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 — Its ubiquitous/it's required for life/and threatened by geoengineering
2. Water, you can — Water, you can sustain without it for several days, but all life eventually needs water
3. Air Quality — Safeguard water supply, and abate noise pollution, sleep deprivation by noise is life threatening
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.
Other (please explain below)
A total re-examination of the premises and claims of necessity.
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?
MI- industry needs to show the State why the particular site was chosen and justifiable with no other viable alternative and doesn't require special subsidies and can stand on its own and arrange its own power system with any excess donated to surrounding affected areas upon which intrudes.
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?
Every MI community is entitled to clean PFAS-free. MI, inspire of these issues, has abundant fresh water sources, but rain cannot replenish the current drain. MI waters need to be jealously protected.
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
Areas already adversely affected needs to be cleaned up first before purposely allowing more polluters in. Perhaps a stepped approach may work eventuaĺy (2 steps forward, 1 step backward), but that just stretches out the time the area needs to make a true come back.
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?
Novi - there is only 1 elected official that's responsible and that's the governor who APPOINTS the regulators, which is cronie politics. The regulators should be elected offices not rewards. There is no voter revenge for countless successive rate hikes.
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?
It will never happen, until the right people are voted into office.
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?
Nothing in life is free. You can't just provide free water without having some way to pay. Those who can pay will just be forced to pay more so others can have it free. It isn't truly free, someone is being forced to pay for it. Oakland County is currently paying for a Wayne County's community's water because they refuse to pay their own water bill. This is highly unfair. If a county needs to pay, it should be Wayne County, not Oakland County.
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
Who, if not the polluters?? Hold the taxpayers responsible for polluters??