Tell Your Lawmaker: Stop “Project Lights Out”

Energy affordability and clean energy progress in Michigan are under threat. 

Michigan families and businesses are already paying too much for energy. Now, House Republicans in Lansing want to make it worse with new legislation they’re calling “Project Lighthouse.”

Don’t be fooled by the name. The reality is that “Project Lights Out” is a reckless rollback of the 2023 Clean Energy & Jobs Act – Michigan’s landmark clean energy law that is investing in the cleanest, cheapest forms of energy, improving reliability, and driving job growth across Michigan. Instead, House Bills 5710 and 5711 do nothing to address the main driver of our high rates: corporate utility greed. 

Here’s what “Project Lights Out” really does:

• Slows down the build-out of the cheapest, fastest energy, limiting Michigan’s ability to leverage federal investments and pushing the state toward more expensive, long-term fossil fuel infrastructure
• Shifts costs onto ratepayers by weakening independent ratepayer advocacy and reducing oversight, while letting monopoly utilities avoid accountability
• Removes basic planning and reporting requirements, allowing pollution to go unreported and increasing costs as energy demand grows

Clean energy is not what’s driving high energy bills in Michigan – unchecked corporate utility companies making billions of dollars in profit a year are. Michigan’s Clean Energy & Jobs Act was designed to protect families from exactly this kind of cost-shifting by expanding affordable clean energy and strengthening oversight. 

Independent analysis shows the Clean Energy & Jobs Act will lower household energy bills by nearly $300 a year by 2030 and more than $700 per year by 2040. Rolling back our progress doesn’t make energy cheaper. It moves the risk and higher costs onto Michigan families and businesses. 

As energy demand grows, Michigan needs more accountability over corporate utility companies, not less. Lawmakers should be focused on real affordability solutions, like passing a Ratepayer Bill of Rights, not dismantling protections that are already working. 

Tell Your Lawmaker: Reject “Project Lights Out” and protect Michigan ratepayers →