Energy legislation in the Michigan Senate is in flux after legislators signaled in September that they would push back the date for carbon neutrality,. This comes as DTE Energy’s political spending draws renewed scrutiny, raising concerns utilities are pushing back on renewable energy efforts.
Advocates from organizations including the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, Michigan Environmental Justice Caucus, and Michigan Alliance for Justice in Climate are looking to preserve ambitious deadlines for transitioning to renewable energy and ban technologies like carbon capture and storage and hydrogen, which they say could threaten communities already dealing with high levels of pollution.
“A once-promising bill package might be watered down beyond the point of no return due to corporate polluter influence,” Andrea Pierce, steering committee member of the Michigan Environmental Justice Caucus, said in a statement. “Our movement will not hesitate to oppose any bills that move too slowly on renewable energy and include false solutions that threaten our communities.”
The Michigan Clean Energy Future bill package introduced by Senate Democrats in April would have set a 2035 date for utilities reaching carbon neutrality and a 2030 date for phasing out coal plants. It also would require utilities to achieve a 2% annual energy waste reduction standard and allow the Michigan Public Service Commission to consider climate, health, equity, and affordability in decision-making, among other things. A bill package introduced by House Democrats in June mirrored much of this legislation.
If passed, this legislative framework could prove critical to shoring up goals set by the MI Healthy Climate Plan in 2022 and making them less likely to be overturned by a new governor.
However, in September, State Sen Erika Geiss (D-Taylor) announced changes to SB 271, moving the carbon-neutrality date from 2035 to 2040, and Sen. Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) signaled SB 273 would be revised to lower the energy waste reduction standard.
So far, neither of these changes have been added to the legislation. Brian Merlos, chief of staff for Senator Geiss, told Planet Detroit he couldn’t confirm if the 2040 deadline for 100% clean energy would be included in substitute language for the bill or if another deadline might replace it.
“Everything is kind of a moving target right now,” Merlos said.
How to achieve greenhouse gas reductions has been a point of controversy, with environmental justice groups expressing opposition to technologies like nuclear power, carbon capture, and “renewable natural gas”, i.e., methane from farms and landfills, while DTE officials have said they want a “technology-neutral standard.”
Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that emissions will need to peak by 2025 to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius and that nations must make deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions between 2030 and 2050. This year, temperatures were 1.4 C above historical averages, nearly meeting the 1.5 C threshold for warming set by the Paris Agreement in 2015.
A record number of billion-dollar disasters in the U.S. in 2023 also drove the need for decarbonization home. This year, the country has already seen 23 disasters causing $1 billion or more in damage, including devastating wildfires in Hawaii, Hurricane Idalia in Florida, and widespread flooding in the Northeast.
Although reining in emissions and limiting warming will take a global effort, the climate advocacy group Evergreen Action writes that Michigan could see benefits from decarbonization beyond limiting warming. They argue a shift to clean energy would allow the state to lower energy bills, secure federal clean energy investments, create jobs, and limit air pollution from fossil fuel power plants.
According to the MI Healthy Climate Plan, the power sector is Michigan’s biggest source of CO2 pollution, accounting for 30% of the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions and making the legislature’s efforts to limit this pollution potentially critical.
Christy McGillivray, political and legislative director for the Sierra Club Michigan, believes business interests are undermining the progress Michigan legislators seemed to be making on addressing these problems.
“This entire process has really been co-opted by utilities,” she said. “We have a really serious secret money problem in Michigan politics.”
Last week, the Detroit News reported that a DTE Energy-supported nonprofit, Michigan Energy First, gave $2 million to Democrats in 2022 when the party won control of state government for the first time since 1984.
In a statement to the News, DTE spokesperson Peter Ternes defended the company’s donations to Michigan Energy First, saying, “These contributions do not get charged to our customers but are instead allocated to shareholders.” However, he didn’t answer a question about whether it was appropriate to give to lawmakers when they were considering rewriting state energy laws.
Earlier this month, Michigan Rep. Dylan Wegela (D-Garden City) announced legislation to bar utilities from donating to dark money nonprofits like Michigan Energy First or to political organizations like the administration accounts of the Michigan Democratic Party and Michigan Republican Party.
McGillivray said this utility spending has created a situation where legislators want a “no-cost win.”
“They want to be able to say that they did the right thing on energy, and they want to make utilities happy,” she said. “And that’s not actually possible.”
For now, she said environmental advocates must fight to get the best energy package they can. But in the long run, McGillivray believes the state needs to address the political spending “really at the core of all of this.”