The Detroit News reports that dark-money groups connected to DTE Energy gave $2 million to Democrat-aligned groups soon after the party took power in Lansing. Once in office, Democrats introduced legislation that would mandate Michigan completely abandon the coal and natural gas energy sources that constitute 89% of Michigan energy supply by 2035, to be replaced by “green” energy sources like wind and solar.

For the utility monopolies whose profit margins are guaranteed by state law, this would constitute a huge windfall: the higher their energy costs, the more money they make. But even the utilities viewed going 100% renewable by 2035 as wildly unrealistic.

Now, Democrats in Lansing are pushing for new legislation, House Bills 5120-5123, that would deprive municipalities of their right to participate in zoning and planning control, effectively pushing wind and solar facilities upon communities that do not want them. The authority to approve local planning and zoning for wind and solar farms would be granted exclusively to the Michigan Public Service Commission, the regulatory agency whose board consists almost exclusively of former DTE and Consumers officials.

In written testimony, Lenawee County Commissioner Kevin Martis expressed his opposition to the bills before a House committee, saying the proposed legislation “interferes with county and township ability to regulate utility scale renewable energy installations.”

“[Renewable energy] developers are corporations who have only a single allegiance and that is to their corporate bottom line,” he said. “They regularly run roughshod over legitimate environmental impacts. They ignore guidance from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services and regularly attempt to site large-scale projects on environmentally sensitive places like the Michigamme Highlands and the Garden Peninsula and deny the existence of protected species like the Indiana Bat in southeastern Michigan. Wind turbines are the number one cause of death for bats in the U.S.,” he said.

Would these big expenses and upheavals in electricity rates and reliability be worth it? Despite higher power bills, less reliability, and more rolling blackouts, could we at least see global CO2 emissions falling — which we’re told would mean fewer bad weather events? A new study claims that decarbonizing Michigan would only reduce as much CO2 as China produces in 26 minutes.