You know what improves the environment? REGULATIONS AND ENFORCEMENT!

You know PFAS are a problem in Wisconsin when even the WMC-owned Republicans want to give communities $10 million to help clean up these chemicals from their groundwater. It made me wonder what was hiding inside the bill because it was too close to good, honest governance, which is not what this crew is about.

Sure enough, there’s a catch in the WisGOP bill that allows companies to avoid consequences for the damage that they caused.

A memo from the nonpartisan Legislative Counsel says in addition to precluding those claims, the bill may also prevent the Department of Natural Resources from bringing enforcement action under the state’s environmental remediation law.

While it does not explicitly reference DNR enforcement actions, the memo says, the bill precludes any action against a person responsible for contamination that is the basis for a grant.

So, if grant money were used for remediation or some other improvement to a property, “then a plain language reading of the bill suggests that DNR could be precluded from bringing an enforcement action with respect to that property.”

According to the memo, the bill could even preclude enforcement actions unrelated to PFAS contamination, including crimes.

“While a court would likely view such an interpretation as absurd or unreasonable, it is significantly less clear how a court would interpret the provision in the context of DNR enforcement actions under the environmental remediation law,” it states.

This is a classic GOP/oligarch move – do a small gesture or payoff that pre-empts the violators from being held accountable, and to keep real change from being put in place. And as the number of Wisconsin communities with PFAS contamination continues to grow, that $10 million may not go very far.

In what may or may not be coincidence, the Wisconsin Examiner contrasted the WisGOP/WMC cover-up bill on PFAS with stronger regulations and oversight that may be coming at the Federal level.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan, a former top environmental official in North Carolina, said the agency is currently in the process of regulating two of the most studied types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in drinking water.

Two Michigan Democrats, U.S. Reps. Debbie Dingell and Dan Kildee, added that House Democratic leaders will bring the PFAS Action Act of 2021, which aims to reduce Americans’ exposure to the toxic chemicals in air, water and consumer products, to a floor vote next week.

“We recognize PFAS is an urgent health challenge,” Regan said. “We’re committed to working with all stakeholders to protect the health and safety of all of our communities.”…

…Dingell, who is leading the bipartisan PFAS Action Act, along with Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, expressed her frustration with a lack of federal standards set for the chemicals in drinking water, as well as cleaning standards.

Her bill would designate two types of PFAS—perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS—as hazardous substances, which would kick-start federal cleanup standards, particularly on military bases.

On related environmental news, I saw a segment on Chris Hayes’ show on Thursday, and wanted to share some of it with you. Hayes starts by mentioning how California has done far better than the rest of the nation over the last 50 years in limiting carbon emissions.

One of the most important aspects of climate policy is what`s called a clean energy standard. It`s just a way for the government to tell utility companies look, you got to get this much clean energy in your energy generation. And you can`t admit as much carbon as you used to. And then, every year they can ratchet that down.

That creates all sorts of positive incentives for consumer use. And if you pair that with regulations on efficiency, you can really start to make a difference.

Here`s a look at California, which has done both, clean energy standard and it`s got incredible regulations on efficiency. There`s the divergence between how much energy they consume in California and how much they consume in the U.S. That`s all just regulation doing its job.

Then Hayes discusses energy initiatives in the infrastructure bills that are going through Congress with Minnesota US Sen. Tina Smith. Not only is Smith impressive in how thorough she is on energy issues, but Hayes brings up how real regulation with benchmarks seems more effective than waiting on the utility companies to do the right thing.

HAYES: ...I become convinced that basically just saying to the utilities, like, here`s what you got to do, figure out how to do it, actually is the best way to drive down emissions.

SEN SMITH: Yes, and it`s an incentive. And let`s be honest, everybody sort of likes an incentive. They like to be said -- they`d like to hear, OK, here`s the direction we go, this is what we`re going to do. This is the direction to head and we`re going to help you get there and we`re going to help you get there faster, because I mean, we don`t have a lot of time to pussyfoot around here, we need to move quickly. We can`t wait for you know, another 30 or 40 years to clean up our grid.

And so, that I think is the power of this idea. And when you combine it with all of the policies that we also have included in this -- in this piece of legislation, you know, electric charging stations and incentives to build out a smart grid, tax incentives for building clean electricity. All of that comes together to be a truly transformational policy.

Let's hope we get that out of one of these infrastructure bills - that there be some kind of limit and regulation to go along with incentives to have industries transition over into energy choices that help us long-term. But as we see in Wisconsin, it's rules and regulations that have to be part of the equation, or else the polluters won't be held to account for the damage they cause. And they won't change unless the benefits of polluting are more than the costs of changing.

COVID higher in Wisconsin, too. But still at low levels that we can hold down

As we hear about COVID cases jumping back up in many states in the southern half of America, let's see how things are going up here.

Today’s 7-day average of new infections held at 138, still lower than any time between April 2020 and June 2021, but the highest that we've seen in 6 weeks. And what’s concerning is that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services says 13 Wisconsin counties had significantly higher amounts of new infections over the last 2 weeks than in the 2 weeks ending July 7.

DHS also does a list of levels of COVID activity, but what DHS describes as “high” COVID activity is sometimes less than the rate of infections in places with “medium” activity, because it looks at whether cases are going up or down by any significant amount. For example, Dunn County has a rate of new cases that is more than double Dane County’s, but because it’s grown in Dane while it shrunk in Dunn, so Dane has “high” activity and Dunn is medium.

And you can see where several counties had growing caseloads, so the picture isn’t as bad as that map might show. But it is concerning to see cases being nearly twice what they were at the start of July, and it needs to be limited now.

There isn’t a lot of connection between vaccination rates and COVID infections from what I can tell, although I also wonder if the rural counties with low vaccination rates have such a small sample size and low numbers of people wanting to care about COVID in general. This would make it hard to find people who test at all, let alone test positive.

Fortunately, COVID deaths are still around 1 a day in Wisconsin, but as we now know, hospitalizations and deaths trail case numbers by about 4-6 weeks. And given that vaccination seems to be even more effective at preventing people from serious health problems if they do get COVID, maybe that's where we'll see the disparities show up. I hope it doesn't come to that, but I wouldn't be shocked if it does.

Play smart out there folks, because there's still about 1/2 of Wisconsinites that haven't gotten the shot. I have no sympathy for the ones who have chosen not to be vaxxed at this point (especially if you're doing anything where you go out in public), but there are kids and others that haven't had the chance. Let's use July to batter this virus back down in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin jobs, workers came back in June. Even more than they normally would

After a big US jobs report for June and stories about labor shortages in Wisconsin, it made today’s statewide jobs numbers intriguing, to see if the data was matching up here.

Sure enough, we also had gains in jobs and work force in Wisconsin last month, with good signs all around.

The Department of Workforce Development (DWD) today released the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) preliminary employment estimates for the month of June 2021. The data shows that Wisconsin added 10,700 total non-farm and 8,400 private-sector jobs in the month of June. Wisconsin's unemployment rate in June was 3.9 percent, matching the May unemployment rate. Additionally, Wisconsin's labor force grew by 10,000 people in June, a statistically significant rate of growth according to BLS.

Place of Residence Data: Wisconsin's labor force participation rate in June was 66.3 percent, 0.2 percentage points higher than May's labor force participation rate, and 4.7 percent points higher than the national rate of 61.6 percent. Wisconsin's unemployment rate in June was 3.9 percent, while the national unemployment rate was 5.9 percent for June.
Place of Work Data: Wisconsin added 8,400 private-sector and 10,700 total non-farm jobs in June 2021.

That all sounds pretty good, and if you dig further into the jobs figures, we see the gains were pretty widespread, and show that WMC/GOP memes about “lazy workers not wanting jobs” continue not to hold water.

That’s especially the case when you realize that most of those sectors had their job gains deflated due to seasonal adjustments, which count on a certain amount of people joining the work force and getting hired in June. But we went well above that amount in June 2021.

Wisconsin June 2021
Total jobs
Seasonally-adjusted +10,700
Non-seasonally adjusted +44,700

Private jobs
Seasonally-adjusted +8,400
Non-seasonally adjusted +54,000

Labor Force
Seasonally-adjusted +10,000
Non-seasonally adjusted +69,800

Employed
Seasonally-adjusted +8,700
Non-seasonally adjusted +50,200

Even the sectors that “lost” jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis in Wisconsin were adding workers in reality. This includes construction (+8,100 NSA), manufacturing of non-durable goods (+2,000 NSA), health care and social assistance (+2,400 NSA), and arts/entertainment/recreation (+4,400 NSA).

Conversely, Wisconsin’s unemployment claims fell throughout much of June, and continued on a downward trend for July.

So if Wisconsin’s $300/week add-on is a disincentive for work, there’s nothing in the data that shows it. Likely because it’s been RW oligarch BS from the start.

From my observations, seeing that the Bucks had to ship in workers from out of state to handle all of the extra business this week, and adding in the large amount of “help wanted” signs I’ve seen in places in both the 715 and 608 area codes this month, I’d say hiring in Wisconsin still has yet to catch up to the huge jump in demand sparked by COVID vaccinations and the Biden Boom.

And in summary, it’s clear that Wisconsin ended the 2nd quarter of 2021 on a high note when it came to the jobs market. The question now becomes whether that momentum can keep up for the rest of the Summer with the increased work force and low unemployment rate.

UW's Menzie Chinn has a good breakdown of the Wisconsin jobs situation at Econbrowser that gives a wider lens into these numbers.

Just because funds and people are coming back to restaurants, it doesn't mean troubles are over

It’s taken a while, but restaurants in Wisconsin and the rest of the country are finally getting their targeted stimulus support.

“For those who received it, it’s a big shot in the arm,” said Wisconsin Restaurant Association President and CEO Kristine Hillmer in an interview. “For those who didn’t, it’s going to be tough.”…

In total, 5,871 businesses in the state applied for $994.6 million in funding from the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. But just 2,095 of those applicants received a total of $379.3 million, according to the SBA figures provided to WisBusiness.com by Hillmer.

On the national level, over 278,000 applicants sought more than $72 billion from the fund, and around 101,000 received more than $28 billion in funding. The SBA also retracted awards for 2,695 applicants nationwide who had initially been told their applications were accepted, Hillmer said.

Now, it’s plausible that all applicants didn’t need the money and were just taking a shot to get more funding (because why not?), but there certainly were a lot of losses that these business owners needed to make up due to the COVID world.

And now that consumers feel confident enough to go back out to eat, restaurants are facing higher costs in both labor (because they can’t find enough/pay enough to replace the workers laid off in 2020) and on supplies, as was laid out in an in-depth article in the Journal-Sentinel this week. In addition to a lack of waitstaff or meal preparers, the J-S article describes restauranteers struggling to find or afford items to make meals with.

"We’ve had to take some things off the menu we’ve had since Day 1; we’ve had to re-engineer some things," said Andrew Miller, the chef and co-owner of seafood restaurant Third Coast Provisions downtown. Because lobster prices have doubled, the $21 side dish of lobster mac and cheese would have become prohibitively expensive. So, off it came...

Wagyu beef, prized for its marbling, is available only sporadically, Miller has found. The price of the most sought-after beef cuts or cuts that aren't in abundance on cattle, such as tenderloin and hanger steaks, have increased 200%, he said.

"We’ve been pretty select in what we’re bringing in until things kind of calm down," Miller said. "When we talk to our distributors, they don’t see that happening any time soon."

Meanwhile, Narr, of Triciclo Perú, said, "Nope, I’m not going to pay four times the price for a case of wings."

Sometimes, ingredients just aren't available when the restaurant needs them. It can be a matter of suppliers and producers not being able to ship the products — not enough forklift drivers to load the trucks and not enough truck drivers to transport the goods, for instance.

These cost pressures for eating and drinking places was certainly borne out in today’s Producer Price Index report. Take a look at the recent jumps in prices paid for meat products and well as grains, fruits and seed-based items.

And on the staffing side, you see the problem when businesses make mass layoffs instead of furloughs or work-shares, and a strong recovery kicks in a few months later. It becomes hard to find enough people to bring back to match the businesses’ needs.

Some of these restaurants quoted in the article have mentioned that they will have to raise prices to make up some of the difference (if they didn’t do so already during the COVID era to make up for decreased business and extra sanitation needs). as “food away from home” rose by 4.2% in the last 12 momnths vs only 0.9% for “food at home”.

As I’ve said before, even with reopenings, we aren’t going to see things return to a pre-COVID normal, which will make for an uneven and often-disruptive rest of 2021. And nowhere does that seem more evident than in a restaurant industry that took a big hit in 2020, and is still adjusting to the changed situation in this year.

Inflation watch intenisfies. Let's see if it's still on by Fall

Looks like it’s time for another CPI report, and it’s therefore time to crank up the “inflation watch” again.

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.9 percent in June on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.6 percent in May, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This was the largest 1-month change since June 2008 when the index rose 1.0 percent. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 5.4 percent before seasonal adjustment; this was the largest 12-month increase since a 5.4-percent increase for the period ending August 2008.

The index for used cars and trucks continued to rise sharply, increasing 10.5 percent in June. This increase accounted for more than one-third of the seasonally adjusted all items increase. The food index increased 0.8 percent in June, a larger increase than the 0.4-percent increase reported for May. The energy index increased 1.5 percent in June, with the gasoline index rising 2.5 percent over the month….

The all items index rose 5.4 percent for the 12 months ending June; it has been trending up every month since January, when the 12-month change was 1.4 percent. The index for all items less food and energy rose 4.5 percent over the last 12-months, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending November 1991. The energy index rose 24.5 percent over the last 12-months, and the food index increased 2.4 percent.

President’s Biden’s Council of Economic Advisors clearly were worried about the perception of higher inflation, as they sent off a series of tweets explaining some of the reasons for the jump in CPI.

Prices of pandemic-affected services rose again this month and contributed 11 basis points to the core inflation increase in June. 3/ pic.twitter.com/WboFFbUyju

— Council of Economic Advisers (@WhiteHouseCEA) July 13, 2021

​

The year-over-year numbers were impacted by base effects from last year, although the impact of base effects is starting to move out of the data. Starting in July, year-over-year changes in CPI will be calculated off of a price level that is above the pre-pandemic level. 5/

— Council of Economic Advisers (@WhiteHouseCEA) July 13, 2021

While some of this is definitely spin, I do think it's appropriate to look at the 2-year trend in this case, because this accounts for the drop/flattening in prices that existed in the first few months of COVID and the snapback since then. You put that together and you get a rise of 6.1% between June 2019 and June 2021, or 3% a year. Slightly elevated but not horrifying, and June 2020 is when prices started to rebound off their COVID bottoms, so we should have a more accurate picture of where this is going next month.

The stock and bond markets responded to the news of higher inflation with maybe one raised eyebrow, if not an outright shrug.

Markets, which have in recent months grown wary of rising prices and whether they will cause the Fed to act, appeared to keep their cool over inflation on Tuesday.

The S&P 500 was essentially unchanged shortly after the open and the 10-year Treasury yield actually fell, not the reaction one would expect from such a hot inflation report on the service.

Although the 10-year yield did rise later in the day, it's still well below where it was 3 months ago, and the 3-month note is below where it was at the start of 2021. This is despite inflation being on the rise over that time period.

So those investors clearly aren’t worried about prices being on the rise, because they’ll take a microscopic rate of return that would be a loser of value if inflation was really running.

It does seem that the inflation is uneven, with much of the increases confined to a few industries having large jumps that are being compared to when these same industries were in depression in June 2020.

Here are the items really driving up inflation:

Car rental 87.7% (y/y change)
Used cars 45.2%
Gas 45.1%
Laundry machines 29.4%
Airfare 24.6%
Moving 17.3%
Hotels 16.9%
Furniture 8.6%
Bacon 8.4%
TVs 7.6%
Fruit 7.3%
Shoes 6.5%
Fresh fish 6.4%
New cars 5.3%
Milk 5.6%
Rent (OER) 2.3%

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) July 13, 2021

But I do sense that there are inflationary effects from the adjustments that the economy is making due to the post-COVID world. There seems to be a huge inability for the stimulated increase in demand to be matched by restaurants and other businesses to hire back enough staff after large layoffs when the pandemic first broke out. The June jobs report revealed that hourly wages continue to rise higher, and this number never snapped back down, even as previously lower-wage jobs came back in the 2nd half of 2020.

I’m not worried too much at this point, and it’s a good thing to see workers be able to have better choices in jobs and wages. To me, that's "good inflation". But these adjustments are still working themselves out, and let’s see where the ride takes us.

The key is whether the rising costs and shortage disruptions that we’ve seen in the first half of 2021 actually do settle down, or if input-related inflation is starting to feed onto itself. If it's the latter, then we might need outside measures like interest rate increases and fiscal restraints to change the pattern, and that would likely blunt the Biden Boom that is currently going on and expected to continue as long as COVID can stay under control and demand stays high.

After 2 big Evers vetoes, a lot of money is around after budget season

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau is out today with a listing of Governor Evers' vetoes and an update on where the Wisconsin budget stands. And it has some very intriguing bits of information that can set the table for the next year of action at the Capitol.

If you read into the document, you'll see most of these vetoes are situations where the GOP Legislature wanted state agencies to give a bunch of reports and requirements for some things (with no funding for this extra work), and Evers basically said "I don't think so." But we also know of two big-dollar vetoes from Evers.

1. Refusing to add another $550 million to the sgtate's already-large Budget Stabilization Fund.
2. Refusing to change the state's withholding tables next January 1, retaining $683.7 million in the short term (although it'll eventually come back in the form of higher tax refunds).

This moves are the main reason that Evers' vetoes allow for more than $1.2 billion more dollars to cushion things and/or play with over the next two years.

This allows for Evers to give another shot at adding resources to education and/or other initiatives if the economy holds up for the next 6-8 months. And it can force WisGOPs to reply to those plans closer to the 2022 elections (or not, which is its own policy decision).

So even with the signing of the budget last week, it doesn't mean that budgetary action is over. In fact, it tells me that the $1.675 billion projected to be around in the next 2 years is going to be an enticing target and big opportunity to do needed changes and reforms, if we choose to.

Fear the Deer! That makes the FiServ great policy, right? Not for me

Not that I'd expect any better from Robbin' Vos, but Napoleon used today's big sports event in downtown Milwaukee to make a baseless political slap.

.@SpeakerVos tells @mattsmith_news the Bucks would've left Milwaukee had @GovEvers been in charge in 2015.

Vos also invokes the 'cheaper to keep them' mantra from that time. So the legislature would've made a fiscally foolish decision and Evers would've been to blame?

— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) July 11, 2021

Let's be real, if the gerrymandered WisGOP Legislature was still in charge in 2015, they'd have opposed the Bucks deal for no reason other than to blame Evers if the team left.

But beyond that, let's go back to what happened at the State Capitol to allow FiServ Forum to be built, and whether it really was worth it. You can click this link to see the Legislative Fiscal Bureau's summary of the Bucks arena bill, which includes the horrid $220 million giveaway of state money that Walker originally wanted to do (with the total reaching $381.7 million with debt costs), and the lesser giveaway that we ended up with.

First, taxpayers are still playing $8 million a year for the Bucks arena, although half of that is paid back by giving a cut in shared revenue to Milwaukee County.

a. Two separate, GPR sum certain appropriations and provide $4.0 millionGPR in each appropriation in 2016-17 to make payments to [the Wisconsin Center District] to assist in the development and construction of the District's sports and entertainment home arena facilities. One of the appropriations is related to the $4.0 million annual GPR, county and municipal aid reduction to Milwaukee County, although it would not be statutorily tied to those provisions. Specify that both appropriations would be repealed on June 30, 2036. Require that the appropriation that is not related to the Milwaukee County aid payment reduction provisions under the Act be limited to a cumulative total of $80.0 million.

b.A biennial appropriation funded at $10.0 million GPR in 2016-17 for the payment of grants to the Bradley Center Sports and Entertainment Corporation. Specify that the appropriation would be repealed on June 30, 2017.

I just took a look at the recently signed state budget, and sure enough, both of those $4 million annual payments to the WCD are still in there. And we are still paying a little over $1 million in interest over the next 2 years for the now-demolished Bradley Center.

As alluded to above, Milwaukee County is getting $4 million less from the state in shared revenue, with the argument being that all the added economic activity from the arena will make up for it. That's a questionable assumption, as a 0.5% sales tax would require $800 million in added, sales-taxable activity to give an extra $4 million in revenues. Maybe that's happening, especially with all of the NBA and sports media people descending on the City this week, but that also assumes that money wouldn't be getting spent anywhere else in Milwaukee over the course of the year.

Let's also note that while the Wisconsin Center District is the one who took on all of the borrowing and debts for the FiServ instead of the state, the WCD also gets $1.50 from each ticket sold at the FiServ (the state also gets $0.50 a ticket), and the District gets the following taxes.

So they should be doing OK with this. The state likely gets its $4 million in net funds back and then some, because there likely wasn't going to be a recovery of salaries that would be close to the $135.5 million that the Bucks have in team payroll for this year (that's before we talk about coaching, front office, or regular employee staff). The added construction in and around the arena also likely gained income and jobs, at least in the short term.

But you know who's not getting much in additional taxes sent to them? The City that houses the Bucks and the Deer District.

As it relates to ROI for taxpayers on Fiserv Forum, state taxpayers will get theirs as the district generates sales tax dollars.

The people in Milwaukee don't see that return since the legislature won't let the city hold a referendum on having a city sales tax.

— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) July 11, 2021

And the state isn't sending additional shared revenues back to the City either. Governor Evers wanted to send an additional 2% to all local communities in Wisconsin in those funds for this budget, and the GOP-run Legislature said no.

Which makes this statement by a suburban GOP legislator who voted for the arena package all the more infuriating.

.@RepSanfelippo wants @GovEvers to commit $500 million of the state's federal aid to hiring more police.

How can he say local officials in cities like Milwaukee are underfunding police when it's already their biggest source of spending? #CapitalCitySunday pic.twitter.com/LgtNKs4hWt

— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) July 11, 2021

Hey Joey. Maybe if you allowed Milwaukee to keep more of the money that they generate from FiServ Forum and the other reasons that they are Wisconsin's Number 1 tourist attraction, THEY COULD AFFORD TO HIRE AND KEEP THOSE COPS!

But giving all of Milwaukee a better chance of succeeding wouldn't allow WisGOPs to play off the resentments and racism of weak white people, and get votes from those dopes, now would it? At the same time, you can bet all of these lowlifes will be giving their #FearTheDeer tweets and talking about how great it is for the NBA Finals to be in Wisconsin for the first time since 1974.

And the two-tier reality of Milwaukee and the lack of payback that the City has gotten from this development is why I still think the FiServ Forum was a bad deal, and not worth the tax dollars that were put into it. Yes, I like the arena, am very happy the Bucks are in the Finals, and it's a great stage for Wisconsin's largest city and economic engine to show for the rest of the country. But it doesn't seem to have done much for the economic apartheid that grips Milwaukee, and the race-baiting and resentments from WisGOPs seem worse now than they were when this scheme was passed into law 6 years ago.

It'd be a healthier situation to see real investment in all corners of the City, and better jobs and access spread across the region. And for Milwaukee to have a better chance of choosing its own fate, instead of being handcuffed by a gerrymandered Legislature that would rather have a few fancy attractions and lots of losers than a large-scale, legitimate strategy to turn around decades of damage from racial segregation and corporate greed.