- The Michigan House on Tuesday voted mostly along party lines to roll back recently enacted statewide clean energy standards
- Republicans behind the push say the move will save ratepayers money on their energy bills, though Democrats are dubious
- Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, on Tuesday said the two-bill package is DOA in the upper chamber
LANSING — Michigan House Republicans on Tuesday voted to repeal the state’s recently enacted 100% clean energy standard, a move the state Senate’s top lawmaker says stands “no chance” of getting a vote in that chamber.
House lawmakers passed House Bill 5710 in a 58-47 vote, while companion bill HB 5711 passed 57-48. State Rep. Peter Herzberg, of Westland, was the lone Democrat to vote with Republicans on the first bill.
The package would roll back legal requirements for electric providers to have a 100% clean energy portfolio by 2040 and meet a 60% renewable energy standard by 2035, among other things.
“Energy is a foundation everything else stands on, and for the last two years, that foundation has been cracking,” said state Rep. Pauline Wendzel, a Waterville Republican and chair of the House Energy Committee. A leading sponsor of the effort, Wendzel argued in a Tuesday floor speech the mandates have made “our grid less reliable.”
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But chances of addressing that concern this year appear dead on arrival.
Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, immediately following the vote, told Bridge Michigan in a statement that there’s “no chance” either bill gets a vote in the Democratic-led Senate.
“It’s a bad idea,” Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, said when asked about the push to repeal. “They want to take our state backwards.”
Tuesday’s pair of votes targets sweeping energy reforms that passed along party lines in 2023 as the Democratic trifecta that then controlled state government looked to speed Michigan’s transition off fossil fuels.
The centerpiece of the multi-bill package is a requirement for Michigan utilities to derive 100% of their energy from clean sources by 2040.
It’s a goal celebrated by climate advocates who argue Michigan must do its part to combat global warming that is dangerously warming the Earth’s climate and jeered by Republican lawmakers who’ve frequently referred to the move as a “government mandate.”
“Michigan families deserve an energy policy grounded in reality,” state Rep. Pat Outman, a Six Lakes Republican and a leading sponsor of the repeal package, said in a statement following the vote. “Their utility bills should go toward reliable power they can afford, not expensive mandates dreamed up by out-of-touch politicians and special interests.”
Climate advocates condemned Tuesday’s vote, arguing it ignores mounting evidence about the cost-competitiveness of renewable energy and the risks of continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Leading global scientists have long warned that human fossil fuel consumption is destabilizing Earth’s climate, with effects ranging from rising seas and raging wildfires to expanding droughts and disappearing glaciers.
Globally, the past three years have been the three warmest on record. The cost of extreme weather events caused by climate change is expected to reach into the trillions by midcentury.
“This is a really disappointing sign that our House Republicans are stuck in a very old ideological viewpoint that is much more about partisan politics and agreeing with the presidential administration than it is about actual reality,” said Denise Keele, executive director of the Michigan Climate Action Network.
Groups representing local governments have taken issue with a provision of the climate package that established statewide standards for large renewable energy projects, allowing the state to permit projects over local objections.
Lawmakers made that change in hopes of speeding up renewable energy developments that were being delayed or blocked amid fierce opposition from rural communities.
But some local government advocates have argued it strips communities of their right to control their own destiny.
Dozens of local governments sued the state in hopes of regaining more control, but an appeals court panel last week left most of Michigan’s solar siting regulations in place.
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