St. Clair County commissioners may take a formal stance against any future state action interfering with local control over wind and solar projects under a resolution before officials at Thursday’s meeting.
The resolution cites a 3-year-old executive directive from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that aimed at achieving an economy-wide carbon neutrality goal by 2050 — a 100% clean-energy standard reinforced in the governor’s “What’s Next Address” on Aug. 30.
That address also detailed a push to empower the Michigan Public Service Commission to permit clean-energy projects. Now, weeks later, the document on the agenda this week for St. Clair County’s board of commissioners called a proposal for the MPSC to be “the sole regulating authority” over those developments.
The subject of large-scale or industrial wind and solar development has already been a source of ire in some areas of the Thumb within the last couple of years, particularly where residents advocate for keeping their communities rural and question the long-term impact of those projects.
However, as the state pushes for new emissions goals, County Board Chairman Jeff Bohm said, “It’s going to be a very difficult goal for the state to achieve.”
“If you look up in the Thumb … even in our area, Wales Township, they don’t want it. I think we have another project out somewhere in the Greenwood area,” he said. “Locals are fighting, so it’s going to be a heavy lift. I think for the state to obtain those goals, with the local control in place, it’s just — and I’m not saying (it is) right, wrong, or different — the sentiment is not always well received.”
And Bohm said that pushback is also sort of “happening everywhere” in the state.
Originally, from the Michigan Association of Counties and sent out to the board by County Administrator Karry Hepting, Commissioner Dave Rushing said he “jumped on it” and asked it to be added to Thursday’s agenda for a vote.
He, as well as other officials, have drawn issue with what a state-level shift in oversight on renewable energy would mean for local zoning control, particularly in areas of St. Clair County where township officials are still in the process of evaluating those rules for themselves.
On Monday night, the planning commission in Riley Township, which is in Rushing’s county district, OK’d a lengthy solar ordinance, sending it on to the county’s metropolitan planning commission.
Taking any regulating authority away from local communities, Rushing said, he feared would be against the state constitution.
“Just because Lansing passes legislation (in the future) that says they potentially are going to turn zoning over to the state, I believe that’ll make it to the Supreme Court. I think that’s a violation,” he said. “All they really (leave local governments to) do is become a tax collector. Of course, this is directed at green energy or solar energy, but once you take one zoning issue away, you can take them all away.”
Wales Supervisor Liz Masters was at the meeting Monday in Riley, adding it’s part of the “learning stage for neighoring townships” because of “what they’re going through and what we’ll go through.”
That township introduced a moratorium on wind and solar rules early this year. As of late Tuesday, Masters wasn’t sure of the status writing a draft ordinance.
Whether they adopt one down the road or not, she said she drew more concern with the idea of a few members of the MPSC making decisions that affected hundreds of townships statewide.
And also on Thursday, during a special board meeting already set, Masters said she was going to ask Wales Township’s board to pass a resolution similar to the county’s.
“As far as the local control, I think there’s a healthy division with local, and then, county and state (government) existing in our constitution. And I would hate to see any kind of erosion. I think the state is definitely biting off more than they can chew, so to speak," she said.
The county board of commissioners meets at 6 p.m. on Thursday in the second-floor meeting room of the administrative building, 200 Grand River Ave., in Port Huron. Wales’ board will meet at 6:30 p.m. at the township hall, 1372 Wales Center Road, in Goodells.
Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@ganett.com.
