Is anyone surprised that in an election year David Crowley has come out against the consequences of his own policies?
On Sept. 10, David Crowley said he opposes BECI, the 765-kilovolt transmission line proposed across southern Wisconsin.
We wrote about that line last week. This massive transmission line is not being proposed on accident. It is what happens when elected officials spend a decade pushing electricity generation out of reliable power plants and into windmills and solar panels on remote farmland and hopes nobody does the math on the distance to move the electricity from rural areas to urban areas.
Crowley spent the last six years asking for these policies and Milwaukee County Executive.
In April 2025 he signed Milwaukee County’s Climate Action 2050 plan, putting county operations on the road to net-zero carbon by 2050. This spring he signed county legislation recommitting to the Paris Agreement. At a candidate forum in April he called for yearly greenhouse gas reporting statewide, carbon scoring on any major development project, and what he called a Green New Deal for public schools. On data centers, he said he would make them bring their own 100 percent clean energy to the grid.
Electricity does not travel on a campaign promise to appease environmentalists. It travels on a wire.
When the 765 kV line was first announced, environmental group Clean Wisconsin welcomed that plan and said more transmission lines “directly enable a clean electricity future.” Last month the group’s political arm, Clean Wisconsin Action Fund, endorsed Crowley. So did Wisconsin Conservation Voters.
Put more simply, the same people who cheered the plan for this transmission line are backing David Crowley.
Crowley cannot have it both ways. He orchestrated a net-zero plan for Milwaukee County. He promised carbon scoring statewide. He told voters he would make data centers run on 100 percent clean power. And now because it’s unpopular, he’s opposing the transmission line that his green policies created.
Policies have consequences.
