Lansing, Mich. — Following the release of Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s plan to ensure the state’s supply of propane as her administration looks to prematurely shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) Mid-West Executive Director Chris Ventura released the following statement:
“It is a sad day in America when a governor acts recklessly and indifferently to the needs of real people who will ultimately pay the consequences. Our policymakers should not be beholden to special interest groups dictating how we should live. It’s hard to imagine a worse ‘ready, aim, fire’ idea, especially since there is already a workable, environmentally sound and bipartisan solution in place if the state would just allow the Line 5 Tunnel Project to move forward.
“This new plan is unrealistic. It is nothing more than a political sound bite in response to a crisis of the administration’s own making, which fails to offer a real solution to help meet the most basic needs of Michiganders. Ironically, a government that hasn’t fixed the roads is now proposing new taxpayer-funded subsidies that will increase emissions, harm our environment, raise energy prices and put our citizens at risk of energy supply shortages. It is a lose-lose-lose-lose proposal.
“Government orders and mandates are not market signals in the United States. The market has already spoken and it is the reason that the Line 5 Tunnel Project was proposed years ago and is funded by private sector investment. If this administration had continued to act in good faith on this bipartisan plan, we could be halfway through building the tunnel right now, at no additional cost to taxpayers.
“We cannot stress this enough: scoring partisan political points at the expense of families and businesses puts people in the middle of a needless zero sum game where they lose. It must stop. We can meet our energy and environmental goals without hurting our communities. The Line 5 plan does both. Gov. Whitmer’s proposal does neither.”
