The first thing that local Republicans did after regaining the majority hold on the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners — besides the usual organizational items like electing officers, approving meeting rules of order and procedure, etc.— was disband the Energy Futures Task Force (EFTF).
Now-former EFTF Chairman Joe DeFors strongly condemned this decision as “an abdication of leadership.” The task force was created to help bring clean energy to government property so Leelanau County could be a leader and role model for efficient and renewable energy.
The county board voted 4-3 at their Jan. 7 meeting to remove the EFTF from their list of boards and committees.
“Turning away from renewable energy does not make the problems it addresses, or the solutions it offers, disappear,” DeFors said. “True leadership requires confronting difficult and contentious issues, educating oneself and others, then making forward-thinking decisions that prioritize the wellbeing of the community as a whole. These four county commissioners have failed that test.”
Yet, DeFors said he is still committed to promoting solar energy as president of the nonprofi t organization Leelanau Energy. This started with DeFors giving a presentation on renewable energy at the government center, which coincidentally was scheduled just one day after the EFTF was dissolved.
“Leelanau Energy will push forward, as we always have, as educators and advocates. It’s perfectly possible that, where we see opportunities, we may – through that organization – bring opportunities to the county board again,” DeFors said. “We’re concerned about how the next four years will go, but we’re redoubling education and our efforts.”
The writing was on the wall. Clean and renewable energy is a partisan issue in Leelanau County. When the EFTF presented their flagship initiative — a grant application for $1.5 million to build solar arrays at the government center — it was approved by the then-Democratic majority board, with the Republicans opposed due to passing references to Governor Whitmer’s MI Healthy Climate Plan.
The costs of the solar panel installation would have been fully covered by the state if the grant was approved. The task force could not spend any county money.
Leelanau County did not get the funding, however. And while waiting about six months for a response from the state, local GOP affiliates began accusing DeFors and other EFTF members of violating the Michigan Open Meetings Act and the county’s conflict of interest policy. Investigations into these complaints did not lead to anything substantial.
Many of the complainants were GOP leadership, candidates, and their campaign contributors. At least four people who submitted letters or comments to the county board accusing DeFors of violating their policies – losing District No. 1 Commissioner candidate Tim McCalley, David Kiessel, Jim Kobberstad, and Petty Lesch – attended DeFors’s Jan. 8 presentation.
These four Republicans all participated in the questionand-answer period at the end of DeFors’ presentation, and despite their history, the dialogue was civil. “I am not an environmentalist. Leelanau Energy is not an environmental group. But you cannot decouple energy and the environment. The fuels that we burned historically are the sources that contribute greenhouse gases into our atmosphere,” DeFors said.
During his talk, DeFors presented data that seemed to disprove some common arguments against solar panels, such as the claim that they don’t generate enough power in cloudy northern Michigan. But he also acknowledged the validity of some concerns, like “critical minerals” not being found in the U.S., and fairly siting the solar panels.
After the presentation, McCalley raised a question: “How can a common person, like myself, afford solar panels?” DeFors noted earlier that the costs of solar panels have been trending downwards since 1975. And although the costs of solar panel installations vary depending on the site, they are still generally quite costly.
DeFors said that government credits can help make solar panels more affordable, arguing that “the best use of incentives and tax breaks is to help explore new technologies when they’re unaffordable and they need some help in the research stages to get them to the point where they can bring them out on the market.”
McCalley noted that government subsidies are ultimately funded by taxpayers. DeFors agreed this is a legitimate issue. But DeFors also said that oil and gas companies received similar support in their early days, and even though they’re now a lucrative industry, they still receive “incentives and credits for every new well they drill today.”
“It’s concerning how well entrenched the oil and gas industry is in policy and regulation, and how even today, we’re still subsidizing them,” DeFors said.
Another topic from the presentation was agrivoltaics, which consists of using the same land for agriculture and solar energy production. DeFors shared a farmer’s response to neighbors who complain about the appearance of solar panels: “You can’t tell me to plant soy or corn. We wouldn’t tolerate that. We let farmers decide what they’re going to harvest. If I want to use my land to harvest the sun, I should have that same right.”
