- Citizens for Local Choice, which looked to overturn Michigan’s renewable energy siting law, says it didn’t get enough signatures to put a question on the 2024 ballot.
- A dark money nonprofit associated with the effort had received a campaign finance complaint, alleging it improperly solicited donations for the ballot initiative and failed to disclose donors.
- Environmental advocates and farmers support the renewable energy siting law, which they say is needed to overcome restrictive local ordinances that could block large-scale wind and solar power.
The group behind the ballot initiative looking to overturn Michigan’s renewable energy siting law announced Tuesday that it hadn’t collected enough signatures to put the issue on the 2024 ballot. However, the Citizens for Local Choice campaign said it plans to continue its work until it exhausts its 180-day window for collecting signatures in hopes of putting the question on the 2026 ballot.
The group wants to repeal the 2023 siting law that gave state regulators the final say for large-scale wind and solar projects. Renewable energy advocates said this move was necessary to overcome restrictive local ordinances that could have jeopardized the state’s goal of achieving 100% clean energy by 2040. Supporters of the ballot question committee said they wanted to restore local control over these projects.
“The Citizens for Local Choice petition drive is about one question: Who should make major local land use decisions: know-it-all state lawmakers and their political appointees in Lansing; or local residents in cooperation with their local official(s),” Kevon Martis, a representative for Citizens for Local Choice, previously told Planet Detroit.
Ballot initiative was dogged by controversy, including a campaign finance complaint
Yet, the ballot question committee was dogged by controversy, including a campaign finance complaint that alleged the dark money nonprofit Our Home, Our Voice was operating as an unregistered ballot committee and funneling money to Citizens for Local Choice.
Planet Detroit reported in March that a $53,000 donation from the group to Citizens for Local Choice may have violated Michigan campaign finance laws because Our Home, Our Voice appeared to solicit funds for the committee while failing to disclose the names of donors.
Some questioned if Citizens for Local Choice would be able to fund a multi-million-dollar ballot initiative without industry support. Martis is a senior policy fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, previously known as the American Tradition Institute, which has received backing from coal companies. The ballot initiative received a $10,000 donation from Thomas Rastin, a businessman involved in a successful Ohio effort to define natural gas as “clean energy.”
A coalition of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter, Ecology Center and Michigan League of Conservation Voters said the ballot initiative would have “turned back the clock on Michigan’s clean energy projects” adding that “Michigan’s clean energy laws hold big utilities accountable so they move toward 100% clean energy, dramatically reducing sulfur, arsenic and mercury pollution in our air and water…”
Laura Sherman, President of the renewable industry group Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council, said Michigan’s clean energy laws, including the siting bill, “will help avoid higher energy costs for the average Michigan household while creating jobs and making our economy more competitive.”
Some farmers opposed the ballot initiative, saying it could take away their right to put wind and solar on their property and bring in income that could help them hold onto their land.
And some said that renewable energy projects could bring in tax revenue for things like schools and fire departments.
“Opponents say they don’t want wind and solar projects because it would disturb the rural nature of their environment,” Dick Farnsworth, who owns a farm in Montcalm County, told the House Energy Committee in testimony submitted in October. “The irony is if they stop these projects, property owners like us will be forced to make some hard choices between keeping it as a farm or selling it off for development.”