There’s a good piece over on MichiganLiberal (hat tip to Eric B.) on the economic opportunities of renewable energy and environmental protection, and it triggered a lot of what I’ve been thinking as I’ve watched from the outside as Lansing struggles with our budget dilemmas. Too often, Lansing seems trapped in old paradigms, unable to look beyond the politics of the moment to how to create the type of long term economic environment all of us want. The postponement (read: cuts) of higher education allocations is a perfect and sad example of the results of this type of thinking. On one side is an ideology that will pursue a strategy of cuts at any cost, even if we’re once again trading in future opportunities for the press releases of today, and the other side consists of 70% of Michigan, but who are still looking for a way to express what so many of us believe in our hearts. The way to break out of this paradigm of the past is to look carefully at the opportunities of the future, and how to invest and leverage scarce public resources in a way that delivers the Michigan of tomorrow. Investing in renewable energy is the cornerstone to this approach. The following is my comment to Eric B.’s post, and much of this comes from my speech last month to the Manistee County Democrats’ annual Don Jennings Dinner.

It’s being reported that Toyota plans to make every one of its cars a hybrid by 2020. You may have heard of Toyota – they’re the ones that, for the first time ever, surpassed GM in sales for the first quarter of 2007. In addition, Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems (and Michigan native), recently stated that the global response to climate change presented ”a much larger opportunity” and would spur a business revolution “bigger than the Internet.” And this isn’t just some future thing: according to the 2006 Annual Review from the law firm of Latham & Watkins (where I worked before returning home last year), “Clean technology … garnered 10% of all U.S. venture capital money in 2006.” That’s a huge number, and it’s only getting bigger.

Not only that, a recent NextEnergy report notes that of the range of possible Renewable Portfolio Standards (where states require a certain level of their energy needs be met through renewable energy sources), the greenest option from an environmental standpoint was also the most economically advantageous. The thing is, even the most ambitious legislation doesn’t only brings us up to where other states already are. Accoding to a report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, twenty-four states plus the District of Columbia have already enacted an RPS. The most ambitious legislation of 10% by 2015 and 20% by 2020 (which is far better than the 15% by 2025 called for in the MPSC’s 21st Century Energy Plan) only puts us in the middle of the pack, showing just how badly we need to enact it, and now. New Jersey, New Mexico and Colorado all already require 20% by 2020; for Minnesota, it’s 30% by 2020; 20% by 2015 in Nevada; 25% by 2013 in New York; and 20% by 2016 in California.

So how do we make it happen in Michigan? To some extent, it already is. Just today I received my monthly Michigan Energy Report (you can sign up here), detailing much of the excitement taking place in Michigan’s growing renewable energy sector. And next month, over 4,000 people are expected in Onekama for the 2nd Annual Michigan Energy Fair. In addition, the next meeting of the Wind Manufacturing Energy Group, a coalition of organizations focused on the potential of wind energy in Michigan that has been meeting regularly over the last five years, is actually taking place at Crystal Mountain the day before the Energy Fair kicks off. This is a good start. Enacting a bold RPS, coupled with measures to promote energy efficiency, is the next step. I have more ideas on where we go from here, but the bottom line is that investing in renewable energy – making Michigan a global center for renewable energy production, innovation and investment – is perhaps the single best way to get our state back on its feet, our people back to work and Michigan moving forward again.