LANSING – A plan to slash use of coal-fired electric plants, encourage homeowners and small businesses to install energy-saving measures such as furnaces and new windows, weatherize 100,000 homes, change rate-setting standards to reward small-scale solar/wind energy production and a push to upgrade the electric grid were outlined by Governor Jennifer Granholm in her State of the State address on Tuesday.
As part of the “45 by 20” plan to reduce the state’s reliance on imported fossil fuel by 45 percent by the year 2020, the governor said in her address to the Legislature that the Public Service Commission and Department of Environmental Quality will take a harder look at proposals for new coal-fired plants, with officials saying it will mean permit delays, but not a moratorium, and some plants not expected to be built. The state now gets about 75 percent of its power from imported coal- and natural gas-fired plants.
The proposals expand the focus by the governor on energy and alternative energy as a way to reshape and diversify Michigan’s struggling economy, and administration officials said they dovetail with plans being developed by President Barack Obama.
Jennifer Alverado, executive director of the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association, lauded Granholm’s call for more clean technology in Michigan future. (See related story MITechNews.Com
Granholm only touched on the expected federal stimulus plan in her speech, titled Priorities for Michigan’s Economic Future: Jobs, Education and Protecting Families, because it is still under debate, but pledged it would not be used to expand government.
Granholm is also asking auto insurers to freeze rates for a year while new proposals on affordable insurance are studied.
As in virtually all of Granholm’s seven State of the State addresses, the economy weighed heavily on what the state can continue to offer, and Ms. Granholm laid the groundwork for “painful” budget cuts that will be submitted next week. That includes cuts in corrections with the closure of three more prisons.
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“Any honest assessment of our state’s economy has to recognize that things are likely to get worse before they get better. But if there is one thing I want you, the citizens of Michigan, to know this evening, it is this: Things will get better,” Granholm said. In part, that is because of programs being unfolded by Obama that match Michigan’s economic plans, she added.
And while Michigan long-standing economic troubles mean it is not in as bad of a shape as many states, Granholm said, “The days when our government could be all things to all people are behind us.”
Already made public were her plans this year to slim down government by cutting the number of departments beginning with the Department of History, Arts and Libraries and having Lt. Governor John Cherry lead a study to identify more efficiencies, hand off wetland permitting to the federal government, cut elected officials’ pay by 10 percent and ask colleges and universities to freeze tuition for a year.
She did have good news to share as well, however, confirming plans by three companies to build film $156 million in production facilities in Michigan as a result of generous tax breaks approved by the Legislature last year. They would be in Pontiac, Detroit and Plymouth and create some 4,000 jobs.
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