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Defeating Big-Government Renewables in Michigan (Prop. 3's "suicide by gluttony")

By Kevon Martis -- December 6, 2012

Proposition 3, sponsored by by Michigan Energy-Michigan Jobs (MEMJ), would have forced utilities to produce 25 percent of Michigan’s electricity by 2025 from renewable sources, primarily industrial wind. Despite national backing and a lot of money spent, Michigan voters rejected the “25×25” measure by a 64–36% margin.

Clearly, the voters saw through what would have been effectivity a tax increase on electricity which would threaten to endanger reliability as well.

Background

This initiative was hardly local. It was driven by national pressure groups like the Sierra Club with their backing by natural gas company Chesapeake Energy, and the League of Conservation Voters, also heavily funded by deep-pocketed elites.

MEMJ itself was funded largely by the Green Tech Action Fund of San Francisco and the Natural Resources Defense Fund of New York, both darlings of green industrialists, particularly Tom Steyer, a California hedge fund billionaire.…