The condition of Michigan’s roads is better than had been projected for 2021. They would be in even better shape if Gov. Gretchen Whitmer hadn’t cut road spending after the Legislature refused to enact a major gas tax hike she had proposed. The governor also authorized $800 million in road repair debt, repayment of which will reduce money available for future repairs.

“Lawmakers had gotten close to the point where roads are put back together faster than they fall apart,” said James Hohman, director of fiscal policy at Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “But the governor’s insistence that the last step be made with a tax hike suspended the progress made to improve road conditions.”

Meanwhile, Michigan’s place in national rankings for highway performance and cost-effectiveness had advanced from 30th in the nation in 2019 to 24th in 2020, according to the Reason Foundation’s Annual Highway Report.

Whitmer had insisted that additional road funding come through a 45-cent per gallon gas tax increase, a proposal so unpopular that no member of her own party introduced it as a bill in the state House or Senate.

A much smaller gas tax hike and vehicle registration tax increase enacted in 2015 had put the state on a path to spending $3.6 billion on road repairs in 2018-19, up from $2.0 billion in 2010-2011.

Hohman said the state still wasn’t fixing road faster than they deteriorate, but it was close.

In 2011, a measure of state and local road quality found 65% were in good or fair shape. But without more resources, transportation officials expected a gradual decline to just 45%. That level of decline did not happen, though, because lawmakers found more resources — just not enough to halt the rate of deterioration entirely.

At the current level of annual spending, the quality of Michigan’s roads is expected to stay about the same.

During Whitmer’s time in office, annual state spending on road repairs is down $43 million. The $800 million for road repairs the governor used her authority to borrow will generate some $565 million in interest expenses going forward, representing money that will go to government bond holders rather than concrete and asphalt.

Existing laws give Whitmer the authority add an additional $2.7 billion in road debt.

Despite the short-term boost provided by borrowed road repair money, projections for 2032 indicate Michigan roads will deteriorate to the point where 46% are deemed to be in “poor” condition, according to Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council.

Utility companies Consumers Energy and DTE  Energy earned $2.1 billion in profits last year. But that isn’t stopping Consumers from asking for more money from its customers in Michigan.

During the 2020-21 pandemic, when many people lost their jobs and couldn’t pay their bills, Consumers Energy requested a 14% rate increase that would bring in an additional $244 million. Attorney General Dana Nessel intervened, and the rate hike was cut to an increase of $90.2 million. It went into effect Jan. 1, 2021.

But the regional monopoly is now asking the Michigan Public Service Commission for a rate hike of an additional $225 million. Residential customers’ rates would increase 9%, according to the attorney general. Consumers Energy Spokesman Brian Wheeler defended the rate increase, saying rate requests is a standard procedure the company goes through every other year, according to ABC 12 News. Yet the latest request for increase comes less than three months after the January hike went into effect.

Consumers Energy and Detroit Energy also support collecting $250 million in new state grants. At a House Appropriations Committee, a representative of Detroit Energy said the money will be used for underserved and unserved communities to assist with the infrastructure to transition to natural gas.

Wayne Kohley of the Michigan Propane Gas Association testified during the hearing that the $250 million allocation is a corporate handout, according MIRS News. Although propane and natural gas have the same carbon emissions, he said, it appears that the larger utilities are picked as winners by the government while the propane industry continues to lose customers.

On top of the rate hikes and increase funding from taxpayers, Consumers Energy recently announced plans to institute higher rates for electricity during peak seasonal hours.

Beginning June 1 through Sept. 30, a consumer will now pay 1.5 times higher rates than off-peak hourly rates on weekdays from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. These are the hours when more energy tends to be used. Off-peak rate prices during the summer months will be the same rate a consumer pays October through May.

The utility’s residential rates have gone up 35.5% overall from 2009 to 2018, according to Lansing State Journal.

Garrick Rochow was recently named CEO of CMS Energy and made $2,003,420 in 2019 when working as the executive vice president. Consumers Energy is the primary subsidiary of CMS Energy.