The full Michigan House of Representatives will now consider two bills rolling back the state’s recently imposed clean energy mandate laws, which included a goal of a 100% clean energy standard.

Members of the House Energy Committee, chaired by state Rep. Pauline Wendzel (R-Watervliet), voted along party lines to advance House Bill 5710 and House Bill 5711. The committee took additional testimony on Tuesday before advancing the bills to the House floor along party lines.

The committee previously heard testimony on the bills in early April. Wendzel explained then that HB 5710 would mandate the Michigan Public Service Commission require the consideration of all energy resources within its integrated resource planning process, which mandates that companies set long-term plans for meeting customers’ energy needs. It also removes requirements for energy companies to consider environmental justice impacts and a long-term forecast of greenhouse gas emissions in their integrated rate plans.

State Rep. Pat Outman (R-Six Lakes) sponsored HB 5711, which would eliminate the state’s clean energy standard, which requires energy companies to adopt a 100% clean energy portfolio.

Michigan House Republicans begin push to eliminate state’s clean energy standard

A handful of amendments from the committee’s Democratic members were rejected and the bills were reported with adopted substitute language.

State Rep. Julie Brixie (D-Okemos) posited a substitute to HB 5710 that would have restored funding for utility rate case intervenors who advocated for Michigan ratepayers against exorbitant rate hikes. Brixie said if the legislation is intended to protect ratepayers from high energy costs, it did not make sense to slash a program shaped to protect ratepayers. The committee did not adopt the substitute.

Brixie’s substitute for HB 5711, asking for the distributed cap change to be removed from the bill and that the energy efficiency program incentives be restored, was also rejected.

State Rep. Tonya Meyers Phillips (D-Detroit) attempted to add substitute language to HB 5710 directing the Michigan Public Service Commission to not authorize return on equity riders, which measure a company’s profitability and potential for making a profit on an investment, for natural gas utilities that exceed 7% profitability. Meyers Phillips’s amendment would have capped that return on equity rate at 7%. The substitute was similarly rejected.

Prior to the vote, Samarth Medakkar, with Advanced Energy United, called on the committee to reject both bills.

“With energy costs skyrocketing this winter and the expensive summer cooling season looming, it is alarmingly clear why it’s so important that we diversify our energy resource mix,” Medakkar in a statement. “State leaders in Michigan should continue deploying more homegrown, local energy resources. Utility bills in Michigan have risen because of rising electricity demand and utility spending on an aging grid, and this legislative proposal to undercut energy efficiency and renewable energy threatens to worsen affordability challenges, not address them.”