LANSING – Saying some businesses have indicated they would come to Michigan if only the state had a higher renewable portfolio standard, House Democrats on Monday announced they will introduce legislation upping the current 10 percent by 2015 threshold to 30 percent by 2025.

In a series of press conferences held across the state, Democrats and environmental groups pointed to a U.S. Department of Energy report that Michigan is one of the top four states that could create more than 30,000 manufacturing jobs in the wind sector, as well as the Michigan Green Jobs Report released in May that showed green-related jobs are increasing by 7.7 percent while other Michigan companies are losing jobs at a rate of 5.4 percent.

While the RPS and energy efficiency measures adopted into law last fall were a “good first step,” Rep. Pam Byrnes (D-Chelsea) said, “We can’t afford to let these alternative energy jobs go to other states,” like Ohio, which has a 25 percent by 2025 standard.

But given that Michigan’s law was adopted less than a year ago and utilities such as Consumers Energy got their orders in May from the Public Service Commission regarding their renewable and energy efficiency programs, spokesperson Jeff Holyfield said it was premature for lawmakers to go about rewriting the law.

Holyfield said while Michigan’s current standard is rigid, Consumers has already started its investment into expanding its wind megawatt capacity and just rolled out its energy efficiency program to customers on Monday. The legislation calls for utilities to decrease consumer usage by 2 percent each year; the current law requires a 5.5 percent threshold by 2015.

The legislation would not change the utility rate hikes residential customers are seeing under the current law, which is phasing out the subsidy business customers were paying for home power use. Asked about how this package would gel with state Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer’s proposal to cut utility bills by 20 percent across the board, Rep. Mark Meadows (D-East Lansing) said he wasn’t touching that issue with a “10 foot pole.”

Meadows said the caucus’ focus with this package, some of which will be introduced in the coming weeks, is to make Michigan both the place for generating cleaner energy and for manufacturing the products that make that possible.

“We have the ability to make this our industry,” he said.

Raising the RPS will not only create the market for renewable energy, he said, but will allow companies that come here for that to branch out and export their products to other states and countries.

But House Minority Leader Kevin Elsenheimer (R-Kewadin) said, “The Democrat claims of economic benefits from green jobs are questionable and don’t address Michigan’s most pressing need to stimulate the economy and help create jobs now.”

The package also includes measures to extend tax credits to solar energy companies, exempt wind energy systems and wind turbines from the personal property tax, provide tax incentives for people to generate energy that can be sold back to the grid and require the Department of Environmental Quality adopt a standard to reduce carbon outputs 10 percent by 2020.

Two bills also in the package, HB 4756 and HB 4575 , would require the state adopt the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code and allow local governments to adopt “green building” codes part of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).

But Bob Filkas, chief operating officer for the Michigan Association of Home Builders, said the state already has a process in place for adopting the international energy code.

“This is showboating. There is no reason to do this,” he said.

He said the group opposes mandating adopting the code without a way to modify its provisions to meet Michigan’s needs, such as a recent move by the commission to reject the requirement that all new homes have fire sprinklers. Filkas said the current process is nearly two-thirds of the way complete.

As for locals adopting green building codes, Filkas said his organization also opposes that because the state went to a single system in order to have a standard approach for building codes.

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