Feb 26 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Chris Christoff Detroit Free Press

Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Michigan is "a backwater" in promoting renwable energy such as wind power, and called on lawmakers to quickly approve legislation requiring the state to generate 25% of its electric power from renewable sources by 2025

"This ought to be done by March. If it's not, something is wrong," Granholm told reporters Tuesday morning. "The Legislature needs to understand the urgency of the moment."

Granholm said the state is losing out on thousands of jobs from companies that manufacture wind turbines because Michigan does not have a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) that sets future goals for electric power from wind or other renewable sources. She said those companies demand such a standard in order to ensure their investments are profitable.

The Legislature is debating an RPS plan, along with other key, contentious energy proposals that will determine whether the two largest utilities -- DTE and Consumers Energy -- have more or less competitio from smaller utilities.

The utilities have said they are ready to invest $6 billion in wind farms if the state enacts laws that make the investments profitable. Smaller utilities accuse DTE and Consumers Energy of trying to secure monopolies on electric power.

Fresh from the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association in Washington, D.C., Granholm said 28 states have an RPS, which wind power companies require before they'll invest in a state.

The governor has made the pursuit of renewable energy a linchpin of her economic recovery plan for the state. In her State of the State address in January, she called for an RPS that would require Michigan to produce 10% of its electric power with renwable sources by 2015 -- mainly wind power -- and 25% by 2025.

But, she said, "we are not even in the game" compared to other states that have enacted laws to attract renewable energy industries.

One multinational company is planning to build five wind turbine plants in the U.S., and Michigan won't get one unless it sets into law an RPS, said Skip Pruss, Granholm's special advisor on renewable energy.