“In less than four months, nine Michigan coal generating units will go cold and dark, and by 2020, 25 coal generating units will be shutdown. We can’t afford to play political games with electric reliability,” Dan Bishop, spokesperson for Consumers Energy, said in an e-mail. “It’s urgent that state lawmakers continue their work on this issue when they return in 2016 and enact a Michigan-first energy plan.”
Bishop was responding to a quote by Sen. Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) taking a shot at “incumbent utilities,” saying legislators have been “fed some interesting information … when they claim all the problems we’ve got to address.” Shirkey was commenting on the determination by state officials that Michigan could effectively continue business-as-usual and still achieve compliance for a decade with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan on reducing carbon emissions (See Gongwer Michigan Report, December 22, 2015).
But Bishop said Shirkey’s comments appear to be mixing two issues and thus comparing apples (compliance with the Clean Power Plan) and oranges (Michigan’s assurance it has adequate capacity to ensure electric reliability).
DTE Energy also issued a statement Wednesday in response to early reactions from some about Michigan’s compliance with the federal rule issued earlier this summer.
“Some observers incorrectly interpret (Michigan Agency on Energy Executive Director Valerie Brader’s) statement to mean that there is no need for Michigan to revise its outdated energy policies,” DTE Energy spokesperson John Austerberry said. “The path to compliance cited by Brader is based largely on the shutdown of 60 percent of Michigan’s coal-fired power plants in the next 10 to 15 years … It’s vital that the state’s energy policies be updated to support the transformation of Michigan’s energy system from today’s predominant reliance on coal to cleaner natural gas and renewable energy technologies.
“Without changes to current energy policy, Michigan risks ceding control of its energy future to the federal government and out-of-state energy interests,” he said.
The energy policy discussion has seen much debate. Some of the provisions of Michigan’s current law will expire by the end of the year and so legislators are looking at updating that policy. The House has cleared its version of that energy policy from committee but the Senate’s legislation has yet to come out of committee.
Numerous legislative leaders point to energy policy as one of the top issues for 2016 as well.
This story was published by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on www.gongwer.com
