Planet Detroit Candidate Survey
What are the three most pressing environmental issues facing the communities you seek to serve? Please rank them in order of priority and briefly explain why you chose each.
1. Clean Drinking Water — Safety: Rochester Hills has two identified contamination sites, and communities across HD-55 deserve clean water without having to wonder if what comes out of their tap is safe. PFAS contamination is a public health crisis that has moved too slowly from detection to remediation, and the people living near these sites can't wait any longer for accountability and action.
2. Great Lakes — Protection: We are sitting on 20% of the world's fresh surface water. As water scarcity becomes a defining challenge of this century, what Michigan has here is literally irreplaceable - economically, ecologically, and for the communities that depend on it. Pipeline integrity, runoff management, invasive species, and industrial pollution all threaten the Lakes, and protecting them has to be a non-negotiable baseline for any legislator representing this region.
3. Climate — And the clean energy transition: Michigan has real assets here - strong wind potential, growing solar capacity, an existing manufacturing base, and a skilled union workforce. Getting the transition right means investing in those assets while ensuring the grid remains reliable and costs don't fall disproportionately on working families and small businesses. Done right, this is an economic opportunity. Done wrong, it leaves communities behind.
Michigan law requires utilities to reach 100% clean energy by 2040. If elected, would you support maintaining this law, or would you support revising or repealing it? Please explain your position.
Maintain the current law and timeline
Michigan's 2023 clean energy legislation reflects both the urgency of climate change and a realistic assessment of what this state can build. I support maintaining the 100% clean energy standard and the 2040 timeline. Retreating from this commitment would cost Michigan jobs, investment, and credibility as a state serious about its energy future. My condition on implementation is that the transition be built by a union workforce. Clean energy investment should create good-paying jobs here in Michigan, not be used as cover to cut corners on labor standards. And the path to 2040 should maintain a diverse, reliable energy portfolio during the transition, so that Michigan families and businesses aren't bearing the cost of grid instability while the infrastructure catches up.
More than two dozen Michigan communities are considering or have approved large-scale data center developments. These facilities can consume as much electricity as a small city and place significant demands on local water and energy infrastructure. What role should state government play in overseeing data center development, and what guardrails should the state legislature enact to protect communities where data centers are proposed?
Michigan should welcome responsible data center development. These facilities create real construction and long-term operations jobs, but "responsible" has to mean something. Data centers are not like other commercial developments. They can consume as much electricity as a small city and place significant demands on water infrastructure, and their proliferation without adequate planning puts ratepayers and communities at risk.
The state legislature should establish a framework that includes: mandatory review of large-scale data center proposals, so that energy demand from new facilities is accounted for before it strains the grid; requirements that energy and water consumption projections be disclosed publicly before local approval; clear ratepayer protections so that the infrastructure costs of serving large energy users don't flow disproportionately to residential and small business customers; and meaningful community input requirements before permits are approved.
Oakland County has seen growing interest in data center development. I support it with those guardrails in place and with a requirement that construction and operations be performed by a union workforce.
PFAS contamination has been detected in drinking water, groundwater, and surface water across Michigan. Cleanup efforts are underway, but many affected communities are still waiting for action. What is the single most important step the officeholder in this position should take on PFAS in the next term?
Ensure EGLE has the enforcement authority, funding, and staffing to compel responsible parties to clean up contaminated sites on timelines that reflect the urgency of the public health threat, not the convenience of corporate legal strategies.
The science on PFAS is clear. The contamination is identified. What has moved too slowly is accountability. The gap between detection and remediation is often filled with litigation delays and inadequate funding for enforcement. The single most important thing a state legislator can do is fight for an EGLE that is funded and empowered to hold polluters fully responsible, not just to negotiate settlements that stretch cleanup over decades while families in affected communities keep living with the consequences.
For HD-55 specifically, I will push for active remediation timelines at the Rochester Hills sites and ensure that affected residents have direct access to information about cleanup progress and health monitoring.
Michigan residents in some communities face disproportionate exposure to air pollution, contaminated water, and industrial waste. Do you support requiring Michigan regulators to assess cumulative environmental and health impacts on overburdened communities before approving new permits for polluting facilities?
Yes
Utility rate cases directly affect what Michigan residents pay for electricity and gas. DTE and Consumers Energy have requested frequent significant rate increases in recent years. Should elected officials play a greater role in holding utility companies accountable for rate hikes and rising energy costs?
Yes, and I'd go further than saying elected officials should play a "greater role." The current structure has allowed DTE and Consumers Energy to pursue significant rate increases with limited meaningful legislative accountability, while grid reliability problems and delayed clean energy investments have continued. That's not working for Michigan families or Michigan businesses.
I support the regulated utility model. The framework keeps the grid integrated and spreads infrastructure investment costs fairly, but regulation only works if regulators and legislators are actually doing their jobs. I support maintaining and strengthening the Integrated Resource Plan process as a public accountability mechanism, pushing back on rate increases that aren't justified by genuine infrastructure need, and ensuring that utility investments in grid hardening and clean energy are prudent and efficient before they're passed to ratepayers.
Utilities should be accountable to the communities they serve, not just to their shareholders.
Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline runs through the Straits of Mackinac and carries crude oil and natural gas liquids between Wisconsin and Ontario. A proposed tunnel beneath the lakebed to house a replacement pipeline has faced legal and regulatory challenges for years. What is your position on the future of Line 5?
I support the tunnel project as the path forward for Line 5. I want to be direct about my reasoning, especially for readers of an environmental voter guide who may disagree: my support for the tunnel is grounded in what I think is the most realistic path to reducing environmental risk in the Straits, not an endorsement of the status quo or a dismissal of the legitimate concerns about pipeline infrastructure in the Great Lakes.
The existing Line 5 pipeline represents a real and ongoing risk. The tunnel, financed completely by Enbridge, would house a replacement pipeline in bedrock beneath the Straits, significantly reducing the risk of a spill compared to the current exposed pipeline. I believe the stronger environmental outcome, in the near term, is completing that transition rather than shutting down Line 5 without a reliable replacement for the energy it carries.
That said: the tunnel project must be held to rigorous safety and environmental standards throughout construction and operation. Enbridge must be held fully accountable to those standards. And I will not support any effort to use Line 5 as a justification for weakening environmental oversight of energy infrastructure more broadly.
Drinking water is becoming increasingly unaffordable for Michiganders in both rural and urban areas, leading to water shutoffs. Would you support legislation that caps water bills for low-income Michiganders and adds shutoff protections?
Yes. Clean, affordable water is a basic human necessity, not a commodity that should be subject to shutoff when a family falls behind on a bill. Michigan has an affordability crisis, and the human cost of water shutoffs is severe and preventable.
I support legislation that caps water bills as a percentage of income for low-income Michiganders and establishes meaningful shutoff protections. This is also an environmental justice issue: the communities most affected by water shutoffs are often the same communities facing the greatest pollution burdens. Affordability protections and clean water enforcement go hand in hand.
Michigan is home to more than 18,000 contaminated sites. Do you support or oppose legislation to hold polluters accountable for cleaning up these sites?
Support
The number of contaminated sites is not an abstract statistic. Those are neighborhoods, water sources, and communities where people are living with the consequences of pollution that they didn't cause. Holding polluters accountable for cleanup isn't punitive. It's the straightforward application of a principle that should be non-negotiable in any functioning legal system: if you create the damage, you pay to repair it.
I will support legislation that strengthens corporate liability for contaminated sites, closes loopholes that allow responsible parties to escape cleanup obligations through bankruptcy or asset restructuring, and ensures that state resources are used to accelerate remediation rather than subsidize polluter avoidance strategies. The communities waiting for cleanup in HD-55 and across Michigan have waited long enough.