Is It Any Wonder Michigan Is Having Problems?

The state-level politicians do not appear to get "it".

See:
Nestlé gets OK to bottle more water

The approval was given after the Department of Environmental Quality determined the company's new well near Evart, and a pipeline to be built beneath wetlands in Osceola County, will not harm streams or wetlands.

Nestlé already draws water from four existing wells near its Stanwood bottling plant in west central Michigan at an average rate of 218 gallons per minute. The new well will be able to pump at 150 gallons per minute.

What my congressman does (and does not) know about energy

I confess that my expectations about energy literacy among most people are quite low. And, I wouldn't expect most members of Congress to understand energy very well either unless they serve on committees that deal with energy issues. But my congressman, Fred Upton of Michigan, is the ranking Republican member on the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality. So, I expected that he would have a pretty good handle on basic information about energy, at least in the United States.

With pen and yellow pad in hand I clicked on the interview ready to take a few notes. On the first pass I thought perhaps Upton had just misspoken on some points. But as I listened again, I realized that he was confidently spouting obviously erroneous information. Here is a man who is central to energy policy in the United States speaking glibly on a broad range of energy issues who in at least two instances got important basic facts wrong and in other cases was either misinformed or misleading. If his understanding of energy issues is a proxy for those in Congress who are well-informed on energy issues, then it's no wonder federal energy policy is in the state it's in.