In 2023, Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed one of the most aggressive clean energy laws in the country — requiring Michigan utilities to hit 50% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% clean electricity by 2040. That plan assumed federal policy would be moving in the same direction. Things like federal tax credits, Environmental Protection Agency regulations, and infrastructure money for electric vehicles were anticipated to follow.
What does that decision mean for Michigan? What does it mean for DTE and Consumers Energy, which are both tasked with transitioning to clean energy sources instead of relying on things like natural gas?
Liesl Clark is the director of climate action engagement for the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability. She also used to run the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.
The Metro‘s Sam Corey spoke with the director about the president’s actions and what she would recommend the state do now.
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Despite a barren start to Colorado’s ski season, Winter Park Resort opened on Halloween and served up holiday powder.
The ski area’s secret is a contraption a few miles upwind of the chairlifts that looks like a meat smoker strapped to the top of a ladder. When weather conditions are just right, a Winter Park contractor fires up the machine, burning a fine dust of silver iodide into the sky — a process known as cloud seeding. Ideally, the particles disappear into a cloud that is cold enough and wet enough to produce snow, but may need a nudge. The silver iodide becomes the nuclei for water droplets, like iron filings to a magnet. Those droplets freeze and fall from the sky as snowflakes, freshening up the slopes of the resort as it tries to lure the Gore-Tex-clad masses between Denver and larger, showier ski destinations further west.
Doug Laraby, who has helped run Winter Park for nearly four decades, says the resort leaned heavily on its cloud seeding equipment over the Christmas holiday, sprinkling the skies as fresh powder fell days before the critical New Years weekend. At the moment, Winter Park has more snow than Breckenridge, Keystone and a host of bigger resorts nearby.
“For us,” Laraby explains, “that was a million-dollar storm.”
Resorts are increasingly seeking solutions to freshen up the brown slopes spanning the American West this winter, even as the East Coast grapples with back-to-back storms. Last month, Vail Resorts Inc. — which owns nearly 50 resorts across the U.S. and Canada — said it would miss revenue projections due to subpar snowfall this season. The dramatic lack of precipitation in the Rockies “limited our ability to open terrain” and, in turn, crimped spending by both locals and destination guests, Chief Executive Officer Rob Katz said in a statement.
In a battle to improve — or at least maintain — snowpack in the face of rising temperatures and drought, Winter Park, operated by Vail rival Alterra Mountain Co., is one of a growing number of groups in the American West doubling down on cloud seeding, from state governments and ski hills to utilities and watershed management agencies.
Desperate for water — ideally snow — they’re banking on the strategy to buoy the $6 billion U.S. ski industry, while keeping rivers and reservoirs at healthy levels come spring. Despite the promise, though, companies are still trying to amass data showing the technology can actually deliver appreciable amounts of powder. And scientists studying cloud seeding have cast doubt on just how effective it is.
Katja Friedrich, an atmospheric science professor at the University of Colorado, concedes that cloud seeding works in a lab. “But out there,” she says, gesturing to cirrus clouds sweeping over the Front Range outside of her office, “it’s a totally different business.”
Storms are volatile, complex and unforgiving places to gather data. “The application is so far ahead of what the science actually shows,” Friedrich explains. “Usually, it’s the other way around.”
The idea of cloud seeding dates back to the 19th century, and it got an unexpected boost thanks to research at General Electric in the wake of World War II. DRI, a nonprofit research institute in Nevada, started cloud seeding in the 1960s. Putting particles in clouds to create precipitation gained traction in recent years as waves of drought hit the U.S., tallying $14 billion in damages in 2023 alone.
DRI now runs cloud-seeding operations all over the West, including the program at Winter Park. In 2023, the Winter Park generators burned for the equivalent of five straight days, planting an estimated 24 inches of powder on the slopes that wouldn’t have been there otherwise, according to DRI. That equates to 13% of what would have fallen naturally.
“The main driver [for our clients] is water resources,” says Frank McDonough, a DRI research scientist. But, he notes, “we can help the entire mountain economy.”
Private companies are also playing a growing role, most notably Rainmaker Technology Corp., a startup that is now the lead cloud seeding contractor for Utah, which has built one of the most aggressive programs in the American West. From a warehouse in Salt Lake City, founder Augustus Doricko, a 25-year-old with a resplendent mullet that belies his Connecticut childhood, manages a crew of 120, mostly young people working to make it snow on mountains they might otherwise be climbing or skiing.
When the weather looks right, Rainmaker crews pile into 12 pickups, each loaded with two drones, and convoy up the canyons of the Wasatch Mountains. They send half of the drones whirring into the soup of clouds and spray silver iodide for about an hour. When the machines come down to recharge, the team launches the second wave. The cycle is repeated until the clouds move on or get too warm.
Doricko says his company is creating a fresh supply of water with no ecological impact; silver iodide is inorganic and even if ingested, won’t dissolve in the human body.
This year, the state of Utah will pay Rainmaker $7.5 million, part of a cloud seeding blitz that began three years ago. With the Great Salt Lake at historic low levels, Utah lawmakers approved a tenfold increase in funding, committing at least $5 million a year to operations and another $12 million to upgrade and expand a fleet of almost 200 cloud seeding machines on the ground.
Rainmaker is charged with generating enough snow to help partially refill the lake. The company also has a contract with Snowbird Resort, located to the east of Salt Lake City, and much of its seeding will happen near Powder Mountain and Snowbasin resorts, located further north, although neither ski area is a client.
“Anything we can do to increase water levels is going to be well worth the funding,” says Jonathan Jennings, a meteorologist with the Utah Department of Natural Resources.
The list of stakeholders clamoring for more water in the American West is long, ranging from ski resorts to wildfire fighters, reservoir managers to farmers.
“Every state in the West is either cloud seeding or thinking of cloud seeding,” says Friedrich, the University of Colorado researcher.
It’s also popular, in part, because it’s cheap. Jennings estimates that it costs about $30 to produce 325,000 gallons of water, or what experts call an acre-foot of water. Recycling or desalinating a similar amount would cost somewhere around $1,000. Snowmaking, meanwhile, is more expensive and uses more water than it produces.
When Doricko visits potential customers, be they utilities, ski resorts or state agencies, his sales script is simple: “It’s the only way you can bring new water supply to the Rocky Mountain West.”
More often than not these days, the pitch lands. Idaho has also hired Rainmaker this winter, eager to fill its reservoirs and keep farmers happy. All told, the company has about 100 drones flying across Western skies.
In Colorado, where arid conditions have exacerbated wildfires, officials are curious about the capabilities of Rainmaker’s drones while waiting to see this winter’s snow tallies from Utah. In the meantime, they’re working to replace decades-old, ground-based seeding machines with ones that can be switched on remotely. Without the need of a human to light the burner, the new units can be tucked into more remote places and at higher elevations that are colder for longer, improving the odds for snow.
“We feel comfortable saying we can get an additional eight to 12% of precipitation per storm,” says Andrew Rickert, a weather modification program manager with the Colorado Water Conservation Board. “And if we have a great winter in Colorado, there are 30 to 35 storms we can seed.”
Friedrich isn’t so sure about that estimate, despite being regarded as a bit of a rockstar in the cloud seeding field. In 2017, her research team zig-zagged a plane rigged with seed flares through a cloud in Wyoming that wasn’t producing snow. Sure enough, snow fell in the same pattern as the flight, results that fueled much of the recent seeding boom.
However, Friedrich points out, there wasn’t that much snow. And she notes that much remains unknown, like how wind affects the amount of silver iodide that gets into a cloud, and whether the particles trigger much precipitation beyond what would occur naturally.
“I understand why people are buying it, because they’re so desperate,” she says. “But if you ask me, there’s no scientific proof” that it produces a meaningful amount of water. Friedrich is working on a new study to try to figure out how effective ground-based cloud seeding can be and the best operating conditions.
Cloud seeding has also faced pushback from conspiracy theorists who say it works too well. Despite no evidence, Rainmaker was inaccurately implicated in last summer’s deadly Texas floods, and bills to ban weather modification have been filed in dozens of statehouses across the U.S., including those of Colorado and Utah. Former Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also introduced a federal cloud-seeding ban in Congress in the wake of last July’s floods.
Doricko, at Rainmaker, has been working to convince lawmakers that cloud seeding does no harm and, on the other front, win over skeptical scientists like Freidrich. Rainmaker spent much of the spring and summer building its own radar system and deploying a layer of on-the-ground weather stations to measure results. It’s also working with independent researchers to provided peer-reviewed validation. As Friedrich did years ago, Rainmaker tries to spray silver-iodide in zig-zag patterns, so its results are more visible on radar — a so-called “seeding signature.”
Doricko acknowledges the challenge of teasing out the exact influence of manmade cloud seeding — which he jokingly refers to as “magic beans” — from natural precipitation. “Our fundamental research on now at Rainmaker is all about what kitchen sink of sensors can we throw at this problem to actually validate” our work, he says.
Vail abandoned its cloud seeding program in 2020, shifting its resources to invest heavily in machines that use water to spray artificial snow. The newest snow guns monitor weather in real time and can be programmed remotely.
“This technology means that Vail can make the most of every moment that conditions allow for snowmaking,” says spokeswoman Michelle Dallal. Still, the resort is feeling the pinch of an abnormally dry winter.
State officials are trying to get Vail back on board. Cloud seeding, they argue, can be cheaper than snowmaking, both in terms of cost and carbon, and it adds water to the ecosystem, rather than taking a share of it away. The state is also trying to get other ski areas to buy in: This year, Colorado positioned a ground system to seed clouds on the slopes of Aspen, in hopes that the resort will help fund future programs.
Meanwhile, Winter Park has emerged as one of the state’s biggest cloud seeding cheerleaders. Laraby says only 10% of the mountain is covered by snowmaking gear, and there are no plans to install more. And yet, when the storms rolled through the state Dec. 28, Winter Park says its cloud-seeding efforts conjured 12 inches of snow, triple what fell on Vail.
“If you ask me, it enhances the efficiency of these storms,” Laraby says. “I think it’s awesome.”
Justus Henkes of Team United States competes in the Aspen Snowmass Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle Qualifiers during the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix 2026 at Aspen Snowmass Ski Resort on Jan. 8, 2026, in Aspen, Colorado. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images North America/TNS)
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will resume staff cuts that were briefly paused during January’s severe winter storm, according to two FEMA managers, stoking concern across the agency over its ability to address disasters with fewer workers.
FEMA at the start of January abruptly stopped renewing employment contracts for a group of staffers known as Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery, or CORE employees, term-limited hires who can hold senior roles and play an important role in emergency response.
But FEMA then paused the cuts in late January as the nation braced for the gigantic winter storm that was set to impact half the country’s population. FEMA did not say whether that decision was linked to the storm.
The two FEMA team managers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the staffing changes with the media, were told this week that dismissals were going to resume soon but were not given a specific date. It was not clear how many people would be impacted.
FEMA staff told The Associated Press that the policy indiscriminately terminates employees without taking into account the importance of their role or their years of experience. The hundreds of CORE dismissals have wiped out entire teams, or left groups without managers, they said.
“It’s a big impact to our ability to implement and carry out the programs entrusted to us to carry out,” one FEMA manager told The Associated Press.
The officials said it was unclear who at the Department of Homeland Security or FEMA was driving the decision. Managers used to make the case to extend a contract months in advance, they said, but now leaders were often finding out about terminations at the same time as their employee.
DHS and FEMA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
There are over 10,000 CORE workers, making up nearly half of FEMA’s workforce. While they are employed on two- and four-year contracts, those terms are “routinely renewed,” one manager said, calling CORE the “primary backbone” for FEMA’s response and recovery work. Many CORE are supervisors and it’s not uncommon for them to have worked at the agency for many years, if not decades.
CORE employees are paid out of FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund and are not subject to as long a hiring process as permanent full-time federal employees. That allows the agency to be more nimble in its hiring and onboard employees more quickly as needs arise. With DHS funded only temporarily because of a battle in Congress over immigration tactics, CORE employees can work and be paid during a government shutdown, so long as the disaster fund still has money.
It also comes as DHS faces increasing criticism over how it manages FEMA, including delays in getting disaster funding to states and workforce reductions.
FEMA lost nearly 10% of its workforce between January and June 2025, according to the Government Accountability Office. Concern has grown in recent months among FEMA staff and disaster experts that larger cuts are coming.
A draft report from the Trump-appointed FEMA Review Council included a recommendation to cut the agency’s workforce in half, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the report with media. The council’s final report, due last November, has not been published.
“Based on past disasters, we know that slashing FEMA’s workforce will put Americans at risk, plain and simple,” Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said after introducing a resolution Wednesday condemning FEMA staff cuts.
Last week, a coalition of unions and nonprofits led by the American Federation of Government Employees filed a legal complaint against the Trump Administration over the FEMA reductions.
A CORE employee at FEMA headquarters who asked not to be named for fear of losing their job said that even though FEMA was able to support states during Winter Storm Fern, a year of staff losses could already be felt. There were fewer people available for backup, they said, and staff were burned out from ongoing uncertainty.
FILE – People work at the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington, on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
Energy Star, the program that helps guide consumers to more energy-efficient appliances and electronics, has survived the Trump administration’s plans to cut it.
The program received sufficient support in Congress that it was included in budget legislation signed this week by President Donald Trump.
Environmentalists and advocates called it good news for consumers and the planet, but raised concerns over how the program will be administered under a shrunken Environmental Protection Agency.
But Energy Star is not the only energy efficiency program targeted by Trump.
Here’s what to know about the outlook for that program and others.
What’s Trump got against energy efficiency?
Trump has regularly said efficiency standards for household items and appliances — many strengthened under predecessor Joe Biden’s administration — rob consumers of choice and add unnecessary costs.
His first executive order upon returning to office last year outlined a vision to “unleash American energy.” In it, he emphasized safeguarding “the American people’s freedom to choose” everything from light bulbs to gas stoves to water heaters and shower heads.
At the same time Trump has targeted efficiency, he’s also sought to block renewable energy development such as wind and solar and boosted fossil fuels that contribute to warming, including gas, oil and coal.
What happened with Energy Star?
Energy Star is a voluntary, decades-old EPA-run program that informs consumers about how efficient home appliances and electronics are, including dishwashers, washing machines and more. The idea is to simultaneously reduce emissions and save consumers money on their energy bills.
The Department of Energy develops product testing procedures for Energy Star, while the EPA sets performance levels and ensures the certification label is reliable for consumers. It also applies to new homes, commercial buildings and plants.
EPA says the program has saved 4 billion metric tonnes (4.41 billion tons) of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions since launching in 1992, and can save households an average of $450 annually.
Last May, EPA drafted plans to eliminate Energy Star as part of a broader agency reorganization that targeted air pollution regulation efforts and other critical environmental functions. The agency said the reorganization would deliver “organizational improvements to the personnel structure” to benefit the American people.
The legislation Trump signed this week allocated $33 million for the program, slightly more than 2024’s $32.1 million, according to the Congressional Research Service, but it continues the general trend of declining funding for the program over the past decade. The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, among many industry groups to advocate for keeping the program in letters sent to Congress, said it was “very pleased” to see the funding continue.
Some concerns remain
Experts say uncertainty around the program likely didn’t impact consumers much over the past year. They note that manufacturers can’t change their product lines overnight.
Amanda Smith, a senior scientist at climate research organization Project Drawdown, said the uncertainty may have had a bigger effect on EPA’s ability to administer the program. She was among experts wondering how staffing cuts may affect EPA’s work.
EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch didn’t address a question about that, saying in a statement only that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin “will follow the law as enacted by Congress.”
What other energy efficiency rules are still in limbo?
The Department of Energy has proposed rolling back, weakening or revoking 17 other minimum efficiency standards for energy and water conservation as part of 47 broader deregulatory actions. Those are standards that must be met for the products to be sold legally.
That includes air cleaners, ovens, dehumidifiers, portable air conditioners, washers, dishwashers, faucets and many more items that have been in place and updated over the years.
“These are standards that are quietly saving people money on their utility bills year after year in a way that most consumers never notice,” said Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project. “The striking thing is that consumers have a huge array of choices in appliances in the market today. Repealing these standards would simply increase cost. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Changing efficiency measures also drives up energy demand at a time when utilities are already challenged to meet the growing needs of data centers, electrification and more.
While Congress has supported Energy Star and these separate appliance standards, it also has advanced legislation that would give the president new powers to roll back rules.
Manufacturers are likely to continue making efficient consumer appliances, but weakened rules could negatively impact the U.S. marketplace.
“The problem for U.S. manufacturers is that overseas competitors making inefficient products elsewhere could now flood the U.S. market,” deLaski said, noting that would undercut American manufacturers.
Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Lawyers for conservation groups, Native American tribes, and the states of Oregon and Washington returned to court Friday to seek changes to dam operations on the Snake and Columbia Rivers, following the collapse of a landmark agreement with the federal government to help recover critically imperiled salmon runs.
Last year President Donald Trump torpedoed the 2023 deal, in which the Biden administration had promised to spend $1 billion over a decade to help restore salmon while also boosting tribal clean energy projects. The White House called it “radical environmentalism” that could have resulted in the breaching of four controversial dams on the Snake River.
FILE – Water moves through a spillway of the Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River near Almota, Wash., April 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Nicholas K. Geranios, File)
The plaintiffs argue that the way the government operates the dams violates the Endangered Species Act, and over decades of litigation judges have repeatedly ordered changes to help the fish. They’re asking the court to order changes at eight large hydropower dams, including lowering reservoir water levels, which can help fish travel through them faster, and increasing spill, which can help juvenile fish pass over dams instead of through turbines.
In court filings, the federal government called the request a “sweeping scheme to wrest control” of the dams that would compromise the ability to operate them safely and efficiently. Any such court order could also raise rates for utility customers, the government said.
“We’re returning to court because the situation for the salmon and the steelhead in the Columbia River Basin is dire,” said Kristen Boyles, managing attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm representing conservation, clean energy and fishing groups in the litigation. “There are populations that are on the brink of extinction, and this is a species which is the center of Northwest tribal life and identity.”
FILE – Water spills over the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, which runs along the Washington and Oregon state line, June 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski, File)
The lengthy legal battle was revived after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement last June. The pact with Washington, Oregon and four Native American tribes had allowed for a pause in the litigation.
The plaintiffs, which include the state of Oregon and a coalition of conservation and fishing groups such as the National Wildlife Federation, filed the motion for a preliminary injunction, with Washington state, the Nez Perce Tribe and Yakama Nation supporting it as “friends of the court.” The U.S. District Court in Portland will hear the oral arguments.
The Columbia River Basin, spanning an area roughly the size of Texas, was once the world’s greatest salmon-producing river system, with at least 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are endangered or threatened. Another iconic but endangered Northwest species, a population of killer whales, also depend on the salmon.
The construction of the first dams on the Columbia River, including the Grand Coulee and Bonneville in the 1930s, provided jobs during the Great Depression as well as hydropower and navigation. They made the town of Lewiston, Idaho, the most inland seaport on the West Coast, and many farmers continue to rely on barges to ship their crops.
Opponents of the proposed dam changes include the Inland Ports and Navigation Group, which said in a statement last year that increasing spill “can disproportionately hurt navigation, resulting in disruptions in the flow of commerce that has a highly destructive impact on our communities and economy.”
Speaking before the hearing, Jeremy Takala of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council said “extinction is not an option.”
“This is very personal to me. It’s very intimate,” he said, describing how his grandfather took him to go fishing. “Every season of lower survival means closed subsistence fisheries, loss of ceremonies and fewer elders able to pass on fishing traditions to the next generation.”
The dams for which changes are being sought are the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite on the Snake River, and the Bonneville, The Dalles, John Day and McNary on the Columbia.
FILE – This photo shows the Ice Harbor dam on the Snake River in Pasco, Wash, Oct. 24, 2006. (AP Photo/Jackie Johnston, File)
A Michigan lawmaker says he will continue calling for higher fees and tougher regulation of landfills in the state.
Michigan state Senator Darrin Camilleri pressed for the legislation last year as environmental officials weighed whether to renew the license of the Wayne Disposal site in Van Buren Township. Ownership also wanted to increase the size of the landfill by 24%.
The landfill became embroiled in controversy after its owners initially planned to accept toxic material left over from the first atomic bomb project.
Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) recently approved the site’s vertical expansion. But Camilleri says that result is not sitting well with those who live near the site.
Listen: Michigan senator wants better toxic waste regulation after state approves controversial landfill expansion
The following interview has been edited for clarity.
Michigan state Sen. Darrin Camilleri:Just like my constituents, I am deeply disappointed and frustrated that EGLE decided to expand this toxic waste facility that sits in the middle of our communities. It’s something we’ve been fighting against for many years now. I’m trying my best to regulate it at the state level. But we have not been able to push these regulatory bills through the entire process. Renewing its license is just another slap in the face to my communities. They have said that they do not want to have these types of facilities in their backyard.
The toxic waste that we are getting from all over the country should not be dumped right here in Michigan. That’s been our number one calling point. Michigan is not your dumping ground and we should be doing more to push back against these types of facilities. So of course, when we heard about the permit getting approved, my residents and I were just devastated.
Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: Michigan regulators said they had to address issues raised by the public. But they added that those issues could not be the basis for denying the landfill a license. Regulators say the facility doesn’t present any hazard to public health or the environment based on their monitoring of air, groundwater, etc. in and near the site. With all that being the case, do you see any other options for those who would be concerned about this expansion? Or is it just a done deal and live with it now?
DC: We have won in court when it came to the nuclear waste that came out of the Manhattan Project in New York and keeping it out of Michigan. Our local community leadership, including our mayors and supervisors, led the charge against those shipments and won in court. So there are options on the table to halt this type of material from coming into Michigan, but we do need to do more.
That’s why I introduced bills further regulating landfills. We passed them out of the state senate and they’re currently sitting in the state house with no opportunities that we know of, so far, for movement. House Republicans have basically indicated that they are not interested in regulating these facilities. Which is really frustrating, because this is not a Democratic or Republican issue.
When I have town halls on these topics in Van Buren Township or in Wayne County, Republicans as well as Democrats come asking for change. We delivered that promise out of the state senate. And I’m going to keep trying this term and, if not this term, we’re going to try again next term as well.
QK: Some people blame the so-called “tipping” fees that Michigan charges for waste disposal, which are very low compared to other states or countries, for making Michigan a magnet for trash. You have talked about raising those tipping fees. A few months ago, I spoke with Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall about it. He told me that raising the fees would be “a kind of tax on people” for their trash. What’s your reaction to Hall’s argument?
DC: When we look at the reasons why we have so much out-of-state waste coming into Michigan, whether it’s regular trash or toxic trash, it’s because we have had so many low fees for far too long. Michigan has the lowest tipping fees in the nation. And that is a problem for us if you want to rein-in these large corporations that are sending their trash and their waste to Michigan. I believe that it’s time to raise the tipping fees.
And even in the proposal that we passed out of the senate, Michigan would still charge one of the lowest fees of any state in the country. But it would add more revenue back to the environmental cleanup fund and also, critically, put some of that money generated from out-of-state companies trying to send trash here and return the funding back to local communities in Michigan.
So this actually is something that would benefit our local community leadership. And it’s something that I think would be a long-term deterrent to some of these out-of-state companies continuing to use Michigan as a dumping ground.
QK: When someone like Speaker Hall argues that higher tipping fees equal another tax on people for their trash, what’s your response to that?
DC: That’s just not accurate. The fees that we’re talking about are put onto large companies. We need to hold large companies accountable for dumping their trash and their toxic waste in our communities. And then the fees that are generated from that sector go directly back into our communities to help our local governments, as well as EGLE, clean up other toxic and hazardous waste sites all over the state of Michigan. So, it’s a win-win. And there really is no reason for us to not engage in this debate. We can have a back and forth on the number and the price of the potential tipping fee. But to simply say no without a conversation is not serious policymaking.
QK: I’ve gotten different narratives from different state regulators about just how much room Michigan actually has for more landfills. Some say the state won’t have any more space for them after the next decade or two. Others say the state will always be able to build new landfills if it’s necessary. Do you have any view about that situation?
DC: One of the things that we would require in our legislation is a statewide hazardous waste management plan. We’ve not had one done since the 1980’s. And as part of that plan, I would require state regulators to map out and examine this exact question. How much waste can we take in? How much room is there for additional types of facilities? Or have we already met our cap, which is what I hope is the case. And how do we ensure that we can prioritize Michigan waste first before accepting all this out-of-state and out-of-country material? Our regulators have not really done enough to plan-out the future. This is one thing that our legislation would address.
It’s critical that we continue this conversation. Because communities like mine in Downriver and western Wayne County do have a significant amount of hazardous waste and regular landfills across our region. And we want to make sure that we are protecting our environment, taking care of our communities and investing back into them so they are the types of places where people want to move to.
Having one of these facilities in a densely populated area is just not the right move. My goal is to ensure that if they are going to exist, that they are regulated to a higher standard and that it does cost more money to send waste to Michigan. Because right now, we are way too cheap and it’s way too attractive for these out-of-state companies to dump their waste here. We’re saying enough is enough.
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Crews will rebuild and repair the freeway between I-275 and Michigan Ave. at the Detroit-Dearborn city limits.
MDOT project engineer Bill Erben says the work will start with clearing shoulders and medians in February. Erben says that includes removing some trees.
“For every tree that we cut, we replace trees at the end,” he says.
February weather is notoriously unpredictable, so the timing is important—especially for wildlife.
“There’s a prohibition on cutting trees during the season that’s conducive to bats mating,” Erben says. “So, we have to get the tree removal done from an environmental standpoint.”
Reconstruction and rehabilitation
Erben says the Restore 94 project has two main components—rebuilding and repairing.
“We start just to the east of Wayne Road and it’s all-new pavement through Beech Daly,” he says. “And then there’s significant section of pavement on westbound 94 from Southfield to the [Ford] Rouge [complex] that will get replaced as well.”
Between I-275 and Michigan Ave., MDOT will install five new bridges and create a new interchange at Ecorse Rd.
MDOT plans to build a new interchange on I-94 at Ecorse Road.
Spokesperson Diane Cross says drivers will have access to Metro Airport at all times.
“Drivers will always have I-275, which we redid in the last couple of years,” she says. “If we’re working at Merriman Rd., we’ll make sure Middle Belt Rd. is open and vice versa.”
Getting around it won’t be easy
MDOT plans to shift traffic from one side of the freeway to the other, starting with the westbound lanes. That will reduce traffic from six lanes to four. Erben says the goal is to keep traffic moving on 94 throughout the project.
“There will be local detours, but the bulk of the project is to try to maintain traffic on the freeway,” he says. “We’ll have temporary ramps that will carry traffic from one side to the other.”
The three-year project will affect homes and businesses along 94 in Allen Park, Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Melvindale, Romulus and Taylor. That includes the Ford Rouge complex.
Erben says he’s listening to stakeholders. “We’ve met with Ford already, we’ve met with the mayor of Taylor,” he says. “We’re going to do whatever we can to keep that line of communication open.”
Toward that end, MDOT has two public meetings on the project. The first takes place at 1 p.m. on Feb. 2 at the Allen Park Department of Public Services on West Outer Drive. The second happens at 4 p.m. on Feb. 11 at Taylor City Hall on Goddard.
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A new report finds that the rise in requests to build huge data centers across the country could reshape the size and cost of the electric grid in Michigan.
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that within five years data centers could require well over half of all the new power demand in the state.
One of the report’s co-authors, Lee Shaver, specifically analyzed the likely impact of data centers on Michigan.
Shaver says the question is not how much new electricity Michigan will need, it’s who will pay for it.
Listen: Will massive data centers create large rate increase for Michigan customers?
The following interview has been edited for clarity.
Lee Shaver: The utilities have what’s called an obligation to serve. So they are going to build enough generation capacity to be able to meet the demand from data centers. The way that the system is supposed to work is that whoever causes that new demand pays for it. But the amount of demand we’re seeing from data centers kind of upsets the way that these things have been done historically. There’s a much higher likelihood that customers other than the data center would end up paying for a portion of those costs.
The big difference is just how much larger the data centers are. As an example, the total size of the data center that DTE Electric was just approved to connect to their grid in Saline Township would be 1.4 gigawatts, which is equivalent to the energy demand of over a million homes.
If could take decades for a million people to move into a new city. It’s slow growth that the utility can plan for over a long timeframe. Those costs can be spread out very easily. But when you’ve got a million homes showing up in a community in less than two years, that’s a massive amount of growth. There’s tons of new infrastructure that has to be built. And the regulation just can’t accommodate that level of growth without the way that those costs are covered being distorted.
Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: The Michigan Public Service Commission says the agreement between the data center and DTE includes strong protections against a big rate increase for customers. I’ve also heard that some utilities require owners of data centers to pay what’s called a “large load tariff.” Just what is that?
LS: The word tariff is a bit misleading, especially since tariffs have been in the news so much. But when a utility talks about a large load tariff, they’re talking about a set of terms and conditions that data centers have to agree to in order to be provided with electric service.
And there are a lot of really good and positive things in those tariffs that utilities are proposing, like minimum contract terms, minimum monthly billing amounts. The challenge is that, especially in Michigan, especially with the DTE data center that was just approved, there’s just not enough detail that has been made public from these large load tariffs and from the applications that the data centers themselves are submitting for the public to have assurance that the costs are actually going to be covered.
QK: Is there a point where you finally find that out one way or the other? Does it have to be when the centers are operating or can it be determined while they’re constructed?
LS: There’s several points in the process at which that needs to be done. Obviously the large load tariff needs to be in place when that contract between the data center and the utility is signed. There has to be transparency. A lot of that information, though not all of it, should be public so that it can be reviewed. And there should be regular reporting on at least an annual basis. The utility and the data center should be providing information back to the regulators to say, here’s how much energy was provided, here’s how much it cost, here’s how it was paid for. And at the same time, look at how the billing of other customers changed over that same time period.
QK: Does it take until the things are actually up and going before you can really find that out? Or can you tell that during the construction process?
LS: You need both pieces. You’re not going to get assurance that it happened properly until after things are up and running. But if you don’t have a good framework in place at the beginning to collect and share that data, you would never get any reassurance that it’s been done properly.
QK: Beyond purely financial considerations, I’ve heard some concerns about the possible health or other costs that could be associated with these massive data centers. In your view, is it reasonable to be worried about some of those effects?
LS: Absolutely. What we know today is that any new data centers coming in the near term are going to result in more fossil fuels being burned to provide them with power. And when we burn fossil fuels, there’s emissions of heat trapping carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide and other pollutants that have measurable health impacts. Our report found that due to data centers being built over the next 5-10 years, there’s close to $20 billion worth of health damages that would be caused from air pollution, most of which would happen directly in Michigan. And the global climate damages are estimated to be over $400 billion across the 2026-2050 timeframe.
QK: Having analyzed the issue, what, in your view, is the best strategy for a state like Michigan to follow in regards to where or how many data centers are allowed in?
LS: We didn’t speak to whether or not specific data centers should be allowed to operate, but we do make a couple of recommendations from the policy side.
In addition to the steps that need to be taken to ensure that data centers pay for their own costs, we also recommend what we’re calling a CO2 reduction policy. We found that’s necessary because, while Michigan does have some really progressive clean energy and renewable energy standards, with the growth in data centers, those standards are not enough to continue Michigan on the path to reaching net zero carbon emissions. A CO2 reduction policy would essentially set a limit on how much fossil fuel can be burned in the state of Michigan. And by enacting that limit, over time combustion of fossil fuels will be reduced and all of those negative health impacts would diminish.
QK: Considering the current makeup of Congress and the White House, in your view, how realistic is it that such prohibitions could actually get through?
LS: Our recommendation is actually at the state level, for exactly that reason. And our modeling shows that regardless of policies elsewhere, if Michigan were to enact a CO2 reduction policy, it would have significant impacts on reducing emissions in Michigan.
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California sued the federal government Friday for approving a Texas-based company’s plans to restart two oil pipelines along the state’s coast, escalating a fight over the Trump administration’s removal of regulatory barriers to offshore oil drilling for the first time in decades.
The state oversees the pipelines that run through Santa Barbara and Kern counties, said Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta.
“The federal administration has no right to usurp California’s regulatory authority,” he said at a news conference. “We’re taking them to court to draw a line in the sand and to protect our coast, beaches and communities from potentially hazardous pipelines.”
But the U.S. Transportation Department agency that approved Sable’s plan pushed back on the lawsuit.
“Restarting the Las Flores Pipeline will bring much needed American energy to a state with the highest gas prices in the country,” said a spokesperson with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
Sable did not respond for comment on the lawsuit.
Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term to reverse former President Joe Biden’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts. A federal court later struck down Biden’s order to withdraw 625 million acres of federal waters from oil development.
The federal administration in November announced plans for new offshore oil drilling off the California and Florida coasts, which the oil industry has backed for years.
But critics say the plans could harm coastal communities and ecosystems.
Bonta said one of the pipelines Sable wants to restart burst in 2015, spilling oil along the Southern California coast. The event was the state’s worst oil spill in decades. More than 140,000 gallons (3,300 barrels) of oil gushed out, blackening beaches for 150 miles from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. It polluted a biologically rich habitat for endangered whales and sea turtles, killing scores of pelicans, seals and dolphins, and decimating the fishing industry.
FILE – A worker removes oil from sand at Refugio State Beach, north of Goleta, Calif., May 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
The drilling platforms were subsequently shuttered.
Sable has faced a slew of legal challenges but has said it is determined to restart production, even if that means confining it to federal waters, where state regulators have virtually no say. California controls the 3 miles nearest to shore. The platforms are 5 to 9 miles offshore.
“It’s crazy that we are even talking about restarting this pipeline,” said Alex Katz, executive director of the Environmental Defense Center, a Santa Barbara group formed in response to a catastrophic 1969 California oil spill.
The federal government’s approval to restart the pipelines ignores painful lessons the community learned from the 2015 oil spill, said California Assemblymember Gregg Hart, a Democrat representing Santa Barbara.
“California will not allow Trump and his Big Oil friends to bypass our essential environmental laws and threaten our coastline,” he said in a statement.
California has been reducing the state’s production of fossil fuels in favor of clean energy for years. The movement has been spearheaded partly by Santa Barbara County, where elected officials voted in May to begin taking steps to phase out onshore oil and gas operations.
FILE – Workers prepare an oil containment boom at Refugio State Beach, north of Goleta, Calif., on May 21, 2015, two days after an oil pipeline ruptured, polluting beaches and killing hundreds of birds and marine mammals. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
Lansing — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive directive Thursday that she said would help explore geologic hydrogen as a new source of energy in Michigan, requiring state agencies to plan for needed infrastructure and policy changes.
Whitmer announced the initiative during a speech at the Detroit Auto Show, saying if Michigan’s hydrogen reserves are proven to be safe and viable, they could lead to a “massive economic boom, creating jobs, lowering costs and reducing our reliance on foreign fuel.”
The directive, her first of 2026, will require the Department of Natural Resources to develop a report on any legal impediments to leasing “state-owned subsurface rights” for hydrogen exploration and the Michigan Public Service Commission to develop a report on needed infrastructure upgrades.
“The directive could make us a national leader in this space,” Whitmer said Thursday, according to her prepared remarks for the event. “We’re already seeing a lot of interest in Michigan because we have more potential reserves under our feet than every other state.”
The reports from state agencies are due by April 1, according to the directive. The Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy must file one on “statutory and regulatory authority to permit” geologic hydrogen exploration and any impediments in current law.
A statement from the governor’s office described geologic hydrogen as “a natural energy resource with the potential to serve as a fuel source at a scale and price that is competitive with fossil fuels.” Hydrogen releases water when it is burned, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, while petroleum and other fossil fuels release planet-warming gases such as carbon dioxide.
The USGS released a report last year indicating Michigan could be rich with geologic hydrogen that could be tapped for fuel. The state has three elements needed for hydrogen accumulation, the report authors said: a source of hydrogen generation, porous reservoirs that store hydrogen and seals to prevent hydrogen from leaking.
The four-page directive that Whitmer signed said Michigan could see “billions of dollars in new economic activity by tapping into a fraction of the U.S. hydrogen economy.”
In the statement from the governor’s office, Judd Herzer, director of mobility research and innovation at Michigan State University, said Whitmer’s directive sent a signal that Michigan was serious about leading in geological hydrogen.
“With the right coordination across state agencies, research institutions and the private sector geological hydrogen can move rapidly from scientific promise to practical application, supporting hydrogen-powered mobility, clean energy independence and the advanced manufacturing opportunities that will define Michigan’s next era of innovation,” Herzer said.
At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Energy is funding ongoing research into safe hydrogen handling and storage practices, according to the department’s website.
Geologists predict Michigan rich with hydrogen
Exploration of underground hydrogen stores is in the early stage, USGS geologists said in their report published last year. Finding underground hydrogen stores has historically been considered a problem or gone unreported, since companies were typically on the hunt for petroleum and lacked the tools to measure hydrogen.
Geologists used multiple data sets that covered the 48 contiguous states to determine where hydrogen reserves were likely, said Geoffrey Ellis, a USGS geochemist at the Central Energy Resources Science Center and coauthor of the report. He said geologists need to do more focused work to better understand reserves in Michigan.
“The fact that a state like Michigan has so much interest is great,” Ellis said. “Hopefully, we can work with the state (geological) survey and do that type of effort.”
Sara Ryker, USGS associate director for energy and minerals, described the report as “tantalizing” when it was released in January 2025.
“For decades, the conventional wisdom was that naturally occurring hydrogen did not accumulate in sufficient quantities to be used for energy purposes,” Ryker said in 2025. “This map is tantalizing because it shows that several parts of the U.S. could have a subsurface hydrogen resource after all.”
The USGS report sparked interest in recovering hydrogen from below ground rather than making hydrogen by splitting molecules such as water, said Todd Allen, University of Michigan College of Engineering associate dean for research.
While the report shows what federal geologists believe to be the best places for finding geologic reserves of hydrogen, there hasn’t been much test drilling to determine whether the geologists’ predictions are right, Allen said.
“To a great extent, it’s unknown,” he said. “I think the interest in the state of Michigan is that the USGS map said we ought to have a lot.”
It could be a big deal for Michigan if the geologists turn out to be right and the state has large quantities of hydrogen available to recover, he said.
Hydrogen fuel cells could power heavy vehicles, such as ships and trucks. Some clean energy advocates see it as a way to decarbonize heavy-duty transportation and shipping as well as some heavy industries like steelmaking that traditionally rely on coal to power furnaces.
A Hydrogen fuel truck parked during a news conference rehearsal at the new Hydrogen fueling station True Zero operated by FirstElement Fuel in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. The Hydrogen fueling station is the first of its kind opened in the United States, near the Port of Oakland. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
Hydrogen fuel typically is created by separating molecules that contain hydrogen – taking the H₂ out of H₂O, for example.
“If we could bring hydrogen out of the ground, it would be much cheaper,” Allen said. “If people can recover geologic hydrogen at the same rate we do natural gas, it would be much, much cheaper (than other sources of hydrogen) and it would be much, much easier to bring it into commerce.”
Separating out that hydrogen requires a lot of electricity and sometimes is done using natural gas, which releases fossil fuels is costly and negates some of the climate benefits of hydrogen. Extracting hydrogen from the ground also could be a win for the climate, Allen said, because it wouldn’t require electricity.
During a speech in Detroit on Tuesday, Republican President Donald Trump referenced hydrogen, appearing to joke — as he has many times during previous campaign stops in Michigan — that he would “pass on” using hydrogen to power cars.
“I’m hearing it’s not testing so well,” Trump said. “It’s fine, except when there’s an explosion, you’re a goner.”
Under former President Joe Biden, the U.S. Department of Energy funded regional hydrogen hubs to study and produce hydrogen fuel and develop a supply chain for its use. Michigan is part of one such hub, the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, known as MachH2, which was set to receive up to $1 billion in federal funding as of 2023.
The hub programs are on “standby,” Allen said. Most were in the planning stage when Trump took office and had not yet received much of their promised funds, according to Allen.
“To a great extent, I think the hubs are just stuck,” Allen said. “There’s not a lot of action. I think it’s because the administration is not on a path to provide the big funding.”
Geologic hydrogen may be more appealing to the Trump administration because it requires a familiar process of extracting resources from underground, much like fracking natural gas or drilling for oil, Allen said.
“It could be a (good) thing just in general, a good, useful way of powering modern society, but it could be that the federal government shifts their focus, too,” Allen said. “It’s an extension of the thing we know how to do.”
Governor seeks new North American trade pact
Whitmer’s speech at the auto show Thursday touched on tariffs, Michigan’s economy and some of her goals for her final year as the state’s governor. She can’t run for reelection this fall because of term limits.
She called on Trump’s administration not to abandon the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, which is up for review this year.
“Instead, we should build on the best parts and make it even better,” Whitmer said, according to her prepared remarks. “The USMCA has some of the strictest auto rules of any free trade agreement in the world.
“It raised wages for workers in all three countries, and guaranteed that more parts were made in the U.S. Is it perfect? No. But without our allies, we do not stand a chance.”
The USMCA started in 2020, during Trump’s first term in the White House. But in recent days, he’s downplayed it. During his trip to Michigan on Tuesday, he labeled it “irrelevant.”
Also, on Thursday, Whitmer called on the Legislature to get a new state budget to her desk by June 30.
“With so much uncertainty, we owe it to local governments, schools, and businesses leaders to enact a transparent, timely budget,” Whitmer said. “I’m confident we can get it done.”
FILE: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer delivers the 2025 State of the State address Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025, at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing, Mich. (Katy Kildee/Detroit News via AP)
How does a global community provide for the needs of its citizens without destroying the planet? That’s the crux of “Anthropause: The Beauty of Degrowth,” a new book out this month.
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, society shut down for a few months. As humans stayed inside, animals returned to their old habitats and pollution eased as industry slowed.
Stan Cox, author of “Anthropause: The Beauty of Degrowth”
Retired researcher—and new metro Detroit resident—Stan Cox looks at how that “anthropause” could be a preview of the necessary societal changes to save lives and the planet.
He spoke with All Things Considered – Detroit host Russ McNamara last month. Click on the media player to listen or read selected transcripts below.
Listen: New book examines equitable degrowth as necessary to combat climate change
Russ McNamara, WDET: Why did you write this book?
Stan Cox, Author: The main point I’m making in the book is imagining that we as a society, if we were to rapidly phase out fossil fuels and get by just on the energy that could be generated other ways; and if we stopped plundering the earth for minerals and cutting down forest and causing ecological damage; and we had less energy and materials, and had to allocate them carefully: people know that’s going to mean sacrifice. What am I going to have to give up and so forth?
And what I’m saying in the book is okay, yeah, there are certain things, obviously that will have to be given up. But let’s consider all of the dangers and nuisances, terrible stuff that we put up with an advanced industrial society that has all this energy and materials running through it.
We would be saying goodbye to a lot of those harms and ills by simply not doing a lot of the stuff that requires so much energy input. So the rest of the book, then, is going through specific technologies and activities and so forth that are really harmful to people and the environment, of course, that we would not have the fuel to undertake them, or we would be using resources for meeting people’s basic needs, and we wouldn’t be spending a lot of energy on these other things.
RM: You discuss this and I’m reminded of data centers to run artificial intelligence. People certainly don’t seem to want them and definitely don’t want these in their backyard because there is this concern about the high cost of electricity, and the amount of groundwater that is needed.
SC: That’s absolutely right. One of the big reasons these communities don’t want them is that they create this horrific noise at very high decibel levels and low low frequency noise, which is especially dangerous to human health. When I started writing the book, there wasn’t as much being said about A.I. and the data centers at that time, so I did eventually incorporated them, but the beginning of the second chapter is about noise pollution and and I just used it. It’s seemingly a very small thing, but it really brings out other issues. The leaf blower, especially the gas powered leaf blower, also produces this low frequency and very high volume sound—about eight times the decibel level that the World Health Organization says is safe – and they’re producing a wind about the speed of an EF five tornado. The low frequency sound can travel like three football fields. It’s still above the safe limit.
RM: So what are the societal impacts? Let’s say we start degrowth right now. What are the benefits?
SC: We can’t go on like we’re on the trajectory that we’re on now, because. A degrowth is going to happen. Either a chaotic, brutal degrowth where it’s a Mad Max kind of future, because we’ve tried to force growth to continue and have destroyed ecosystems
Or we can have a planned, rational degrowth that ensures that there’s enough for everybody and that we’re not causing ecological collapse. But there’s no way that growth can continue at this rate.
Sometime in the past three years, we passed a milestone. The quantity of human made stuff—that is everything that human society has manufactured or built or produced—if you weigh all of it up, the mass of all of that exceeds the total mass of all living things on Earth, all plants, animals, microbes, et cetera, and that quantity of stuff being produced is is doubling every 20 years. And clearly that can’t go on.
Herb Stein, an economist from the 70s or 80s was kind of the Yogi Berra of economists. He had a line: “if something can’t go on forever, it won’t” and that’s where growth cannot go on forever. So we have to pull back, create what I called in the book an “anthropause” of our own, and try to have a rational, safe and just reduction in the amount of economic activity for the good of everybody.
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For more than half a century, the American environmental movement has struck a familiar rhythm: alarm, action, and industry backlash.
The first Earth Day in 1970 helped launch the modern movement, and by the end of that year, the Environmental Protection Agency was born. It was a promise that government had a crucial role to play, that it could protect our air and water from industry polluters.
Over the decades, that promise has ebbed and flowed: environmental rules were expanded under presidents from both parties, then pared back under others, only to be reinforced again as new science and public pressure emerged.
Meanwhile, a striking silence is showing up in a place with massive moral reach. A new large-scale study of more than 700,000 Catholic parish sermons finds that climate change is rarely mentioned, even after the late Pope Francis issued some of the strongest language on climate change written by a religious leader.
Harvard historian of science Naomi Oreskes led that research. She joined The Metro’s Robyn Vincent to discuss the price of that silence.
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The holiday season will soon come to a close, but the busiest time of the year for product returns is just beginning.
The National Retail Federation estimates 17% of holiday purchases will be sent back this year. More retailers are reporting extended return windows and increased holiday staff to handle the rush this year.
A major driver for returns is uncertainty. When we buy for other people, finding what they want is a bit of a guessing game. Online purchases have higher return rates because finding the right size and color is tough when you’re just staring at images on screens.
“Clothing and footwear, as you can imagine, because fit is such an important criteria, they have higher rates of returns,” said Saskia van Gendt, chief sustainability officer at Blue Yonder, which sells software designed to improve companies’ supply chain management.
Returns come with an environmental cost, but there’s a lot consumers and companies are doing to minimize it.
The impact of returns
If a company sells a thing, it’s probably packaged in plastic. Plastic is made from oil, and oil production releases emissions that warm the planet. If that thing is bought online, it’s put on a plane or a train or a truck that usually uses oil-based fuel.
If you buy a thing and return it, it goes through most or all of that all over again.
And once those products are back with the retailer, they may be sent along to a refurbisher, liquidator, recycler or landfill. All these steps require more travel, packaging and energy, ultimately translating to more emissions. Joseph Sarkis, who teaches supply chain management at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, estimates that returning an item increases its impact on the planet by 25% to 30%.
Roughly a third of the time, those returns don’t make their way to another consumer. Because frequently, it’s not worth reselling.
If, for example, you get a phone, but you send it back because you don’t like the color, the seller has to pay for the fuel and equipment to get the phone back, and then has to pay for the labor to assess whether it has been damaged since leaving the facility.
“It can be quite expensive,” said Sarkis. “And if you send it out to a new customer and the phone is bad, imagine the reputational hit you’ll get. You’ll get another return and you’ll lose a customer who’s unhappy with the product or material. So the companies are hesitant to take that chance.”
Something as expensive as a phone might get sold to a secondary or refurbishment market. But that $6 silicone spatula you got off Amazon? Probably not worth it. Plus, some stuff — think a bathing suit or a bra — is less attractive to customers if there’s a chance it’s been resold. The companies know that.
And that’s where the costs of returns are more than just environmental — and consumers wind up paying. Even free returns aren’t really free.
“Refurbishment, inspection, repackaging, all of these things get factored into the retail price,” said Christopher Faires, assistant professor of logistics and supply chain management at Georgia Southern University.
What consumers can do about it
If you want to reduce the impact of your returns, the first move is to increase their chances of resale. Be careful not to damage it, and reuse the packaging to send it back, said Cardiff University logistics and operations management lecturer Danni Zhang.
If you have to return something, do it quickly. That ugly Christmas sweater you got at the white elephant office party has a much better chance of selling on Dec. 20 than it does on Jan. 5. Zhang said it’s not worth the cost to the company to store that sweater once it’s gone out of season.
Another tip: in-person shopping is better than online because purchases get returned less often, and in-person returns are better, too — because those items get resold more often. Zhang said it reduces landfill waste. Sarkis said it reduces emissions because companies with brick-and-mortar locations spread out across the country and closer to consumers thus move restocked goods shorter distances.
“If I can return in-store, then I definitely will,” Zhang said. “The managers can put that stuff back to the market as soon as possible.”
Obviously the best thing consumers can do is minimize returns. Many shoppers engage in “bracketing behavior,” or buying multiple sizes of the same item, keeping what fits, and returning the rest.
“This behavior of bringing the dressing room to our homes is not sustainable,” said Faires.
If you’re buying for someone else, you can also consider taking the guesswork out of the equation and going for a gift card.
“I know we do really want to pick up something really nice to express our love for our friends or our family. But if we are more sustainable, probably the gift card will be much better than just purchasing the product,” Zhang said.
What businesses can do about it
Sarkis wants to see companies provide more information in product descriptions about the environmental impact of returning an item, or how much of the purchase price factors in return costs.
“But I don’t know if they want to send a negative message,” he said. “If you’re telling someone to stop something because of negative results, that’s not going to sell.”
Sarkis and Zhang both say charging for returns would help. Already Amazon is requiring customers pay in certain situations.
On the tech side, Blue Yonder’s recent acquisition of Optoro, a company that provides a return management system for retailers and brands, uses a software to quickly assess the condition of returned products and route them to stores that are most likely to resell them.
“Having that process be more digitized, you can quickly assess the condition and put it back into inventory,” said van Gendt. “So that’s a big way to just avoid landfill and also all of the carbon emissions that are associated with that.”
Clothing is returned most often. Many sizes do not reflect specific measurements, like women’s dresses, so they vary a lot between brands. Zhang said better sizing could help reduce the need for returns. On top of that, Sarkis said more 3D imaging and virtual reality programs could help customers be more accurate with their purchases, saving some returns.
FILE – A person carries a shopping bag in Philadelphia, Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
Dearborn’s Department of Public Health has been awarded a $101,000 grant to advance firearm safety. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services funding supports collaborative efforts to educate gun owners on safe handling and storage.
Dearborn Mayor Abdulllah Hammoud says firearm injury prevention is a public health and safety priority.
The city’s health department will distribute firearm safety kits, including gun locks, lockboxes, and educational materials. Dearborn Chief Public Health Officer Ali Abazeed says the grant supports evidence-based education and access to safety tools.
Additional headlines for Monday, Dec. 22, 2025
Michigan Chief Medical Executive makes Standing Recommendation regarding children’s vaccines
Bagdasarian shared that public health experts are not in agreement with new federal vaccine recommendations, prompting the announcement. One of the recent changes was dropping the Hepatitis B vaccine at birth and removing the COVID-19 vaccine recommendation for healthy children and pregnant women.
Bagdasarian’s Standing Recommendation was made with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Immunization.
She says the recommendation does not supersede clinical judgment. She also asks health care providers to make vaccines accessible by removing barriers for patients.
Bagdasarian says vaccines keep people safe and potentially save lives.
EGLE renews license for hazardous waste facility
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) has renewed the license for a hazardous waste treatment and storage facility in Detroit for the next 10 years.
Hazardous Waste Management Facility Operating License to EQ Detroit Inc., which does business as US Ecology Detroit South, was issued the license after regulatory review and a public comment process. Several people strongly opposed the facility because it emits strong odors leading to health concerns like asthma. The facility also has a history of clean air violations.
EGLE renewed the license, adding new requirements, such as expanding air and groundwater monitoring. The facility must replace six tanks beginning in January 2026 and install odor control equipment by the end of Dec 2027.
Tunnel in southwest Detroit
The Great Lakes Water Authority has started building a sewage relief system near the Rouge River in Southwest Detroit. Crews will spend at least two years digging a tunnel to carry excess stormwater to an underused retention and treatment center. Chief Operating Officer Navid Mehram says the $87 million project should reduce the risk of flooding and sewage backups during heavy rain.
“So this is an example where we’re making an investment in our existing system by rerouting some flows, so that we can leverage an existing facility that wasn’t receiving all the flow it can treat.”
Mehram says the project will not increase customers’ sewage bills. He says state and federal funding will help pay for the tunnel.
New tech firm in town
Detroit is getting a new high-tech security and AI solution firm, Eccalon. The defense tech company will create 800 new jobs ranging from $25-100 per hour.
The facility will have manufacturing operations, training programs and an innovation center.
The company’s headquarters is moving from Maryland to become a part of the tech innovation in Detroit. Eccalon will be located at the Bedrock-owned Icon building at 200 Walker Street.
Eccalon Chairman and CEO André Gudger says the new headquarters will develop cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing and automation.
The company hopes to open early next year.
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Hurricane-force winds battered Colorado’s Front Range this week, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, closing highways and dozens of schools and causing extensive delays at Denver International Airport.
While the highest winds were recorded in the mountains and foothills, National Weather Service records show most of the Front Range saw significant wind gusts.
LONGMONT, CO – DECEMBER 19:A large tree lies across the roof of a house on Cornell Drive in Longmont on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. A National Weather Service red flag warning covers the mountains and foothills along the Front Range from Castle Rock to Fort Collins. (Matthew Jonas/Staff Photographer)
An area of very old trees at Independence Oaks County Park has been recognized as part of a national network of old-growth forests, drawing attention to both rare natural features and thousands of years of human history tied to the land.
Carol Bacak-Egbo is an Oakland County Parks historian. She says the newly designated old-growth forest lies within a landscape shaped by Indigenous peoples for 5,000 to 6,000 years. The park sits near historic Native American trail routes, and contains the headwaters of the Clinton River, once a major travel route for the Anishinaabe across what is now southeast Michigan.
“This history doesn’t start with log cabins and sawmills,” Bacak-Egbo says. “People lived with and cared for this land long before Europeans arrived.”
Even in winter, Independence Oaks’ old-growth trees tower above the landscape. (Photo by Amanda LeClaire, WDET News)
Artifacts indicate the area was likely used as seasonal camps rather than permanent villages. The park also contains one of only two remaining wild rice beds in southeast Michigan, a culturally and spiritually significant food source for the Anishinaabe.
The forest largely escaped widespread logging and farming in the 19th century, almost by accident.
In the early 1900s, a wealthy Detroit businessman purchased land around Crooked Lake but left it undeveloped. Later owners also did not farm the southern portion of the property, allowing the old-growth trees to remain intact.
Park naturalist Kegan Schildberg says the designation supports efforts to protect remaining natural areas in Oakland County, which has developed rapidly during the last century.
Bacak-Egbo encourages visitors to view parks as places where natural and human history intersect.
“When people walk these trails, they aren’t just connecting with nature,” says Bacak-Egbo. “They are walking through the same forest people walked through hundreds and even thousands of years ago.”
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Don’t let your Halloween pumpkin haunt the landfill this November.
More than 1 billion pounds of pumpkins rot in U.S. landfills each year after Halloween, according to the Department of Energy.
Yours doesn’t have to go to waste. Experts told us your pumpkins can be eaten, composted or even fed to animals. Here’s how.
Cooking with pumpkin waste
If you’re carving a jack-o’-lantern, don’t throw away the skin or innards — every part is edible.
After carving, you can cube the excess flesh — the thick part between the outer skin and the inner pulp that holds the seeds — for soups and stews, says Carleigh Bodrug, a chef known for cooking with common food scraps. You can also puree it and add a tablespoon to your dog’s dinner for extra nutrients. And pumpkin chunks can be frozen for future use.
“The seeds are a nutritional gold mine,” Bodrug said. They’re packed with protein, magnesium, zinc and healthy fats, according to a 2022 study in the journal Plants.
FILE – Children visit a pumpkin farm ahead of Halloween in Warsaw, Poland, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)
One of Bodrug’s recipes involves removing the seeds, rinsing and roasting them with cinnamon for a crunchy snack or salad topper. Then you can use the stringy guts to make a pumpkin puree for muffins. This version differs from canned purees in grocery stores — which typically use a different type of pumpkin or squash — because carving pumpkins have stringier innards and a milder flavor. A carving pumpkin’s guts can still be used for baking — you’ll just have to amp up the seasoning to boost the flavor.
If you don’t want to eat your pumpkins, you can donate them to a local farm, which might use them to feed pigs, chickens and other animals.
Edible parts should be collected while you’re carving and before it’s painted, decorated or left on your porch for weeks. Paint and wax aren’t food-safe, and bacteria and mold can grow on the skin in outdoor climates.
Once you’ve cooked what you can and donated what’s safe to feed, composting the rest is the easiest way to keep it out of the landfill.
“That way, even though they’re not safe to eat, they can still give back to the earth,” Bodrug said.
Composting at home or donating to a farm
Composting pumpkins keeps them out of methane-emitting landfills and turns them into nutrient-rich soil instead. You can do this at home or drop them off at a local farm, compost collection bin or drop-off site.
FILE – Pumpkins sit at the Tougas Family Farm on Oct. 5, 2025, in Northborough, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
“A large percentage of what ends up going to the landfill is stuff that could have been composted,” said Dante Sclafani, compost coordinator at Queens County Farm in New York. “So even just cutting down something like pumpkins could really help curb how many garbage bags you’re putting out every week.”
Before composting, remove any candles, plastic, glitter, or other decorations — they can contaminate the compost. A little glitter or paint won’t ruin the pile, but it’s best to get it as clean as possible before tossing it in. Then, chop up the pumpkin in 1-inch pieces so it can break down easier.
“Pumpkins are full of water, so it’s important to maintain a good balance of dried leaves, wood chips, sawdust, shredded newspaper, cardboard, straw — anything that’s a dry organic material — in your compost bin,” Sclafani said. If you don’t maintain this balance, your compost might start to stink.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, a healthy compost pile should include a mix of “greens” — like pumpkin scraps and food waste — and “browns” like dry leaves, straw or cardboard, in roughly a three-to-one ratio. That balance helps the pile break down faster and prevents odors.
And if your pumpkin’s been sitting on the porch all month? That’s actually ideal. “It’s never too far gone for compost,” Sclafani said. “Even if it’s mushy or moldy, that actually helps, because the fungus speeds up decomposition.”
“Composting anything organic is better than throwing it out because you’re not creating more refuse in landfills, you’re not creating methane gas,” said Laura Graney, the farm’s education director.
Graney said autumn on the farm is the perfect opportunity to teach kids about composting since it gives them a sense of power in the face of big environmental challenges.
“Even though they’re little, composting helps them feel like they can make a difference,” Graney said. “They take that message home to their families, and that’s how we spread the word.”
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
FILE – A kid carves a pumpkin on the front porch of her home Oct 20, 2023, in Auburn, Maine. (Andree Kehn/Sun Journal via AP, File)
Oakland ISD administrator Dwight Levens Jr. has been awarded the 2025 Exemplary Service and Innovation for Technological Advancement Award.
This national award recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding leadership and innovation in advancing educational technology.
Levens, Jr. is the chief technology and information officer for Oakland Schools, which serves over 175,000 students and 40,000 educators across 28 public school districts.
Levens’ team is responsible for instructional technology coaching and infrastructure modernization to cybersecurity and statewide application support.
The department’s initiatives include the AI Collective, which explores artificial intelligence applications in education in all 28 districts.
“Dwight’s leadership has fostered a culture where operational excellence meets educational innovation,” said Oakland Schools Superintendent Kenneth Gutman. “Oakland Schools Technology Services exemplifies the very mission of an educational service agency: to deliver visionary leadership and equitable access to high-quality services that improve outcomes for all learners.”
Levens' department oversees a cybersecurity ecosystem and manages large-scale consortia like MISTAR and MIPEER.
Photo courtesy Oakland ISD
For years, Western leaders have debated the creation of a regional energy market: a coordinated grid to pool solar power in Arizona, wind in Wyoming, hydro in Washington and battery storage in California.
The shared resources would meet the demands of 11 different states, bolstering utilities’ local power plants with surplus energy from across the region.
With the passage of a landmark new law in California, that market is finally on its way to becoming a reality. Proponents say it has the potential to lower energy costs, make the grid more resilient and speed up the deployment of clean energy.
But the market’s success, experts agree, depends heavily on which states and utilities decide to opt in. As energy issues have become increasingly politicized, it’s uncertain whether Western leaders can buy into a common vision for meeting the region’s power needs.
“As we move toward weather-dependent renewables to run our grid, we’ve got to have a grid that is bigger than a weather pattern,” said California Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation aimed at establishing the new market. “A Western energy market is critical.”
The California measure earned bipartisan support, and leaders in conservative and liberal states alike have long touted the benefits of a region-wide market.
But some skeptics worry about merging the power systems of states with varying climate goals. And some fear the new market could give federal regulators appointed by President Donald Trump an opening to interfere and mandate more fossil fuel-powered plants that can be turned on regardless of the weather.
A bigger market
Across the 11 Western states that straddle or sit west of the Rocky Mountains, 37 separate private and public utilities operate portions of the grid.
This fragmented structure differs from the grid systems in Eastern and Midwestern states, where regional transmission organizations, or RTOs, coordinate and plan for energy needs across vast swaths of the country.
Backers of a Western market argue that a region-wide approach would be much more efficient.
Under the current system, each utility is required by state public utility commissions to build enough power to meet peak energy demands. That could mean building gas plants that only turn on a few times a year during extreme heat waves.
As part of a West-wide market, utilities could manage those high-demand events by importing power from other parts of the region that are generating surplus electricity. Such agreements could also prevent the periodic shutdowns of wind and solar farms when they produce more energy than local utilities can use.
“We could be drawing on the solar resources from the Southwest during the day, and then in the evening the wind resources in Montana and Wyoming are a great benefit,” said Austin Scharff, senior energy policy specialist with the Washington State Department of Commerce. “We have a lot of hydro resources, and we can help make sure the regional grid stays balanced when those are needed.”
Some industry leaders say such trading would allow states to pull in cheap electricity from elsewhere, rather than building expensive new power plants.
“When you have this bigger market, not everybody has to build to their peak in the same way,” said Leah Rubin Shen, managing director with Advanced Energy United, an industry group focused on energy and transportation. “Everybody’s able to share.”
Western states do trade electricity on a bilateral basis between individual utilities. Utilities spanning much of the West also transact through a real-time market that allows them to address pressing short-term demand issues. Some are poised to join a new day-ahead market that will conduct planning based on daily demand and production forecasts.
But some lawmakers and officials believe the region needs a larger vision that goes beyond moment-by-moment needs, a market that can plan interstate transmission lines and energy projects to serve the whole region in the decades to come.
“We’re facing really rapidly growing energy demand,” said Nevada Assemblymember Howard Watts, a Democrat. “The best way for us to meet that is to effectively move energy all across the Western U.S. The only way we can do that is through an RTO.”
Watts sponsored a bill, enacted in 2021, that requires Nevada to join an RTO by 2030. Colorado also passed a law that year with a 2030 deadline for utilities to join an RTO.
“Any future is better than our status quo, which is 37 separate grids in the West,” said Chris Hansen, a former Democratic senator who sponsored the Colorado legislation. “We can lower costs and provide greater reliability if we’re sharing resources.”
Hansen now serves as CEO of La Plata Electric Association, an electric cooperative in southwestern Colorado.
A new market
The push for a West-wide market had always faced one major hurdle: Any market would likely include the massive geographical footprint and energy supply managed by the California Independent System Operator, or CAISO. As the West’s largest grid operator, CAISO manages the flow of electricity across most of the Golden State. It’s governed by a five-member board appointed by California’s governor, and other states were unlikely to sign up for a market in which they have no representation.
The law passed by California legislators last month allows for a new organization with independent governance from across the region to oversee Western energy markets.
“This legislation is a key reset and has been the largest sticking point in building a regional market,” said Amanda Ormond, managing director of the Western Grid Group, which advocates for a more efficient grid. “This is a primary concern of a lot of folks that has now been solved.”
The law sets in motion a yearslong process that will task regional leaders with establishing the organization’s governance and navigating a series of regulatory procedures. The new market could be in place by 2028.
State leaders across the West say the California law is a long-awaited development.
“You get this really good benefit from being able to optimize across a larger footprint than an individual utility can,” said Tim Kowalchik, research director with the Utah Office of Energy Development. “Those resources can play really well together.”
Utah led a study in 2021, collaborating with other Western states, exploring the potential for energy markets in the region. State officials say the research has helped drive the current effort.
“It was fascinating how substantial the benefits were,” said Letha Tawney, chair of the Oregon Public Utility Commission. “The interdependence of the West started to become much more apparent, and it really changed the conversation.”
The study looked at a variety of market options and found that an RTO would have significant benefits, lowering costs for electricity customers and promoting clean energy. Based on the study’s projections, the market would produce roughly $2 billion in gross benefits per year, largely by saving utilities from building extra capacity.
Another study in 2022, conducted by a pair of consulting firms, found that an RTO would create as many as 657,000 permanent jobs and bolster the region’s economy.
While Western leaders say the potential benefits are massive, no states outside of Nevada and Colorado have committed to joining a regional RTO. State leaders say they’ll be watching carefully to see what emerges from the new California law. While the decision on joining the market will largely be left to individual utilities, state regulators can play a major role by directing them to conduct an economic analysis of such a move.
State sovereignty
The push for a regional market has also faced opposition from skeptics who fear it undermines states’ power to set their own energy and climate goals. Some point to Eastern governors’ frustration with PJM Interconnection, the RTO that manages the grid across a swath of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic.
“It’s very dangerous,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a California-based nonprofit advocacy group. “We’re giving up control of our sovereignty. Once a state’s in, it’s not the state that has the control.”
Some experts fear that states with significant coal or gas industries may be hesitant to join a market that could incentivize their utilities to import cheap solar power from elsewhere. On the flip side, some climate advocates in California are wary of plugging into a market that could support coal power from out of state.
“Some states are parochial-minded: ‘This is a California thing, and we don’t want anything to do with California,’” said Vijay Satyal, deputy director of markets and transmission with Western Resource Advocates, a nonprofit climate-focused group. “That one state’s government will not decide how a market will be operated, it’s a seismic shift in the industry.”
Backers of an RTO argue that it can incorporate states’ varying energy goals. They point to research showing that the market will support renewable power. But others fear merging fates with coal-heavy states could give federal regulators more leverage to intervene in favor of fossil-fuel power.
Even if Trump is out of office when the market comes online, the regulators he appoints to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will still be serving out their terms. Some believe FERC could set rules that require the new market to favor fossil fuel-powered resources.
“When you have a mixed market with a lot of coal plants, it creates opportunities for the Trump administration to rejigger the rules to favor coal,” said Matthew Freedman, renewables attorney with The Utility Reform Network, a California-based consumer advocacy group. “In another reality, this would have sounded like a hysterical concern, but it’s pretty obvious where [Trump’s appointees to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] want to go.”
Freedman’s group pushed California lawmakers for protections that would have given states more flexibility to withdraw from the market, while also prohibiting “resource adequacy” mandates that could be used by the feds to prop up coal. While those elements were included in a Senate version of the bill, they were stripped from the Assembly bill that ultimately was passed.
Supporters of the bill say such concerns are overblown, and the new market is structured to avoid the pitfalls facing other RTOs.
“The simple economic fact is that right now clean energy resources are the cheapest in the world,” said Petrie-Norris, the law’s sponsor. “We’re going to see solar displacing dirty fuels rather than the reverse.”
Much depends on convincing states and utilities it’s in their best interests to join the market. The strength-in-numbers advantages of an RTO depend on widespread participation. While many Western leaders have long touted a region-wide market, the opportunity is arising at a time where energy has become a partisan issue.
Meanwhile, the long-awaited market emerging from California is facing new competition from the east. The Southwest Power Pool, an Arkansas-based RTO serving the middle of the country, is expanding its footprint in the West, with several utilities poised to join its day-ahead market.
“Anytime you have two neighboring utilities in different markets, you have seams that create a lot of friction and inefficiency,” said Rubin Shen, with the energy industry group. “Whether or not everybody can come together and be all-in on a full West-wide market, it’s too soon to tell.”
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