Environment

SB 420 prohibits cities, towns, villages, and counties from enacting "rights of nature ordinances," which are local laws granting legal rights to natural resources (like rivers or forests) to exist, be protected from pollution, or maintain healthy ecosystems. The bill directly affects local governments that might consider such ordinances. It creates a new statute (66.0132) explicitly banning these ordinances without providing exceptions. The law is purely procedural, preventing local governments from passing this specific type of ordinance.

SB 289 requires state agencies to provide detailed economic impact analyses for proposed rules that impose costs on businesses, local governments, or individuals. Agencies must quantify expected implementation and compliance costs (and potential savings) for each affected group, attribute all costs directly to the rule (not other laws or federal requirements), and include this in their analysis. If an independent analysis shows costs exceed $10 million over two years, the rule must be paused until costs are addressed or offset. This bill directly affects state agencies creating new rules and the businesses, local governments, and individuals who would bear the financial impact.

AB 130 exempts specific groups from certain PFAS enforcement actions under Wisconsin's spills law if they allow the state to clean up contaminated land at no cost to them. It directly affects landowners, fire departments, airports, wastewater spreaders, and waste facilities that handled PFAS-contaminated materials legally. The bill creates exemptions for those who spread permitted biosolids, owned land where such spreading occurred, used PFAS in emergency response (per federal rules), accepted PFAS waste, or own property not responsible for the contamination origin. This applies only to enforcement sections related to PFAS contamination under the spills law, not all PFAS regulations.