A federal appeals court this week lifted a court order that would have temporarily blocked the final phase of a controversial transmission project.

In March, U.S. District Court Judge William Conley granted a request by conservation groups to temporarily block a proposed land swap. That order prevented the Cardinal Hickory Creek transmission project from crossing through a Mississippi River wildlife refuge.

The utilities behind the project appealed that decision in the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

On Thursday, a three-judge panel on the Chicago appeals court said the injunction blocking the land swap was not justified.

The appeals court said Conley needed to show that the National Wildlife Refuge Association, Driftless Area Land Conservancy and Wisconsin Wildlife Federation were likely to succeed in their lawsuit challenging the project. The court said he failed to do so.

“Instead the district court expressed concern that private parties might begin to build a transmission line before the court could address the merits,” the appeals court wrote.

The Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line runs more than 100 miles from Dane County to Dubuque County in Iowa. The first half of the project came online in December 2023.

ITC Midwest and Dairyland Power Cooperative, the co-owners of the Cardinal Hickory Creek line, said in a statement they were pleased with the appeals court’s decision.

They said the district court has stalled the line’s completion by blocking the utilities from exchanging land with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They said the land exchange was needed to finish a 1.1 mile segment near the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.

“The key effect of the appeals court order is that the government and utilities are now free to complete the land exchange,” the utilities said in a statement.

The U.S. Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday and signaled it is still leaning towards eventual reductions in borrowing costs, but put a red flag on recent disappointing inflation readings that could make those rate cuts a while in coming.

Indeed, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that after starting 2024 with three months of faster-than-expected price increases, it “will take longer than previously expected” for policymakers to become comfortable that inflation will resume the decline towards 2% that had cheered them through much of last year.

That steady progress has stalled for now, and while Powell said rate increases remained unlikely, he set the stage for a potentially extended hold of the benchmark policy rate in the 5.25%-5.50% range that has been in place since July.

U.S. central bankers still believe the current policy rate is putting enough pressure on economic activity to bring inflation under control, Powell said, and they would be content to wait as long as needed for that to become apparent – even if inflation is simply “moving sideways” in the meantime.

The Fed’s preferred inflation measure – the personal consumption expenditures price index – increased at a 2.7% annual rate in March, an acceleration from the prior month.

“Inflation is still too high,” Powell said in a press conference after the end of the Federal Open Market Committee’s two-day policy meeting. “Further progress in bringing it down is not assured and the path forward is uncertain.”

Last week, a Dane County court overturned a 2022 decision by the Public Service Commission that would have allowed family in Stevens Point to use third-party financing to install solar on their home.

Under that agreement, the family would lease the system from North Wind Renewable Energy Cooperative. Similar lease agreements are common in other states, but utilities have opposed their use in Wisconsin, saying they are not allowed under existing state law.

The family in Stevens Point sold their home and did not move forward with the project, according to North Wind Founder Josh Stolzenburg.

Even so, the Wisconsin Utilities Association last year challenged the PSC’s decision in Dane County Circuit Court.

Last Friday, the court sided with the utility association, sending the issue back to the Public Service Commission. The court said the PSC incorrectly interpreted what constitutes a “public utility” in its decision because it focused on the singular project and not North Wind’s activities as a whole.

State law defines a “public utility” as any entity owns, operates, manages or controls equipment used for the “transmission, delivery or furnishing of heat, light, water or power either directly or indirectly, to or for the public.”

Utilities are largely opposed to third-party financing for solar installations, saying it violates state law by allowing installers to act as a utility without being regulated as one.

“We’re pleased with the decision of the court affirming our position that if you provide energy to the public, either directly or indirectly, you must be regulated as a public utility,” Bill Skewes, executive director for the Wisconsin Utilities Association, said in an email.

Employee compensation costs jumped more than expected to start the year, providing another danger sign about persistent inflation. The employment cost index, which measures worker salaries and benefits, gained 1.2% in the first quarter, the Labor Department reported Tuesday.

On a year-over-year basis, compensation costs for civilian workers increased 4.2%, still above a level the Fed feels is consistent with its 2% inflation goal, though down from 4.8% a year ago. Wages and salaries rose 4.4% while benefits costs increased 3.7%.

State and local government workers saw their compensation costs rise 4.8%, down just narrowly from the same period in 2023. The bigger increase likely was attributable to the high level of that group belonging to unions, which saw compensation costs increase 5.3%, compared to just a 3.9% gain for nonunion workers.

The Fed watches the ECI as a significant measure of underlying inflation pressures.

The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee begins its two-day meeting Tuesday. Markets have priced in virtually no chance that the FOMC will change the target for its overnight borrowing rate from the current range of 5.25%-5.5%.

The Universities of Wisconsin will vacate a former two-year college in Richland County this summer, despite months of discussions with local officials who once hoped to save the former two-year college. County leaders say they’re now facing a potential “economic crisis.”

Classes at the campus known by locals as UW-Richland ended in July 2023 after enrollment fell to around 60 students. Initially, UW administrators stopped short of saying the campus would close, holding several meetings with county leaders with a goal of redefining the former college.

One of the questions during those discussions was what to do about a 75-year memorandum of agreement that outlines the county’s role in maintaining the county-owned campus buildings and property in exchange for the UW branch campus “to provide an adequate instructional and administrative staff.” That lease is not set to expire until 2042.

Over the past year, some Richland County board members have argued the UW should have to reimburse the county for maintenance costs and lost economic opportunities caused by the closing. The loss estimates ranged from $1.5 million to tens of millions of dollars.

On Tuesday, county officials received a letter from Universities of Wisconsin Vice President for University Relations Jeff Buhrandt, notifying them that UW-Platteville, which oversees the Richland campus, “will completely vacate the Richland County Campus by July 1.”

“While we are disappointed that we were unable to find a path forward, we also know this change can provide significant new opportunities in Richland County,” Buhrandt said.

The letter also notified the county that recent legislation offering $2 million grants to counties where branch campuses are closed was the state’s final offer.

“This potential investment by the State of Wisconsin represents the full consideration of the costs expressed by Richland County,” Buhrandt wrote.

U.S. economic growth was much weaker than expected to start the year, and prices rose at a faster pace, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Gross domestic product, a broad measure of goods and services produced in the January-through-March period, increased at a 1.6% annualized pace when adjusted for seasonality and inflation, according to the department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Consumer spending increased 2.5% in the period, down from a 3.3% gain in the fourth quarter. Fixed investment and government spending at the state and local level helped keep GDP positive on the quarter, while a decline in private inventory investment and an increase in imports subtracted. Net exports subtracted 0.86 percentage points from the growth rate while consumer spending contributed 1.68 percentage points.

Spending patterns also shifted in the quarter. Spending on goods declined 0.4%, in large part to a 1.2% slide in bigger-ticket purchases for long-lasting items classified as durable goods. Services spending increased 4%, its highest quarterly level since the third quarter of 2021.

The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a new rule that would make millions of white-collar workers newly eligible for overtime pay.

Starting July 1, the rule would increase the threshold at which executive, administrative and professional employees are exempt from overtime pay to $43,888 from the current $35,568. That change would make an additional 1 million workers eligible to receive time-and-a-half wages for each hour they put in beyond a 40-hour week.

On January 1, the threshold would rise further to $58,656, covering another 3 million workers.

While hourly workers are generally entitled to overtime pay, salaried workers are not if they earn above a certain pay level and supervise other workers, use professional expertise or judgment or hire and fire workers, among other duties.

The new standard could be legally challenged by industry groups that have argued that excessively raising the standard exceeds Labor’s authority and adds heavy regulatory and financial burdens or compliance costs.

Some companies could lift workers’ base pay to the new threshold to avoid paying overtime or convert salaried workers to hourly employees who need to punch a clock. Others could instruct salaried employees to work no more than 40 hours a week, bringing on part-time workers to pick up the slack. Still others may reduce employees’ base pay to offset the overtime, effectively sidestepping the new requirement.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Tuesday voted to ban for-profit US employers from making employees sign agreements with noncompete clauses.

The FTC estimates that 30 million people – one in five US workers – are bound by a noncompete clause in their current jobs. And for most of them, the agency asserts, such a clause restricts them from freely switching jobs, lowers wages, stifles innovation, blocks entrepreneurs from starting new businesses and undermines fair competition.

The final rule is a somewhat narrower version of the proposed rule that the agency put out for public comment in January of 2023.

It will ban for-profit employers from issuing new noncompetes to anyone.

And – with one exception – it makes currently existing noncompete agreements unenforceable after the rule’s effective date, which is set at 120 days from the rule’s publication in the Federal Register.

The rule, however, does allow currently existing noncompete agreements for senior executives to remain in force. Senior executives are defined as workers earning more than $151,164 annually who also are in a “policy-making position.”

Employment lawyers expect there to be legal pushback from employers and business groups that may delay enforcement of the rule while it is challenged in court, and possibly prevent it from ever going into effect if those suing the FTC prevail.

Daryl Joseffer, chief counsel of the U.S. Chamber’s Litigation Center, characterized the FTC rule banning noncompetes as an “administrative power grab.” “They’re trying to regulate a century-old business practice across the entire economy,” Joseffer said.

If the rule is allowed to stand, it opens “a pandora’s box, where they can micromanage any aspect of the economy,” the Chamber’s chief policy officer, Neil Bradley, asserted.

In 2023, 89.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas was consumed in the United States, the most on record. Since 2018, U.S. natural gas consumption has increased by an average of 4% annually.

Monthly natural gas consumption set new records every month from March 2023 through November 2023. U.S. natural gas consumption has risen in the electric power sector as coal-fired electric-generating capacity has declined.

Last year, the largest monthly increases in natural gas consumed by the electric power sector were in July and August, despite cooler-than-normal temperatures than during those months in 2022. Natural gas consumption in the electric power sector, which typically increases in July and August to meet air-conditioning demand, increased by 6% in July and August 2023 compared with those months in 2022, setting monthly records of 47.5 Bcf/d in July and 47.2 Bcf/d in August.

U.S. coal production units are retiring as the nation’s coal fleet ages and coal-fired generators are replaced by generators using natural gas and renewables. Although natural gas-fired power generation increased by 6% in July and August of 2023 compared with a year earlier, overall electricity growth year-on-year was flat in July at 412 billion kilowatthours (kWh) and rose just 3% in August to 410 billion kWh.

The most natural gas consumed in the United States in any month of 2023 occurred in January at 106.6 Bcf/d, but consumption was 8% less than in January 2022. Warmer-than-average temperatures reduced natural gas consumption in the residential and commercial sectors to meet space-heating demand.