A federal appellate panel has dismissed state officials’ efforts to obtain federal funding to expand a highway between Fond du Lac and Sheboygan. Wisconsin officials have been trying to secure federal funding to widen a 19-mile stretch of State Highway 23. The project was estimated to cost about $168 million as of early 2015. A group called 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin that works for sustainable land use filed a lawsuit in 2011 to stop the project. The group argued a federal environmental impact statement was incomplete and without it the federal government couldn’t release any money. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman agreed. The state appealed but federal officials didn’t. A three-judge panel from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that no federal appeal forecloses any other challenge.
