[audience clapping]
- Well, thank you.
I'm so pleased to be here with all of you
and so grateful for the work that you do.
And to my friend Lisa Wozniak,
the executive director of Michigan LCV.
I couldn't ask for a better partner.
Dan Eichinger, my interim director of EGLE,
who's doing a phenomenal job.
Corey Connolly from the Michigan Office of Climate
and Clean Energy.
There's three wonderful examples
of the battalion of people who help us do this work.
I'm really excited to be here
with all of you and so grateful.
So welcome and hello to the Healthy Climate Conference.
I hope that you've had a great first day in Detroit
and I'm excited to share some
of my climate and clean energy vision for Michigan.
Now, we are on a roll right now
with a working majority in Lansing,
which Lisa just talked about, yes.
[audience clapping]
And a slate of powerful economic development levers
and billions in federal resources on the table.
We are in a strong position to lead the future
of clean energy and climate action.
We all know that climate action is a kitchen table issue.
It's about good paying jobs, safe, reliable,
affordable energy, clean air, and water.
It's tangible and it makes a difference in our lives.
Climate action requires, demands collaboration
and that's why this conference is so important.
It gives you, leading policymakers
and action takers space to identify shared challenges
and develop strategies to get things done.
One of the themes of this conference
is to change everything we need, every one,
and I could not agree more.
Ignorance, inaction and only individualized responses
are not going to get us anywhere.
Today, we're gathering a year after the release
of the MI Healthy Climate Plan.
I want to thank everyone who got it across the finish line.
The plan offers a vision for a more prosperous,
sustainable Michigan, a Michigan, where we generate 60%
of our energy from reliable renewable sources by 2030,
where we build a charging network
to support two million electric vehicles on the road,
where we address environmental injustices
and ensure equitable access to economic opportunities,
where we protect our land
and our lakes, both great and small.
These are ambitious, but attainable goals.
And to get us started,
I am proud that Michigan's just received
$3 million federal grant
to implement the MI Healthy Climate Plan.
And today, I'm more optimistic than ever
about our ability to take climate action.
In the last 15 months, President Biden has signed bills
that will create tens of thousands of Michigan jobs
and jobs across the country and bring supply chains
of cars, chips, and clean energy home.
The bipartisan infrastructure law
will help us fix the damn roads, replace lead pipes,
the damn pipes too,
[audience clapping]
and build out electric vehicle charging network.
The Inflation Reduction Act will help families switch
to energy efficient appliances and electric vehicles,
turbocharge domestic clean energy production
from wind and solar,
and the CHIPS and Science Act
will attract cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing jobs
and facilities to Michigan
so we don't have to rely on other countries
to move our cars off the line and onto the road.
These three laws, two of which were bipartisan,
offer us a generational opportunity.
It's why I was one of the first governors
to sign executive directives to compete
for resources from these bills.
Harnessing the potential of these laws will require us,
in the words of Senator Stabenow,
to make stuff and grow stuff.
And luckily that's what we do.
We invented the assembly line,
we forged the American middle class.
We supply produce and products
to countless states and nations.
We make stuff and we grow stuff.
It's what we do.
We have generations of manufacturing, know-how,
world-class universities and workforce.
We regularly punch above our weight
and build the future here in Michigan.
ou don't just take my word for it though.
I know you're scientists, you want to look
at the numbers and I love that.
We are a top three state for sustainable development
and battery and electric vehicle manufacturing.
We are the number one state
in the nation for energy sector job growth.
We are home to nearly 120,000 Michiganders
working in clean energy
and projected to create 167,000 more clean energy jobs.
Since I took office, we have secured over 36,000 jobs
building batteries, electric vehicles, chips
and 7.2 billion in new clean energy projects.
And we're just getting started.
In February, I released my budget proposing
over a billion dollars of investments
to lower the cost of electric vehicles
by up to $2,400, to build more chargers,
hundreds more chargers
and to put more electric school buses on the road,
to incentivize clean manufacturing
and improve air quality in impacted communities,
to create more tuition free paths
for hundreds of thousands of people to get good paying jobs
in advanced manufacturing.
And with all this momentum on our side,
Michigan can define the future of clean energy,
of climate action, of manufacturing.
When, not if, we get it done,
we will secure our energy independence
and build safe, reliable grids.
We will protect our water from pollution and PFAs.
We will ensure every family has clean air to breathe,
access to healthy, affordable local food
and pays less to power their home.
And we'll make Michigan a place where anyone
can get an in-demand job
from those who don't require a college degree
to careers in engineering and science.
There's a path to prosperity in this work for every person.
But ultimately, we do this work
because we care about our future
and we want to leave behind a better world.
But you know who cares more
about the future than I do?
Our kids.
I've gotten so many letters from young people,
people who are concerned about climate change.
And last month, I went to the Michigan Youth
and Government Conference where high schoolers
from across the state come to our capitol
in Lansing with bills that they have written
to debate big issues with fellow attendees.
Several bills introduced by the students
from across the state were about reducing emissions
and protecting our water.
Young people are demanding climate action
because they have a greater stake
in the future of Michigan than we do.
They will live with the consequences
of the choices that we make now
and that's why they are already leading,
using their voices and their votes to fight
for their priorities.
Because of them, I am a climate optimist
and I encourage every one of you to be one as well.
I'm pretty sure I'm talking
to a bunch of climate optimists here.
Back in 2009, Michigan's capacity
for renewable energy was 17 megawatts, just 17.
Last year, it was 3,554.
It's only going up.
Some of Michigan's fastest growing industries today
are advanced mobility and clean manufacturing.
Wind and solar cost a fraction
of what they used to in 2009 and generate more energy.
Battery prices have dropped while efficiency has gone up
and this progress proves that we don't have to choose
between prosperity and our planet.
We've seen a lot of economic booms in American life,
the auto boom, the tech boom, and now the climate boom.
I am a climate optimist
because I believe in our innate human ability to innovate.
I'm a climate optimist because I know
that future generations will rise to the occasion.
I'm a climate optimist because hopelessness helps nobody.
Our duty, our extraordinary privilege as people
of power and resources is to fight for Michigan's future.
Let's work together and get it done.
I thank you.
And now I'm going to turn it back over to Justin.
I hope you all have a wonderful evening
in the beautiful city of Detroit.
Thank you.
[audience clapping]