On Friday afternoon, the Charlottesville Emergency Food Network’s small distribution center was packed with dozens of food orders and families lined up out the door.

Volunteers say the demand for the small pantry’s services has nearly doubled since early March, after the federal government ended the emergency increases it had been giving to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamp) recipients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re getting a lot more people,” said Dana Eastman, a volunteer food distributor. “We went from about 12 to 15 — we have 26 today.”

And the folks arriving appear ever more desperate, said Diane, another volunteer who did not give her last name. People have started showing up early for pickup, concerned that there will not be enough food — even though all customers register in advance and are guaranteed a bag with a three-day food supply.

Other area food pantries are experiencing a similar need.

It’s a sign, pantry workers say, that the emergency COVID-19 funding was addressing a need that has not gone away.

But the SNAP emergency allotments were only meant to be temporary. The increase was part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020, which directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to max out every SNAP receipt’s benefits “due to pandemic related economic conditions.”

During that time, businesses and schools were closing for the country-wide lockdown, causing many people to lose hours or jobs entirely.

That was certainly the case in central Virginia. Data from local SNAP offices show the number of people in Albemarle County receiving food assistance increased nearly 60% from pre-COVID February 2020 to February 2023. That’s 4,175 to 6,561 people. In Charlottesville, the number of recipients increased by about 30% during that same time period: 3,898 to 5,117.

The reasons people cited were pandemic-related job losses, reduced hours and illness. Basically more people applied due to lack of income, jobs, and/or illness, said Blair Smith, a training supervisor with the Charlottesville Department of Social Services, which distributes SNAP benefits to city residents.

While those issues are no longer as pressing, they’ve been replaced by stubbornly high inflation that brings with it higher food, housing and electricity costs.

“We needed the SNAP [emergency allotments] so badly,” said a woman waiting to pick up a three-day food supply for her family of five from the Emergency Food Network. “We are stretching our dollars for everything, not just food: rent, gas and all the other necessities. We wish [the government] can come up with something more for us. It is hard and we are struggling to make ends meet.”

The allotments also brought to light the number of people who do not qualify for enough food assistance under the normal guidelines to feed their families — and never did.

Loaves and Fishes, a large pantry near Albemarle High School, is seeing the return of people who have not visited during the last two years, said its executive director, Jane Colony Mills. She said it’s a sign that people receiving the COVID-19 allotments were able to purchase all the food they needed. And, without the allotments, they can’t.

The allotments did not affect every SNAP recipient the same. Because the program temporarily gave each recipient the maximum amount of money possible for their household size, the increases varied widely.

William Marshall, an Albemarle County resident, said his benefits dropped by about $25 per month when the allotments stopped. A Charlottesville woman waiting at the Emergency Food Network said her benefits dropped from $200 to $77. Another said her benefits went from $300 to $23.

“When I’ve asked people if they get SNAP, many times I’ve heard, ‘Yeah, $16 a month,’ which means they hardly feel it’s worth the effort to apply,” Colony Mills said.

Broadly, Colony Mills said she’s now seeing more families with small children. Smith, with the Charlottesville Department of Social Services, said households with elderly, blind and disabled recipients seemed to have larger increases in food assistance during the pandemic.

The woman whose benefits dropped to $77 is disabled and caring for another disabled adult and three children.

“I have nothing in my house right now,” she said, while waiting at the Emergency Food Network. “I am eating beans out of a can right now, trying to piece together a meal each evening using whatever we can find.”

It is impossible to predict whether the continually improving job market will enable families to become more food secure, but pantries like Loaves and Fishes and the Emergency Food Network are settling in for a long time with more people needing their help.

And they say they’re prepared to handle the new demand.

“We have a clear message: No one needs to go without food,” said Zachary Nissen, director of programs for the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, which provides food to the pantries. “We are well stocked and prepared to provide food to anyone who needs it.”

If you need emergency food, you can find operating food pantries in your area at this link.

Loaves and Fishes distributes food Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Visit this link for more information about when and how to pick up food.

The Emergency Food Network distributes food by appointment Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Click here for more information.

Both pantries, and the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, accept donations on their websites.

Jessie Higgins contributed to this story.

The post Food pantries see usage soar after government cuts pandemic-era emergency benefits appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

When gases from large livestock facilities overwhelm communities, the health impacts can be severe.

Children at schools near concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, are more likely to experience asthma. Exposure to ammonia and hydrogen sulfide — both emitted in large quantities by CAFOs — can lead to chronic respiratory issues, and in some cases, cause damage to the nervous system.

In states like North Carolina and Ohio, families that are Black, Hispanic or low-income are more likely to suffer the consequences.

Yet 18 years after starting to develop methods to measure and control air pollution from livestock operations, the Environmental Protection Agency still has not complied with its own mandate to protect Americans from the harmful health effects of air pollution from big farms.

And thanks to an agreement between the EPA and livestock industries, thousands of CAFO owners are shielded from some EPA penalties while the process of developing tools to measure emissions drags on.

“It’s a huge problem,” said Carrie Apfel, senior attorney in the Sustainable Food and Farming Program at Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental justice legal organization. “The huge problem is that the agricultural lobby is hugely powerful and hugely influential, and I really think that has a lot to do with it.”

An EPA Office of Inspector General report that investigated the delay in 2017, however, indicates a lack of technical expertise and resources within the EPA is largely responsible for hampering the agency’s progress toward regulating air emissions from livestock operations.

Regardless, in CAFOs thousands of livestock animals live in covered barns, where they eat, drink and poop in mass quantities.

That manure, usually stored in tanks or lagoons, undergoes chemical transformations, releasing harmful chemicals into the air.

Under its authority provided by the Clean Air Act, the EPA sets limits for how much of these chemicals are emitted, but the agency still does not have a method for calculating how much pollutant a livestock facility produces.

For many other industries that cause air pollution, EPA scientists have created formulas to estimate how much pollutant a facility emits.

In 2005, the agency said it would finalize these models, called emissions estimating methodologies, or EEMs, for livestock operations by 2009. It still has not done so.

EEMs to be finalized this year following public comment, industry review

The EPA published its first draft EEMs for CAFOs in 2012, but after receiving criticism from the agency’s Science Advisory Board, it did not publish revised drafts until 2020.

Since 2020, the agency has periodically published revised drafts of the livestock facility EEMs for various chemicals, including ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds. However, the recent drafts do not address all of the Science Advisory Board’s recommendations.

The drafts will not be reviewed again by the advisory board, as the agency has moved beyond the peer-review portion of the EEM development process.

“Now that the draft emission models for all animal sectors are complete, EPA will review and revise all models before releasing the entire set of models for stakeholder review” later this year, EPA spokesperson Shayla Powell said in a statement to Investigate Midwest.

The agency will finalize the EEMs after a public comment period, Powell said. The agency did not specify when the public comment period would start.

Some environmental groups say the current EEM drafts for livestock operations are insufficient, and that the data forming the basis of the formulas are flawed, in large part because of livestock industries’ involvement in the research behind the EEMs.

“The study was designed to fail,” Tarah Heinzen, the legal director for Food and Water Watch, said. “It was largely designed by industry. It didn’t result in usable data, or complete data, even for the very small number of facilities that were studied.”

Environmental, industry groups await final models 

Food and Water Watch, which has worked on the issue of livestock operation EEMs since 2012, petitioned the EPA in 2021 to end the contract between EPA and CAFO owners because it provides legal protections to some CAFOs. The EPA has not yet responded to the petition, but did meet with the coalition once in August 2022.

Despite seeing insufficiencies in the current drafts, Earthjustice believes the EPA should finalize and enforce the drafts before working on improved versions.

Food and Water Watch said the EPA should “put an end to the federal amnesty and abandon the EEMs process entirely, because the flawed NAEMS study is incapable of producing viable emissions models. However, if EPA insists on finalizing EEMs, than at the very least it should not continue to provide amnesty to polluting CAFOs in the meantime.”

“The reality is that facts and science change over time, and emissions assumptions will also change over time,” the coalition wrote in its petition. “There is no end to that process. However, EPA can, and routinely does, estimate emissions from many sources of air pollution, including (animal feeding operations), using the best science available. The agency must do the same here.”

Andrew Walmsley, senior director of government affairs for the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest lobbying group representing the agriculture industry, said the group is opposed to “air permits that are not science-based for farms.”

“Our policy also opposes mandatory standards because with (standards) would undoubtedly come enormous compliance costs, including permitting fees, and a mountain of new paperwork,” Walmsley said.

Two laws requiring facilities to report air emissions have been amended in recent years to exempt CAFOs from the rules, but the Clean Air Act still applies to livestock operations.

“I think that there’s a very strong but false narrative on the other side about the struggling farmer and how hard it is to comply with these regulations,”

Carrie Apfel

Under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA), livestock operations were among the facilities required to report emissions of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide that exceeded legal limits — until 2019, when the Trump-led EPA exempted CAFOs from the law. Environmental advocacy groups including Food and Water Watch sued the EPA to reinstate the reporting requirement for CAFOs, but the exemption remains in place.

A 2018 law passed by Congress — the FARM Act — also exempted livestock operations from reporting air emissions under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).

The EEM development process is one piece of a pattern of regulatory exemptions for large agriculture operations, said Carrie Apfel, senior attorney in the Sustainable Food and Farming Program at Earthjustice.

“I think that there’s a very strong but false narrative on the other side about the struggling farmer and how hard it is to comply with these regulations,” Apfel said. “When you do a deeper dive into the regulations themselves, the small family farmers aren’t emitting enough to trigger any sort of regulatory requirements. A lot of these regulations are really targeted at the big industrial agricultural facilities that are sophisticated and big enough to comply with these regulations.”

The Biden administration has said publicly it plans to revisit the EPCRA exemption for CAFOs, but has not yet moved forward with the rule.

If the Biden-led EPA does reinstate the reporting requirement, CAFOs that release pollutants in excess of EPCRA emissions thresholds of 100 pounds per day of ammonia or hydrogen sulfide would have to report the pollution to authorities. That information would be publicly available.

Even if the agriculture exception to EPCRA stands, livestock operations would still need to use the EEMs to determine their compliance with the Clean Air Act and obtain Clean Air Act permits, if they exceeded emissions thresholds, said Emily Miller, an attorney with Food and Water Watch.

Ray Atkinson, director of external communications for Smithfield Foods, one of the biggest pork companies in the U.S., said the company does not expect the EEMs to have a significant impact on Smithfield’s operations.

Both the National Milk Producers’ Federation and National Pork Producers Council told Investigate Midwest they would comment on the EEMs once the final versions are released by the EPA.

The National Pork Producers Council, which participated in the study of CAFO air emissions, noted that “EPA has an obligation to finalize these long overdue tools for producers to use.”

Associations representing the egg and poultry industries did not respond to requests for comment. Investigate Midwest also reached out to other large U.S. meat companies, including Tyson and JBS, but did not receive responses.

CAFOs remain protected today from some EPA penalties

CAFOs were few and far between in the U.S. until the late 1990s, when the livestock system began to transform, becoming more concentrated. In states like North Carolina, and later Iowa and Minnesota, the quantity of large CAFOs rapidly increased over the last two decades.

Today, the vast majority of American meat comes from animals raised in CAFOs.

In the early 2000s, few studies measured the actual emissions from livestock barns. In response to the increasing concentration of CAFOs and the operations’ impact on human health, the National Academy of Sciences called on the EPA in 2002 to further study air emissions from CAFOs.

Without sufficient existing data to create emissions estimates, the EPA turned to the livestock industry for a solution.

Over the course of two years, the agency negotiated with the dairy, egg and pork industries to determine how to study CAFO emissions.

In 2005, the parties landed on a deal, called the Air Compliance Agreement.

Participating producers from each of the industries volunteered as potential study subjects and paid a one-time civil penalty, ranging from $200 to $1,000 per CAFO, depending on the facility’s size. (In recent years, companies in industries other than livestock found to be in violation of the Clean Air Act have paid multi-million dollar penalties.)

More than 2,500 owners and operators representing 13,900 animal feeding operations — more than 90% of the country’s CAFOs — paid penalties to the EPA.

Those penalties would pay for a study to collect emissions data from the CAFOs. The EPA would then use the data to create its EEMs, which would inform its enforcement of the Clean Air Act in the future.

In exchange for the industries’ participation and funding, the EPA promised not to sue the participating producers for certain past and ongoing violations of air emissions laws while the study and EEM development process were ongoing.

The contract would stay in effect until the EPA notified the CAFO owners that the EEMs had been finalized, or until the agency determined it would be unable to create the EEMs. It is still in effect today.

For 18 years, this agreement has shielded nearly 14,000 CAFOs from EPA penalties – yet only 25 facilities actually participated in the data collection.

At the time the agreement was established, meat companies were fearful of lawsuits and EPA penalties over the pollution they produced, said Garth Boyd, who represented Smithfield, one of the country’s largest pork companies, in the negotiations over the study and agreement.

All Smithfield operations at the time signed the contract, Atkinson told Investigate Midwest, and two of its facilities participated in data collection for the study, called the National Air Emissions Monitoring Study, or NAEMS.

Boyd remembers the consent agreement being “controversial” among those on the private industry side of the negotiations, because companies were hesitant to pay the upfront penalty and admit to emitting pollutants.

But others, including Boyd, believed the EPA was negotiating in good faith and that the agreement could protect companies from bigger fines in the future.

“At the time, it seemed to make sense to me to sign the (consent) agreement, because things were tense and it looked like it would possibly prevent penalties,” Boyd said.

John Thorne, a lobbyist representing livestock organizations in the negotiations, said the industries had a mixed response to the consent agreement.

“They were distrustful of anything the EPA had its stamp on,” Thorne said.

Thorne added that livestock industry leaders were fearful that the study and consequent EEMs would eventually force the companies to spend massive amounts of money to curtail emissions.

Critics question sufficiency of data behind EEMs

After working out a deal to fund the research, the industry and EPA stakeholders next needed to decide who would run the study.

The committee selected Albert Heber, Ph.D., agricultural air quality expert and professor at Purdue University, to oversee the study design and data collection for the NAEMS.

NAEMS, which collected data from 2007 through 2010, is still the largest study of its kind, Heber said.

Heber had consulted for both the EPA and for livestock producers, so he represented a middle ground between the EPA and the industries the agency regulates, he said. He had also served as an expert witness for both the EPA and livestock operators in nuisance cases.

“Environmental groups say the study is industry tainted,” Heber said. “So here’s my answer: It wasn’t tainted in any way. Purdue was totally independent in the selection of specific sites. I personally selected the sites. I personally selected the research team and oversaw the conduct of the study.”

Heber said he didn’t take directions from industry leaders, but he did discuss site selection with industry groups to understand which types of facilities were most common in each industry.

“The only part of the (study) design that they were involved with is, what type of barns and farms should be included?” Heber said. “That was a collaborative effort, but they have the information on what kind of farms they have.”

Heber’s team monitored emissions at 27 sites on 25 CAFOs in 10 states. (At two of the CAFOs, teams monitored multiple emissions sites.) The team monitored each site continuously for two years.

Heber said that he chose to monitor a smaller number of sites for a longer period of time to better understand how factors like weather and animal life cycles impacted emissions.

Critics, including some environmental groups and scientists, say that the data is insufficient to create rules for the entire country, and invalid because of the industry’s role in crafting the study.

“The sample size was not large enough, to be honest,” said Viney Aneja, Ph.D., an agricultural air quality expert and professor at North Carolina State University, who served on an EPA Science Advisory Board panel that reviewed the first drafts.

When the EPA published the NAEMS protocol for public review in 2005, many stakeholders submitted comments, concerned that the number of monitoring sites was too few to account for the diversity of livestock operations across the country.

The final dataset that forms the basis of the draft EEMs includes data from two Tyson Foods CAFOs submitted by company-funded researchers and validated by the EPA, as well as other data provided by respondents to a “Call for Information” by the EPA.

Prior to the start of the National Air Emissions Monitoring Study, Tyson had already dedicated $1 million to Iowa State University researchers for a study of ammonia emissions. As part of the Air Compliance Agreement, the team studying the two Tyson facilities expanded the monitoring to encompass all of the chemicals included in the NAEMS and to meet the EPA’s quality assurance criteria.

RELATED STORY: 7 key moments in EPA’s 18-year-long delay in measuring livestock air emissions

Atkinson, the spokesperson for Smithfield, said the EEMs would be “useful” but noted that the pork industry has adapted since the NAEMS.

“Much has changed over this time period that has likely impacted the base data used to develop the EEMs,” Atkinson said. “For instance, feed conversion and overall efficiency have improved industrywide, along with a reduction in the amount of crude protein fed. Both have had the effect of reducing emissions.”

The EPA stands by the validity of the data.

“The EPA is comfortable the data are sufficient to develop an emission estimation method for the animal operations monitored by NAEMS,” the agency said in its response to questions from Investigate Midwest. “EPA is open to discussing options for future monitoring and data collection projects to both expand the amount and type of data available for these operations and how to expand to other animal operation types (e.g., cage-free egg layers) as the industry continues to change.”

Key reasons for delay: conflict with Science Advisory Board, lack of resources 

The EPA published the first draft EEMs in 2012.

But the revision process stalled after a panel of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board reviewed the drafts and took issue with aspects of the formulas.

The panel sent a letter to the EPA in 2013 outlining issues with the drafts, particularly with the data that formed the basis of the formulas.

“The EPA has developed statistical models based on combined data sets and predictor variables which have limited the ability of the models to predict emissions beyond the small number of farms in the dataset,” the panel wrote.

“While basing the EEMs on data from a small number of farms does not necessarily limit the applicability of the EEMs to national populations,” the 2012 drafts should not be applied to all CAFOs, the panel said.

The panel’s final report includes several recommendations for the drafts, many of which involve clearly stating the limitations of the NAEMS data for users.

The Science Advisory Board panel strongly recommended that the EPA use a “process-based” model for the EEMs. A process-based model would require more data than the agency had access to at the time, and would be more time-consuming to produce, but would more accurately represent the wide range of factors that contribute to emissions at CAFOs around the country, the panel wrote.

Upon receiving the Science Advisory Board’s recommendations, the EEM development ground to a halt. The EPA stopped dedicating resources to the effort and key staff retired, according to the 2017 EPA Office of Inspector General report investigating the delays.

“EPA has made strategic hires to bring in talent with agricultural air expertise to work specifically on this project,” a spokesperson for the agency said in February.

“The fact of the matter is, if the study had included a diverse background of scientists to help advise in the design of the study, the nation would have benefited enormously. That did not happen.”

Dr. Viney aneja

The National Resource Council and the GAO both also recommended the agency use a process-based, rather than a statistical approach. Food and Water Watch attorneys argued that a process-based approach would be easier to implement for farmers.

The EPA’s current draft EEMs do not use a process-based approach.

“The amount of input data that you need to run these models is mind boggling,” said Heinzen, the legal director for Food and Water Watch. “To think that every animal feeding operation owner and operator across the country who needs to comply with the agreement, following the publication of these, is going to be able to do that successfully is ridiculous.”

The EPA told Investigate Midwest it will create a tool to assist CAFO owners and operators with inputting the required data, such as weather conditions.

Aneja, who participated in the Science Advisory Board review of the initial drafts, took issue with the funding of the study and the lack of involvement of scientists and university departments from disciplines outside of agriculture.

“The fact of the matter is, if the study had included a diverse background of scientists to help advise in the design of the study, the nation would have benefited enormously,” Aneja said. “That did not happen.”

The post 18 years and counting: EPA still has no method for measuring CAFO air pollution appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

When retired nurse Rosa Whitmore-Miller left New York City after 40 years for the peace of her hometown of Stanton, Tennessee, she never expected she’d have to fight to keep the land her family worked hard to cultivate. “It wasn’t just handed to us, like some people inherit. We had to go out there and […]

The post Tennessee Wants to Take Land from Black Residents So a Ford Plant Can Benefit appeared first on Capital B.

Koch groups, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, hospitals are some of the biggest lobbiers in the state.

By Peter Cameron, THE BADGER PROJECT

The Milwaukee Brewers quintupled their lobbying spending in the past decade, according to filings with the state.

The ballclub is just one of many organizations large and small that lobby in the state’s capital. Lobbying is the attempt to influence legislative or administrative action, according to the state.

Lobbyists must be registered with the state, and they must also report their hours and dollars spent lobbying to the state. Business associations, like the powerful Wisconsin Manufacturing & Commerce, and others spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year trying to shape, promote and block legislation. But by law, lobbyists or organizations who are lobbying are not allowed to give candidates or state officials anything of monetary value, like meals, transportation or lodging, unless that gift is also available to the public. Lobbyists or organizations who lobby can make a financial campaign donation to a candidate for office, but only between the start of a campaign and the election. The average person can make a campaign donation to a politician at any time.

Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, and the Republican-controlled Wisconsin State Legislature are currently in the process of crafting the state’s 2-year budget, which could top out at more than $100 billion, so interest groups and their lobbyists have shifted into high gear in a year the state has a record $7 billion surplus at its disposal.

Brewers: $693k, Bucks: 0

After reporting spending nothing on lobbying in the 2013-2014 session, the Brewers spent a total of $120,000 in the two sessions between 2015 and 2018, to $222,000 in the 2019-20 session and then $435,000 in the 2021-2022 session.

The Brewers are seeking hundreds of millions in state funding to renovate their stadium, now called American Family Field. The stadium is owned and operated by a local government unit called the Southeast Professional Baseball Park District, which represents Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Washington and Waukesha counties.

The ballclub is negotiating with Evers, a Democrat and vocal Brewers fan, and Republicans who control the state legislature. The state wants a commitment from the Brewers to stay in Milwaukee for a number of years in exchange for renovation funding. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the top Republican in the state, recently said his party does not support a subsidy to the team.

The Brewers did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Similarly, the Milwaukee Bucks reported spending nearly $700,000 in lobbying in the 2015-2016 legislative session, as the team was trying to secure funding for its new arena, the Fiserv Forum, which ultimately began construction in 2016. The Bucks eventually got $250 million in funds from the state and Milwaukee County to build the stadium. The NBA team has not reported any lobbying since then.

Realtors double their lobbying

The Wisconsin Realtors Association, which bills itself as lobbying on behalf of homeowners and property owners, has dramatically and steadily increased its lobbying efforts in the past ten years, from nearly $500,000 in the 2013-2014 session to nearly $1.2 million in the 2021-2022 session, making it one of the top lobbiers in the state.

Asked about the large increase, Joe Murray, political and governmental affairs director for the association, said in an email that the association has many lobbying interests, and noted lobbying expenses were lower when Republicans had full control of state government. But Evers’ election in 2018 means the association now needs to lobby both sides, he said.

“Divided government requires more time to get agreement on difficult issues,” he said. “This is not cheap.”

Other big spenders, from business to farming

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s chamber of commerce, is regularly the biggest lobbier in the state, spending about $1.4 million per 2-year legislative session. The Wisconsin Hospital Association is often second, spending about $1.3 million per legislative session. The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation regularly spends more than $1 million per legislative session. The Wisconsin Insurance Alliance regularly spends more than $500,000 per session.

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood had spent relatively little in recent sessions, but increased that to more than $400,000 in the last legislative session, during which Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. That made Wisconsin’s 1849 ban on abortion relevant again.

Lobbying for Libations

The Tavern League of Wisconsin, which represents the state’s thousands of bars, generally spends about $230,000 per session on lobbying, regularly outside the top 50 lobbying spenders. The Wisconsin Beer Distributors Association spent between $80,000 and $380,000 per legislative session in the last decade. Molson Coors, which acquired full ownership of Miller Brewing in Milwaukee in 2016, started lobbying in the state after the purchase, and spent an average of about $275,000 in each of the past two legislative sessions. Wisconsin Wine and Spirit Institute, which represents wholesalers, reported spending about $275,000 in each of the past two legislative sessions.

The Koch Network

The Koch Network’s organization Americans For Prosperity, which advocates for free market policies, lower taxes and limited government, are one of the top lobbiers in Wisconsin, spending more than $700,000 last session.

Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC, which lobbies more specifically for Koch Industries on issues like the environment, energy, taxation, and business policy, consistently spends more than $300,000 every legislative session.

AT&T Wisconsin

AT&T Wisconsin has drastically cut its lobbying in the past decade, dropping from more than $700,000 in the 2013-2014 session down to about $33,000 in the 2021-2022 session. Since Evers, a Democrat, was elected governor in 2018, the state has been much less friendly to large phone and internet companies, as his administration has favored smaller, local co-ops when awarding state grants for rural high-speed internet expansion. AT&T did not respond to a request for comment.

Kwik Trip

The popular LaCrosse-based convenience store/gas station chain has steadily increased its lobbying in recent years, from about $265,000 in the 2015-2016 legislative session to about $376,000 in the 2021-2022 session.

Asked about the reasons behind that increase, John McHugh, Kwik Trip’s director of public relations, wrote in an email “We are not interested in participating in this story.”

With hundreds of stores in Wisconsin, Kwik Trip lobbies on many bills, including in favor of a pending bill that allows “persons to charge fees for the use of electric vehicle charging stations.”

Governmental advocacy groups

The Wisconsin Counties Association, the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County regularly spend six figures per legislative session, pushing for funding and favorable legislation for their municipalities.

The top lobbiers in Wisconsin for the 2021-2022 legislative session

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

The post LOBBYING IN WISCONSIN: Seeking hundreds of millions in stadium funding, Milwaukee Brewers have boosted lobbying spending in recent years appeared first on The Badger Project.

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LOBBYING IN WISCONSIN: Seeking hundreds of millions in stadium funding, Milwaukee Brewers have boosted lobbying spending in recent years was first posted on April 18, 2023 at 7:00 am.

For months, West Virginia lawmakers have said one thing repeatedly: the state has more than $1 billion in budget surplus. And when you look at the numbers, that’s largely thanks to the severance tax. 

That trend continued last week, as Gov. Jim Justice announced that the state had collected close to $800 million in severance taxes since July, far outpacing the roughly $250 million it estimated it would take in. This growth has fueled increased optimism about the state economy, and Justice and others have used it to help justify recent policy decisions like income tax cuts. 

But severance taxes — which are collected on natural resources extracted in the state — are extremely complicated and can fluctuate wildly. And as West Virginia touts its increased surplus achieved largely through this volatile tax, some policy experts are urging caution on how the state spends its money, particularly as it makes long-term decisions with what could turn out to be short-term gains. 

Here’s what to know about the biggest driver of the current revenue surplus — and how its role in state finances could change in the future.

What is the severance tax?

Around 34 states apply severance taxes to the extraction, production, value, and sale of finite natural resources that have been extracted — or “severed” — from the ground. That includes oil, coal, natural gas, limestone and sandstone, but in West Virginia coal and natural gas account for the bulk of severance tax revenue. In recent years, money from natural gas operations have made up an increasingly large share of severance tax collections. The state currently applies a 5% tax on natural gas and a smaller amount on various types of coal. 

Why are collections up right now?

West Virginia has made significantly more money from severance taxes since 2021, and experts say that the reasons behind this are complex. But one of the biggest factors is the ongoing war in Ukraine: Russia has long been one of the world’s top exporters of natural gas, but after the country’s 2022 invasion, many of Europe’s main consumers of natural gas have sought to find new sources. Because of this, demand for non-Russian natural gas has risen, contributing to a surge in natural gas prices in the U.S. 

That’s helped West Virginia bring in more money from natural gas in recent years.

“The high prices translate into higher severance tax collections almost immediately,” John Deskins, director of WVU’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, said in a recent interview.   

In the 2020 fiscal year, West Virginia’s state and local governments collected roughly $343 million in severance taxes. Two years later, they collected $840 million. And for the current fiscal year, West Virginia has already collected $787 million in severance taxes, putting it on track to collect more than a billion dollars before the end of June.

How has the severance tax affected the state budget?

Severance taxes are applied at varying rates at both the local and state level and counties do receive some of the money collected under the tax. But a significant portion of the money, like other taxes collected by West Virginia, lands in the state’s general revenue fund, where it is then able to be used towards anything. And those collections have had a huge impact on West Virginia’s state budget in recent years, particularly when it comes to its surplus revenue, the amount of extra money compared to what the state estimated it would take in. 

Severance taxes as a whole have accounted for about half of the state’s budget surplus in the past few years.

With so much money on hand, the severance tax is playing a big role in the financial decisions being made by the state, including on the state Legislature’s recent move to cut the state personal income tax rate. That cut, which along with several new refundable tax credits is expected to reduce state revenue by more than $750 million in the coming years, has largely been justified by the state’s high surplus, with the argument being that with the extra money, the state can afford to return money to taxpayers.

Experts say the severance tax is volatile; what does that actually mean? 

As it has had an increasing impact on state budget revenue, particularly when it comes to the surplus, some policy experts have cautioned against West Virginia becoming too reliant on the severance tax as a source of consistent, long-term revenue. That’s largely because the taxes are highly volatile, and often go through boom and bust cycles.

This has been the case historically. In 2014 for example, West Virginia experienced a significant boom in the severance tax, with it accounting for 13% of the state’s overall tax revenue. But a year later as coal production declined and natural gas prices fell, the state soon found itself in a deficit that forced budget cuts to state agencies. 

That sort of shift is always possible with the severance tax, which is why some policy experts have criticized the state for some of its decisions when it comes to the budget surplus, especially the recent income tax cut.

“We are using the severance tax to build up this big surplus, this big surplus is being used to cut the income tax, which is the most stable source of revenue and the biggest source of revenue,” said Sean O’Leary, the senior policy analyst at the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. “So now we’re going to become more reliant on the severance tax.” 

“You’re really counting on this volatile, up-and-down source of revenue to become much more stable and stable at a higher level than it ever has been in the past,” he added. 

The volatility of this tax has been a concern in some other states that collect significant amounts in severance tax collections as well. In some of those states, like Alaska and Wyoming, there has been an effort to address the issue by moving part or all of the revenue into permanent severance tax trust funds that are then used to help fund certain state goals like infrastructure changes, economic development projects, or investments in education. West Virginia did have one such account, the West Virginia Future Fund, but no money was ever placed into it. Lawmakers passed a bill officially closing the account during the recent legislative session. 

What happens if severance tax revenue falls?

Because of how unstable the severance tax is, it is likely that the amount of money the state is collecting in severance taxes will begin to fall in the near future. And the state has little say in when that will happen. 

“Energy prices as a whole are really tied to global market forces,” O’Leary said. “There’s not really anything West Virginia can do to control natural gas prices.”

These prices are already beginning to decline, with forecasters predicting the price of natural gas will drop by at least 50% in 2023 when compared to last year. The West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy also notes that this year’s severance tax revenue is starting to trend downward from the highs of last year. While the state does have the extra money, the Center has argued that the current surplus would be better used providing additional support to address a number of ongoing state crises, and also backs giving additional surplus money to the counties that produce the highest amount of natural resources, some of which face significant financial difficulties.

“This extractive industry has not fulfilled its promises of economic prosperity in the areas where the actual extraction is taking place,” O’Leary said.

As of now, if severance tax revenue does decline, that combined with the recently-implemented tax cuts means the state will have less money to work with. Though it’s unclear exactly how that will play out, it could cause officials to have to make significant shifts in the future. 

And more broadly, as West Virginia continues to enjoy the boom of the current severance tax collections, there’s still no indication from state leaders how they are preparing to handle the inevitable bust.

Mountain State Spotlight explains: Why West Virginia’s reliance on volatile severance taxes is problematic appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.