Welcome back to this special correspondents edition of Off the Record.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer signing new energy legislation and Pete Buttigieg running for governor of Michigan?

That's a question mark with the answer coming up on the panel.

Jonathan Oosting, Jordan Hermani Samantha Shriber and Lauren Gibbons sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the Record.

Production of Off the Record is made possible in part by Martin Waymire, a full service strategic communications agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and public policy engagement.

Learn more at martinwaymire.com.

And now this edition of Off the Record with Tim Skubick.

Thank you very much.

Welcome to Off the Record Studio.

See nobody in town this week, so we don't have a guest, but we have four wonderful people.

Let's talk about energy.

Governor put pen to paper and by 2040, what's supposed to happen?

Sam Yeah, so this is a fairly multifaceted package, but the main headline here is clean energy 100% by 2040.

But starting in 2035, 60% of an electricity provider's energy inventory needs to consist of renewable energy credit.

No coal.

Now.

So renewable energy credit stuff where you think about the typical wind, solar and hydropower.

But this package also makes room for methane digesters, which I find a bit interesting, which is the methane gas that comes from a landfill or a waste waste facility, sludge.

How many light bulbs can we light with that?

I think, though, I think one thing I would be remiss not to talk about, the opposition when it comes to this package.

There is a lot of concerns about the price tag and it's really starting in 2000, 2018, 2028.

I mean, where a utility provider needs to come forward with their clean energy plan, and that's where you'll start to see what projects are going to be needed, what could be the price savings and what could be the price tag.

A lot of opponents, one thing that they'll point is that in Senate Bill 271, that is the main deadline setting bill in this package, it actually eliminates preexisting language.

That said that in order for a utility company, if they needed to increase rates to comply with renewable energy standards, they could not go more than $3 per month in an increase for residential rates.

The ceiling is out.

That's eliminated.

So what do you make of this?

Well, you know, right now I think it's something like Michigan has a 12% of its energy is is renewable.

And by the end of the decade, allegedly, we want to get to 50%.

So that's a massive jump to that.

We're going to have to make in a very short amount of time and not to freak anybody out, but it is now officially December, which means we have about as of the end of this month, six years left in the decade that we're going to have to work pretty fast and we're going to need more land to use these to to make these projects, to generate this energy.

Now, the land that's going to be needed, there's been some numbers thrown out there.

I want it's over 200,000 acres, something like that.

People are a little bit freaked out about that number.

That does seem like a large number.

But the Michigan Public Service Commission actually said that that's less than a half of a percent of Michigan's overall land.

But, you know, the other hitch, the thing that people aren't happy about is speaking of the PSC, part of this bill does allow them to override local control on the utilities projects and say if your local zoning board says we're not really feeling the solar project, the state has every right to come in and say, Well, you're going to start feeling it, then how did they.

Play in the hinterland?

Not well.

I mean, that's obviously one of the most controversial parts of this package, aside from the potential cost increases, is the idea that, you know, local communities which have been organizing and blocking these projects in their backyard now could be told by the state.

No, actually, you do have to allow a big wind farm or a big solar farm that's not going to go over well.

And I think it's going to I think you're going to see some continued opposition to that.

Republicans in particular think this is a good issue for them.

And, you know, House Minority Leader Matt Hall, in fact, said when this bill was being passed, Republicans just re won control of the state House was his prediction because of this issue, there have at least been some preliminary talks about groups perhaps trying to go to the ballot to block or undo this.

We'll see if that happens.

But, you know, if it does, we're going to see money from all over the country pour in here.

And the folks who support this say it's making Michigan a national leader in clean energy.

It's a real big deal for Democrats and environmental groups who have been working on this issue for decades.

But you're going to see a lot of money poured in from outside the state if, in fact, there is some sort of a ballot issuers or something like that from business groups and other utility opponents who want to fight this.

Local control is a hallowed thing across the state of Michigan, particularly in outstate Michigan.

This is our land.

We got it.

We're going to control it.

Right.

And I don't think that it's necessarily partizan either.

There are also, you know, for all the somewhat leaning Democratic communities around the state that are drawn into some of these more Democratic leaning districts where people may be asked to have renewable energy projects that they don't necessarily want.

In my backyard as a bipartisan say.

Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely.

So so this is something that the issue is not going away.

Just because it passed and was signed does not mean that we're going to hear the end of this for a long, long time.

It's really interesting how Democrats are framing this, though, because I believe at the bill signing, Whitmer said, well, this is an issue of, you know, my personal land, your own land.

You should be able to do with it what you want and sort of reframing this as a yes.

Okay, We are maybe stifling local control, but you as a property owner, you have your own individual property rights.

If you want to put a solar farm up, then you should be able to put a solar farm up.

So it'll be interesting to see how that plays, particularly to the point about Republicans winning the House.

You know, Republicans typically are the party of, well, my actions should be dictated by myself.

So curious if that gets any play, curious if that goes anywhere, and if that message can even take off again.

What I'm curious about is what's going to be the future for something like aggregate mining, which also has local government opposition legislation that similar to this, allows the NPC to certify wind and solar projects.

You know, there's legislation that allows Egle to permit to aggregate mines.

A lot of local communities like having the ability to say that we don't want a mine here.

And then on top of that, you also have environmentalists that wanted this clean energy project that don't like aggregates because of the environmental risks of mining.

But the bottom line here for Mr. and Mrs. Consumer, who turn on the switch and want the juice, is this going to cost them more?

Well, time will tell.

But yeah, I mean, obviously the power the utility companies are going to have to invest a lot of money in new development of energy resources and that costs money.

They're going to go to the state and ask to recoup that money through ratepayers.

This is yeah, I mean, I think it just goes into the question about when I talked about that rate cap for increases to comply with renewable energy standards, why did they eliminate that?

Proponents could say, you know, this gives the MPAC every authority that they need in order to usher in this new clean energy future opponents are going to say, why didn't we give consumers every possible safeguard that they needed?

For example, Senator John Demos, a northern Michigan Republican, he had an amendment that failed by party lines that said if energy rates exceeded the rate of inflation, these deadlines would be frozen.

Why did that fail?

Because, you know, I guess this could have at least given someone a peace of mind.

I don't know.

You know, and this is this is going to be a test of where we are, Michigan wise, because look at I think they need an ad campaign that says if we don't do this, here's what happens, boys and girls, because there are there are consequences to staying on the carbon train.

Yeah, I think that's very true.

And that's the message that I think Democrats would like.

But nobody said that yet.

I haven't heard anybody say squat about it.

I assume that if if Republicans make this a campaign issue in 2024, which is likely, I think the Democrats will come out and it brings that environmental argument that Michigan needs to look ahead and look forward.

And I think they had an interesting strategy, especially in terms of trying to get labor involved, trying to convince labor that there are job opportunities here, that there are some training elements to adjust people skill sets to fit some of these renewable energy options.

So I think they're I think there's some work going on in the background to kind of lay that groundwork.

But you're right, it hasn't necessarily become the message yet.

So they need to get ahead of that.

But I want to emphasize and that's why I talked about the aggregate mining wind turbines and solar farms.

They don't just come for free.

I talked to the Michigan Agritech aggregator Association.

It takes 2500 tons of aggregate for a single wind turbine for a solar farm.

It can take 200,000 tons of aggregate.

Good gracious.

Start digging.

All right, let's dig into the caramel story.

What is going on over there?

And she's the chair of the Republican Party.

For how long?

Yeah, well, we'll see.

There is a real effort inside the Michigan Republican Party right now to try and oust her from her position as chair.

It's about nine months into her tenure.

And basically, you know, what a lot of folks predicted has happened.

The party has not been able to raise money, Karamo.

And, you know, to some extent, Matt, the person who is running against her alienated traditional Republican donors, and there was always predictions that those donors were going to sit out and no longer fund the party.

We're seeing that happen.

It makes the party relatively irrelevant in the upcoming 2024 election cycle.

But there are some folks, and I don't know yet if it's a majority on the state committee of the Republican Party, but there are certainly some folks who are very loudly now saying, let's get somebody else in there so we can at least raise some money for the 2025 election cycle.

She is sidelining critics.

She she can't actually remove folks from the state committee, but she is removing them from committees.

You don't have that.

You're not doing.

That playing internal role.

So, for instance, the policy committee just weeks ago passed a series of resolutions calling for greater transparency in the party budgeting process.

They want to see the books, you know, where is the money going, Why are we having to consider selling party headquarter building that we don't own?

And, you know, two weeks after that happens, Karamo removes the chair of that committee, some other folks on the committee who also, by the way, had both signed a petition calling for her removal.

Karamo says, you know, it didn't have anything to do with that.

But I mean, pretty clearly she is at least marginalizing some of her top critics in the party.

Right.

What do you think?

Well, yeah, because, I mean, there's only so long and only so far that the will we were left with all of this, that we were left when we drain the swamp and we got the rhinos out, like this is what they left us.

And so that's, you know, you got to, you got to feel a little pain to get a little gain.

You know, people people don't like to lose.

People don't want to put all of their money and faith into a state party that is just sort of circling around the I don't know, nothing, frankly.

And this effort to remove detractors, it does just give off an air of somebody who is now very aware of the fact that even their ally is now at one point in allies.

They're seeing the writing on the wall and they're saying, if we want to get our candidates to win, we're going to have to figure out a way to reform and shape up.

And I don't know if that involves Karamo anymore.

And it's also been really telling just to see the fundraising strategies of the state.

House Republicans, the individual Senate campaign.

Yeah, everyone is figuring out their own way because they're not seeing any real hope from of of additional funding from the party.

So they are going around these structures, which is complicated.

I mean, it's not necessarily easy to build your own fundraising structure without some state party assistance.

This is brand new territory for a lot of campaigns, but they're doing it because they think that's necessary to win at this point.

And the Democrats are sitting on the sidelines saying, go for it.

The more the more turmoil, the better for us.

I mean, I think I think we're making my mind is kind of going into is the present day state of political polarization and how kind of thinking about the state GOP and, you know, the state parties is kind of been the embodiment of where things are, you know, a divide where there's even further divides within their own members.

So I would kind of like to take this moment to spotlight a project that we did at Merce, you know, thanks to our house reporter Daniel James, our intern Maggie George, and editor Kyle Mullen, they found that for the state House alone this year for 2023, fewest unanimous votes since 1849, the year after the US-Mexico War, Off the record wasn't even around Baghdad.

I'll be so sure.

So in 2023, in the state House, there were 19 unanimous votes within the chamber.

And this is coming after from 2001 to 2022, our team collected that the average unanimous vote number was actually more than 280 in some years, there actually being nearly 700 unanimous votes, nearly 800.

Part of that to the point of GOP infighting is the fact that there are some, you know, folks who align more with crime on the Freedom Caucus.

You've have Jim Dyson on this show who from the very get go, one of the very I think the very first vote chose not to vote for House Speaker Joe Tate, which is usually a ceremonious, though it's a they made clear that they were going to be opposition on pretty much anything and have been.

So, you know, of course, Democrats have a couple, you know, progressive versus establishment issues in their own caucus.

But that I did see that members report on the lack of bipartisan votes.

It didn't surprise me, actually, based on the tenor we saw from the very first day of the session.

Right.

Laura, let's talk about animal safety.

The sheriff over in Genesee County has got a legislative proposal that basically says let's create a registry of animal abusers, sort of allow the sex registry that the state has and let's make sure these folks never buy anymore animals to abuse.

And, you know, I think as we were talking about things that are harder to get bipartisan support on animals is one thing that you can typically get bipartisan support on this.

I think I think animal abuse is one of those issues where you can probably get a decent bit of bipartisan support in the legislature.

So it's a concept that's been thrown about for a while.

And now, you know, it seems as though there's there's some interest from the Democratic majority legislature.

So I guess I guess we'll see if this ends up happening.

So the way that this kind of pans out, too, is and I found this interesting in researching this, so so shelters, animal shelters, they can look up through MSP, whether or not you have a convicted record of abusing animals and you know I'm you know, just a guy coming in off the street want to get a dog.

They say, hey, no, you actually were arrested charged for animal cruelty.

They can deny you.

But pet shops.

If I got a pet call, I want to buy a cat.

And I have a history of animal abuse.

They can just send me the cat because they have no ability to double check who I am, what I'm doing, yada, yada.

It is interesting because, you know, Joe Tate, when you bring slave Express that they have an interest to get this initiative, give it a vote and put it say we're going to put this on the ballot.

It is also to the point of bipartisanship being backed by Matt Hall and Eric Nesbit out of the House and Senate, the Republican leaders as well.

And, you know, you can't help but wonder because that he is potentially maybe a run for for governor straight.

Maybe it's.

Yeah, no, exactly.

He's this is a really good way to whip up and say, hey, I'm a person I can work with both people.

It's not a bad first step out the door for a lot of people seeing him, being aware of him for the first.

Oh, sure, If Swanson particularly wants to do this through the legislative process, which is less expensive than a statewide petition drive where you got to go out and get names.

Yeah, of course.

I mean, we've seen two petition drives falter over the last couple of years and the signature gathering process is expensive typically and takes time.

If you can get the legislature to put it on the ballot, it can save at least $1,000,000, probably more.

We saw that with the personal financial disclosure last year.

A group threatened to go to the ballot but struck a deal with lawmakers to instead get it on there without having to go through that expensive, you know, signature gathering process.

And so I think in the first of the year, we're going to see some action on this.

I know that the speaker's office sort of backed off of a report that said he had signed off on putting it on the agenda.

But with all four of the legislative leaders, you have to assume this thing's going to fly.

I would say that I've given up on trying to make projections of what 2024 is going to look like.

But I think everybody at this table makes a very valid point, that this is kind of a purple bipartisan issue.

You know, Michigan, we just like some Kumbaya moments and petting some dogs.

But there is also a political aspect to this, not only vis a vis the candidacy of the sheriff for governor, which is coming down the road, supposedly, but also the idea that the people will rally to this issue not in large numbers like the abortion issue, but this could be a vote driver for that could help out the Democrats in particular, or is that too far fetched?

I mean, I don't know.

I'm not sure.

Actually.

I guess I would agree.

That everybody loves their pets and you get a chance to show up to protect.

Them.

Just be a Democratic issue.

Yeah, I don't think Republican leaders would be backing it if they thought it was going to be some sort of huge Democratic win at the ballot box.

Yeah, I think I think as as we've all pointed out, animals are an easy win for for everyone here.

So, you know, they can all go back to their districts and say, hey, look, local shelter or local pet store like we supported this animal abuse registry and that is it.

Yeah, it's a pretty easy victory, but I don't necessarily know that it gives any particular party a political edge except in the sense, you know, if you're in the Democratic majority, you can say, hey, look, even though we have a tied house, we passed something which may be, you know, in and of itself some sort of benefit.

I think everyone's kind of gearing up for another record breaking year in 2024 when it comes to general election voter turnout.

I was just in Detroit yesterday where the governor signed more than 20 different election access bills, one of them being allowing 16 year olds to pre-register to vote when they get their driver's license.

And then when 2024 the election comes around, the secretary of state is going to call them up and say, hey, you can vote your eligible, let's go.

Absolutely.

They just they hate all this stuff, don't they?

They voted against almost all of it.

But, you know, they didn't have a lot of stringent public arguments anyways about why I mean, pre-registering someone a 16 year olds to vote, you know, they can't vote until they're 18.

And so like, you know, speaking out against that doesn't seem like a politically advantageous position.

But they certainly opposed it because we know in Michigan, generally high turnout elections have benefited Democrats.

I'm to say that same thing with about other parts of the package.

You know, not allowing earned sorry, having a disclaimer for one year use.

Obviously deepfakes are becoming more and more of a thing.

It's one of those issues where you're like there's there's no real reason to say that you're fully against it.

It's not saying you can't use AI, it's just saying, hey, let us know that you're doing it so they can vote against it.

They can seemingly dislike it.

But I mean, when when the opposite of, Hey, okay, why do you not like it is sort of crickets, you know, then that's it, I guess.

All right.

So legislation for criminal penalties if you intimidate an election worker specifically because they are an election worker with interference, to have some sort of effect on that election, I think we'll just have to wait and see here.

Yeah, there is a real fear out there.

I mean, if you talk to Ms.. Benson and local clerks, I mean, they're worried for her.

I think the biggest part of that package that was signed yesterday and didn't get quite as much attention is the post election process changes.

So, you know, it's all a reaction to 2020 and basically buttoning buttoning up the election system, the certification process, so that an aggrieved candidate such as we saw President Trump in 2020 can't do as much to meddle in that process.

So, for instance, they sped up the timeline for certification.

They changed who can appoint members to the Board of State.

Canvasing after voice does well, basically, Kristina Karamo, the Michigan Republican Party chair.

Now, it cannot be the only person to nominate Republican candidates for the Board of State canvassers.

And they also did some things to try and prevent fake elector scenarios from happening again and basically told county and county, which is important because we saw in Wayne County and state canvassers that they have a ministerial, clerical and non-discretionary duty to certify results to try and avoid partizan gridlock.

In other words, you're not.

Certification.

You're not going to rule on this stuff.

Now, I would say.

I think the bill that Jonathan mentioned is also interesting, dealing with if you're a presidential candidate and you feel that there is an error in the election results in Michigan, you have to wait within 48 hours after that election is certified by the board.

And then you have to go directly to the Michigan Supreme Court to file a complaint with these results.

I we had Pete Buttigieg in town, and we had a chance to sit down and talk to them.

And we got around to politics.

Look at this guy is going to run for something.

Do we agree?

Of course, absolutely.

He's ran for a lot of seats.

So if you ran for president, you don't go and say, well, I'm not going to do it.

So the two questions were, what about US Senate?

He confessed that I thought about it.

Okay.

For about a minute, he said, But he did talk to other people.

Other people talked to him with Debbie Stabenow out and now he's up in Traverse City.

All right.

So that's off the board.

Then we asked him, what about Governor Pete?

And there was a pregnant pause and don't come to find out he thought about that, too, but not a lot.

And so what do you make of all this, Jonathan?

Well, I mean, two stories.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously Buttigieg is going to run for something else, whether it's at a state level or federal office.

You know, he has proven himself to be a pretty formidable candidate, didn't win the presidential race, but he made some waves and a lot of fans.

He made a statement in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Sure.

So, you know, one and one interesting thing to note, he moved to Michigan a few years back, but actually changed his residency and registered to vote here ahead of the 2022 election.

And that's notable because to be governor in the state of Michigan, you have to be an elector in the state for at least four years.

By registering ahead of 2022, he will be eligible should he decide to run in 2028.

Now, I think Democrats actually are going to have a pretty deep bench of candidates.

I mean, you mentioned Chris Swanson.

He's not the most prominent.

I mean, perhaps Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist.

There's going to be a lot of high profile Democrats interested in that race.

And Buttigieg will have to sort of feel that out.

And whether the Michigan Democratic machine wants to count him as one of their own, they're not going to be desperate to field the course.

He was not going to sit across from me and say, yes, go back.

I'm going to run for governor.

Okay?

He's not going to do that.

But clearly he is thinking about stuff even though he comes back to his message, which is I got to do my future, depends on how well I do, is the secretary of transportation, and he's right on that front.

Well, yeah, I mean, that's the public record that we're going to be able to hold him to with others.

You know, with Benson, we can go back and see her time as Clark with Swanson, his time as as Sheriff.

So, yeah, he's going to need some kind of record.

It doesn't shock me that he's thinking about running for governor.

Who who isn't going to think about running for governor in the next couple of years?

I mean, really, anything's possible.

The number of state legislators that might come out and say, hey, we're running Jonathan's point.

It's probably going to be an extremely crowded field.

But a judge may have a leg up in the sense of having potential networking donors that can come in from out of state, really help them out there.

It's going to be going up.

Pretty formidable opponents with fundraising.

I know Benson really doesn't have any issues with fundraising for her campaigns before.

So, you know, he's he could be a contender.

I Sandy Pensler is announcing today he's running for the US Senate.

Surprise, surprise.

Yeah, I guess as there is a lot of interest in that seat, as I think we mentioned before the show, it's a it's a little late in the game at this point.

Mike Rogers and Peter Meijer have all kind of made a splash and and have really kind of taken taken a little bit of the air out of the balloon and on some of these conversations.

So so yes, he's he's in the race.

And it remains to be seen if he can really get a strong foothold here.

But then once before and lost.

Yes.

And if he's rich.

Right.

So he can sell Shine, which he did in 2018 when he ran for the U.S. Senate, he lost to John James in the Republican primary and John James then lost in the general election.

So, you know, he's got a lot of money.

He's going to go for it.

And we'll say.

All right, we've got to go for it right now.

Before we leave, however, we want to say goodbye to our wonderful director who's been with us for 15 years, Tim Elkins, who's on his way to Washington, D.C., to do what we do not know, but have a safe trip to be with his wife who's working down there.

Thank you all, panelists, for a great show.

See you next week.

For more off the record.

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Michigan public television stations have contributed to the production costs of Off the Record.