News of the Day

Wisconsin’s governor is warning gas stations in the state not to raise prices too high. His new executive order, however, is unlikely to make gas any cheaper.

Governor Tony Evers on Tuesday signed an executive order forbidding price gouging.

“This emergency order will help prevent bad actors from taking advantage of Wisconsin drivers as they fill up the tank to get to work, school, supplies and resources for their businesses, or get their product to market,” the governor said in a statement.

Evers’ order declares that “a period of abnormal economic disruption” exists in Wisconsin, and bans gas stations from hiking prices more than 15% above the highest price in the state.

AAA on Tuesday said the average price for a gallon of regular gas in Wisconsin is $4.82.

But the state’s Petroleum Marketers said local gas stations are not the one responsible for high prices.

“A myriad of factors impacts the price consumers pay at the pump, including: the cost of crude oil; federal/state taxes; boutique fuel requirements; and credit card swipe fees which remain the highest expense after labor for gas station owners,” the Wisconsin Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association said in a statement.

Democratic lawmakers are applauding Gov. Evers’ new order.

“Gas and diesel prices are a major concern for Wisconsinites right now,” Sen Melissa Agard, D-Madison, said. “It is egregious that big oil companies are taking advantage of regular folks while padding their own pockets.”

The recently-selected chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission said Monday he hopes to help restore voter’s faith in the state’s elections.

Republican attorney Don Millis was appointed to the WEC on June 8 by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Two days later, the six-member board selected him as its new chair.

In an appearance on WPR’s “The Morning Show,” Millis said he wants to “return to a time in which people could rely on or have faith in the election process.” He said “safeguards” such as voter ID and a statewide voter registration did not prevent challenges to the results of the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.

“I think there’s less faith in the confidence that elections, election results reflect the true vote than at any time in our history,” Millis said.

Millis laid out his ideas for using federal funding to increase audits of voting machines following elections. He said his goal would be an audit of 10 percent of voting machines statewide after each general election.

“That’s a process in which you rerun the ballots and then you hand count the ballots to see what the error rate (is),” Millis said.

In 2018 and 2020, those random audits covered about 5 percent of voting equipment across the state. Neither audit found issues or anomalies with the machines checked.

“There’s a couple reasons for (auditing),” Millis said. “One is to make sure that the machines are running properly. The other is educational, because despite the best efforts of our clerks, often people will not make marks the way they should.”

An energy grid operator for the first time is warning power companies in Wisconsin of the possibility of rolling blackouts this summer.

Midwest Independent System Operator power grid issued the alert to the state’s electricity providers.

MISO’S notice is a regional alert and WPS spokesman Matt Cullen said steps would be taken in the event of an emergency, but it’s unlikely to happen in the Badger State.

“It’s never come to the point where MISO has ordered us to reduce the amount of electricity that we are delivering,” Cullen said.

Wisconsin Public Service has more than 450,000 electric customers and more than 333,000 natural gas customers in 27 counties in eastern, northeastern northern, and central Wisconsin, and a small portion of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Midcontinent Independent System Operator is an independent, not-for-profit organization that delivers electric power across 15 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Manitoba.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate by 75-basis points for the first time in nearly three decades as policymakers intensify their fight to cool red-hot inflation, a move that threatens to slow U.S. economic growth and exacerbate financial pressure on Americans.

The 75-basis point hike, the first since 1994, underscores just how serious Fed officials are tackling the inflation crisis after a string of alarming economic reports. The move puts the key benchmark federal funds rate at a range between 1.50% to 1.75%, the highest since the pandemic began two years ago.

Officials also laid out an aggressive path of rate increases for the remainder of the year. New economic projections released after the two-day meeting showed policymakers expect interest rates to hit 3.4% by the end of 2022, which would be the highest level since 2008.

“Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher energy prices and broader price pressures,” the Fed said in its post-meeting statement.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts that a variety of U.S. energy prices will remain historically high through 2023, including oil, natural gas, coal, and electricity, according to EIA’s June 2022 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO).

“We continue to see historically high energy prices as a result of the economic recovery and the repercussions of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” said EIA Administrator Joe DeCarolis. “Although we expect the current upward pressure on energy prices to lessen, high energy prices will likely remain prevalent in the United States this year and next.”

EIA forecasts that high natural gas and coal prices will result in an increased share of renewables in U.S. generation, largely offset by a decline in coal’s share. Wind and solar generation will likely contribute more than 11% of U.S. electricity this summer, after providing less than 10% in the summer of 2021. The natural gas share is forecast to decline over the next two years although at a slower rate than coal.

Key takeaways from the STEO forecast include:

• The Brent crude oil price will average $108 per barrel during the second half of 2022, as tight global inventories and significant geopolitical uncertainties continue to put upward pressure on crude oil prices despite an increase in production to pre-pandemic levels.
• U.S. refinery utilization will average 94% in the third quarter of 2022, close to the highest levels of the past five years. A 5% decrease in refinery capacity between 2019 and 2022 will keep refining margins above the five-year average.
• The Henry Hub natural gas price will average $8.69 per million British thermal units during the third quarter of 2022, up from May’s average of $8.13. This increase is due to strong demand for U.S. LNG exports and for natural gas in the electric power sector, which will keep U.S. natural gas inventories below their previous five-year average.
• Electricity generation will increase by 2.1% in 2022, with the largest increases from renewable energy. With the forecast addition of 20 GW of solar capacity, solar power will account for nearly half of all the new U.S. generating capacity this year.

U.S. producer prices surged 10.8% in May from a year earlier, underscoring the ongoing threat to the economy from inflation that shows no sign of slowing.

Tuesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the producer price index — which measures inflation before it reaches consumers — rose at slightly slower pace last month than in April, when it jumped 10.9% from a year earlier, and is down from an 11.5% yearly gain in March.

On a monthly basis, producer prices climbed 0.8% in May from April, above the previous month, when they increased 0.4%.

Energy prices, led by gas, rose 5% just in May from April. Another big driver of the price gains last month was a sharp 2.9% increase in the cost of truck freight hauling, a sign that supply chain problems still aren’t fully resolved. Food costs were unchanged.

The Federal Reserve is expected to hike its short-term interest rate by three-quarters of a point on Wednesday, the largest increase since 1994, as it ramps up its efforts to rein in higher prices.

The producer price data captures inflation at an earlier stage of production and can sometimes signal where consumer prices are headed. It also feeds into the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, the personal consumption expenditures price index.

Last Thursday, the Internal Revenue Service announced an increase in the optional standard mileage rate for the final 6 months of 2022. Taxpayers may use the optional standard mileage rates to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business and certain other purposes.

For the final 6 months of 2022, the standard mileage rate for business travel will be 62.5 cents per mile, up 4 cents from the rate effective at the start of the year. The new rate for deductible medical or moving expenses (available for active-duty members of the military) will be 22 cents for the remainder of 2022, up 4 cents from the rate effective at the start of 2022. These new rates become effective July 1, 2022.

The optional business standard mileage rate is used to compute the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business use in lieu of tracking actual costs. This rate is also used as a benchmark by the federal government and many businesses to reimburse their employees for mileage.

Taxpayers always have the option of calculating the actual costs of using their vehicle rather than using the standard mileage rates.

Midyear increases in the optional mileage rates are rare, the last time the IRS made such an increase was in 2011.

Dozens of GOP lawmakers are asking federal environmental regulators to lift a requirement for Wisconsin drivers to use reformulated gasoline to save people money. The request comes as gas prices have surged to record highs.

A letter sent Tuesday and spearheaded by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to consider waiving the federal regulation for reformulated gasoline. Reformulated gasoline is gas that’s blended to burn cleaner to reduce vehicle emissions that can form smog or ozone pollution. The requirement is part of changes that Congress made to the Clean Air Act in 1990.

In Wisconsin, reformulated gas is required in areas of southeastern Wisconsin that aren’t meeting federal smog regulations. They include the cities of Milwaukee and Racine in addition to Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Waukesha, Racine, Sheboygan and Kenosha counties.

“The thing that’s most immediate to an awful lot of folks that I talk to is the price of gas,” Vos told Wisconsin Public Radio on Thursday. “If there’s something that, by the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen, could reduce the price of gasoline by up to 40 cents a gallon, I don’t know why that wouldn’t be the first thing that we do, to try to help give some real relief to Wisconsin consumers.”

The American Automobile Association said the average price for a gallon of gas in Wisconsin was $4.91 on Thursday — up 30 cents from last week and 80 cents from one month ago.

The EPA can waive the fuel blending regulation if the agency’s administrator finds extreme and unusual fuel supply constraints exist, according to the letter. The agency can also issue a waiver if those constraints were the result of a natural disaster or a similar unforeseen event, and it is in the public interest.

“With the pandemic, swelling prices due to inflation, the war in Ukraine, and President Biden’s Executive Orders impacting the oil and gas industries, we feel all three exceptions have been met, giving the EPA the ability to authorize a waiver of the (reformulated gasoline) requirements,” wrote lawmakers in the letter.

The EPA said in a statement that it’s reviewing the letter from lawmakers.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has added the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system to its list of federal areas at “High Risk” for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, or in need of broad-based transformation. GAO is adding the system to the list now, in advance of a regular update scheduled for next year, to bring greater attention to the challenges facing UI and to help spur needed changes. GAO’s concerns are outlined in a new report being issued today, which describes critical weaknesses in how UI carries out its mission and also includes options panelists suggested for transforming the system.

The UI system’s persistent difficulties in balancing effective service delivery and mitigating financial loss made it more difficult to successfully launch temporary programs to help unemployed workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The unprecedented demand for assistance and the need to get the programs up and running quickly resulted in serious challenges for states and a greater risk of improper payments, including those due to fraud.

GAO and others have cited weaknesses in UI administration that have undermined states’ ability to effectively meet the needs of unemployed workers, including during economic downturns such as the one associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Current program design and variation in how states run UI have contributed to a shrinking portion of unemployed workers receiving benefits and disparities in benefit distribution. During the pandemic, problems with customer service, timely claims processing, and the implementation of new programs became evident. GAO and the Department of Labor (DOL) Office of Inspector General have also noted the need to modernize state IT systems.

Over the years, DOL regularly reported billions of dollars in annual UI improper payments. The problem intensified during the pandemic, with estimated improper payments rising from approximately $8.0 billion in fiscal year 2020 (a 9.2 percent rate) to about $78.1 billion in fiscal year 2021 (an 18.9 percent rate). The total amount of UI improper payments is unknown due to incomplete reporting by DOL and the states, but fraud is a growing problem. The main cause for the increase in fraud during the pandemic was identity theft, according to DOL. From March 2020 through January 2022, hundreds of individuals either pled guilty to defrauding UI programs or had federal charges pending against them.

State health officials are free to release data that would identify which employers have experienced COVID-19 outbreaks, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

In an opinion issued Tuesday morning, the state’s highest court stated that three business lobbying groups had no basis to block release of the data, which was prompted by a news media open records request.

The justices, in a 4-3 opinion written by Justice Rebecca Dallet, concluded that a 2003 revision to the state open records law “makes clear that no one has a right to block the release of a public record unless otherwise specified” under very narrow circumstances. Justices Ann Walsh Bradley, Brian Hagedorn and Jill Karofsky joined in the majority.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel filed an open records request asking DHS for the names of all Wisconsin businesses with more than 25 employees and where at least two people had tested positive for COVID-19 or were identified through contact tracing as “close case contacts” of COVID-19 patients.

The request was made at a time when workplace outbreaks of COVID-19, particularly in industries such as meatpacking where large numbers of people work in close quarters, had raised concerns about worker safety in the pandemic.

The newspaper’s request did not seek information identifying individual patients. At the rest of DHS, the request excluded employers with 25 or fewer employees, because in smaller work groups it would be easy to narrow down the data to individuals.

Elizabeth Goodsitt, a communications specialist for DHS, said Tuesday that the department must await further action by the circuit court before releasing any records.

“DHS remains temporarily enjoined from releasing any information relating to businesses whose employees have tested positive for COVID-19 or who contract tracing has shown close connections,” Goodsitt told the Wisconsin Examiner. “The Supreme Court did not order the release of records and instead remanded the case to circuit court. Procedurally, the case is not concluded until the circuit court so orders. DHS welcomes today’s decision, and it will continue its work to provide the public with timely, accurate information about COVID-19.”