State Representative Pauline Wendzel has been appointed to a new Michigan House task force looking into energy issues. She tells us the Energy Reliability, Resilience, and Accountability Task Force is seeking to reduce power outages around the state.
“We’ve had a lot of extreme weather events lately, as we’re all aware, and we’re putting this together to go around the state and talk to people, see what their ideas are, and create solutions,” Wendzel said.
Wendzel is one of two Republicans on the nine-member panel. She says one way to address power outages is to avoid relying too much on one source of energy.
“We have a lot of new technologies that are coming out and we’re all familiar with solar and wind, which are growing constantly, but we need to come up with some common sense ideas, and ensure that we diversify, that we use all of these resources. Propane, natural gas, nuclear.”
Another idea is to have more power lines be underground. Wendzel says as a member of the House Energy and Technology Committee, she’s heard from power companies that process is time consuming and expensive. Still, she hopes southwest Michigan can see that one day. The task force will tour around the state to hear from residents, all the way from the U.P. to Benton Harbor.
