Good morning, class! Please turn off your cell phones!

It’s time for another lesson here at our tuition-free, unaccredited, but completely credible MI Senators’ Clean Energy Summer School! We’re training you up to convince your state senator to transform SB 437 and 438 from their current, flat-out flunkiness into Best In Class clean energy legislation when lawmakers get back to Lansing in September. So…let’s get to it!

Senators’ Clean Energy Summer School Lesson No. 2:

Expanding Renewable Standards Is Great for Rural Michigan

Here’s a thought problem: If you were a farmer or a township trustee in a windy area, and knew how much moola a wind farm could bring your way, would you want to require utilities to keep developing more wind, or merely ask them politely?

While you mull that over, check this, from our pals at Midwest Energy News:

Report: Rural Michigan Landowners Net Millions from Wind Farms

Boys and girls, we’re not talking pocket change here. So…is it standards or goals?

Take a good gander at state-by-state wind power rankings and state-by-state renewables laws; sure enough, they show that states with the brawniest (or in Iowa’s case, longest-established) standards have, by far, the most wind power. The only exception are some East Coast states that have good, strong renewables standards, but are going solar instead: Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland are among America’s 10 most solarized states.

Get this: Each of ’em beats Florida in a walk-‘cuz Florida doesn’t have standards!

So, class, here’s your new homework: Write your state senator (identify and address your senator with this remarkably handy link) and point to states around us (Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana) pulling in more wind royalties and taxes because they’ve got better standards. Tell them we can catch up only by putting stronger renewable standards in 437 and 438. Awesome financial benefits to our rural communities will surely follow.

FOR EXTRA CREDIT: Print out your note and info from the links, stuff ’em in a manila envelope, and mail them.

Thanks for paying attention…class dismissed!

NEXT: Lesson 3: Turning Back the Attack on Rooftop Solar and Financial & Energy Independence