That’s why I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting my amendment to delay the implementation of this bill until January 1, 2025. That way everyone, including the people sitting in this chamber, can get a better handle on these bills rather than rushing through and rather than relying on the talking points of Green New Deal activists and hope for the best.
Senator Nesbitt’s statement is as follows:
Mr. President, the backers of this Green New Deal scheme that’ll raise prices and decrease reliability insist our state can produce enough of this renewable energy to meet this government mandate and that Michiganders’ lights and heat will turn on when they need to. My amendment’s very simple. It will help make sure they actually do. MISO, which manages the flow of energy across 15 states and some provinces including Michigan—my amendment simply requires that the new mandates in this bill will not take effect until MISO has done a proper determination that will in fact—these bills will produce enough energy to maintain a healthy grid in our state. Michiganders have experienced more than enough power outages in recent years and our prices continue to go up. I ask for support of my amendment that will ensure they don’t have to endure these power outages more frequently.
Senator Singh’s statement is as follows:
I’m pleased to rise today to support Senate Bill No. 273. When I joined the Legislature in the State House in 2013, one of the first bills I introduced was a bill to look at energy waste reduction—energy efficiency. Obviously the energy you do not use is the savings for everyone. It reduces the amount of need for electricity from our providers and electrification throughout the system. I was pleased that in 2016 we were able to create a standard of 1 percent toward energy efficiency. Now I’m proud to say that many years later, we are here increasing that percentage. We have shown working with our providers that we can provide energy efficiency that saves money for all of our residents. Today we’re going to be voting on a bill that increases the energy efficiency rate to 1.5 percent and provides a goal for our utilities to be at 2 percent. This is now an opportunity for us to help our citizens across the state save dollars and resources. I’m also proud that we now have been working with our co-ops as well as our municipal entities and now every citizen will have access to energy efficiency opportunities.
Also, within our negotiations we wanted to ensure that equity was at the cornerstone and we also now have for the first time in this state’s history a minimum spend of 25 percent going into low-income communities. This is now an opportunity for us to help those who are struggling the most to be able to save on their energy. We do that in a variety of ways—by allowing the energy efficiency program to grow but also to work with their homes through the building envelope as well as heat pumps and other types of technologies. This is a proven program that has worked.
We’re one of the top three states in the country for energy efficiency and this will only build on that. I am proud today to be presenting this bill and providing my “yes” vote. I encourage my colleagues to join me in voting to help our citizens save dollars and resources on their energy bills.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 519, entitled
A bill to provide for the adjustment of transition-impacted workers into new industries; to create the community and worker economic transition office in the department of labor and economic opportunity; to allow the creation of certain advisory committees; to make certain appropriations; and to provide for the powers and duties of certain state governmental officers and entities.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: