As the nation commemorates its 53rd Earth Day, it is worth pausing for a moment to focus on the growing number of mandates and the extent to which top-down control is used to enforce a transition to so-called green energy.
Consider Michigan, which is quickly becoming the poster child for green utility mandates and government regulation. Grid monitors, such as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), have warned repeatedly of electric grid instability, and Michigan is part of the area that is at “high risk” for electric supply shortfalls. NERC has alerted us that the “disorderly retirement” of reliable fossil fuel and nuclear generation facilities is the key reason our grid is becoming so fragile.
Despite these warnings, Michigan’s monopoly utilities, in the name of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions, have set unrealistic goals for closing Michigan’s few remaining reliable coal plants. One plant is slated to close in 2025, roughly 15 years ahead of the original 2040 retirement date. But it’s not just coal-powered plants that are being shuttered early. That same Michigan utility shut down the Palisades Nuclear Plant well ahead of schedule, even though it produced more emissions-free electricity than all of Michigan’s wind and solar capabilities.
Members of the Michigan Legislature can see rising electricity prices, the warnings from NERC and imprudent utility net-zero plans. Despite this, some lawmakers have proposed legislation that would mandate an even faster timeline for the net-zero goal. Their new “Clean Energy Future Plan” would force all remaining coal plants in the state to close by 2030. The plan also would mandate new clean fuel standards, encourage farmland to be paved over with industrial solar generation facilities, and further expand state agencies’ control over energy production.
Adding to that pressure, large businesses appear ready to offer their support for further mandates to clear the way for more wind and solar power — even if that means using the force of law to expropriate private property.
Free-market advocates and skeptics should remember that these intentions may not always be obvious. Take the case of JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon. In September, last year, Dimon testified in a House Oversight Committee hearing, responding to demands by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) that the banking industry publicly commit to stop funding future fossil fuel projects. Dimon astutely responded, “Absolutely not,” and then added that doing so “would be the road to hell for America.”
Many took this language to mean Dimon realizes the dangers of rushing the energy transition to unreliable forms of energy such as wind and solar. He seemed to reinforce his earlier testimony with his statement in a New York Weekly article, in which he self-identified as a “‘red-blooded, full-throated, free-market, free-enterprise capitalist.”
But in his recent letter to shareholders, Dimon showed a very different side when he worried that “we simply are not getting the adequate investments fast enough for grid, solar, wind and pipeline initiatives.” Rather than seek a free-market response to customer disinterest (or outright distrust) in wind and solar investments, Dimon lamented that “permitting reforms are desperately needed to allow investment to be done in any kind of timely way. We may even need to evoke eminent domain.”
It appears that some investors resist green energy investments because they now realize the environmental harm they cause, their growing role in electric grid instability, and their upward pressures on the cost of electric service. The response for Big Business, if Dimon is representative, appears to be to partner with Big Government to trample private property rights and simply force property owners out of the way of the planned energy transition.
“We need to do more, and we need to do so immediately,” says Dimon. “To expedite progress, governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations need to align across a series of practical policy changes that comprehensively address fundamental issues that are holding us back.”
The first Earth Day began with a plan to protect the planet, to ensure that people had an environment worth living in. But increasingly, authoritarian measures being implemented or supported by green businesses and government will mandate plans for wind and solar that will harm both the environment and the American people. Is this really what we want Earth Day to mean?
Jason Hayes (@jasonthayes) is director of energy and environmental policy at The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market research and education institute in Midland, Mich.