Michigan among 10 biggest beneficiaries of clean energy jobs boom

Michigan is among the top 10 states benefiting the most from a new clean energy jobs boom, a June 20 report published by the pro-environment strategic communications organization Climate Power revealed. According to the group, it is estimated that Michigan will see 21,490 new jobs in a total of 58 projects that have been announced since 2022. The new investments in Michigan total more than $25 billion. 

In total, Climate Power said, 585 large-scale projects that will result in more than 312,900 new clean energy jobs have been announced in the United States since August 2022. The projects include solar and wind manufacturing plants, sites for the production of batteries used in electric vehicles, and new plants and plant upgrades for building electric vehicles.

The group also noted that many of the projects will be located in low-income and rural areas.

The project announcements come after President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022. The Environmental Protection Agency has described the law as the “most significant climate legislation in U.S. history,” referring to provisions such as tax credits and rebates designed to spur the general public and corporations to invest in clean and renewable energy sources.

One such project is Highland Copper Company’s Copperwood Mine, located in Wakefield and Ironwood townships in Gogebic County. The company received tax credits for the mine, which will provide copper for use in the manufacture of electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and other components of a clean energy economy. The project is expected to create 380 jobs in the western Upper Peninsula region.

Another announced project included in the study is one that will build a solar power facility in Moorland Township. Once completed, the facility is expected to produce enough power for at least 40,000 homes. The plant will be operated by Michigan’s Consumers Energy utility company and is projected to be online by 2026.

Congressional Republicans unanimously opposed the Inflation Reduction Act, and the bill became law on a party-line vote with Democratic support. Former President Donald Trump is against the tax credit provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Discussing the law, a senior official in Trump’s presidential campaign told the Financial Times in November 2023, “We’d be looking to cut a lot of that spending.”

The Washington Post reported in May that at a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump asked oil executives for $1 billion in support for his presidential campaign and told them that, in exchange, he would reverse environmental policies, including clean energy investments, implemented by the Biden administration.

“The American people deserve cleaner, cheaper energy choices, and American workers deserve to make them here at home — but Trump is willing to inflict a true economic ‘bloodbath’ just so oil executives can keep gouging us at the pump, with no competition to worry about,” Climate Power executive director Lori Lodes said in a statement accompanying the group’s report.