Yesterday, in West Virginia vs. the EPA, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that threatens planetary health and the ability of our government to protect the health and safety of all Americans. 

The disheartening ruling was issued not even a week after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, an act that repealed the fundamental right to abortion. Millions of Americans' lost autonomy over their own bodies and lives last week. This decision will disproportionately affect those already burdened by social and environmental threats. Far worse, it sent a resounding message to women and transgender people around the country: you are not equal. Read our statement about the overturn of Roe vs. Wade and our commitment to reproductive justice here.

As an organization rooted in the democratic principles of equity and justice, without which a safe and healthy environment is not possible, we are deeply shaken by and condemn both decisions. 

In the West Virginia vs. EPA decision, Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch’s statement notes that the Court is not appointing itself the decision-maker on climate policy and is instead acknowledging that, under our Constitution, the people’s elected representatives in Congress are the decision makers. However, this is a knowing shift to a dysfunctional Congress that has continually demonstrated its inability to govern. 

This dysfunction is how we got here in the first place: The ruling was based on a 2009 lawsuit between the state of West Virginia and the EPA, springing from the implementation of the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan. Unable to move any climate change policies through Congress nor ratify any international climate action treaties, the Obama administration relied on the statutory authority of the EPA to set limits on how much carbon each state could emit from their power plants. 

The Supreme Court’s decision to limit the EPA’s regulatory authority comes just after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released yet another dire warning about our failure to act, noting "without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5°C is beyond reach." This while we see the impacts of climate change all around us: The American West is again experiencing record-breaking droughts, with people begging for showers at neighbor's houses on Craigslist, as infectious diseases rapidly rise and heat waves smash records across the globe. 

Something more destructive rings true, too: the two Supreme Court decisions feel connected—the control of women's bodies by a predominantly white and male institution and the hamstringing of the federal regulation of business, in this case the almost exclusively white and male-controlled energy sector, to continue pillaging the Earth's resources unchecked. Were these decisions about Constitutional rights or simply about maintaining a power structure threatened by the movement toward equity and justice for people and the planet? We feel it is the latter. 

Our democracy, equality, and planet are in peril. Nonetheless, America has been here before and we know exactly what we need to do. We must continue to organize. Together, we have altered the course of history in our community, region, and the world.We must do it again. 

America has a beleaguered history of colonialism, genocide, and building power by enslaving peoples, but we also have a history of democracy, equality and justice for all. These ideals are being put to the test. Now must be the time when we embrace these principles, at last, because when it comes to the climate crisis, the clock is running out. 

After a year of Workgroup and Council meetings, listening sessions, and stakeholder convenings, Michigan’s Governor Whitmer and the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) has now released the MI Healthy Climate Plan. The plan contains recommendations to ensure a greener, healthier Michigan, and is a bold step towards a carbon-neutral future. 

Thanks to the efforts of our many partners and supporters, as well as members of the Michigan Council on Climate Solutions, EGLE made a number of improvements to the draft plan it released for public comment in January.  The final MI Healthy Climate Plan contains important improvements to environmental justice commitments, prioritizing the needs of vulnerable communities who are disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis. The plan mandates that at least 40% of state-wide funding for climate and water infrastructure go directly to BIPOC and low-income Michiganders. The updated plan also provides much-needed relief for residents who are energy-insecure, limiting household energy expenditures to 6% of annual income for low-income households. Critically, these policy measures will be enacted in partnership with devoted community leaders who know their neighbors’ unique challenges and needs best. 

The updated MI Healthy Climate Plan also:

• makes much-needed provisions for an earlier phase-out of coal and a swifter statewide transition to clean energy,
• aims to generate 60% of Michigan’s energy from renewable sources and eliminate the use of coal by 2030,
• seeks to develop the grid and charging infrastructure to support 2 million electric vehicles by 2030,
• calls for a 15% annual increase in access to public transit and other clean mobility options across the state,
• strengthens recommendations to reduce carbon emissions from buildings, shifting the state’s building stock to cleaner energy sources, increasing energy efficiency, and lowering costs for Michigan families, and
• sets a goal of tripling the state’s recycling rate to 45% and cutting food waste in half by 2030.

The MI Healthy Climate Plan solidifies Michigan’s role at the forefront of the clean energy and electrification transition, making the case that we can combat climate change, address equity and advance economic opportunity for all Michiganders at the same time. The plan proposes to work with utility companies, automakers and many other key stakeholders to grow a clean energy sector that is already responsible for adding over 100,000 jobs and $5 billion of economic activity in the state’s economy every year. Job training and additional support for workers that might be impacted will also help to ensure a more just transition that works for the planet and for people.

Charles Griffith, Climate & Energy Director at the Ecology Center and a co-chair of the Transportation and Mobility Workgroup for the Council on Climate Solutions, knows what it took to draft the MI Healthy Climate Plan policy recommendations—and what it’ll take to implement them:  “The final MI Healthy Climate Plan sets a solid foundation for the state to achieve carbon-neutrality while addressing environmental inequities, and we should take a well-deserved moment to celebrate this achievement,” says Griffith. “But now the real work begins. The Council, EGLE and the Whitmer administration will need to continue to engage the public and convene stakeholders to pursue implementation of the plan’s recommendations and policies, as well as work to address gaps and come up with additional solutions.”