After over a year on hold before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the two cases involving the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’s Act 21 explicit authority have finally started moving again with another requested briefing on legislative intervention.

GLLF submitted comments on DNR’s proposed guidance for high capacity well application review process, arguing it ignored the ongoing litigation in Clean Wisconsin v. DNR on this very issue, overstepped the boundaries of DNR’s explicit authority, and at minimum needed to go through rulemaking.

In 2018, the Wisconsin Legislature passed Act 369 which allows the Wisconsin legislature to intervene in ongoing legal cases. But over a year after litigation landed Act 369 before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, there is still no ruling on whether intervention violates separation of powers.

DNR moves to issue its new high capacity well application review process as guidance, a procedure that does not provide nearly the same protections as rulemaking.

On Monday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard oral arguments in SEIU v. Vos. The case challenges the constitutionality of 2017 […]