Baldwin hopes to beat the clock on ‘unfinished business’ before congressional term ends

Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin says she feels a “sense of urgency to finish some unfinished business” as the end of this congressional term and a government funding deadline approach.

On WPR’s “Wisconsin Today,” Baldwin said her priorities during the coming weeks include  confirming President Biden’s nominees for vacant positions like federal judgeships and passing a new government funding bill.

Lawmakers in Washington have until Dec. 20 to strike a funding deal to keep the federal government functioning. Baldwin is hopeful they can agree on a continuing resolution to fund the government through mid-March, as well as an emergency spending plan related to the recent hurricanes that damaged Florida and North Carolina and the fires that ravaged Maui in 2023.

Adding to the to-do list is a pair of Baldwin bills that passed the Senate but are awaiting passage in the House.

The first — Access to Capital Creates Economic Strength and Supports, or ACCESS, Rural America Act — Baldwin collaborated on with Republican Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

The bill would relieve rural local telecommunications co-ops of having to deal with the same regulatory paperwork required of multi-billion-dollar telecom firms.

“If they don’t get relief … some of them won’t be able to function and do what they do, and have been doing for, frankly, decades for their local rural communities,” Baldwin said.

Under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Wisconsin was granted $1 billion to expand access to reliable high-speed internet around the state.

When asked if she had any concerns about potential efforts by the incoming Trump administration to claw-back some of that allocated money, Baldwin said, “I’m going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that that funding remains available to our state.”

Baldwin’s second bipartisan bill, which received unanimous Senate support, would require federal taxpayer-funded inventions or innovations to be manufactured in the U.S.

One more priority before the close of this Congressional session is renewing the farm bill.

“Our farmers need the certainty that a five-year farm bill would provide,” Baldwin said. “And…I’ve been so disappointed in the lack of progress.”

In the Senate’s version of the bill, Baldwin said she was able to get included in their farm bill some of these measures:

• The Dairy Business Innovation Initiative, where farmers and processors can get small grants for diversifying their products.
• Baldwin’s Healthy H2O Act, focused on helping rural communities and people with private wells afford to test their water and install filtration.
• Expansion of mental health help for Wisconsin farmers.

Baldwin says she’s wary of a return to what she called the “damaging policies and approaches” for Wisconsin farmers and rural communities during the first Trump administration.

“A lot of farmers heard the message from the Secretary of (Agriculture) back then, Mr. Perdue: ‘Get big or get out,’ and Wisconsin is dotted with small family farms that have been passed down from generation to generation,” Baldwin said. “We have a wonderful tradition that we have to fight to protect.”

Baldwin also made the case for protecting immigrants — whose labor she said is a huge part of Wisconsin’s dairy industry and rural economy — from Trump’s proposed “mass deportations”: “The tariffs and the immigration policies that are being floated at this point would be extremely injurious to rural Wisconsin.”