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. Air Quality — All three of my priorities are related to environmental justice and the legacy of racist policies that extend into the current day; air quality is at the top of the list because it impacts every single person in my community who breathes air, today and in the future. There are a lot of pollutants in our air and there are a lot of sources of pollution.
2. Water Infrastructure — Stormwater and flooding. Besides the hundreds of millions of dollars in damages caused by floods in themselves, the rising costs of flood insurance depress economic growth and contribute to climate gentrification.
3. Trees & Forests — Cover. Lots of work is being done, and needs to be done, so that Detroit’s neighborhoods have ample parks, trees coverage, and shade. It's an issue with a lot of science behind it, but it's also something we can all appreciate aesthetically when we go outside.
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
Decarbonization is a moral imperative. A successful transition to clean energy will have a broad positive impact across our economy and our communities.
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?
The state government's role should be to ensure that laws and regulations are enforced consistently, and to safeguard residents' shared vision for Michigan's future.
All large-scale data center projects rely on tens of millions of dollars in state subsidies to make the projects viable. The state legislature should make tax credit certification conditional on local support and full transparency around water and energy impacts.
The first measure would ensure that protections around water use and goals for energy affordability, reliability, and sustainability are sufficiently met. While these protections are nominally included in legislation, the lack of transparency around compliance means they are not adequate protections for local communities or the state as a whole.
The second measure is to protect local residents from pitched battles with developers. If the state provides incentives to developers while local governments oppose the projects, developers can use the value of those incentives as grounds for litigation against the local government. The goal of these lawsuits is often to force local government to comply or go bankrupt through a protracted legal process before an outcome is ever decided. No matter the wisdom of local opposition to a development, state funds should not be used as leverage to threaten local governments with bankruptcy.
In general, state policy for all sorts of large-scale development projects should place a greater emphasis on early site location. The Michigan Economic Development Corporation should begin by identifying communities that are ready for development, build consensus around the benefits and protections those communities need in order to be ready for a new development, and then bridge the gap between the community and the developer.
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?
Increase funding for MPART, Michigan’s PFAS Action Response Team. They are connecting the dots between public outreach, monitoring, analysis, and litigation very effectively and I would like to see more funding for proactive investigation of potential PFAS in drinking water. Once we uncover the extent of PFAS contamination, the next step is funding for municipalities to come into compliance with the federal regulation.
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
It makes common sense that pollution would be regulated based on the way it impacts Michigan residents, not in theoretical isolation. I think most people would be surprised to hear this is not already the case.
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. I am hoping that the Money Out Of Politics proposal will be on the ballot with me this election season. DTE has extracted profit from our energy systems by raising rates and deferring maintenance while spending that profit on political influence and stock buybacks. One of the ways I would like to see elected officials hold DTE accountable is by ending the revolving door between utility companies and the Michigan Public Service Commission so that residents have strong representation and the MPSC is empowered to decline DTE’s unreasonable requests.
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 permanent closure of Line 5. I grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and when I was about 16 years old Enbridge spilled about a million gallons of tarsands into the Kalamazoo River. The alarms were going off in their control room from 6 PM until 11 AM the next day, when a local inspector found the spill. During that time they had turned the pipeline back on two times, spilling volumes more oil into the river because they hoped the alarm was just due to an air bubble. There are no amount of promised safeguards that can overcome the greed and incompetence of a corporation that would intentionally override those safeguards to turn a pipeline back on during an oil spill. And even from that perspective of greed, there is no amount of economic benefit from Line 5 that would justify the risk to our Great Lakes.
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, access to clean drinking water is a human right. I support ending utility shutoffs for all Michigan residents.
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
I grew up on the North Side of Kalamazoo, Michigan, where residents recently settled a protracted lawsuit alleging that a local packaging company released illegal amounts of hydrogen sulfide into the environment in a pattern of systemic racism. I know what it is like to live near these polluters, have your concerns be ignored and denied, and I would like to make it easier to hold corporations accountable through improved state-level legislation.