In America’s manufacturing Heartland – a move is afoot to vault Michigan into leadership in renewable energy. The usual suspects are agin’ it. But small business people love the idea.
Michigan small business owners overwhelmingly support increasing the state’s renewable energy standard to 25 percent by 2025, according to opinion polling released by Small Business Majority. Nearly eight in 10 (79 percent) Michigan small businesses support setting standards that require utilities to meet a certain percentage of energy demand through renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and bio-fuels (for example, requiring a 25 percent target in renewable fuels by 2025). A state initiative that would require Michigan to have 25 percent of its electric energy produced by renewable resources by 2025 is expected to be on the November ballot.
Michigan small business owners also strongly support government investments in clean energy and believe such investments have an important role in creating jobs and boosting the economy—even if it means an increase in utility costs.
Other findings from the poll include:
- 86 percent of respondents support EPA rules to reduce the emissions of mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel and acid gases from new and existing power plants. More than half (53 percent) strongly support it.
- 74 percent of small business owners favor proposed rules to reduce smog and soot pollution that crosses state lines (the “Good Neighbor Rule”)
- 77 percent of Michigan small business owners believe government should play an important role in creating financial incentives that encourage people to take energy efficiency measures, like installing energy efficient light bulbs. Almost eight out of 10 business owners believe government should provide incentives through funding and policy efforts.
- 65 percent of Michigan small business owners are willing to install solar panels or some other source of clean energy and 57 percent are willing to switch to hybrid or electric vehicles
- Small business owners polled were politically diverse: 39 percent identified as Republican, 38 percent as Democrat, 10 percent as independent and 13 percent as “other.
When the right-wing loudly informs the Michigan voters that the small business owners are “anti-business” how do you think it’ll go?
Charles,
I ran into the same thing when I was a member of the Small Business section of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. You can be assured that the multinationals will have no problem completely disregarding the small business owners in their media propaganda campaigns against renewable energy. The focus will be on costs to rate payers and images of research scientists working on clean coal and emission-reducing natural gas. It will be a lovely picture devoid of any relationship to reality.
The propagandists will prove to be equally as talented at dropping an invisibility cloak over the Small Business Majority survey as J.K. Rowling was at “invisibilizing” Harry Potter.
In mid-2011 California passed the most ambitious renewable energy legislation in the nation. The gist of it is a demand for 33% renewables by 2020. The devil is in the details, as they say.
http://tinyurl.com/75yw9du
The California Renewable Energy Resources Act explained by the former G.M. of LADWP
Select quotes:
“…. The passage of SB X 1-2 further underscores California’s dominance with respect to environmental initiatives, which are rapidly becoming viewed here as indistinguishable from economic growth policies. While the Federal government remains paralyzed on energy matters, California is forging ahead. Last year, for the first time, China surpassed the U.S. in renewable energy investment and other countries are progressing at a more aggressive pace than the U.S. These trends signal the erosion of U.S. leadership, a vacuum that the individual States, led by California, are moving to fill….”
“… SB X 1-2 symbolizes California’s environmental preeminence and represents a triumph for California. However, the law is also painfully complicated, a product of its delicate dance between competing priorities…”
‘…. First, the law requires the Department of Fish and Game to establish an “internal division with the primary purpose of performing comprehensive planning and environmental compliance services with priority given to [renewables] projects…” Whether this division will be able to simplify permitting processes, overcome NIMBYism, and combat the growing practice of misusing environmental regulations to derail renewables projects, remains to be seen. What appears certain is that ways must be found to reduce regulatory impediments without sacrificing environmental protections….”
Ray again. It seems that this bill is honeycombed with waivers, exceptions, loopholes and work-arounds. It remains to be seen what the actual energy portfolio of the State of California will look like in 2020.
Ray,
Congratulations on your success – against a mighty foe. SB X 1-2 specifics will evolve, one way or the other, along with public opinion and costs.
Is CA’s PUC web site the best place to follow how they’re implementing the guidelines?
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/Renewables/
Charles,
FYI, I moved to Bend, OR from San Francisco in the late 1990s, so my Cali info is to be taken with a grain of salami.
As far as the CPUC, when the huge Ken Lay/ENRON driven fraud called the California Blackout occurred a decade ago, the Commissioner of the CPUC was one of the very most vociferous of spokespersons for sanity and de-bunking the private utility bunkum about what was really at the root of the energy shortages. (Hint: It was trader collusion all the way.)
Generally, I find government websites a bit obtuse as far as being lively information sources.
Just off the top of the noggin’ I can say that a San Francisco based consumer advocacy group called T.U.R.N., or The Utility Reform Network, has been a good source for me in the past:
http://www.turn.org/
S. David Freeman is an energy wonk. He served as the G.M. of LADWP during the Cali Blackout years and made a ton of money for that public utility. He’s had lots of exceptionally wise things to say over the years about energy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._David_Freeman
Robert McCullogh is a Portland, OR based energy consultant and a “white hat” type. I discovered his writing during that same fake energy crisis a decade ago. Anything he has to say is worth taking a peek at. He’s a straight-shooter and highly informed.
http://www.mresearch.com/press.html