State Representative Joey Andrews will host a meeting of the Michigan House Energy Reliability, Resilience, and Accountability Task Force in Benton Harbor this week. He tells us the body was formed by House Speaker Joe Tate this year.
“It kind of arose out of conversations early in the year when there were power outages in the southeast from storms that went through,” Andrews said. “The conversation emerged about what we need to do to make the grid more reliable and save ratepayers more money. We’re also taking a broader look at energy policy in the state.”
Andrews says all of the task force members are likely to be at this week’s meeting, at least virtually. The panel includes state Representative Pauline Wendzel. He notes throughout the task force meetings held around the state this year, people in different areas have had different things to say. Andrews expects southwest Michigan residents to have their own thoughts.
“My expectation going in is that we’re going to hear less about reliability and more about sources of energy. We have a lot of nuclear generation over here, so I expect that we’ll probably hear some strong support for that being part of our continued mix.”
Andrews also expects environmental concerns to be addressed. The task force has one meeting left after this week’s. Once the meetings are all done, the panel will make policy recommendations. This week’s meeting will be at the Lake Michigan College Todd Center in room 1304 on Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. There will also be a Zoom option. Andrews invites every to come and offer their thoughts.
