Michigan governmental agencies will spend more than $150,000 to hold a conference on climate-related policies in April. The policies likely to be discussed will, however, have little effect on the climate, according to a university-based scientist.

Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy will hold its 2025 Healthy Climate Conference on April 22-23 at the Huntington Place in Detroit. The department’s plans call for the state to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

Speakers will discuss the transition to electric vehicles, how to decarbonize cities, clean the electric grid, and reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, according to a website for the conference.

All of these things would increase the cost of electricity while hurting reliability, Michigan Capitol Confidential has reported.

Grand Rapids, the state’s second-largest city, urges residents to drive less, use less energy, and switch to driving electric vehicles. Other cities enacting climate change policies include East Lansing, Jackson, Muskegon, Sterling Heights and Warren. Some cities are receiving members of a state-financed climate action corps who have fanned out across the state to help local governments develop their own plans.

Any laws and programs enacted to promote carbon neutrality or solar and wind energy would have almost no impact on the climate but would hurt the reliability of current energy supplies, CapCon has reported.

Michigan’s energy costs are already high for its region. But state officials continue to advocate their climate and energy policy. “We are dedicated to reaching our interim 2030 goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 52% from 2005 baselines in an equitable manner,” the state’s environmental policy department said.

The department will host a one-and-a-half-day MI Healthy Climate Conference to report on the progress of the MI Healthy Michigan plan. This conference is expected to draw more than 800 attendees.

Attendees must pay between $50 and $225 to attend.

The expected cost of the conference is $152,246, according to an email CapCon obtained through a records request.

Attendance fees total $32,400 while sponsorship revenue totaled $17,000, James A. Ostrowski, who manages outreach for the environmental agency, wrote to CapCon in a March 19 email.

The state’s climate plan faces challenges.

The MI Healthy Climate plan calls for 2 million electric vehicles driving on state roads in five years. Right now, there are about 50,000 electric vehicles registered statewide.

Michigan aims to draw 100% of its energy come from renewable sources by 2040.

In 2023 renewable energy, mostly from wind turbines, provided 11% of Michigan’s total in-state net generation of electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The state of Michigan will miss its goal of having net-zero emissions by 2050, said John R. Christy, distinguished professor of atmospheric and earth sciences and state climatologist at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Michigan consumes too much power to rely solely on renewable energy, Christy wrote in an email to CapCon. It consumes almost five times more energy than it produces, and it ranks 10th nationwide in population and total energy consumption, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Sponsors of the Detroit conference included EGLE, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, the Michigan Infrastructure Office, the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Treasury, and the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, according to the conference website.

A project that was promised $259 million in subsidies from Michigan taxpayers has violated state environmental laws before it has begun building, according to an April 8 violation notice.

The Michigan Department of Energy, Great Lakes, and Environment issued a violation notice to the company Maple & Hill LLC, which is preparing an area larger than 1,100 acres — more than 10 times the size of California's Disneyland — for sale to a mystery buyer. The company is doing the work for the Flint & Genesee Economic Alliance, which has so far received $139 million from the people of Michigan.

“EGLE advises all unauthorized activities occurring within regulated areas on this property stop,” the notice reads, instructing the developer to respond by May 5.

Courtesy of EGLE

The environmental agency inspected the site on March 18 and found the developer violated Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resources Environmental Protection Act.

The developer installed a culvert and filled in the Lizard Valley Drain (a stream) to construct a stream crossing, placed rock fill in the Lizard Valley Drain to construct a check dam, and cut and removed vegetation along the Lizard Valley Drain and Warner Drain. All this happened, the state said, without the company having obtained the required permits.

Courtesy of EGLE

Michiganders accused of violating wetland laws can face a fine of $25,000 per day, Michigan Capitol Confidential reported in April.

The developer must complete the land preparation by May 2, 2028, in order to get the taxpayer money, Don Ludwig, a megasite neighbor, told Michigan Capitol Confidential in a phone interview.

Ludwig has a keen interest in the site. That’s because he was involved in one of Michigan's most notorious cases of eminent domain. In 1981 the city of Detroit and General Motors seized his family home in Poletown, a 4,000-person community razed in 1981 to build an auto plant.

“My grandma was handcuffed to the porch,” said Ludwig, who was 12 at the time.

Locals residents sued and took the case to the Michigan Supreme Court, which ruled 5-2 for General Motors in Poletown Neighborhood Council v. City of Detroit.

In 2004, the Michigan Supreme Court overturned that ruling.

Ludwig said he won’t be pressured out of his home twice.

“They don’t have a buyer, but they’re destroying the farmland, taking everyone’s homes,” Ludwig said. “I’ll be the last one standing.”

Locals are concerned about how the megasite will affect water quality, Ludwig said. Day care centers, a church, a school, and several subdivisions sit across the street from the megasite.

CapCon has asked the economic development group how much water it plans to use each day. It has not responded.

The megasite can’t legally seize Ludwig’s home via eminent domain, Patrick Wright, Vice President for Legal Affairs of Mackinac Center for Public Policy, told CapCon in a phone interview. He cited a 2006 ballot proposal that 80% of Michigan voters approved.

The state forbids taking private property in the name of economic development and transferring it to a private entity.

The Flint & Genesee Economic Alliance is committed to protecting Michigan’s land, air, and water, the organization’s executive director, Tyler Rossmaessler, told CapCon in an email.

“We continue to work closely with Genesee County and the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) to ensure our local and state partners have information and insights they need about our efforts to follow policies and procedures and protect this area while also developing a site that attracts a job-creating project,” Rossmaessler wrote.

The $259 million of taxpayer money should go to efforts that help Genesee County residents, like fixing the roads and infrastructure, Erin Mooney, another neighbor of the Mundy megasite, told CapCon in a phone interview.

“If there’s $259 million spent and there’s no buyer, then what? Depending on how far they get with the site prep, now you can’t farm the land and there’s no factory with these alleged jobs,” Mooney said. “But if you don’t have a buyer, how do you know how many jobs there will be?”