Energy
Health
History
Justice
Land
Water
Promoting Clean Energy
The Opportunity
To compete in the 21st Century, Michigan must look forward and power up a new economy.
The demand for technologies that lessen our dependence on out-of-state fuels, slash emissions of dangerous pollutants, and reduce global warming is growing exponentially. With Michigan’s manufacturing infrastructure, skilled workforce and outstanding research universities, we are poised to prosper by meeting that demand. According to the Renewable Energy Policy Project, Michigan ranks 7th in the nation in its potential to manufacture components used in renewable power systems (wind, solar, etc.). If our state and nation invest in renewable energy, Michigan could attract 35,000 new jobs and $5.53 billion in capital in that sector alone. It would also slash part of the $23 billion annually sent by Michigan residents to other states and nations to buy fuels like coal and oil. Forward-looking public policies on energy efficiency and renewable power can turn Michigan's green economic potential into gold.
The Challenge
Some of the most powerful players in Lansing and Washington, DC are defending our dirty, outdated energy system with all the political muscle they can muster.
The utilities, fossil fuel producers, and to some degree our automakers, are among the biggest obstacles to progress. Poll after poll show overwhelming majorities -- across political divides -- support major change on energy policy. To reinforce this support, MEC is rallying a broad coalition of environmental, business, consumer, faith and public health leaders. While much remains to be done, MEC's effective advocacy is helping to tip the balance of power and inspire state leaders to lift Michigan onto the crest of the clean energy wave.
MEC Energy Priorities
The Opportunity
To compete in the 21st Century, Michigan must look forward and power up a new economy.
The demand for technologies that lessen our dependence on out-of-state fuels, slash emissions of dangerous pollutants, and reduce global warming is growing exponentially. With Michigan’s manufacturing infrastructure, skilled workforce and outstanding research universities, we are poised to prosper by meeting that demand. According to the Renewable Energy Policy Project, Michigan ranks 7th in the nation in its potential to manufacture components used in renewable power systems (wind, solar, etc.). If our state and nation invest in renewable energy, Michigan could attract 35,000 new jobs and $5.53 billion in capital in that sector alone. It would also slash part of the $23 billion annually sent by Michigan residents to other states and nations to buy fuels like coal and oil. Forward-looking public policies on energy efficiency and renewable power can turn Michigan's green economic potential into gold.
The Challenge
Some of the most powerful players in Lansing and Washington, DC are defending our dirty, outdated energy system with all the political muscle they can muster.
The utilities, fossil fuel producers, and to some degree our automakers, are among the biggest obstacles to progress. Poll after poll show overwhelming majorities -- across political divides -- support major change on energy policy. To reinforce this support, MEC is rallying a broad coalition of environmental, business, consumer, faith and public health leaders. While much remains to be done, MEC's effective advocacy is helping to tip the balance of power and inspire state leaders to lift Michigan onto the crest of the clean energy wave.
MEC Energy Priorities
- Urge policymakers to pass a strong energy efficiency bill with a minimum of 1% energy savings per year. Continue to educate policy makers on the necessity of increasing the proposed $68 million energy efficiency fund to $150 million.
- Urge policymakers to increase the proposed “10 percent by 2015” renewable energy standard to “20 percent by 2020.” Ensure the definitions of renewable energy guarantee the maximum amount of “green” power possible.
- Urge policymakers to pass a long-term energy plan which ensures that Michigan ratepayers are protected from unnecessary costs of new power plants, where clean energy alternatives may be available at a lower price. Decisions must take into account all costs associated with supplying energy, including carbon costs, health costs, environmental costs, and employment costs, as well as direct out-of-pocket ones. An “integrated resource plan” ensures that Michigan invests in alternative energy technologies which can provide Michigan manufacturers with clean energy jobs as well as new sources of power for our markets.
- Update commercial and residential building codes and energy efficiency standards for appliances used every day in homes and businesses.
- Advocate with Michigan’s federal delegation for a strong federal cap and trade system for greenhouse gases which ensures significant emission-reduction impacts. This must be paired with an aggressive timeframe which fulfills the recommendations of the International Panel on Climate Change to cut global emissions 80% by 2050.
Safeguarding Public Health
The Opportunity
A clean environment is integrally tied to the good health of Michigan’s citizens. Toxics in our air, water and land contribute to premature deaths, debilitating illness and are directly responsible for illnesses ranging from cancers to asthma to disruption of hormonal systems. Public health advocates and organizations are natural allies and partners in working toward reducingtions in the prevalence of dangerous pollutants like mercury, which poisons the fish we eat; smog, which triggers debilitating childhood asthma; and poisons in everyday products, like pesticides applied to school grounds and lead in childrens’ toys. Drawing the links between these dangerous pollutants and the health of Michigan’s citizens – particularly especially our children – is crucial to building support for a cleaner environment and the health benefits that follow.
The Challenge
The cumulative impact of long-term exposure to persistent environmental toxins is significant, but difficult to convey to policy makers and a public fed a steady diet of mayhem on the nightly news. The story of elevated childhood asthma rates from air pollutants in urban centers lacks the immediacy of – for example – a spectacular car crash. But they are equally as tragic and preventable., and it is MEC’s challenge to convey solutions to our allies, policy makers in Lansing and the public. Big money lobbying from vested interests like Big Coal and the pharmaceutical and chemical industryies also serve to obscure the facts on many issues – paralyzing the process by creating doubt and influencing Lansing’s power players with campaign contributions and strong-arm tactics that delay good policy for years, and sometimes decades. It is MEC’s challenge to convey solutions to our allies, policy makers in Lansing, and the public.
MEC Health Program Priorities
The Opportunity
A clean environment is integrally tied to the good health of Michigan’s citizens. Toxics in our air, water and land contribute to premature deaths, debilitating illness and are directly responsible for illnesses ranging from cancers to asthma to disruption of hormonal systems. Public health advocates and organizations are natural allies and partners in working toward reducingtions in the prevalence of dangerous pollutants like mercury, which poisons the fish we eat; smog, which triggers debilitating childhood asthma; and poisons in everyday products, like pesticides applied to school grounds and lead in childrens’ toys. Drawing the links between these dangerous pollutants and the health of Michigan’s citizens – particularly especially our children – is crucial to building support for a cleaner environment and the health benefits that follow.
The Challenge
The cumulative impact of long-term exposure to persistent environmental toxins is significant, but difficult to convey to policy makers and a public fed a steady diet of mayhem on the nightly news. The story of elevated childhood asthma rates from air pollutants in urban centers lacks the immediacy of – for example – a spectacular car crash. But they are equally as tragic and preventable., and it is MEC’s challenge to convey solutions to our allies, policy makers in Lansing and the public. Big money lobbying from vested interests like Big Coal and the pharmaceutical and chemical industryies also serve to obscure the facts on many issues – paralyzing the process by creating doubt and influencing Lansing’s power players with campaign contributions and strong-arm tactics that delay good policy for years, and sometimes decades. It is MEC’s challenge to convey solutions to our allies, policy makers in Lansing, and the public.
MEC Health Program Priorities
- Reduce pesticide use in communities and schools through improved oversight of adherence to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices in schools and daycare centers. Also strengthen parental notification of pesticide use in schools and daycare centers; improve the Michigan Pesticide Notification Registry to make it truly protective of the public’s health and better monitor pesticide use, exposure, and health outcomes.
- Protect children from toxic chemicals through adoption of more stringent regulations of lead in children’s products by the Michigan Legislature; removal of toxic chemicals from products used primarily by children, including BPA, phthalates, and PBDEs; and restrict the use of lindane in accordance with FDA recommendations, for the treatment of lice and scabies.
- Improve public health by protection the environment by requiring all new power plant proposals to include a thorough review of potential damage to the community’s health; requiring that is likely to result from energy generation. Air standards to protect those susceptible to asthma, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease; to be outdoors and healthy; require full and complete disclosure of chemicals and other toxins in our air and water and their possible health effects; and continue our efforts to remove man-made sources of mercury, including power plant emissions and consumer products, from our environment.
Michigan's Environmental History
In 1999, the Michigan Environmental Council launched an environmental history project to chronicle efforts by citizens to restore and protect Michigan’s natural resources and environment over the last 170 years, communicating this inspiring story to current and future generations.
Author Dave Dempsey, senior policy advisor for the Michigan Environmental Council, has recorded Michigan’s environmental history in three books:
See more articles on Michigan’s environmental history from the Michigan Environmental Council
In 1999, the Michigan Environmental Council launched an environmental history project to chronicle efforts by citizens to restore and protect Michigan’s natural resources and environment over the last 170 years, communicating this inspiring story to current and future generations.
Author Dave Dempsey, senior policy advisor for the Michigan Environmental Council, has recorded Michigan’s environmental history in three books:
- Ruin and Recovery: Michigan’s Rise as a Conservation Leader, traces the evolution of the public movement to conserve Michigan’s forests, fish and wildlife in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the environmental movement that demanded cleanup of the state’s air and water in the 1960s and 1970s. Both movements put Michigan on the nation’s map as a leader in environmental protection.
- On the Brink: The Great Lakes in the 21st Century details the history of individuals and societies in the U.S. and Canada over the last 150 years coming to terms with the significance of the Great Lakes and the opportunity they represent for another kind of greatness. It looks forward to their most challenging century, one in which that opportunity can at last be met.
- William G. Milliken: Michigan’s Passionate Moderate is a biography of Michigan’s longest-serving governor. It explores how the "web of politics and cultural values determines the way societies choose to interact with their environments."
See more articles on Michigan’s environmental history from the Michigan Environmental Council
Fighting For Environmental Justice
The Opportunity
Communities of color and low income citizens continue to bear the brunt of pollution with higher rates of premature death, infant mortality, chronic illness and crippling afflictions like asthma and lead poisoning.
Concentrations of heavy industry, municipal waste facilities and transportation hubs are clustered in low-income sections of Michigan’s core cities – a historical legacy that continues to plague nearby residential neighborhoods. There is growing recognition of the injustice of saddling these residents – many of whom lack the means to move elsewhere – with a disproportionate share of the pollution that is the byproduct of these facilities.
The Challenge
We can assist in addressing this issue, and making these urban cities – particularly Detroit – green leaders.
But it will take strong and broad community backing, major public and private investments and comprehensive public policy reforms in areas such as clean energy, public transit, land-use planning and brownfield remediation and redevelopment. Wise and forward-looking changes on these and other key environmental issues have the power to make these neighborhoods dramatically healthier places to raise families; pull people back into the city by offering a better quality of life; and drive an economic rebirth. In all of those areas, jobs can be created and wealth generated while simultaneously advancing environmental health and social justice goals.
MEC Environmental Justice Priorities
The Opportunity
Communities of color and low income citizens continue to bear the brunt of pollution with higher rates of premature death, infant mortality, chronic illness and crippling afflictions like asthma and lead poisoning.
Concentrations of heavy industry, municipal waste facilities and transportation hubs are clustered in low-income sections of Michigan’s core cities – a historical legacy that continues to plague nearby residential neighborhoods. There is growing recognition of the injustice of saddling these residents – many of whom lack the means to move elsewhere – with a disproportionate share of the pollution that is the byproduct of these facilities.
The Challenge
We can assist in addressing this issue, and making these urban cities – particularly Detroit – green leaders.
But it will take strong and broad community backing, major public and private investments and comprehensive public policy reforms in areas such as clean energy, public transit, land-use planning and brownfield remediation and redevelopment. Wise and forward-looking changes on these and other key environmental issues have the power to make these neighborhoods dramatically healthier places to raise families; pull people back into the city by offering a better quality of life; and drive an economic rebirth. In all of those areas, jobs can be created and wealth generated while simultaneously advancing environmental health and social justice goals.
MEC Environmental Justice Priorities
- Pursue and ensure completion and implementation of the state’s environmental justice plan, which was ordered by the governor as part of her 2007 EJ executive directive on environmental justice.
- Ensure that the state’s Department of Environmental Quality follows through with a plan to incorporate the principles of fairness and equality to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws.
- Assist in planning a transition from the trash burning incinerator in Detroit to a plan that more adequately protects residents’ health through recycling and waste reduction.
- Assist in turning contaminated brownfields in core cities into green economic development opportunities that provide jobs and better health for nearby neighborhoods.
- Support enlightened food policies that help farmers and grocers to provide residents with access to local foods.
- Promote parks and other safe, healthy open spaces to help keep local air and water clean and make neighborhoods an attractive place for people to live and raise their families.
Supporting Sustainable Land Use
The Opportunity
Land use decisions are the cornerstones of a sustainable future. They involve decisions about where to build and rebuild, transportation options, open space preservation and developing communities to complement natural features and resources. It is part of Michigan's obligation to protect our majestic forests, beautiful beaches and rich, rolling farmland and to rebuild our once-strong cities by providing residents access to clean air, good transportation options and healthy food. All of this gives our young people more reasons to stay, play and invest their ingenuity and creativity in our state.
Coordinating Smart Growth policies that encourage good development decisions helps reduce energy costs and traffic congestion; cuts emissions of global warming pollution; creates healthy and vibrant communities and slows the rate at which sprawling new subdivisions gobble farmland and require expensive extensions of infrastructure.
The Challenge
Bringing together the thousands of local governments that make independent land use decisions in Michigan is no small matter. With a strong tradition of local control over local affairs, coordination among the state’s various townships, counties, cities and joint planning authorities is essential. Steady, sustained work is required to ensure adoption of good state and regional policies and laws; and to make sure that solid local decisions in one municipality aren’t neutralized by bad decisions in neighboring communities.
MEC Land Use Priorities
The Opportunity
Land use decisions are the cornerstones of a sustainable future. They involve decisions about where to build and rebuild, transportation options, open space preservation and developing communities to complement natural features and resources. It is part of Michigan's obligation to protect our majestic forests, beautiful beaches and rich, rolling farmland and to rebuild our once-strong cities by providing residents access to clean air, good transportation options and healthy food. All of this gives our young people more reasons to stay, play and invest their ingenuity and creativity in our state.
Coordinating Smart Growth policies that encourage good development decisions helps reduce energy costs and traffic congestion; cuts emissions of global warming pollution; creates healthy and vibrant communities and slows the rate at which sprawling new subdivisions gobble farmland and require expensive extensions of infrastructure.
The Challenge
Bringing together the thousands of local governments that make independent land use decisions in Michigan is no small matter. With a strong tradition of local control over local affairs, coordination among the state’s various townships, counties, cities and joint planning authorities is essential. Steady, sustained work is required to ensure adoption of good state and regional policies and laws; and to make sure that solid local decisions in one municipality aren’t neutralized by bad decisions in neighboring communities.
MEC Land Use Priorities
- Help create policies and programs that encourage reinvestment in our existing communities rather than subsidizing new development in undeveloped, greenfield areas.
- Provide training, resources and tools to help hard-working local leaders who make difficult development decisions that manage growth fairly and effectively.
- Enact policies that provide residents more options for daily travel needs—walkable neighborhoods, bike lanes and world-class transit.
- Be a catalyst for greater coordination and cooperation between neighboring communities—especially in land planning and economic development—an approach that will save money, enhance quality of life and better protect regional assets.
- Adopt a “fix-it-first” approach to funding infrastructure improvements. The capacity of our existing water and sewer infrastructure should be fully utilized before new infrastructure is added, and new development that requires expanding our infrastructure should share the real costs for building it.
- Utilize both strategic financial incentives and appropriate growth management regulations in Michigan to protect our amazing natural resources, cultural heritage and agricultural viability.
Protecting Michigan's Waters
The Opportunity
Michigan is surrounded by the Great Lakes, which contain 95 percent of the nation’s fresh surface water.
Our state’s unparalleled water resources define us. They include the Great Lakes, a globally unique resource. But they also include more than 11,000 inland lakes and more than 36,000 miles of rivers and streams. These provide us a rich quality of life and are magnets for tourism and for the many businesses and industries that require water for production and manufacturing. It is also the source of drinking water for millions of Michiganders, whether they draw water from a rural well or the massive Detroit water system. As the only state entirely within the Great Lakes basin, we must be vigilant and wise stewards of this precious resource.
The Challenge
There is increasing pressure to divert large quantities of Great Lakes water for uses outside the basin, where it would be lost to the lakes forever
Drought, sprawling development and population growth have combined to increase the threat to the Great Lakes. Presidential candidates, high-level state officials and international companies have either voiced support for diversions or actually planned them during the past decade. These threats come at a time when the Great Lakes are under increasing stress from invasive species, global warming, depleted oxygen levels and continued assault from chemical and municipal discharges of toxins. The diversion threats have highlighted a related problem: A lack of modern conservation practices and research into the impacts of large quantity withdrawals leave Michigan vulnerable to legal challenges from outsiders who want to take our water.
MEC Water Priorities
The Opportunity
Michigan is surrounded by the Great Lakes, which contain 95 percent of the nation’s fresh surface water.
Our state’s unparalleled water resources define us. They include the Great Lakes, a globally unique resource. But they also include more than 11,000 inland lakes and more than 36,000 miles of rivers and streams. These provide us a rich quality of life and are magnets for tourism and for the many businesses and industries that require water for production and manufacturing. It is also the source of drinking water for millions of Michiganders, whether they draw water from a rural well or the massive Detroit water system. As the only state entirely within the Great Lakes basin, we must be vigilant and wise stewards of this precious resource.
The Challenge
There is increasing pressure to divert large quantities of Great Lakes water for uses outside the basin, where it would be lost to the lakes forever
Drought, sprawling development and population growth have combined to increase the threat to the Great Lakes. Presidential candidates, high-level state officials and international companies have either voiced support for diversions or actually planned them during the past decade. These threats come at a time when the Great Lakes are under increasing stress from invasive species, global warming, depleted oxygen levels and continued assault from chemical and municipal discharges of toxins. The diversion threats have highlighted a related problem: A lack of modern conservation practices and research into the impacts of large quantity withdrawals leave Michigan vulnerable to legal challenges from outsiders who want to take our water.
MEC Water Priorities
- Oversee implementation of the Great Lakes Compact and accompanying state water protection legislation passed in 2008. The state legislation includes recognition of in-state water conservation practices, public input into large-scale water uses, and measures that affirm water is a public resource and needs to be protected for future generations.
- Work to ensure that oversight agencies like the Departments of Natural Resources, Environmental Quality and Agriculture adequately enforce water protection laws. This includes a wide range of oversights – from massive factory farms that can choke the life out of waterways with animal waste, nutrient loading that leads to algae blooms, to traditional industrial discharges of toxics to streams and lakes.
- Support and advocate for aggressive controls on ocean-going vessels that are responsible for the introduction of many invasive species to the Great Lakes; as well as for funding for research into the effects of those organisms on the Lakes’ ecosystem.