2017-2018 Legislative Session Recap 

Bills Authored by Senator Cowles that Became Law 

  • Act 137 (Senate Bill 48, authored with Rep. Thiesfeldt): The Leading on Lead Act addresses the public health concerns that thousands of Wisconsin citizens, especially children, are faced with every day from lead laden drinking water. This bill provides a funding mechanism for communities to address lead contamination in drinking water by replacing lead laterals leading from the water main to the home.
  • Act 247 (Senate Bill 85, authored by the Committee): This bill, authored by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee which I Co-Chair, reflects four recommendations from the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau’s devastating evaluation of DOT’s State Highway Program showing an unacceptable trend of under-estimating the cost of major highway projects. Act 247 is a roadmap to ensure this financial recklessness doesn’t happen again.
  • Act 54 (Senate Bill 133, authored with Rep. Summerfield): This bill combats the issue of credit card skimmers being attached on gas pumps and ATMs by modernizing our state’s criminal code. These changes will ensure that law enforcement and prosecutors have the penalties they need to stop criminals before they place credit card skimmers and to properly punish them for stealing personal information.
  • Act 71 (Senate Bill 421, authored with Rep. Tusler): The Parks Revitalization Act uses up to $4.5 million in unspent Stewardship funds from the prior fiscal year to complete critical water infrastructure projects in some of the most frequented state parks. These upgrades will help to protect the health and safety of the millions of people that visit our state parks each year.
  • Act 166 (Senate Bill 435, authored with Reps. Considine and Kitchens): The Save Our Pets bill allows first responders to provide care to our pets in emergency situations like house fires and car accidents after injured people are stable or are transported from the scene. While some first responders were already treating pets at emergency scenes, they put themselves at professional risk as their actions were illegal under state law.
  • Act 283 (Assembly Bill 355, authored with Rep. Horlacher): This bill tries to combat the growing problem of child neglect and subjection of a child to a drug endangered environment by closing gaps in our system that keep children at risk for months before receiving help. Act 283 is not designed to create more criminals and it does not override the ability of Child Protective Services to intervene and improve the situation, but instead it serves as a barrier to protect the child if other systems fail.
  • Act 195 (Assembly Bill 422, authored with Reps. Horlacher and Riemer): This bill creates the Hire Heroes program to close gaps in the current system and allow all veterans, prioritized on a need basis, to receive state assistance for transitional jobs. Integration into the civilian workforce is a major challenge for veterans, and transitional jobs are one way we can best serve those who served our nation.
  • Act 284 (Assembly Bill 789, authored with Rep. Tittl): Hundreds of thousands of tons of non-recycled plastics go to landfills each year in Wisconsin. This bills opens the door for new technologies like pyrolysis and gasification in Wisconsin. These processes complement the plastics recycling industry by diverting more plastics out of landfills and transforming them into valuable commodities such as gasoline, oil, lubricants and waxes.
  • Act 196 (Assembly Bill 946, authored with Rep. Kitchens): No one knows the land better than the farmers who cultivate it. This bill increases the amount available in the Producer-Led Watershed Protection Grant Program by $500,000 to encourage more coalitions of farmers to coordinate with conservation experts to protect the watershed.
  • Act 55 (Senate Bill 90, authored with Rep. Steffen): This bill allows auto repair shop staff to remove and replace Vehicle Identification Number stickers. Formerly, removing a Vehicle Identification Number sticker was a crime and working around the sticker would severely slow the repairs, making it more difficult to the repair-men or women and making it more costly to the consumer.
  • Act 70 (Senate Bill 173, authored with Rep. Jacque): This bill allows local governments and companies to, in a more expedient and convenient process, convert some of the most blighted parts of our communities into new developments while still ensuring public and environmental health are protected.
  • Act 282 (Assembly Bill 731, authored with Rep. Kitchens): Public notices in newspapers are essential to ensure government transparency and political participation by local residents, but the current standards for compensation for public notices stifle their publication in some areas. This bill changes the standards to ensure that more public notices are readily available to the small town and rural citizens of Wisconsin. 
  • Act 23 (Assembly Bill 58, authored with Rep. Jacque): This bill removes a burden on police departments that required K-9 officers to be quarantined after a biting incident. Instead, Wisconsin now allows the handlers, not statutes, to be in charge of care for their K-9 law enforcement partner. 
  • Act 167 (Assembly Bill 821, authored with Rep. Macco): This bill allows clubs and organizations to become more involved in increasing the functionality and beautification of our parks by providing donated labor and materials to construct new structures on local public lands. AB 821 was introduced after we learned of the difficulty the Green Bay Optimist Club had while trying to donate a structure to Green Bay’s Optimist Park.
  • Act 69 (Assembly Bill 226, authored with Rep. Kitchens): The Clean Water Access Bill raises the cap on the grant amount available to help residents remediate or replace failing wells and gives local governments the authority to help replace failing septic tanks. This bill does not create a new state program, but instead encourages the use of an already existent program.
  • Act 194 (Assembly Bill 381, authored with Rep. Steffen): This bill allows the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Memorial Fund to collect annual voluntary payments on their specialized license plates. The funds collected will help two trusted law enforcement memorial organizations continue their missions of providing support to the families and colleagues of fallen officers while commemorating a fallen officer’s life and service.
  • Act 193 (Assembly Bill 442, authored with Rep. Jacque): This bill creates uniformity in the placement of signs designating ATV routes that are posted within a municipality. This change eliminates uncertainty in the current system and eases the burden on local governments of having to post an unnecessary amount of ATV route signs.
  • Act 140 (Assembly Bill 538, authored with Rep. Jagler): This bill aligns Wisconsin’s emergency detention standards with the more encompassing federal criteria. Act 140 helps law enforcement and medical professionals ensure that those suffering from a mental health crisis are not a danger to themselves or others.
  • Act 354 (Assembly Bill 617, authored by the Committee): This bill, authored by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee which I Co-Chair, repeals an unnecessary mandate on the Department of Workforce Development that was uncovered in an audit of the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. 
  • Act 281 (Assembly Bill 926, authored with Rep. Nygren): This bill removes the unnecessary burden of permitting on property owners who are looking to maintain their property though simple maintenance. Activities no longer requiring a permit include leveling sand, grooming soil, removing debris, and mowing vegetation on exposed land in the shoreline area on the Great Lakes and bay of Green Bay.
  • Act 355 (Assembly Bill 618, authored by the Committee): This bill, authored by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee which I Co-Chair, will cleanup some of the unnecessary but statutorily-required audits the Audit Bureau must perform. This change will free up more Audit Bureau resources to allow the Committee to request evaluations for other programs and agencies that are often overlooked.