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Have You Heard? Lobby Day is February 13, 2025

by Steve Panten

I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday season and congratulations to everyone that got the new motorcycle or parts that you asked for!

A new year is here and while I generally use this month’s article to reminisce about the past year and emphasize the excitement for the new year, there is too much going on, so I need all the space for 2025 stuff.

Lobby Day is coming up fast. February 13th is the day, and we have a lot to do before then. It is very important that you get the meetings scheduled with your representatives and that the meeting time, place, and who is leading the meeting is sent to Marie at the State Office so she can keep track of it. Please, please, work with the Regions that you share legislators with and try to coordinate meeting times that work with the other regions. I know this is difficult at times so try to include everyone in your communications. Let’s try to get a meeting scheduled with every office so we can have an ABATE member in the offices to present our information with one common voice. A strong, common voice is going to get us started off on the right foot with the new legislature.

LRB-0007/P2 is a bill draft that we have for Right to Repair. We have been working with Representative Penterman’s office and with the bill drafter, to come up with language that we feel would protect our right to choose where we want to take our motorcycles for repairs if we are unable to do it ourselves. We are hoping to have a Senate lead this month and we hope to have this piece of legislation circulating for co-sponsors before Lobby Day.

Right to repair is the ability for a consumer to have access to the tools and materials needed to repair their own products instead of going back to the manufacturers. In 2023, 33 states and the Federal Government considered Right to Repair Legislation. 6 of those states, Colorado, California, New York, Massachusetts, Maine, and Minnesota, felt it was important enough to pass legislation. We want Wisconsin to be the next one, and to have the strongest one protecting motorcyclists.

Protecting E10 or less is an issue that should be important to everyone that has a small engine, outdoor equipment like ATV/UTV’s, snowmobiles and boats, or even antique cars, but for motorcyclists, this is a must win piece of legislation to protect motorcycling. Using any fuel with an ethanol content higher than E10 in these vehicles or equipment is not only illegal by the Federal Government but it can also damage your engines and void your warranties. Are you willing to risk it when they push to eliminate lower ethanol fuels, and you are forced to illegally use a higher ethanol fuel that the manufacturers say will eventually destroy your engines?

We are hoping to have a bill draft before Lobby Day that says that any business is required to sell E10 or less if they are getting State funds, or Federal funds distributed by the State to expand the sale of higher ethanol fuels. Our goal is not to stop a business from selling higher ethanol products, but rather ensure that if they are getting funds to support them for selling higher ethanol, to also make sure that we have the only fuel legal for us to use.

Our final agenda item for Lobby Day 2025 on February 13th is our Consumers Choice Fuel Pledge bill that we introduced 2 years ago. We are going to submit the same language that we did in 2023 because we were able to pass it in the Legislature only to have the Governor veto it. This time our focus needs to be on getting the support from the Democrats in the legislature. We are hoping that we will be able convince new Legislators that this is good for the consumers in the State of Wisconsin. Last time we did not get any Democratic support although we did have some tell us that they understand what we are trying to do, and that they agree with us. So why didn’t they vote to support it? We need to work harder, get more support from other groups, and do what we are good at, being LOUD! Being loud with the combined voices from the roughly 530,000 residents in the state with an “M” endorsement on their licenses.

Other things. In December, John and I had the privilege to meet with the new Secretary of Transportation in Wisconsin, Secretary Boardman. We have had a great relationship with the State Department of Transportation, and we are hoping to continue that relationship. I also failed to mention last month that I was lucky enough to be invited to the AMA District 16 annual meeting in November. It is pretty cool that they give ABATE and the MRF an opportunity to address their membership with issues that we are working on. They have engaged in protecting the sport of off-road motorcycling and they have been successful in protecting that sport and connecting with younger riders.

And one final thing before I send this off to print. If you are interested in attending the annual Heartland STEAM conference of the Midwest States, this year it is being held in Bettendorf Iowa on April 4th -6th. We have a limited number of scholarships available, so if you are interested in attending and having ABATE of Wisconsin pay for your registration, hotel, and gas, please let me know as soon as you can.

OK…last thing….By now you understand that the ABATE of Wisconsin’s Lobby Day 2025 is on February 13th. The bus schedule is in the newsletter, or the CC Riders are offering their clubhouse to park and shuttle to the host hotel. Our agenda is set, we need to get meetings set up with the legislators. Who in your region is taking care of scheduling those meetings and communicating to the regional members, the surrounding regions, and to Marie at the State Office? It is going to take a community to be successful this session and the strongest community that I know of is the motorcycle community. I am proud to be part of that.

That’s it.

 

Steve

 

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