Wow! This morning, we spent some time watching the House Energy and Technology Committee hearings on the three bills we’ve been squawking about over the past few days. It was both interesting and very disturbing. We learned a lot, some of it clarifying and some of it just plain maddening. As soon as we can, we’ll try and give a full account of the hearings and a better discussion of the questions at stake in the legislation. Needless to say, our concerns have not been alleviated. For now, here’s a quick teaser list of some of what we learned:

• Our original assessment that the legislation is mainly about fracking isn’t exactly correct. As we explained in our follow-up post, it appears to have more to do with “Enhanced Oil Recovery”– which isn’t, however, to remove fracking from the equation entirely.
• The main sponsor of the legislation, Committee Chairman Aric Nesbitt, doesn’t appear to understand the bill very clearly at all. He spent a lot of his time saying things like “what I’m told” and “from what I understand.” Needless to say, that does not provide much comfort.
• Which means that Nesbitt obviously didn’t write the legislation. He’s just doing someone else’s bidding. Whose bidding? We aren’t entirely sure.
• But here’s one possibility: during his testimony, the executive from Core Energy (we didn’t catch his name, but check out what it is they do!) spoke about Act 16 as if he were some kind of expert on it. He seemed to know more about the reason for HB 5254 than anybody else in the room. Yes, that’s right, the one person who has more to gain from this legislation than anybody else on the planet was explaining it to the legislators.
• The MPSC, indifferent to the interests of the citizens it is supposed to protect, is not the least bit bothered by the change proposed in HB 5254. Even worse, the MPSC representative went out of his way to describe the MPSC’s charge in precisely the terms created by Enbridge’s lawyers. So just as we’ve said in the past, Enbridge has successfully re-created the MPSC in its very own image.
• Our own representative, Joseph Graves, did ask a question about landowner rights–but rather half-heartedly, we thought. His colleagues Reps. Marilyn Lane and Collene Lamonte, on the other hand, were tenacious and proved themselves true champions of Michigan citizens. We applaud their efforts.
• Finally, we’ve been a little baffled by the lack of interest in this matter by various environmental groups. The Sierra Club, however, has stepped up and articulated clearly and forcefully their opposition to this legislation.

Much more– including more on why the feeble attempts by those at the hearing attempting to dismiss concerns about HB 5254 were completely unpersuasive– as time allows.