrounding communities more resilient when the next big storm came. 

That’s the vision he pitched to the Barre City Council in October 2023. He brought plans for the city’s North End: an ambitious proposal to tear down about 19 buildings in the part of the neighborhood that saw heavy flood damage, turn the area into a park and build more than 200 units of new housing around the edge of the flood zone. 

“We’re trying to take advantage of an opportunity that’s before us, and make lemonade out of lemons,” Scott told the Barre City Council at the time. 

At the same City Council meeting, Doug Farnham, the state’s chief recovery officer, identified the North End as “one of the major projects we’re going to have to undertake in the next couple of years.”

Two and a half years later, though, little of the governor’s vision — or any other vision — for the North End has come to fruition. A reluctance to approve buyouts, state denials for funding and stalled mitigation projects have left the neighborhood’s residents, many of whom have faced two floods in less than three years, with diminishing options. And amid an ongoing housing crisis, some residents can’t afford to leave.

The most recent setback came when the state’s Agency of Commerce and Community Development denied funding applications for two recovery projects in Barre’s North End. The denials were finalized and announced in late April.  

“We just basically said, ‘Pause’”

For David White, the North End resident, 2023 wasn’t his first flood. In 2011, a few months before Tropical Storm Irene devastated many Vermont communities, intense flash flooding caused extensive damage to the city. White says his house faced damage, but he chose not to move away. 

“I was a little naive, I guess,” he said. “I figured, ‘Well, I’m probably good for a bit.’”

But in 2023, severe flooding inundated that same house, where he lives with his mother, who is now in her 80s. White owns the house; he and his mother live in a first-floor apartment and his daughter and son-in-law live upstairs, while a tenant rents the back of the house. The apartment where White lives, along with the first floor of the tenant’s apartment, were both left uninhabitable, he said. 

It was over six months before White moved back into his apartment, he said. In the interim, he spent time in a friend’s camper and a state-funded hotel room, while his mom stayed with his sister. 

White applied for a Federal Emergency Management Agency buyout after the 2023 storm. The program uses a mix of state and federal funds to purchase properties impacted by flooding on the condition that the site is permanently preserved as green space, undeveloped land with grass, trees or other natural features. 

While buying flood-prone houses can offer financial relief to homeowners, and turning that land into green space can boost flood resilience, buyouts present a problem for Barre and other communities with limited space for development in parts of the city less prone to flooding. 

Without the option to develop on the flood-prone land in the future, a buyout permanently removes housing stock and reduces the tax rolls –– losses that Barre has said it can’t afford. That can leave property owners caught in the middle, facing repeated floods without a viable option to leave.

Of 67 citywide applications for FEMA buyouts, the city has approved 27, or about 40%, according to City Manager Nicolas Storellicastro. 

Of 18 applications in the North End, only one was approved, he said. 

“We’ve been very, very, very, very careful about the buyouts we approve, because we just don’t have a lot of land to give away,” Storellicastro said in an interview. 

White’s buyout application was among those the city denied. 

In the North End in particular, the city was reluctant to approve buyouts on individual properties until it had a clearer plan for the neighborhood’s redevelopment, Storellicastro. 

“Every buyout intake that came in from the North End, we just basically said, ‘Pause,’ because we know we want to rebuild housing there.” 

“How many times do I have to rebuild?”

Although the city did not approve White’s buyout, it was interested in purchasing his property through a different funding source. In January 2025, Vermont received nearly $68 million in federal funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to support recovery from the 2023 floods. 

That funding is more flexible than typical FEMA funding. That made it a unique opportunity for Barre to potentially purchase some North End properties without the restrictions of a FEMA buyout, meaning the city would be able to build there in the future.

It seemed like a solution to the tension around buyouts the city has faced since 2023: The funding could offer some relief to homeowners who wanted buyouts, without permanently compromising the city’s ability to develop housing.

“Here’s this one funding stream that’s a really good resource,” Storellicastro said of the HUD funds. “It does this thing that we can’t really get funded through FEMA.”

Among other North End projects, the city hoped to use the funds to buy White’s and a few other houses, with the intention to eventually tear them down and build new, flood-resilient housing on the lots, which sit near the edge of the flood zone. White was on board. 

Along with that project, Storellicastro also hoped the city would receive HUD funds for another project in the neighborhood. That project would have seen the city buy some North End properties, for which the city had previously denied FEMA buyouts, and turn them into green space. The city would have also provided grants to some homeowners who want to elevate their homes. 

But while other projects in Barre received over $11.8 million of the HUD funding, the North End projects missed out. They were passed over in the initial round of funding. In the second round, the results of which were announced April 24, the projects were denied again.

That’s left White with few remaining options. Facing the probability of future flooding, he’s decided to try to sell his home. 

“It doesn’t leave me really any choice,” he said. “I’ve been through this three times. I’m too old to keep doing this, you know? How many times do I have to rebuild?”

“Square peg, round hole”

State officials said that a big part of why the North End projects didn’t get funded was because the projects don’t address one of state officials’ key recovery goals: creating new housing outside of the floodplain. 

“It became clear that, in addition to the housing shortage that already exists, that these floods really exacerbate that,” said Nate Formalarie, deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development, which helps administer the federal HUD funds.

“And that’s where we wanted to focus.” 

While the department set aside some of the funds for mitigation, infrastructure and planning projects, the majority was dedicated to new housing creation.

Formalarie estimated that projects supported by the first round of HUD funding will create more than 200 units of new housing, some in Barre. Second-round projects have the potential to create up to 220 additional units of housing, he said. The new housing will help alleviate some of the pressure exacerbated by the approximately 250 buyouts in progress across the state, Formalarie said.

The North End project that would have turned some properties into permanent green space while funding elevations of other buildings was a poor fit for the program’s goals, Formalarie said. That’s because it focused more on protecting existing housing than on creating new housing out of harm’s way.

“I think it was a bit of a square peg, round hole,” said Patricia Moulton, who works in the state’s Office of Disaster Recovery. She said that despite the rejections, she thought all of the proposed North End projects would be good for the neighborhood.

“They are good resilience projects for the North End, for sure,” she added. “It would be great if we could find the right fit for funding to accomplish them.”

Formalarie said that for the project that would have purchased White’s and some of his neighbors’ houses to make way for future flood-resilient development, Barre’s application didn’t include clear plans for how the site would be redeveloped. 

Storellicastro said he had been clear with the state that the city intended to develop new flood-resilient housing on those parcels, but that finding a developer to commit to the project before it was funded was nearly impossible. 

“They couldn’t afford anything else in Vermont”

Formalarie and other state officials said they wanted to see a more unified, cohesive vision for the North End. 

“It was a few buyouts here and there, and then elevating a few select properties and leaving others where they are,” Formalarie said. “So it wasn’t kind of a full-scale redevelopment or reenvisioning.” 

That kind of comprehensive plan has been hard to create, though, according to Storellicastro, because the city has to contend with the wishes and needs of individual residents.

While some residents, like White, are interested in buyouts, others don’t want to leave, Storellicastro said. Some are hesitant to leave because of the lack of affordable housing in Vermont, he said. 

That leaves them stuck between recurrent floods and an ongoing housing crisis. 

“Even if they were to get a buyout, they couldn’t afford anything else in Vermont,” Storellicastro said. “So for most of them, it was just lack of options.” 

Formalarie also said the amount of federal funding was far from what was needed to address recovery needs across the state. 

For Storellicastro, the denial was hard news to deliver to a neighborhood that has seen repeated floods and little progress. 

“When they express their frustration about feeling forgotten,” he said, “I can’t refute that. You know, I can’t point to anything that we can say like, ‘Look, this is a meaningful, significant thing we’ve done differently that’s going to change things the next time there’s a flood in your neighborhood.’ And by golly, it hasn’t been for lack of effort.”

“If the next flood comes … then what happens?”

The lack of funding leaves the future of the North End’s recovery unclear. Storellicastro hopes to seek other funding sources, such as federal flood mitigation money, for some of the projects, but those processes will be more competitive, he said.

State and city officials agree on at least one thing: This will not be the last time the neighborhood floods. Extreme precipitation has increased in the Northeast over the past half century, and the trend is expected to continue as the climate keeps changing.

A flood mitigation project that would benefit the neighborhood has also stalled. The Berlin Street bridge, which spans the Stevens Branch just a few blocks from White’s house, acted more like a dam during the 2023 floods, when debris caught underneath the bridge contributed to water rising upstream. 

Storellicastro said that although the bridge has contributed to flooding in the North End, the City Council has yet to decide on a plan to address the issue due in part to concerns from community members in other parts of the city about longer travel times if the bridge is removed. 

The lack of progress on both mitigation and recovery has left White feeling disheartened. 

“I feel like the North End here has been abandoned,” he said.  

State officials can understand the feeling. 

“I can only imagine how incredibly frustrated and disappointed these people are, and I appreciate that 100% because they’re in harm’s way,” Moulton, the recovery officer for central Vermont, said of the HUD funding denials. 

“The biggest concern is, if the next flood comes and floods them again, then what happens?”

White hopes he won’t be around to find out. After the most recent funding denial, he’s decided that he’s on his own. He’s going to try to sell his house and get out, maybe to higher ground, or maybe out of state, where the housing is less expensive. 

White expects finding a buyer to take time and knows he won’t get as much as he hoped for the house, given the neighborhood’s reputation for flooding. But he doesn’t see another choice.

“I don’t know what else I can do through my own power,” he said. “Staying here is not an option.”

And while selling may be the path forward for him, it’s not a solution for the neighborhood’s underlying vulnerability.

“Unfortunately, that doesn’t resolve the problem for the next guy,” White said. “I kind of feel sorry in a way, for anybody else, but I don’t know what else I can do. I can’t rely on my state. Can’t rely on my city officials. Because they’ve all failed miserably.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Caught between floods, a housing crisis and funding denials, Barre’s North End recovery remains stalled.

PIERRE, S.D. – County auditors in South Dakota are, in certain cases, deciding how to implement new voter ID rules on their own due to uncertainty over guidelines issued by the state’s secretary of state, as early and absentee voting for the primary election is well underway.

Senate Bill 175, passed in the 2026 legislative session, requires new voters to provide proof of citizenship as part of the registration process. The bill was enacted with an emergency clause, which allows the regulations to take effect for the upcoming primary ballot on June 2.

South Dakota Election Voter Guide

Everything South Dakota voters need to know about statewide contests in the primary and general elections.

South Dakota News WatchAlexander Rifaat

The secretary of state’s website outlines various documents first-time registrants can provide as a photocopy to show proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate. But confusion has emerged as to whether eligible South Dakota driver’s licenses, which identify a person’s citizenship status, can also be provided as a photocopy or have to be shown in person.

Since July of last year, as a result of Senate Bill 75 from the 2025 legislative session, driver’s licenses in South Dakota are now issued with an indication of a person’s U.S. citizenship status. The secretary of state’s website lists driver’s licenses as an acceptable form of proof but does not explicitly state whether they need to be physically shown at an auditor’s office or if a photocopy is sufficient.

Amy Scott-Stoltz, president of the League of Women Voters of South Dakota, a nonpartisan advocacy group, said that county auditors in charge of voter registration are having difficulty ensuring a uniform system across the state.

“They’re trying to follow the secretary of state’s guidelines, but the vagueness has led to certain issues,” Scott-Stoltz told News Watch. “Do they need to present this stuff in person? Can they accept it by mail? Different auditors interpret that differently.”

Hughes County Finance Officer Thomas Oliva, who acts as that county’s auditor, said his office is requiring new voters to show the physical driver’s license.

“The main reasoning behind that is because it’s the back of the license. There’s no other identifying information on the back we can tie back to that person, so we felt it’s in the best interest to see the physical card,” Oliva told News Watch.

Haakon County Auditor Stacy Pinney said she has not run into any issues yet with voter registration but also will require new applicants to physically show the driver’s license.

“I’m going to make it a policy in my office that I want to see the actual card. If I have to verify it, I want to see the real deal,” Pinney told News Watch.

Meanwhile, Harding County Auditor Kathy Glines said her office will accept a photocopy of the driver’s license.

“They would have to send a front and back,” Glines told News Watch.

“I hope they would call before sending it by mail,” she added, referring to the limited hours the office is open.

Need for clarity

In addition to questions over how to process new voter applications using driver’s licenses, Oliva said the secretary of state’s office has also created confusion in its communication with prospective voters who are missing the required citizenship documentation.

Oliva said voters who are deemed not to have provided proof of citizenship are sent a letter that indicates they are a “Federal Only” voter, which means, since the new voting law applies to South Dakota elections, they can only vote in statewide federal elections for U.S. president, U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives races.

“I do not necessarily agree with this approach and believe the individual should instead be notified and marked as incomplete or invalid until the required documentation is received,” Oliva said. “While the letter does inform the voter of their status, it does not provide a clear explanation as to why they were designated as such.”

Oliva highlighted the letter generated by the voter registration system only indicates a person is ineligible due to situations such as the use of a commercial mail receiving agency, mail forwarding service or post office box without sufficient residential description.

“While that explanation is accurate in those scenarios, it does not address the separate issue of missing citizenship documentation, which can also result in Federal Only status. This omission may lead to confusion for voters,” Oliva said.

In order to provide more clarity, Oliva created a letter addressed for those deemed to be a Federal Only voter based on a lack of proof of citizenship outlining their options.

In a copy of the letter provided to News Watch, Oliva’s office specifies the new voter was classified as Federal Only due to the lack of citizenship documentation and provides examples of eligible forms of documents they can submit to change their status.

As early and absentee voting for the primary election gets underway, Scott-Stoltz hopes officials in Pierre can provide more certainty on the registration process for new voters.

“We’re hoping for more clarification from the secretary’s office before the primary and are looking forward to working with the election board,” she said.

The secretary of state’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment by News Watch.

Ballots delivered; no extra documentation needed to vote

After early and absentee balloting in some counties were delayed in part due to the short time frame the secretary of state’s office had in validating eligible candidates, primary voting does appear to be back on track across the state.

News Watch reached out to all 66 county auditors, with 30 so far confirming they have received their absentee primary ballots.

Oliva said the challenges so far have been manageable and that a key focus for his team will be to also emphasize to voters who are already registered that they do not need to present new documents.

“We have received questions and concerns from individuals who believe they must bring additional documentation to the polls in order to vote. This is not the case, and it is important to correct these misconceptions and provide clear, factual information,” Oliva said.

Oliva said it’s unfortunate not every county is executing the new voting requirements the same but concedes “it’s entirely up to that auditor’s office.”

As for Glines, she said her county is doing the best it can to abide by the secretary of state’s guidelines.

“We are all feeling our way through it,” Glines said.

Jackley releases explanation on Amendment J

Concerns over the new registration rules come as state Attorney General Marty Jackley issued a draft explanation on an upcoming ballot measure tied to the U.S. citizenship requirement for voting in elections.

Amendment J, which will be on the ballot this November, would amend the South Dakota Constitution to add people who are not U.S. citizens to the list of individuals disqualified from voting.

Proponents of the measure argue it will provide greater clarity as to who can vote since, while non-U.S. citizens are already barred from voting in federal elections and registering to vote in South Dakota, there is no language in the state constitution that explicitly prohibits them from voting in state or local races.

Bengs makes general election ballot

Independent from Hot Springs will meet Democratic nominee Jean Beaudoin and either incumbent U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds or his GOP primary challenger, Justin McNeal.

South Dakota News WatchAlexander Rifaat

Under state law, the attorney general is required to issue a draft explanation of the measure, which essentially acts as a preview of how the question will appear on the ballot.

The public has until end of day on May 8 to submit written comment on the attorney general’s explanation. A final draft is due to the secretary of state’s office on May 19 for approval. The finalized explanation will then accompany the ballot question in the fall.

South Dakota News Watch is an independent nonprofit. Read, donate and subscribe for free at sdnewswatch.org. Contact politics and statehouse reporter Alexander Rifaat: 605-736-4396/alexander.rifaat@sdnewswatch.org.

After four years of planning, a change in presidential administration that revised program rules, and months of delays, most states have unlocked a portion of funding under a $42.45 billion rural broadband expansion program.

While the lead-up to implementing the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program has been long, state officials and industry analysts say it pales in comparison to the work required to turn plans into functioning networks. 

States have six months to finalize contracts with participating internet service providers and complete required environmental and historic reviews, before construction can begin. Some expect projects to break ground as early as the second half of this year. 

Still, major questions remain, including how more than half the program’s funding will be used. 

What Happens to the $22 Billion in Remaining Funds?

Trimmed from states’ initial deployment plans, the U.S. Commerce Department has set aside roughly $22 billion for so-called “non-deployment” uses. Some lawmakers referred to the reserve as federal “savings.” But the Commerce Department and its National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which oversees the program, have since signaled that states will be allowed to access the funds. 

But the exact process remains unclear.

For example, NTIA is nearly two months past its self-imposed March 11 deadline to issue guidance on the funds.

Lawmakers pressed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on the delay on April 22 and April 23, but he offered few specifics, saying only that guidance would come within two months, and that states would be able to pursue “new and exciting things” with the money.

In the meantime, uncertainty is already affecting participation. State broadband offices in Colorado and New Mexico report that some providers who initially expressed interest may ultimately default on preliminary awards. 

Rising costs are one factor: fiber suppliers say prices have jumped as much as 40% in recent weeks. A limited pool of skilled labor is another constraint, an issue the program’s non-deployment funds were meant to address through workforce development efforts.

‘Most Complicated Broadband Grant Program Ever’

Program complexity is also playing a role. Industry experts have described BEAD as the “most complicated broadband grant program ever,” with the program’s former administrator admitting he may have gone too far with certain program requirements. 

BEAD grants layer many costs onto broadband projects that an Internet Service Provider (ISP) building a rural project independently would not incur. These include the environmental and historical preservation studies which many state offices are now developing, buy America requirements that increase material costs, and certain penalties for non-performance. 

For some providers, particularly those serving remote areas, the administrative burden may outweigh the benefits. If recent federal broadband efforts are any guide, those risks are not hypothetical.

A federal program unfolding beside BEAD, the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), has seen more than one-third of providers default on awards. BEAD’s timeline is even more aggressive: While RDOF allows up to 10 years for full deployment, BEAD requires networks to be operational within four years of award.

That puts added pressure on internet service providers, which must navigate one of the biggest barriers to broadband construction before breaking ground: Permitting.

Upon accepting awards, providers have 30 days to certify that they will not take additional federal funds to complete BEAD-funded builds before they can begin to secure the necessary federal, state, and local permits required to initiate construction.

Permitting Legislation Impacting Broadband

As BEAD funding begins to flow, federal lawmakers are renewing efforts to speed that process. During the week of April 20, Congress considered three bills aimed at accelerating broadband permitting. 

Two passed the House, targeting delays on federal lands, where projects are often held up the longest. However, a broader permitting omnibus bill, the American Broadband Deployment Act, was pulled from the agenda after strong opposition from local government groups.

Backed by industry groups representing major providers like AT&T and Verizon, the 100-page proposal combined language from what had been more than 20 separate bills, and was fiercely opposed by local governments.

The omnibus would create a shot clock from 60 to 150 days during which a state or local government must approve or deny a request for a permit to construct a wireless or wireline project. If the locality doesn’t respond in that time frame, the request is automatically assumed to be “deemed granted.”

The law would also restrict permitting fees to recover only actual costs, instead of the traditional standard of reasonable costs. Local governments argue that the restriction of using actual costs would mean they can’t charge enough to pay for the longer-term monitoring and management of granted rights-of-way. The local governments characterize the effort as a sweeping deregulatory push by an industry set to receive billions in federal funding.

Even under its revised framework, the Trump administration has maintained that BEAD will close the digital divide and characterized other federal broadband programs as “duplicative” and “wasteful.”

However, the program once billed as “Internet for All” is expected to reach fewer households and businesses under the revamped plan, and experts say closing the remaining gaps will require sustained investment.

This article was produced in collaboration with Broadband Breakfast, a news organization focused on broadband policy and infrastructure.

The post Rural-Focused $42 Billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program Becomes Operational appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

Latino community health workers in Santa Clara County, known as promotores de salud or “health promoters,” have for years knocked on doors that others couldn’t. Now the county needs them again — and has plans to make them a permanent part of the region’s public health system.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to pursue options for funding a permanent system of culturally competent, one-on-one clinicians for the county’s most vulnerable Spanish speakers. Officials will look to three Medi-Cal providers in the region — the county’s own Family Health Plan, as well as private insurers Anthem and Kaiser Permanente — to help pay for it. Health officials say an expanded, full-scale army of promotores across East San Jose, South County and San Jose’s Cadillac-Winchester neighborhood would reduce hospital visits and prevent further strain on overflowing emergency departments.

It’s become especially urgent amid a tide of federal funding cuts threatening Northern California’s largest public hospital system.

“We are tapping on them once again to respond to this crisis,” District 1 Supervisor Sylvia Arenas said at the meeting.

Promotores have become an integral backbone of public health in Silicon Valley. They drove efforts to immunize Spanish speaking residents and prevent the spread of COVID during the pandemic. They also helped the county avoid federal funding losses by counting hard-to-reach households after President Donald Trump cut the decennial U.S. Census short in 2020.

But promotores are underpaid, and their work has historically lived at the whim of grant cycles — at the end of which trained workers leave and programs diminish in size. At the same time, each clinical worker providing care coordination, chronic disease management and patient navigation generates an estimated $278,000 in healthcare savings every year, according to the findings of an April county Public Health Department study.

Promotores’ services are billable under Medi-Cal, though many don’t get reimbursed because they aren’t registered as a national health provider as required to submit claims, or cannot meet the licensed clinical supervision requirement. The county is exploring the creation of a centralized agency or “hub” — possibly located at a county library or clinic — to coordinate billing and credentialing.

“I’m asking the board: give us support,” Heiny Gonzalez, another promotora with SOMOS Mayfair, said at the meeting.

A new sense of urgency underlines their work. A landmark, multiyear study on the systemic health threats to Latino residents published last year prompted county leaders to declare a public health crisis, after troubling surges in deaths by suicide and diabetes. The report also identified higher rates of opioid overdose deaths among Latinos in South County than any other region.

“We are providing these services to very devastated communities,” Monica Mahecha, a promotora with SOMOS Mayfair, said in public comments at the meeting.

Promotores don’t just do clinical work. They also do community outreach, connecting residents with specific services available in their area. Sharon Luna, a neighborhood leader in the unincorporated South County community of San Martin, said promotores have had a noticeable effect on getting residents into healthy cooking, sports and academic tutoring.

“It is one of the most impressive programs I have seen in South County,” Luna said at the meeting.

The program cannot fund itself with those savings because not all of it directly benefits the county. Officials are looking toward a “blended” mix of funding from the county, grants and the region’s three managed care plans under the county, Anthem and Kaiser, with no single source exceeding 40% of the proposed system’s total budget.

“One of my recommendations is we urge the three Medi-Cal managed care plans in our county – Family Health Plan, Anthem and Kaiser – to … consider an appropriate level of investment, because those plans will have tangible savings in health costs avoided that will be bankable for them in a way that’s not true for county budget,” County Executive James Williams said at the meeting.

Williams added members of the Family Health Plan governing board — which the county moved to consolidate control over last year — have already voiced support for pitching in to fund the expansion of promotores.

“I don’t think Kaiser and Anthem should be off the hook,” Williams said. “We need to put a little fire under them to step up to the plate as well. We know exactly the kind of concrete investment that needs to be made.”

Arenas said the county’s promotores have risked their lives for the community time and time again.

“What other crisis are we going to wait for to finally integrate a framework that is fiscally proven?” she said.

Contact Brandon Pho at brandon@sanjosespotlight.com or @brandonphooo on X.

The post Santa Clara County looks to fund Latino ‘health promoters’ appeared first on San José Spotlight.

For generations, the Columbia River has been the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest, sustaining salmon runs, driving local economies and supporting the culture and traditions of the Indigenous peoples who live there. “The region revolves around the health of the Columbia River but also the gifts that it provided,” Jeremy FiveCrows, a Nez Perce tribal member and communications director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, tells Sentient. 

Pollution from multiple sources, including hydroelectric dams, agricultural runoff from dairy farms and contamination from sites like the Hanford Nuclear Site, has long taken its toll on the river and its aquatic life. In two lawsuits, environmental groups allege that Pacific Seafood’s aquaculture operations are adding to the problem. 

The environmental groups argue that facilities owned by Pacific Seafood, one of the largest seafood companies in the United States, have repeatedly discharged large volumes of untreated waste and chemicals like chlorine into the river. 

On April 23, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued $3.2 million in penalties for discharging fish waste, chlorine, oil and grease into the Pacific Ocean, the Columbia River and the Chetco River. 

The lawsuits come alongside decades of ongoing restoration work. Tribal nations have been working to revive fish populations, particularly salmon, Pacific lamprey and white sturgeon. A coordinated network of hatcheries run by tribal, state and federal partners has become a critical tool, FiveCrows says, because they help sustain fish populations that the river can no longer support on its own.

Lawsuit Alleges Pollution Exceeds Permit Limits

In January, two environmental advocacy groups, the Center for Food Safety and the Northwest Environmental Defense Center, filed a lawsuit against a seafood processing facility owned by Pacific Seafood in Oregon, alleging repeated violations of the Clean Water Act, including that the facility exceeded permitted pollution limits. 

A separate lawsuit filed in July 2025 targets Pacific Seafood-operated net-pen fish farms in Washington state, alleging chronic discharges of waste and unspecified chemicals used to treat diseases in fish from industrial aquaculture operations. 

The Clean Water Act requires facilities like Pacific Seafood to obtain a permit, which sets limits on what facilities can discharge into bodies of water and mandates monitoring and reporting. 

But according to the lawsuits, the company has repeatedly failed to do so. The company’s lack of reporting and monitoring has made it difficult to fully understand the extent of pollution entering the Columbia River, argues Kingsly McConnell, staff attorney at the Center for Food Safety.

The claims in the Clean Water Act lawsuits are “based on inaccurate data and are currently being disputed,” Amy Wentworth, Pacific Seafood’s senior director for environmental, health and safety, tells Sentient in an email. “The fact is no one cares more about protecting the marine environment than Pacific Seafood, because our business and the livelihoods of our team members depend on healthy and sustainable waterways now and in the future,” she adds. 

The Oregon lawsuit focuses on Pacific Bio Products-Warrenton, a Pacific Seafood subsidiary that processes fish and shellfish waste — including shrimp and crab shells — into products used in aquaculture feed, livestock feed and pet food.

According to the complaint, the facility in Warrenton has violated its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit at least 6,180 times since April 2022. 

The complaint also alleges high levels of chlorine pollution, with monthly average discharges about 4,000% above the permit’s limit and daily maximum discharges reaching around 73,000% over. Chlorine is toxic to aquatic life and it can also react with natural organic material in water to create trihalomethanes, a harmful byproduct. High levels of trihalomethanes have been linked to elevated cancer risk, as well as liver, kidney and central nervous system damage, and increased risk of reproductive harms including miscarriage, stillbirth and birth defects.

State regulators have repeatedly cited and fined Pacific Seafood and its subsidiaries over the years. The Warrenton plant was recently cited by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality for exceeding chlorine limits and failing to submit required monitoring reports. In response, Wentworth says that the agency’s wastewater permits for seafood companies are “notoriously difficult — and in some cases — technologically impossible to comply with.”  

“We support strong, science-based environmental regulations, but rules must be achievable, transparent and grounded in real engineering principles if Oregon wants its coastal economies to survive,” she adds. 

The plaintiff residents are also members of the Center for Food Safety and the Northwest Environmental Defense Center. They say they live near, visit and regularly use the Columbia River and surrounding areas for boating, fishing, hiking, swimming and wildlife observation. And they allege that Pacific Seafood’s repeated violations have “diminished, adversely affected and suppressed” their uses of the river.

“NEDC members recreating on the Warrenton Waterfront Trail have noticed plumes of turbid water around the facility’s dock, and have complained about odors similar to ‘rotten crab’ or ‘rotten fish’ coming from the facility,” Jonah Sandford, executive director of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center, tells Sentient. The complaint also states that the chemical and foul odors have caused at least one member to “physically retch.”

State enforcement actions often are not strong enough to change behavior, Sandford argues. “Large facilities like Pacific Seafood can pay the fine, or tie these actions up in appeals and avoid making the fundamental changes needed to comply with the law.”

“Like Factory Farms That We Put in the Water”

The Washington lawsuit filed by the Center for Food Safety and Wild Fish Conservancy targets Pacific Seafood’s net-pen aquaculture operations in the Columbia River that raise rainbow trout marketed as steelhead. Net pens are large floating enclosures used to raise fish in open water. Fish are hatched in freshwater facilities, then transferred to these pens and raised to market size.

Environmental groups argue that the system concentrates large amounts of waste in the water, lowering oxygen levels, spreading disease and increasing the use of antibiotics in crowded conditions. Escapes from net pens, they add, can also introduce farmed fish into wild populations, potentially competing with native species. “They’re like factory farms that we put in the water,” McConnell says. 

The case filed by the Center for Food Safety and Wild Fish Conservancy alleges the Pacific Seafood’s net-pen operations have repeatedly violated permit limits for pollutants such as dissolved oxygen since permits were reissued in April 2020. According to the complaint, the pens release untreated waste into the Columbia River, including fish feces, uneaten feed, fish carcasses and chemicals used to treat disease. 

Pacific Seafood says its Columbia River steelhead has a 4-star Best Aquaculture Practices certification — the highest designation of a program aimed at ensuring that seafood is produced responsibly. 

When regulators fall short, residents and advocacy groups can step in, McConnell and Sandford say. Under the Clean Water Act, citizens are allowed to file lawsuits to enforce pollution limits. Both the Washington and Oregon lawsuits are still ongoing. 

In 2017, a major “net pen failure” in Puget Sound released hundreds of thousands of farmed Atlantic salmon into open waters, prompting Washington to ban commercial net-pen aquaculture in state-owned waters — a move upheld in court last month. The policy, though, does not extend to the Columbia River. 

How Climate Change and Industrial Dairies Drive Pollution

The river is still suffering the effects of rising water temperatures driven by climate change and other pressures that include mercury and PCB contamination, sewage discharge and runoff from large industrial dairies.

“There’s a chronic issue with nutrient loading in the river from agricultural runoff and sewage treatment,” Stuart Ellis, deputy manager of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, tells Sentient. He points to dairy operations in areas like Boardman in Oregon and Yakima in Washington that contribute high levels of nitrogen, and runoff from fertilizer on agricultural fields that pollutes groundwater in Morrow County, Oregon.

Warmer, nutrient-rich waters make it harder for salmon to migrate and create conditions that favor invasive species. Tribal fishers, who say they avoid overharvesting in their approach to fishing, experience the effects: algae can clog gill nets so quickly in summer and early fall that they must be cleaned daily, making it harder to catch fish. State governments have also warned people not to eat Pacific lamprey, a traditional tribal food, very often because of PCB and mercury contamination.

Despite the challenges, those working to protect the river say progress is still possible. Ellis points to “small victories,” such as dam removals and habitat restoration projects. He adds that seeing plants growing along restored streams and juvenile fish in the water “gives you hope that some of these things can actually start to make a difference.”

Ellis also says it will take decades before the full benefits of current restoration work are realized. “It takes a long time to heal an ecosystem,” Ellis says. “You can destroy one quite quickly, but it takes a real long time to put it back together.”