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Michigan Wants Flexibility In New Federal Clean Air Standards

Governor Rick Snyder’s administration says it will ask for a lot of flexibility to meet new federal clean air goals. The federal government wants to cut carbon emissions by 30 percent over 15 years.

Dan Wyant, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, says the goal attainable if the federal government lets Michigan figure out how it’s going to get there.

“So we support, on the environmental side, a carbon emission reduction,” he says. “Yet, we know it can be disruptive – reliability and affordability can be impacted if we go too fast, too hard, too soon.”

Wyant says the state already has renewable energy standards that utilities are complying with. He’d like the federal government to also allow them to claim energy efficiency as part of their compliance, and not just switching to alternatives to coal for generating power.

“We have a sense that our energy providers want to move in that direction also, but we just know that depending on how fast, how hard we do it, there could be a reliability and an affordability issue for Michigan,” says Wyant.

It will take a year for the final version of the rule to be drafted and adopted. 

Rick Pluta is Senior Capitol Correspondent for the Michigan Public Radio Network. He has been covering Michigan’s Capitol, government, and politics since 1987. His journalism background includes stints with UPI, The Elizabeth (NJ) Daily Journal, The (Pontiac, MI) Oakland Press, and WJR. He is also a lifelong public radio listener.