Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Signs Law Essentially Banning Fossil Fuel Use by 2040
The “Clean Energy and Jobs Act” relies on technology that has not been developed and converting vast swaths of Michigan’s beautiful woodlands to solar and wind farms.
Being from Michigan, I was always aware of how important the automotive industry was to that state. However, its governor seems to have forgotten that cars require reliable sources of reasonably priced energy to run.
Therefore, I found it very disturbing that she has signed an order that essentially bans the use of still very legal fossil fuels as of 2040 in an ill-considered piece of legislation: The Orwellian-named “Clean Energy and Jobs Act.”
The Clean Energy and Jobs Act includes several bills that would improve state energy efficiency requirements and streamline permitting processes for solar and wind projects. It would also mandate that state utilities shift 100% of electricity sales to clean energy sources by 2040.
Michigan has recently seen a boost in sustainable work, with an estimated 5% growth in clean energy and transportation jobs last year. Whitmer said the state’s new clean energy package will add over 160,000 more clean jobs to Michigan’s expanding green economy.
“We will make American energy with American workers earning family-sustaining wages,” Whitmer said before signing the bills into law in Detroit on Tuesday.
The legislation relies on technology not fully developed or otherwise successfully deployed at any energy generation plant.
Senate Bill 271, one of the bills included in the package, establishes a renewable energy standard of 50% by 2030 and 60% by 2035, meaning electric utilities meet at least that share of their electric generation capacity with renewable energy credits or direct renewable energy generation. That mandate supersedes previous laws requiring utilities to achieve a 15% renewable energy standard through 2029.
In addition, under the bill, utility providers must meet an 80% clean energy standard by 2035 and a 100% clean energy standard set to be achieved by 2040. The clean energy standard would include natural gas-fired generation with 90% carbon capture, a nascent and expensive technology that hasn’t been deployed at any power plant nationwide.
Michiganders will soon have to contend with “public good” land grabs as Whitemer’s band of green energy barons build wind and solar farms through vast tracks of Michigan’s pristine woodlands to achieve these unreasonable goals.
Meeting the 50% renewable energy goal by 2030, and 60% five years later, will require a massive buildout of utility-scale renewable energy resources in Michigan.
Just over 17,000 acres (6,880 hectares) of land in the state are currently used for wind and solar generation, according to Dan Scripps, chairman of the Michigan Public Service Commission. Scripps told lawmakers during a Nov. 7 committee hearing that an additional 209,000 acres (84,579 hectares) of land will be needed for projects to hit the 60% renewable energy goal.
To achieve this, Michigan lawmakers will give the state’s Public Service Commission the authority to supersede local governments for the approval of these large projects.
The provision has quickly become the package’s most contentious element. A local government coalition, including the Michigan Association of Counties, has strongly opposed it, with the Michigan Township Association arguing it stifles the input of local officials and residents in communities where these facilities are set to operate for the next several decades.
Perhaps the most irksome aspect of Whitmer’s “carbon free” vision she intends to impose on the state is that she is not averse to using private jets. There was a bit of a scandal in 2021. She flew down to Florida three times in a private jet.
Democrat Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer took multiple trips to Florida while telling people in Michigan NOT to travel. She even specifically told them not to travel to Florida. She also asked a billionaire to provide his private jet! She should resign! https://t.co/jCJjLZHFkr
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) May 6, 2021
Doing the math, as I sometimes do here at Legal Insurrection, she took three 3-hour flights between the Great Lakes and the Sunshine State. Let’s say her planes used 200 gallons per hour for each hour of flight. That’s 1800 gallons of carbon-emitting gasoline right there! I use about 300 gallons of gasoline each year for what I do…So, her three trips put out as much carbon as six years of mine.
Suppose she campaigns for President at some point, which I strongly suspect she will do. In that case, I will keep track of the emissions from private just use and the hot air she will expel. I will explain the myriad of expensive failures and unintended consequences of buying into green energy pseudoscience.
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Comments
Too bad she didn’t sign a “Clean Elections” act as well.
Well, the people Michigan elected her.
If they want to freeze to death in the dark, that’s their business.
Detroit, Lancing, Ann Arbor and Dearbornastan did.
They didn’t necessarily elect her. There were enough votes for her to win. Ballots may not have been marked by the citizens of Michigan, and computer totals may have been fortified to ensure she would be in office. But never, ever question the outcome of elections if Democrats get enough votes to win.
They didn’t hide board up the mass central counting facility in Detroit, and deliver some unknown packages in the early morning hours, just for the fun of it. Georgia ain’t the only place that employed, shall we say, questionable counting procedures.
Probably stolen like the rest of the elections
She is such a witch
Cruella getting it done.
Did the people of Michigan elect her, or was it the same election fraud tactics.?
Idiotic nonsense from idiotic leftists.
She’s going to be out of office long before 2040. She doesn’t have to care that it’s impossible.
She will still be around to reap the whirlwind.
Whitmer will most likely move to warmer and more hospitable climes, boasting a reliable electrical grid and power production. Standard operating procedure for Dhimmi-crat apparatchiks, post-retirement — they don’t stick around to suffer the predictably deleterious consequences of their idiotic and destructive schemes. Consequences are for the peasants of the proletariat to suffer, exclusively.
Whitmer is driving people to desert Michigan, as are inner city trash, including a rapidly growing Pale population. Michigan has two volatile entitled groups.
Now would be a good time for her to make the first move and stop use of any petroleum byproducts. Her synthetic clothing she is wearing… made from petrochemicals. Her vehicles… made from petrochemicals.
Gretchen, you should lead the way. But I bet your sweet ass will be hiding in Florida by the time the first round of change is required.
I do hope that this dim bulb does not expect the American taxpayer to pay for her subsidies. This should fall completely and squarely on the backs of only Michigan voters.
Put your money where your pie hole is.
Not happening,..Libs never impose upon themselves what they inflict upon the rest of us
“Now would be a good time for her to make the first move and stop use of any petroleum byproducts.”
Whitmer’s one thing. If you forced Newsom to do that, he’d probably show up looking like Billy Preston.
One might think, with all the effort and expense, there would be some benefit to taxpayers, but one would be wrong. Taxpayers will get zero benefit. Nyet, nada, nothing, unless one considers a vastly more expensive and less reliable energy system, together with less economic opportunity, benefits.
So she followed it by signing fast-track permits for two dozen nuclear plants?
No?
“Just over 17,000 acres (6,880 hectares) of land in the state are currently used for wind and solar”
****
Recently read that Scotland has cut down 16 million trees for wind farms. Largest wind farm has deteriorated over the past 5-6 years so that it is ;;running at 40% of design out put. Insanity with a large dose of corruption, I suspect.
Most wind farms produce at approximately 30% to 35% of capacity
So the 40% would be much better than average
Wind operates at approximately 20% capacity in the winter and between 5-15% between 4:00am and 8:00am during the winter. Solar operates at approximately 8% -12% during the winter
Minnesota has a similar renewable law in place.
Try to keep your house warm in the winter wit no electricity and no gas
That’s her voter’s problem, not ours. When the large number of deaths occur from freezing temperatures, those dimwit Michigan voters will beg for a healthy dose of global warming.
But Gretchen will be living in Florida by then.
No … it’s our problem too. Just how long do you think it will take other states to follow her lead and do the same thing or worse? This shit spreads.
The 30%+ percent efficiency is what I have read., also..a very poor return on the copper and other materials that have t0 be mined, processed, produced, etc. with the negative effects that has on the environment. Don’t recall where I read the 40% current output but the impression that I got was that reflected a 60% reduction in electrical generation from when the system came on-line. IIRC, the reduction was mostly due to mechanical failures and costs of repair and routine service.
One of the big problems for wind is that when a low pressure system hits it tends to hit all of Northern Europe so that it pretty much doesn’t matter how interconnected your ground unicorn horn power generation system is right across Europe as everyone is suffering under the same low pressure system!
Secondly one of the brain dead arguments used against fracking is the need to build pipes to get the gas to where it needs to go. It’s hilarious the same people NEVER us the same argument about windfarms, which are always built away from public infrastructure (houses) and ALWAYS need transmission lines to get electricity from the, generally, remote windfarm location to someone who might actually use the electricity generated (but only during the day and when the wind is blowing).
And that’s without getting in to mirror generates electricity 😂
Someone is getting rich and it ain’t taxpayers and ratepayers.
My wife & I own an EV. We’re lucky insomuch that we have several cars, so owning what’s nothing more than a novelty is fine. I mostly drive it only to the office and back, a few miles round trip. But, we were feeling adventurous and decided to take the EV from the Middle TN up into Michigan for a wedding this summer in northern Michigan. It was an absolute disaster. There is no place to charge EVs in the Midwest unless you’re driving a Tesla (we weren’t).
While it was a gigantic inconvenience traversing Ohio (with some places to charge in Cincy), they’re WHOLLY impractical in Michigan once you’re past Ann Arbor/DTW. At this rate of build-out, they’re going to need another three decades of infrastructure development to make them even remotely practical.
And it’s not a 1/1 replacement of be EV charging station for one gas station, but currently 5x-10x on the EV side.
Right. This is something that NEVER really gets discussed in the media. Because of the nature of charging vs gas stations, they’re simply going to need more of them…or significantly larger stations. IOW, they’re going to need more commercial real estate. They’re also going to need expanded electric service to those stations. I’ve passed PLENTY of charging stations that seem to be fully built-out. But, they’re not open yet because they’re waiting for the local power company to upgrade the available service and some have been waiting for a year or more. A Supercharger – Tesla or some other company’s – requires an INSANE amount of electricity, the same kind of electricity that a medium-sized industrial plant might use.
Thomas Massie pointed out that a single charge of his Tesla motor runs his entire house for three days.
And the car for a few hours.
But they can use diesel charging stations until then.
If people are going to drive EVs they should hybrids. I suspect that EVs will lose vale at a high rate, so like picking up power companies solar panels, EVs, especially hybrids may make sense.
My memory is that MI gets pretty cold and dark in the winter. I had two generations (Grandfather & G grand) die in FL, and the third (GG Grand) die in Pasadena, and their bodies shipped back to MI for burial in the family plot. There is a shed in the cemetery there where bodies are stored through the winter, until the ground unfreezes enough to bury everyone stored in the shed over the winter. And the snow, augmented by Lake Effect off of Lake Michigan, sometimes piles deep enough that the tunnels they dig to get around are more than 6’ deep.
And they want to heat and power this state through the winter with solar and wind?
Bruce – how are y going to heat you house in the winter- it ain’t going to be pretty
Read my comments sbove
I have no problem with Michigan regressing to pre-industrial revolution technology and economy. Just fortify the borders so that they cannot get out.
Subotai Bahadur
That’s a naive position … it’s your problem too … MI did it … now other states will follow their lead.
Republicans win if it’s only men voting, is the usual voting analysis.
The majority of voting women, unfortunately, love abortion. They salivate over all abortion all the time. I don’t understand this fixation on death but I also can’t understand why any thinking person would support the Hamas animals
Because thinking doesn’t enter the picture. Feelings do.
I haz a question.
How can a state regulate an article of manufacture or trade that moves in interstate commerce?
Article One, section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To…regulate Commerce…among the several States…
Congress has exclusive legislative jurisdiction over interstate commerce to prevent the States from mucking it up with a crazy-quilt of their own regulations, to prevent trade wars between States and between blocks of States, and to prevent states from favoring their own manufacturers and farmers by interfering with movement and sale of goods from other States. (Indeed, California has regulations that extend its authority into other States, affecting the production processes of businesses in those states, and I’m not referring to its auto-emission regulations. More on that below.)
There’s a dubious (IMHO) legal theory that says the States can regulate articles of commerce unless or until Congress decides to exercise its authority to do so, at which point Congress’ authority become exclusive. (The same theory should apply as applies to border control. Congress has authority to make legislation regulating our borders and immigration, and does so. And hasn’t the federal government said – and enforced its claim in court – that its authority over same precludes the ability of a State to exercise any such authority?)
So what about CA’s auto-emission regulations? Do they not disprove the idea that Congress’ authority over interstate commerce is exclusive? No. In fact, quite the contrary. California has a cut-out from Congress, allowing it to make and enforce its own emission standards, without which California would not be able to enforce such regulations. (Trump, at one point during his presidency, threatened to withdraw the permission.)
It seems to me that all State regulations that affect (or outright ban) the manufacture, transportation, and/or sale of items that move in interstate commerce are unconstitutional. (I’ve been waiting for years for some bright attorney to bring this up with respect to the firearms regulations of many states.) These interfering regulations are doing exactly what the commerce clause was intended to prevent – creating a crazy-quilt of regulations and making interstate commerce irregular (rather than “regular”).
The commerce clause allows the federal government to regulate interstate commerce. It doesn’t prevent the state from regulating commerce in its own state . ( with the caveat that the state regulations can’t preempt federal law. Hope that answers the question.
Michigan is “regulating commerce” like abortion is “reproductive health care”.
Regulating commerce doesn’t mean that the state has total control over all commerce. That is just crazy.
No, it does not answer the question.
You offered two statements.
First, that a State can regulate commerce within its own borders. Second, that so long as a State’s regulation isn’t more restrictive than the federal government’s, it’s permissible.
It seems you’ve confirmed my thesis. Michigan can’t regulate fossil fuels out of existence, because doing so would be more restrictive than federal regulations concerning fossil fuels. But why is this so? Because Congress’ has authority over fossil fuels (and over a State’s authority to regulate them) through the commerce clause.
States can’t prevent interstate commerce by banning a legally-manufactured article from sale within its borders by blocking it from entry or sale. California’s auto emission law is a ban – on the sale of new cars that don’t meet the State’s emission requirements. And we know California sought and received Congress’ permission to impose its emissions law. This strongly implies that such permission is necessary to ban any article that moves legally in interstate commerce, such as fossil fuels and AR-15s. If permission isn’t necessary, why did California seek it? If Congress’ authority in the matter isn’t superior to that of the States, why and how did it issue the permission? California obviously believed that it needed permission and that Congress had the authority to extend it. I’m going to run with that until it’s shown that California sought permission it didn’t need from a Congress that didn’t have the authority to grant it. Bans on articles that legally move in interstate commerce plainly interfere with Congress’ authority over interstate commerce. If every state banned the sale of an article legally imported into the US under federal law, they’d be preventing the article from moving in interstate commerce. To argue that’s OK means that the States can thwart Congress’ clear authority under the Constitution. I’d argue that’s not OK. I’d argue it’s unconstitutional. Congress determines what can, and what can’t, move in interstate commerce. Once it’s made a decision to permit an article to move in interstate commerce, no state can lawfully prevent its sale within its borders. (A State ban on an article that is not banned by Congress is regulation exceeding the stringency of federal regulation, which you have indicated is forbidden, and I concur.) The States agreed to this when they ratified the Constitution (or joined the Union). They surrendered any authority they may have had to make this decision for themselves. The purpose of the commerce clause was not just to give the authority to Congress, it was also to deny same to the states, knowing how they’d use it to muck things up (very much as States have done exactly that with firearms).
Actually states are doing that right now, ie, some states do not allow shipments of alcohol and ammunition from outside the state to residents
Under the Articles of Confederation the states enacted all kinds of tariffs and other obstacles making it hard to do business across state lines. It is often cited as one of the main reasons why the government created by the Articles of Confederation failed.
The original intent of the Constitution’s commerce clause was to address this issue. They wanted to make it EASIER to conduct commerce, especially across state lines. The definition of the word “regulate” as used in the commerce clause meant “to make regular”. The goal was to make commerce “regular” across state lines.
Again, the point was to make it EASIER to do business across state lines.
The intentional misinterpretation of one word in the commerce clause – “regulate” – was done to give the government the power to create bureaucracies staffed with unelected bureaucrats who exist to dictate HOW property owners must use their own property.
Oh puh-leeezzzzzz!
The Commerce clause only applies to wheat grown in your back yard for private use, never to leave your property.
Ur was never meant to regulate commerce between the states.
Don’t believe me, ask the Supreme Court.
/s
This is completely illegal. No government has the right to make these sorts of dictats on the public and private business.
If America doesn’t put a sure stop to all of this junk there will be absolutely nothing left. This is insane.
This is so absurd that it is almost a joke. She not only DOESN’T have that power but there is no way to enforce it since the police cars will be petroleum-burning cars. But it is the voters in MI who elected this witch so let them eat cake.
Every scumbag politician lies with this phrase bar none.
“We will make American energy with American workers earning family-sustaining wages,”
With luck the idiots in the UAW will realize their jobs are going away and will vote with a bit of intelligence and make Michigan rino again. I say rino because few of them are conservative.
I sure hope she has a major heart attack and the ambulance taking her to the hospital runs out of juice right behind a ripe garbage truck.
Windmills should do really well in the cold of Michigan … Windmill repair companies are going to go through the roof!!
If you’re unlucky, so will the blades.
She’s an idiot.
This will accelerate the relocation of auto makers out of michigan to other states.
Whitmer is just emulating her idol, Joe. She’s passing as many laws as she can to cheapen and ruin the American Dream.
In addition to this one, she just signed a law that says if you commit the nonviolent misdemeanor of entering your domestic partner’s unoccupied ice shanty without her permission, you lose your right to own firearms.
Not a joke.
I lived in Dewitt Mi for 13 years. It is my understanding that almost every home in the Lansing/Dewitt area are heated with NG. At the time I lived there heating my home was about 150 a month (moved south in 2007)
Heat pumps do not work efficiently in MI from end of October until at least March. the nights are too cold for them to work well. And it was common for homes to put in high efficiency furnaces as their older models wore out.
what she as essentially done if forced people to go from the second least expensive and second most efficient heating system to restive heat in the winter. which in knowingly the most inefficient and expensive heat generation there is.
Hope Michiganders are ready for those $700 to $1000 electric bills in the winter.
Elect a Democrat, suffer the consequences,….some people never learn
Can’t help thinking about the Nebraska solar farm that was destroyed by hail this summer.
I wonder what the full cost of this boondoggle will be and how it will be paid.
…and how much goes into her purse.
I’d call Frau Whitmer, “Mussolini in heels,” but that would be insulting…Mussolini.