Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette Republican State Representative Dave Prestin is running for State Senate. He is running, he said, to reverse the U.P. decline he has watched all his life.

HOUGHTON – 108th District State Representative Dave Prestin (R-Cedar River), is running for Michigan’s 38th State Senate District, currently held by Ed McBroom (R-Waucedah) who is leaving due to term limits.

Prestin and former State Representative Beau LaFave are competing for the seat against Democrat Kelli Van Ginhoven and Former State Representative Sara Cambensy, who is running as an independent candidate.

Prestin said this election is critical to the Upper Peninsula, because the voices sent to Lansing and leverage U.P. positions as U.P. delegation.

Prestin said the U.P. has three representatives and one senator as the voices for the whole region.

“Using those positions strategically to achieve the things like energy, healthcare – bridging the gaps in healthcare, mental health, the economic disparity that we face regionally, you name it – we’re facing major barriers on almost every front in the U.P. and we have been for decades.”

Prestin said Republicans currently control the House, in what he describes as one leg of a three-legged stool. The House, he said, was able to curb the state budget for two consecutive terms.

“We also were able to bring some strategic increases through road funding, almost 3 ½% on both county and local level, which for some counties is four or five million dollars,” he said. “In Houghton and Keweenaw counties, you’re going to see tremendous increases in road funding, and you guys desperately need it after the Father’s Day (2018) incident, because you have a whole lot of damage that was really never really reimbursed.”

In terms of road funing, he said, he believes all of the road commissions across the U.P. are in much better shape because of the increase in road funding.

“And the Road Commission up here is sitting on a whole bag of outstanding debt to make all the repairs.”

Prestin opposes Public Act 235, which he said will devastate the Upper Peninula.

Public Act 235 is a clean energy law signed by Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer that overhauls the state’s energy framework. It mandates that electric utilities reach a 100% clean energy standard by 2040, significantly increases renewable energy requirements. The bill (Senate Bill 271) was passed strictly along party lines.

“Public Act 235 is going to lay waste to the U.P. if we don’t get it changed,” said Prestin.

If the mandate is not repealed, he said, when the act becomes fully implemented, people are going to see their electric bills increase by three to five times.

Gas bills have already increased, he said, because when the electrical grid in Michigan was switched from coal to natural gas, almost all electricity is now being generated by natural gas, when generating facilities could have been using coal. That conversion from coal is consuming an unprecedented amount of natural gas and that’s spiking the costs.

Prestin said natural gas used to sit around $ 1.50 per 1million per British Thermal Unit (BTUs). Currently, it is peaking at between $6 and $8 per 1 million BTUs.

“We’ve got to maintain a fuel diversity,” he said, “because when we try to do everything with 1 hydrocarbon, we’re just setting ourselves up for failute.”

According to the legislation, said Preston, there will be no hydrocarbon, thermal-based energy production unless the resulting Co2 can be captured. The U.P. cannot achieve that, he said.

“That means all of our RICE generators, all of the natural gas generators used in the U.P. are going to be shut down 20 years before they’re paid for,” Prestin said, “so, we’re going to pay for those at the same time we’re paying for the renewable energy that supposed to take its place.”

Prestin said in that event, it would result in the largest de-industrialization in U.P. history, and the biggest depopulating event in its history.

A RICE generator, Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engine is large-scale natural gas-fueled unit that can start quickly, providing essential, flexible, and scalable electricity to local utility grids or serving as emergency backup

“I’ve been watching the U.P. in a constant state of decline my whole life,” Preston said, “and we have to turn that around. It all starts with energy.”