Michigan's House Dem leadership shows how NOT to reinvigorate Michigan's economy, or their beleagured political party

While we're at it, let's build this too!

Demand for electricity has dropped to a 12-year low in much of Michigan – scuttling plans for power plants like Consumers Energy’s shelved Bay City plant.

Renewable energy and energy efficiency savings – part of the energy reforms passed by the State Legislature in 2008 – are finally kicking into gear bringing jobs and revitalizing industry. Green jobs (pdf) was among the only sector of Michigan’s economy to expand during the economic despair of the past eight years.

The landscape is such that Michigan’s Public Service Commission has concluded

 that no new coal-fired power generating plants are needed for at least 12 years. Across the nation, 138 proposed coal plants have been dropped or put on indefinite hold in the past three years.

So what visionary move was announced today by the brand-spanking new leadership of the Michigan House of Representatives Democratic caucus and their chief, House Minority Leader Rep. Richard Hammel?

Why, construction of a new coal-fired power plant of course. What better way to stimulate the economy than raising electricity rates, undermining the growth of clean energy industries and forcing ratepayers to mail $9 billion to other states to buy coal over the next 40 years to generate electricity the experts say we won't need until 2022 or later?

Folks, we’re not making this stuff up.

Here’s what the environmental community had to say about the Dem plan.

Many of the House Democrats were not on board with the coal plant plank in the leadership’s job creation platform,. which included other proposals like construction of the DRIC bridge over the Detroit River. They stayed away, or on the fringes, of the press conference today. And the Democrats on the Senate side – what’s left of them after the midterm elections –  decided not to join their colleagues in such nonsense.

If I were one of the Democratic reps among the 90 freshmen legislators feeling their way along the corridors of power this week, I’d be mighty uneasy with my leadership right now. Kicking off 2011 by supporting dirty, antiquated, expensive and unnecessary power technologies hardly seems a good start to revitalizing Michigan. Or the Democratic Party.

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