Amy Clickner

Recently, the Democratic National Committee council on climate change published policy recommendations that would shift our economy away from fossil fuels within just a few years.

This panel’s plan to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in homes by 2025, ban hydraulic fracturing and energy exports, halt pipeline permitting, and take other measures that could have serious implications for the country as a whole.

While this list of recommendations is unlikely to be accepted in its entirety by presidential candidate Joe Biden, the message it sends may be problematic for Michigan, where natural gas is central to our energy and industrial needs.

Our state’s residents and major industries, such as manufacturing, logging, and mining, rely on this affordable, carbon-reducing fuel.

If the DNC panel’s plans were to go through it would mean increased costs for heating and job losses across Michigan as plants are shut down and economic growth is constrained.

With 9,000 miles of transmission lines built by hardworking Michigan residents, the region represents is a vital hub for meeting energy needs and spurring economic activity throughout the upper mid-west.

Michigan stores and cycles more natural gas than any other state. This massive capacity allows for around 80% of our residents to tap natural gas and pay lower heating costs. About 22% of this supply for heating comes directly from producers in Michigan. With lower prices, commercial consumption of natural gas rose 12 percent in just five years.

In addition to providing lower heating prices, natural gas has benefitted Michigan’s economy through the creation of jobs and an increase in state and local tax revenues. Michigan workers continue to expand the state’s pipeline infrastructure, building around 400 miles each year. While gas companies have already helped contribute to our economy in a meaningful way, they are sustaining or creating thousands of new jobs and $8 billion to state and municipal tax revenues through 2035.

While the economic footprint of this fuel is clear, what many overlook is the role of natural gas has in advancing the United States toward our necessary environmental goals. Just last year, the Lansing Board of Water and Light broke ground on a $500 million natural gas-fueled power plant project that will convert their last existing coal fueled plant and generate 250 megawatts of electricity for the surrounding area.

The conversion of these plants to natural gas has already allowed Michigan to cut its CO2 emissions by 25% as of 2017.

For those privileged to live amid the Upper Peninsula’s pristine beauty, it is reassuring to know that Michigan’s oil and gas companies have never forgotten that benefitting from the state’s natural resources carries a responsibility to conserve its natural heritage. They have donated over a billion dollars to the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund since its creation in 1976.

Michigan has benefited greatly from producing, transporting, and consuming natural gas over the past few decades.

The ambitious targets the DNC panel has in mind are well intended but will lead to economic losses for the state and new impediments to reducing carbon emissions, so let’s hope better policies prevail.

Editor’s note: Amy Clickner is the CEO of the Lake Superior Community Partnership of Marquette County.