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. Line 5 — And similar projects. 2) Preventing water resource
2. energy — energy
3. Data Centers — S. 3) Mitigating the causes and responding to the damages of climate change
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
I stand by the need for our state to become a leader in the elimination of fossil fuel reliance. Repealing or revising the current law opens the door to industry-guided revisions that will reduce the efficacy of these efforts.
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?
It is critical, both in the sensitivity of time and scale of impact, that the state legislature provide statewide standards and requirements regarding the construction and implementation of these facilities. I am a strong proponent of allowing local communities to self-determine their zoning based on the will of their people, but in this instance, developers are using the this checkerboard approach to pit communities against one another and to dodge around restrictive zoning.
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?
It should be treated as an emergency to find all sources of drinking water across the state where residents are ingesting these chemicals. The fact that residents of Michigan are unknowingly providing their families with water contaminated with these chemicals is heartbreaking. Individuals cannot shoulder the burden of identifying contamination at this scale and dealing with it alone. The state should incentivize industrial sources of PFAS contamination to aggressively remediate and to provide infrastructure that prevents these chemicals from making it into the food and water supply. In instances where the offending company no longer exists, pursuit of asset recovery from any remaining beneficiaries of the companies' assets should be at least explored on a case-by-case basis.
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
If the goal of these assessments is to protect the public, then the overall conditions for the public should be considered. Zoning and land use cost factors can make it fiscally attractive to put pollutant-heavy industrial processes in already-contaminated areas, placing additional burden on an already disadvantaged population.
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?
Because of their market position (monopolistic) and the very definition of a utility, energy providers must be subjected to public oversight regarding their management of costs and of the service they provide their customers. I believe incentives should be balanced with penalties to encourage these providers to push toward the most efficient and sustainable infrastructure possible.
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?
Enbridge has proven that the protection of Michigan's natural resources is not a priority to them. The transport of petroleum products is a waning technology, and Enbridge knows they only have limited time remaining to extract profits from this sort of transport method. There is no critical infrastructure need to allow any petroleum products to be transported through the Straits of Mackinac. The existing line should be decommissioned and no additional petroleum transportation infrastructure, with or without a tunnel, should be allowed back into the straits.
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?
Drinking water should be treated as a fundamental human right. It is particularly embarrassing that a state surrounded by 1/5 of the world's entire supply of fresh water would ever have a single resident who struggles to access it. Ensuring nobody in this state is cut off from drinking water is a bare-minimum responsibility for our state's government.
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
First, companies that profited by taking risks that allowed sites to become contaminated cannot be allowed to walk away having successfully gambled the safety and lives of others for their own financial gain. It sets a precedent to future companies that has a material impact on their cost-benefit analysis when deciding what measures of self regulation are appropriate. Second, pollution is material harm to the health and lives of citizens and it is immoral to allow the victims - often residents of lower-income neighborhoods - to suffer without recourse and to bear the health and financial burdens of someone else's careless activity.