A two-bill package that will give the Michigan Public Service Commission the final say in siting large solar and wind projects in Michigan has advanced to the full Senate.

If the bills are enacted into law, about 0.5% of Michigan’s acreage could be permitted for wind and solar projects.

The Senate Energy and Environment Committee on Tuesday approved amended versions of House bills 5120 and 5121. The House passed the bills last week.

As Michigan implements Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s MI Healthy Climate plan, planners have run into one consistent problem: local communities that reject large-scale solar fields and wind turbines. Under the bills, as amended by the committee, local communities could only reject these projects in the event of incomplete paperwork, lawmakers said.

If a local government rejects a project for any other reason, the developer could present it to the Michigan Public Service Commission for approval. Local communities would have no veto. That would reside with the commission, whose three members are appointed by the governor.

Dan Scripps, chairman of the commission, testified at Tuesday’s meeting. He said it was necessary to vest the commission with these powers to meet Michigan’s clean energy goals.

About 17,000 acres in Michigan were now covered by wind and solar infrastructure, Scripps said. On the high end, that number could balloon to about 209,000 acres, he said.

“The highest number in terms of the amount of acreage of direct land use under a high-growth scenario, again, is about 209,393 acres of new land,” Scripps testified. “That's a big number. But in context, it represents about 0.55% of Michigan's total projected or total area. And so it’s a significant growth — and I am not here to pretend otherwise — over what’s in place today. But it's still about one-half of 1% of Michigan's total land.”

The committee approved the bill by an 8-5 vote along party lines. One lawmaker, Sen. Rosemary Bayer, D-West Bloomfield, passed.

To be enacted into law, both bills would need to be passed in identical forms by the House and Senate and be signed by Whitmer.

Both houses of the Michigan Legislature have passed a bill that admits the state’s energy transition will cost people their jobs.

Senate Bill 519 must now be passed in identical form by both houses before heading to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk.

As the House Fiscal Agency explains:

Senate Bill 519 would create a new act, the Community and Worker Economic Transition Act, to provide for the creation of a state entity to develop a plan regarding, and coordinate efforts addressing, the impact on workers and communities of the societal and economic shift away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy resources.

Read it for yourself: Senate Bill 519 of 2023

Democrats in the Legislature have portrayed Michigan’s energy transition as market-driven, as a “societal and economic shift away from fossil fuels.” 

When the Senate debated bill 519 last week, Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, said that “anybody who is trying to convince you that it is a mandated transition is lying.”

But a minute prior, McMorrow admitted the role of government in the transition from gas engines to electric vehicles.

“The reality is that more than a dozen countries around the world, including the population of most industrialized nations have already determined that they will be phasing out internal combustion vehicles within a few years,” McMorrow said. “Maybe within the next five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years.”

McMorrow added: “If every country has determined that they will no longer be allowing the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles, what prosperity exists if there are no customers left to sell your products to?”

Sen. Sam Singh, D-East Lansing, sponsored the bill. He has pushed back at suggestions that the new office is duplicative of MichiganWorks, arguing MichiganWorks is different because it’s local in focus. Singh argues that a statewide solution is needed for a statewide problem.

The bill identifies three groups likely to be affected: auto workers, construction workers and energy workers.

Last week, Michigan lawmakers passed Senate Bill 271, mandating that utilities such as DTE and Consumers run on 100% clean energy by 2040.