Wisconsin air pollution is not Illinois' fault. Hold companies accountable.

Yahoo

20-03-2025

In a recent column, Dale Kooyenga, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, makes some puzzling arguments about the economic impacts of ozone regulation, but he never once mentions the health harms of ozone itself. He argues that industries in southeastern Wisconsin should not take responsibility for helping clean up air pollution because much of our air pollution comes from other states.
That's not how the law works, and for good reason. The law requires anyone who 'causes or contributes' to air pollution to reduce their own emissions. If Wisconsin factories and power plants are contributing to high ozone levels in Wisconsin, they need do more than blame other states.
Kooyenga then points to the local economic boom: 'Milwaukee and the area have been on a roll over the past several years. Billions of dollars in capital investment, highlighted by Microsoft's $3 billion-plus data center project in Racine County, have all signs pointing in a positive direction for economic development, job creation and all that goes with it.'
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But then, he says that all this is at risk because of unfair air pollution regulations, rules that have been on the books for the same several years that have seen so much economic growth.
Microsoft and other industries know those rules and how they impact their businesses and have still chosen to locate in southeastern Wisconsin. They are not, as Kooyenga would have us believe, helpless victims of unreasonable 'mandates' coming out of Washington. They wouldn't be coming here if they didn't think they could prosper here. Industrial pollution controls cost a small fraction of the profits those companies will earn.
Clean Wisconsin won a 2018 lawsuit against the EPA after the agency wrongly listed several eastern Wisconsin counties as meeting federal ozone standards. Clean Wisconsin has also intervened in a recent federal lawsuit against the Good Neighbor Rule, a plan to reduce air pollution from power plants and industrial plants that often blows across state lines. Oral argument in that case begins April 25 in DC Circuit Court.
Instead of calling for an amendment to weaken the Clean Air Act, Kooyenga should be calling for strengthening the EPA's Good Neighbor Rule, which he admits isn't stringent enough to reduce interstate transport of ozone-causing chemicals in the air.
And instead of trying get Wisconsin off the hook for controlling its share of pollution, he should direct his energy toward making sure other states are held accountable for theirs. Last year, the Supreme Court stayed the Good Neighbor rule so it's not in effect while a lawsuit challenging it plays out in circuit court. That's what we should all be complaining about.
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Ozone levels in the southeastern counties are indeed elevated, and that's bad for the health of people living there. High ozone levels cause respiratory and other illnesses, especially in children and the elderly, and everyone who contributes to poor air quality should take responsibility for improving it. Blaming others and weakening air quality protections will only harm more Wisconsinites. Polluted air won't be a draw to our state for anyone — not even businesses.
Katie Nekola is general counsel for Clean Wisconsin.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin air pollution rules don't stop economic growth | Opinion