LANSING – Former Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis on Friday announced his support for the November ballot proposal that would increase the state’s renewable energy standard to 25 percent by 2025, and he said the proposal has been building support among his Republican colleagues.

“This should not be a conservative or liberal, or Republican or Democrat issue,” Anuzis said in a conference call. “This is really an issue dealing with jobs and economic development in Michigan, as well as moving toward economic reliance on Michigan energy.”

Anuzis served as chairman of the Michigan Republican Party from 2005 to 2009.

The opposition, Clean Affordable Renewable Energy (CARE), said the endorsement actually made a bad day worse for the Michigan Energy Michigan Jobs (MEMJ), whose job claims it had already dismissed earlier after a report on the national scale of the renewable energy industry was released by the U.S. Department of Energy (see related story). Anuzis’ support seemed to contradict earlier blog postings, CARE said.

“This is definitely hypocrisy on Saul’s part and desperation on the part of the campaign,” CARE spokesperson Megan Brown said in an interview. “Like their shoddy job numbers, this group is willing to say anything to trick Michigan voters into voting for this initiative.”

Critics pointed to previous blog entries from Anuzis to say he has switched positions, such as this from 2009 that read: “To ensure we have electricity when we turn on the light switch or maintain medical equipment, we need a base load that is reliable. At this time, renewables do not afford that reliability. Therefore, to advocate we can do away with coal is dishonest.”

Another from February 2012 points to the investments in and mandates of renewable power standards made by former Governor Jennifer Granholm. “In her 2006 State of the State address, she promised that “in five years, you’ll be blown away.” Four years in and it’s blowing hard, all right,” Anuzis wrote, continuing on about the state’s unemployment rate, budget deficits and Granholm’s “Obamaesque policy prescriptions.”

When asked about the blogs, Anuzis, in a separate interview, said that blog rhetoric was essentially irrelevant here and he maintained, as he did in the press call earlier, that the state should have a diversified energy portfolio.

“I do not believe that we should get rid of coal in any way. My entire strategy is based on an all-of-the-above approach,” he said. “I think (CARE is) playing a creative game of connect the dots and trying to make an issue of something.”

Anuzis sent a letter to Republican colleagues on Friday pointing to DTE and Consumers Energy – staunch opponents of the proposal – as “government granted monopolies with unprecedented political clout, PACs and influence.”

“As an example, they were able to get the legislature to pass a bill “limiting” competition to ONLY 10 percnet of the market…by law,” he said in the letter. “This is NOT a free market or even any semblance of a market economy for energy.

“On average, the federal government provides the fossil fuel energy industry more than $12 billion in annual subsidies. Many have referred to this as “crony capitalism” at its best. It’s no surprise, therefore, that Consumers Energy and DTE Energy are opposing the “25 by 25″ ballot proposal in order to protect their market position – the status quo,” Anuzis wrote.

“We as Republicans and conservatives have to take a more proactive stand toward diversifying our resources,” he said in a later interview. “We need to lessen dependency on foreign oil and the best way to do that is to use all the resources available to us.”

Anuzis said he has not received any pushback from colleagues yet and that many are glad to see the renewable energy dialogue coming to the table for this year’s election. Though a change in the state’s Constitution for a renewable energy was not his first choice, he said, it was “the most viable solution for this stage in the game.”

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ON JOBS CLAIM: Clean Affordable Renewable Energy (CARE), the group campaigning against the renewable energy ballot proposal, said on Friday that a new study by the U.S. Department of Energy exposes the “fundamental flaws” in Michigan Energy Michigan Jobs’ (MEMJ) claims about the potential for job growth if the proposal gets the OK from voters.

The report shows that the entire wind energy sector across the nation directly and indirectly employs 75,000 workers in jobs ranging from construction to manufacturing to turbine operations and maintenance. That’s a far cry, CARE says, to a statement made by MEMJ spokesperson Mark Fisk last week after being certified for the November ballot that the proposal will “create 94,000 Michigan jobs.”

“Michigan Energy, Michigan Jobs supporters are delusional if they think one state alone could double all U.S. wind energy jobs – even if we are the only state to lock an RPS (renewable portfolio standard) in the constitution, as would be the case under their proposal,” Ken Sikkema, senior policy fellow at Public Sector Consultants, said in a statement. “This new report by the U.S. Department of Energy demonstrates that their job claims are preposterous.”

The report, CARE says, also points to concerns about overcapacity in the marketplace and anticipates it to be even more severe in 2013 and 2014.

“Modest electricity demand growth and low natural gas prices are causing the U.S. wind power industry to face “uncertain times” – which is why energy policy should not be locked into the state constitution,” CARE said in its statement, quoting the beginning of the report’s executive summary.

Supporters for the proposal have argue that it would encourage up to $10 billion in new investment in the state, and the proposal is supported by numerous construction companies among others. Supporters have also said growth in energy demand should mean current electric generating plants would not need to shut down, and jobs in those plants not lost.

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