Nevertheless, Scripps said, the law includes ways to weigh that process for local governments. This allows governments and neighboring landowners to participate in cases brought before the Commission. In those cases the developer has to pay up to $ 75,000 for each local government for legal expenses. In this, the developers also need to pay $ 2,000 per megawatt to the community in which a project is located.
“I think we all hope that the process can work at the local level,” he said. “But again, for projects of state -wide importance that we maintain credibility and keep energy inexpensive, are important in the context that there is eventually a state process that will begin in November this year if things fall down.”
Uncertainty and opposition
The law is on books, but still there are lots of questions, the scripps said, and public input is particularly important when it comes to balance the local control of projects with the needs of the state for reliable and affordable energy.
Michigan has a long history of local control over land use, and the renewable approval law has been a center of debate as to what the energy transition of the state should look.
Even commissioners are looking for guidance to how the law should be implemented, some people are fighting to fully with it.
For local choice, the citizens of the group have introduced a petition to cancel it, which aims to collect 550,000 signatures from people across the state to get it on the ballot in November.
Prominent players like Michigan Farm Bureau now support it. Earlier this month, the Michigan Township Association Board also decided to support cancellation.
Judy Alan, director of government relations for the Michigan Township Association, said that many members of the association are not happy with the law, in the part, the local ordinances around already renewable energy projects were spent in crafting. And there is a lot of confusion around this process.
“If we have an existing ordinance, how does it affect us?” He said, listing some common questions. “If we want to make a compatible renewable energy ordinance, what is to happen in it? If we do not choose, does this mean that they automatically apply directly to the state? ,
Alan said that she has heard questions in recent meetings, she does not know how to answer.
“I had to tell: ‘We don’t know how the commission is going to explain it,” he remembered.