Proposal 3: 25% of All Electricity From Renewable Resources. A $12 Billion Taxpayer Hit

From the Interstate Informed Citizen's Coalition:

There’s a proposal on the November ballot (Proposal 3) to jack up the renwable standard for all electricity to 25 percent by 2025, even though such an increase will cost Michigan families and businesses at least $12 billion. Even worse, backers of this proposal want to lock that mandate into the Michigan Constitution, eliminating any flexibility and guaranteeing a future full of rate increases for customers.

Michigan’s families and businesses can’t afford to pay more for this reckless proposal. The proposal’s backers claim there will be a 1 percent cap on annual rate increases, but that’s no guarantee. Courts could strike down the so-called cap, leaving Michigan’s families and business to face sharply higher electric bills.

Meeting a 25 percent renewable energy standard would require a minimum $12 billion investment in renewable energy infrastructure that will have to be made – regardless of economic or market conditions. It’s a mandate that would forever change the face of Michigan.

Meeting the 25 percent mandate with just wind energy would require as many as 3,100 wind turbines, each taller than the state Capitol. All told, those turbines would require nearly a half a million acres of land, an area 17 times the city of Grand Rapids, and possibly force wind turbines to be built in the Great Lakes.

Read more here.