Overview:
- Michigan communities are bracing for a storm of crises: climate change, federal rollbacks on environmental protections, and local battles over water, power, and pollution.
- The EPA's deregulatory moves mean more toxic air and less oversight for Detroit's hardest-hit areas.
- Climate impacts are here, with floods, heatwaves, and wildfire smoke already affecting residents. Meanwhile, data centers threaten clean energy progress.
- Detroit's new mayor must navigate these challenges with shrinking federal support.
- Yet, communities are not standing idle. Grassroots efforts, green infrastructure, and local policies are empowering residents to safeguard public health.
A convergence of crises are on the horizon in Michigan: a rapidly changing climate hammering communities with flooding and extreme heat, a federal government dismantling environmental protections, and local struggles over water, power, and pollution that will determine the health of generations to come.
As the Trump administration guts the federal government’s environmental and climate science infrastructure, the burden will increasingly fall on communities choking on industrial emissions, facing water shutoffs, and coping with deteriorating infrastructure.
The explosive growth of data centers threatens to reverse progress on clean energy, and Detroit’s new mayor must navigate these challenges with dwindling federal support.
Here’s what our reporters will be tracking in 2026.
EPA rollbacks hit home
The Trump EPA’s deregulatory agenda isn’t abstract; it’s already playing out in Michigan. The exemption granted to EES Coke Battery in River Rouge exemplifies what’s coming. In late March 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin set up an email address where companies could request two-year exemptions from hazardous air pollution laws. By spring, enforcement had “all but stopped,” according to Grist. The Washington Post reported in November that EPA enforcement cases are way down, with the agency rapidly reshaping itself to weaken consequences for polluters.
For communities in Detroit’s overburdened areas, this likely means more toxic air and less oversight. We’ll track which Michigan facilities are seeking and receiving exemptions, what pollutants they’re releasing, and how this reduced oversight affects the air Detroiters breathe.
Zeldin’s announcement of “31 historic actions in the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history” in March 2025 was just the opening salvo. Most of those deregulatory moves are still working through the rulemaking process and will face years of legal challenges, while the administration continues rolling back Clean Air Act regulations, a move that could significantly harm public health.
We’ll monitor how these federal rollbacks trickle down to Michigan, particularly air quality standards that protect against smog and particulate pollution, water quality protections for the Great Lakes, chemical safety regulations affecting industrial facilities, and climate rules that could impact power plant emissions.
Climate: Chaos continues
Climate change isn’t coming to Michigan — it’s here. Our readers are experiencing it through flooding, with increasingly intense storms overwhelming aging infrastructure.
The SEMCOG flooding task force is working on regional planning, but implementation will be slow and expensive. Extreme heat brings more frequent and longer heat waves that disproportionately affect those without air conditioning, the elderly, and outdoor workers.
And wildfire smoke from Canadian fires is sending choking smoke south more frequently, creating dangerous air quality days.
We’ll track infrastructure failures during major storms, heat-related emergency room visits and deaths, air quality alerts from wildfire smoke, and local government responses to flooding, particularly in communities with aging stormwater systems that can’t handle increasingly intense rainfall.
Drinking water: Problems worsen
Expect revelations about problems in different drinking water systems across Michigan. From PFAS contamination to lead service lines to aging treatment infrastructure, the state’s water challenges extend far beyond Flint. Federal rollbacks on water quality standards and enforcement will make these problems worse.
As Detroit’s Lifeline Plan shrinks, more residents face the threat of water shutoffs — a public health disaster that the pandemic only temporarily halted. With ARPA dollars drying up and federal assistance cut, how will the Sheffield administration address water affordability while maintaining essential services?
We’ll monitor PFAS contamination discoveries in municipal water systems, progress on lead service line replacement, water shutoff rates and their public health impacts, drinking water affordability programs, and violations at water treatment plants, particularly as federal oversight weakens.
Energy: Demand explodes
Data centers are sprouting across the country, and Michigan won’t be spared. These electricity-hungry facilities threaten to reverse progress on clean energy. DTE Energy will file its integrated resource plan in December 2026, which will determine where it sources energy to meet demand. The critical question is whether DTE will stick to its decarbonization goals or build new fossil fuel plants to power data centers.
DTE has signed its first 1.4 gigawatt data center deal, with plans to add 12 gigawatts of new generation from 2026 to 2032.
Beyond data centers, DTE faces scrutiny on multiple fronts. What will power bills look like for residential customers? Will outage performance improve? Can DTE balance new demand with decarbonization commitments? The rate case process will be crucial, and we need to explain it clearly to readers whose bills keep rising. DTE’s integrated resource plan filing will be a defining moment for Michigan’s energy future.
We’ll track DTE’s integrated resource plan filing and its implications for fossil fuel versus renewable energy development, rate increase proposals, and the impact on residential customers, power outage frequency and duration, new data center proposals and corresponding energy demands, and whether the utility meets its renewable energy targets as electric demand surges.
Detroit explores a new reality with Mayor Sheffield
The Sheffield administration faces a perfect storm: tightening budgets as ARPA funds expire, federal assistance cuts, and major decisions on economic development that could create new pollution sources. Which city-funded programs face cuts, especially public health initiatives? How will Sheffield navigate proposals for industrial development that bring jobs but also emissions? Can Detroit maintain progress on environmental health without federal support?
We’ll follow budget decisions affecting public health and environmental programs, major economic development proposals and their potential pollution impacts, the administration’s response to federal funding cuts, and how Sheffield balances job creation with environmental protection in neighborhoods that have historically borne the greatest pollution burdens.
The midterms. Then what?
The 2026 midterm elections could shift Congressional control, potentially ending Republican dominance in one or both chambers. This could mean tougher oversight hearings on EPA rollbacks, renewed federal investment in climate and environmental justice (if Democrats gain enough power), or continued stalemate, with a Democratic Congress unable to override Trump vetoes.
Either way, environmental fights will increasingly move to states, cities, and courts, making local reporting more critical than ever.
Communities fight back: Solutions and resilience
While federal protections erode, Michigan communities aren’t waiting for Washington to act. We’re seeing grassroots organizing to fight polluters, neighborhoods developing their own flood resilience strategies, and residents demanding accountability from local officials in ways that are getting results.
Through our Neighborhood Reporting Lab, we’re training residents to document environmental conditions in their own communities, turning firsthand experience into powerful community journalism. These community reporters bring expertise that no outside journalist can match — they know which sewers overflow in every storm, which facilities smell worst at night, and which officials actually show up when problems arise. And they know who the local leaders are that are making a difference.
In 2026, we’ll expand our solutions coverage: green infrastructure projects that actually work, community organizing campaigns that win meaningful pollution reductions, local policies that protect public health even as federal rules weaken, renewable energy projects that create local jobs while cutting emissions, and innovative approaches to water affordability and conservation.
The crises are real, but so is the power of informed, organized communities. Our job is to document both the threats to public health and the people successfully fighting back.
Our commitment to you
In 2026, we’ll continue telling the stories that matter most to Michigan communities: who’s polluting your air and water, how climate change affects your daily life, whether your elected officials are protecting public health or selling out to industry, and what you can do about it.
The federal government may be retreating from environmental protection, but we’re not retreating from accountability journalism. Thank you for reading Planet Detroit! Please consider donating to our nonprofit newsroom to help us keep serving you.
Do you have an idea for a story we should be covering in 2026? Send us a message at connect@planetdetroit.org.