(Speech can be heard at 6:09:51 of this video of the Board meeting.)
Joseph Parnell McCarter, Georgetown Township, Volunteer leader of SaveTheCampbell.com effort.
How should county legal fees be spent? The citizens of Ottawa County are being ill served by Consumers Energy and the Michigan Public Service Commission which regulates its monopoly, and we need the County Board to step in and defend our interests as Michigan law allows.
Exhibit A in that ill service is found at the Zeeland BPW website that says it “provides Residential electric rates that are nearly 58% below that of Consumers Energy and Industrial rates are approximately 20% below that of Consumers Energy.” Decades ago Zeeland stopped using Consumers Energy and municipalized electric within its own local cooperative, as an example of how Michigan law gives local government significant power over electric. Consumers Energy customers in Ottawa County are being ripped off by Consumers Energy pricing; there is no good reason its pricing should be so much higher than Zeeland BPW.
Exhibit B is the planned 2025 closure and demolition of the county’s Campbell plant. The Michigan law propelling the early closure of fossil fuel plants has provision for delaying closure in cases of endangerment of the electric grid. Regional electric grid operator MISO has warned of electric grid reliability issues if Michigan and other states proceed with their planned closures, and it has called for delay of such closures. For this reason alone Consumers Energy should request and the Michigan Public Service Commission should grant a delay in the closure. But so far they have irresponsibly ignored MISO’s warnings.
Such delay is even further justified given the new Federal Government policy direction led by Trump’s appointed energy czar Doug Bergum. The Federal Government’s planned pursuit of carbon sequestration by 2030 by Bergum fundamentally changes the legal picture of precipitously closing fossil fuel plants like the Campbell. Burgum’s strategy is to keep fossil fuel plants like Campbell going but building carbon capture facilities to make up for it. We need to slow down closure and see how the Federal carbon sequestration effort and money which will be behind it affects the Campbell decision.
There is already a court order for Consumers Energy related to the closure of the Campbell plant, resulting from ongoing litigation with Wolverine Power Cooperative. Wolverine has seen success in its litigation with Consumers Energy over the way Consumers Energy pursued early closure.
If Consumers Energy does not respond to county request for delay, the county should expeditiously join Wolverine and seek a court order to delay the Campbell’s closure. Many other Michigan municipalities are already suing the MPSC over misuse of power in the energy transition process.
Ottawa County has spent much money in legal fees and plans to spend a lot more as suggested by the proposed amended agreement with Kallman Group. The citizens of the county need the Board to spend some of that money correcting the way we are being ill served by Consumers Energy and the Michigan Public Service Commission.
Thanks for considering this request.