A Climate Laggard in America’s Industrial Heartland Has a Plan to Change, Fast

LANSING, Mich. — From toxic algal blooms in the Great Lakes to sewage pouring into Detroit basements to choking wildfire smoke that drifted south from Canada, Michigan has been contending with the fallout from climate change. Even the state’s famed cherry trees have been struggling against rising temperatures, forcing some farmers to abandon the crop.

But this state at the center of the American auto industry has also been a laggard when it comes to climate action, resistant to environmental regulations that could harm the manufacturing that has underpinned its economy for generations.

That may soon change.

Michigan is one of three states where Democrats won a “blue trifecta” last year, taking control of the governor’s office and both legislative chambers, and they are seizing that opportunity to propose some of the most ambitious climate laws in the world.

The centerpiece is based on a 58-page “MI Healthy Climate” plan offered by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. It would require Michigan to generate all of its electricity from solar, wind or other carbon-free sources by 2035, eliminating the state’s greenhouse pollution generated by coal- and gas-fired power plants. The package would also toughen energy efficiency requirements for electric utilities and require a phaseout of coal-fired plants in the state by 2030.

Coal — the dirtiest of the fossil fuels — provided the largest share of electricity in Michigan, followed by nuclear energy and natural gas, in 2021, the most recent year for which data was compiled by the Energy Information Administration. Solar and wind generated about 11% of the state’s electricity.

More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia are requiring utilities to switch to clean electricity, but almost none have the aggressive timeline that Michigan is considering, and there is no federal clean power mandate.

Democrats in Lansing, the capital, hope to send the climate bills to Whitmer’s desk by this fall, although they could face a fight; they hold only a two-seat majority in both the House and the Senate.

Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, said public opinion in the state about the need for climate action is shifting.

“We have begun to see a kind of pivot and change in my community and around the state, looking at the flooding pattern, the temperatures and the accelerating changes in agriculture,” said Rabe, who lives in Plymouth.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/02/climate/michigan-climate-change.html">The New York Times</a>.