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 — Enbridge’s Line 5 is an aged pipeline transporting oil and natural gas, mostly from Canada to Canada, through the Straits of Mackinac and along the US-2 corridor in the Upper Peninsula. I believe Line 5 should be decommissioned and removed from Michigan, eliminating a long-standing risk to our Great Lakes.
2. Data Centers — S – I support a moratorium on data center construction throughout the country, but especially in Norther Michigan. Unregulated data centers present a massive threat to our environment in their use of energy and water, the discharge of heat and noise, and the use of land otherwise intended for agriculture or natural habitat. I don’t want another data center constructed in the U.S. until there are robust environmental and economic protections.
3. Mining — Copperwood Mine – I oppose the Copperwood Mine proposed for the edge of the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park and adjacent to Lake Superior. The Upper Peninsula is already dealing with legacy environmental fallout from a century of mining. I believe it is possible to mine responsibly in the Upper Peninsula.
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 believe that federal and state resources should be deployed earnestly and urgently to create not only clean energy, but to develop green public utilities to achieve energy independence, combat utility monopolies, and control cost for consumers.
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?
State government should repeal all tax breaks for data centers, then enact strict regulations around data center development, including but not limited to: 1. Opt-in and state licensure process for the creation of data centers, not unlike how the State of Michigan approached medical marijuana dispensaries (affirmative process required to “open” community for data center development)
2. Requirement to offset energy demand with green energy either as an extension of the development or via investment in local green public utilities
3. Above-code energy efficiency requirements to reduce demand
4. Decommissioning bonds to address the future of all data center sites
5. Strictly enforced auditing to meet stringent noise, heat, and light pollution standards to avoid disturbance to nearby communities and wildlife
6. Data centers should be required to illustrate zero untreated water discharge and minimal water input via err-on-the-side-of-onerous engineering and show-your-work standards
The role of state and federal government around data centers should be to protect residents, municipal units of government, and the American workforce from the damaging effects of data centers and AI technology. State and federal government should always side with communities over powerful business interests.
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?
We need to strengthen restrictions on PFAS and ensure that the flood of these chemical contaminants do not continue to spread to our water in Michigan.
PFAS contamination has a source, and more often than not, that source is corporate polluters. Those polluters should be held accountable financially, and wherever possible, criminally for poisoning our communities. In office, I will fight to pass legislation holding these corporate polluters responsible and strengthening enforcement. Enforcement should include punitive damages scaled to the problems they have caused, making those large polluters responsible for the cost of clean up.
In the meantime, the legislature must act to immediately fund clean up efforts to ramp-up the long battle ahead of us. Protecting against future contamination, holding polluters accountable, and correcting the issue must be parallel paths.
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
We should not treat overburdened and long-exploited communities under the same risk constraints as everyone else. We must account for the past pollutants and on-going problems when evaluating future risk.
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?
Unfortunately, the appointed members of Michigan Public Service Commission have failed to adequately protect Michigan residents from utility rate hikes. If those appointed by a Democratic Governor cannot protect us, those appointed by a Republican Governor won't either.
As it stands, utility rate decisions do not give enough agency to residents or reflect cost dynamics, serving profit over people. I believe that our elected officials should have greater control over that, either through direct legislative approval (a dynamic that would be improved by the Michiganders for Money out of Politics ballot initiative) or the board should be a statewide election, similar to university regents or Secretary of State.
Whatever the method, the goal remains unchanged: ensuring fair utility rates and protecting Michiganders. While this is not something that I will likely be able to affect from Washington D.C., I will always side with people over the powerful.
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 believe that Line 5 should be decommissioned, operations should be ceased throughout Michigan, and that infrastructure should be removed. I do not believe that we should be risking our once-in-a-planet natural resources of the Great Lakes for a Canadian fossil-fuel companies profits and a few short-term jobs. I believe that we should employ Union labor in removing that danger once and for all. That includes not only the pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac, but an under-discussed and equally dangerous stretch along the US-2 corridor in the Upper Peninsula.
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, I would support legislation to cap water bills for low-income Michiganders and prevent water shutoffs. No one should go without water in the Great Lakes state. In fact, as a member of Iron Mountain City Council, we have implemented payment plans and shutoff protections, which have benefitted not only low-income residents and seniors on fixed incomes, but also saved the City the cost of disruption that shutting off and reinstating water service entails.
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
To state the obvious, polluters should be accountable for the damage they do to communities. For too long, corporate polluters have exploited us, poisoned our environment, and have used their considerable resources, influence, and legal teams to avoid responsibility. I believe that fines and possible criminal penalties should be increased, making polluting our communities poisonous to their bottom-lines as well.