Michigan
DTE, Consumers on track to reconnect power for customers, likely avoiding paying credits
![DTE, Consumers on track to reconnect power for customers, likely avoiding paying credits DTE, Consumers on track to reconnect power for customers, likely avoiding paying credits](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/authoring-images/2024/08/28/PDTF/74987108007-062824-power-outages-rg-03.jpg?auto=webp&crop=2399,1350,x0,y240&format=pjpg&width=1200)
Video: House split in half after tree falls straight into it
After severe storms in Union Pier, Michigan, a tree fell into an unoccupied house and broke it in two.
Two days after severe thunderstorms knocked out power to a half-million Michigan customers, some of them are wondering whether they will receive the $38 utility credit that the Michigan Public Service Commission has set to help compensate them.
The short answer: Probably not.
There is still uncertainty about how and when the outage will be resolved, but the PSC confirmed with the Free Press on Thursday that it is likely — if the utility outage estimates and repair forecasts stay on track — neither DTE Energy nor Consumers Energy will be issuing many credits.
Both companies, when asked Thursday about credits by the Free Press, mostly sidestepped the issue.
What’s more, the lack of compensation adds to the concerns already swirling around the PSC, a state agency charged with regulating public utilities, and whether it is too close to the companies it is supposed to oversee and should do more to track, investigate and act on complaints.
Consumers Energy has said it hopes to have most repairs done Thursday; and DTE said Friday — at the latest.
As of 6 p.m., both utilities had made considerable progress on restoring power. Detroit-based DTE reported it was down to about 43,000 customers without power out of an estimated 300,000 on Tuesday, and Jackson-based Consumers Energy had about 18,000 more customers to reconnect out of about 200,000.
Customers are eager to have their power back on, but the thought of receiving no compensation isn’t sitting well with many of them who already feel that a $38 credit — which they explain doesn’t begin to cover what they lose in a power outage, especially during a heat wave — is insufficient.
“Into our second day of no power and now need to discard food from (the) freezer/refrigerator,” Doug Lombardi, of Livonia, wrote in an email he sent to the Free Press. “Suggest you do a follow up story on how and where to seek compensation for tossed food.”
And his reaction to the power outage was among one of more measured ones.
Michigan utilities under pressure
In the past few years, DTE and Consumers Energy have come under increasing fire from the public, nonprofit watchdog groups and even the state attorney general for a lack of energy reliability, which, in the freezing cold of winter or the boiling hot summer, puts Michiganders at risk.
Last year, the Free Press reported the two utilities were among the worst-performing utilities in the nation, ranked by how long it took them to get the lights back on after a power outage. At the same time, Michiganders also were paying more for electricity than their neighbors around the Great Lakes.
The criticism forced the Public Service Commission to change its utility credit guidelines, boosting the credit from $25 to $35, and now, $38, and requiring the utilities to pay them automatically, instead of making customers apply for them.
Moreover, an in-depth Free Press investigation found the PSC tends to lack decision-making transparency and, as a potential conflict of interest, gets 80% of its funding from DTE and Consumers Energy, which hold a near monopoly on providing electricity to Michigan residents.
Thursday, another Free Press investigation concluded that thousands of informal complaints lodged annually aren’t tracked well, and “most formal complaints against Michigan utilities are dismissed, and a handful of consumers have reached confidential settlements.”
The challenge now for Michiganders to get credits after this week’s ongoing outage is tied to the formula the PSC set for issuing them. The higher the percentage of customers caught in an outage, the more time a utility is allowed to restore power before a credit is required.
The measure gives utilities a grace period — 16 hours to four days — to make repairs.
The thinking behind this caveat is that more widespread outages require more effort to fix. The new guidelines, which rely on numbers reported by the utility companies, also call for utilities to credit more per day past the grace period when the grace period is exceeded.
But in this outage, based on the two utilities’ early estimates of how many people lost power — about 13% for DTE and more than 10% for DTE — and when it will be back on, there is a good chance each utility might avoid big credit payouts.
DTE said its goal is “to never have our customers in a situation where they incur the hardships that an outage brings or where reliability credits would have to be issued,” and Consumers Energy said “the discussion around outage credits really goes to a bigger issue over how well we keep the lights on for customers.”
Years of unclaimed credits
Outage credits have been around since the 1980s, as one of the measures the PSC has used to encourage utilities to enhance reliability.
But until last year, customers had to apply for them.
That meant millions in credits that customers were eligible for after frequent and long power outages didn’t get applied because customers either didn’t know the process or didn’t have time to apply and the money went unclaimed, according to a 2000 report by the Lansing State Journal.
That same year, the nonprofit Citizens Utility Board of Michigan also released a study that found when it came to reliability, Michigan’s utilities ranked among “the worst in the country.” It took days, for example, to restore power to DTE and Consumers Energy customers caught in a 2019 storm.
The Lansing State Journal — which, in addition to the Free Press is part of the Gannett network — noted the nonprofit study and interviewed the group’s executive director who called for changes to the credit policy. A year later, yet another storm knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers.
And this time, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel weighed in.
The state’s top law enforcement officer asked utilities to voluntarily credit customers affected by the outage and provide increased credits — the amount, then, just $25 — to help those who lost hundreds of dollars or more on food and hotel costs.
Adding to the pressure on the utilities, Nessel also published the results of a survey that ever since has been used by news outlets and consumer groups to question whether the credits are enough. It found 90% of the utility customers in the outage “lost between $100 to $500” and 35% “lost between $500 to $1,000.”
Amid the growing criticism, DTE said that it agreed to voluntarily issue $100 credits.
More: DTE: Power reliability must improve, outage cost estimate at more than $50M
It’s unclear whether the company would offer voluntary credits again.
When asked Wednesday by the Free Press about it, one of the corporate vice presidents acknowledged it could do better and said the company would have to have internal discussions, but did not commit to customer credits that weren’t required or rule it out.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.
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Michigan
Wisconsin opens season by hosting Western Michigan in Friday night matchup
![Wisconsin opens season by hosting Western Michigan in Friday night matchup Wisconsin opens season by hosting Western Michigan in Friday night matchup](https://gray-wsaw-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/DXLLWISZSFAWBNUW2TZ7G3XKU4.jpg?auth=9b34244077b7f73ef77c66b7e8ff211094c45eb77f64cb4247b15214c122ff37&width=1200&height=600&smart=true)
(AP) – The Wisconsin Badgers will play host to the Western Michigan Broncos at Camp Randall Stadium on Friday.
The game will air on FS1 at 8 p.m. According to BetMGM College Football Odds, Wisconsin is favored by 24.5 points.
In their series history, Wisconsin leads 4-1.
WHAT’S AT STAKE?
Wisconsin would love to show how far it has come, particularly on offense, after going 7-6 each of the last two seasons. Wisconsin is attempting to improve to 16-0 in night games at Camp Randall Stadium against unranked teams. Western Michigan is seeking to beat a Big Ten school for the first time since 2016 when the Broncos defeated both Northwestern and Illinois while putting together an undefeated regular season under current Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck. Western Michigan ended that season by losing to Wisconsin 24-16 in the Cotton Bowl, which represents the last meeting between these two teams.
KEY MATCHUP
Western Michigan’s offensive line vs. Wisconsin’s defensive line: Center Jacob Gideon and guard Addison West lead an offensive line that must avoid getting pushed around for the Broncos to have any chance of pulling the upset. Gideon has 35 career starts, and West has 24. Tedi Kushi also is back after making 10 starts last year. Wisconsin lost its most experienced defensive lineman when James Thompson Jr. underwent season-ending surgery for an upper-body injury.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Western Michigan: RB Jalen Buckley rushed for 1,003 yards and 10 touchdowns on 189 carries as a redshirt freshman last season. He was named the Mid-American Conference’s freshman of the year and earned third-team all-MAC honors.
Wisconsin: QB Tyler Van Dyke, who transferred from Miami, is trying to bounce back from a 2023 season in which he struggled with injuries and threw a career-high 12 interceptions. The Badgers would love to see Van Dyke recapture the form he showed in 2021 when he threw 25 touchdown passes with only six interceptions and was named the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Rookie of the Year.
FACTS & FIGURES
Wisconsin is coming off back-to-back 7-6 seasons and enters the year outside the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time since 2016. That 2016 team went 11-3 and capped the year with that Cotton Bowl triumph over Western Michigan. … Western Michigan has a new offensive coordinator (Walt Bell), defensive coordinator (Scott Power), and special teams coordinator (Dan Sabock) after going 4-8 last year in head coach Lance Taylor’s debut season. … Western Michigan QB Hayden Wolff, who began his college career at Old Dominion, is working with his seventh different offensive coordinator in six seasons. … Wisconsin CB Ricardo Hallman had seven interceptions last season, tying Notre Dame’s Xavier Watts for the most by any Football Bowl Subdivision player.
Copyright 2024 WSAW. All rights reserved.
Michigan
Drone video shows Michigan home sliced in half by falling tree during thunderstorm: Watch
![Drone video shows Michigan home sliced in half by falling tree during thunderstorm: Watch Drone video shows Michigan home sliced in half by falling tree during thunderstorm: Watch](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/authoring-images/2024/08/29/USAT/74996372007-trnd-house-sliced-by-downed-tree-thumb.jpg?auto=webp&crop=1919,1079,x0,y0&format=pjpg&width=1200)
Video: House split in half after tree falls straight into it
After severe storms in Union Pier, Michigan, a tree fell into an unoccupied house and broke it in two.
After a severe thunderstorm rolled through Michigan earlier this week, drone footage captured one home in Berrien County that was split in two by a falling tree.
The footage, taken by Nate’s Dronography in the southwestern Michigan community of Union Pier, shows the multi-story house sliced apart in two separate places by a large tree that was toppled during the intense thunderstorms. The two sections of the tree smashed through the roof and both floors of the house, which was fortunately unoccupied at the time.
Watch storm damage as tree slices home in half
Tropical storm tracker: Gilma expected to dissipate this weekend
Storms leave thousands without power
The storms, which swept across Michigan Tuesday evening, causing widespread power outages, flooding, and school closures the following day. More than 330,000 Michigan homes and businesses across Michigan were left without power on Wednesday morning by the storm, which meteorologists said was fueled by a wave of intense, record-breaking heat that has settled over the region this week.
Cleanup and repair continued throughout August 28, with numerous school districts cancelling classes.
As of Thursday afternoon, there were still more than 92,000 power outages reported across the state, many of them in the greater Detroit metro area and further north in Gladwin, Ogemaw and Lake Counties.
On Wednesday, the Detroit Free Press, a part of the USA TODAY network, reported that utility repairs were expected to cost more than that $50 million, and that many customers would not get their electricity back until Friday.
Max Hauptman is a Trending Reporter for USA TODAY. He can be reached at MHauptman@gannett.com
Michigan
Michigan Supreme Court upholds most of Benson’s changes for poll challengers guidance • Michigan Advance
![Michigan Supreme Court upholds most of Benson’s changes for poll challengers guidance • Michigan Advance Michigan Supreme Court upholds most of Benson’s changes for poll challengers guidance • Michigan Advance](https://michiganadvance.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Vote-count-process-at-TCF-Center-scaled.jpg)
Most of the guidance on election challengers provided by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is legal and can be used for the upcoming Nov. 5 presidential election.
That’s after a 4-3 ruling Wednesday from the Michigan Supreme Court, which decided along party lines that Benson was not required to use the full rules-making process to issue guidance on the credentialing of election challengers and the procedures by which challenges could be reported.
Writing for the Democratic-nominated majority, Justice Kyra Harris Bolden noted Benson’s authority to set the guidelines.
“Under the Michigan Election Law, the secretary of state is the chief election officer of Michigan, and as such, the secretary has supervisory control over local election officials in the performance of their duties,” she wrote.
The decision brings to a close a legal battle that began in 2022 when a lawsuit was filed by two Republican legislative candidates and three Republicans who served as election challengers. They argued that new guidance issued by Benson violated Michigan election law by requiring polling places to have an election inspector designated as the “challenger liaison” through whom all challenges would be communicated. They further argued, among other issues, against a uniform credential form for challengers, and provisions permitting challengers to be ejected from polling sites if they fail to follow instructions.
The plaintiffs, which also included the Michigan Republican Party and Republican National Committee, additionally argued that the rule changes had not gone through the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), which provides for “processing, promulgation, publication, and inspection of state agency rules.”
In October, the Michigan Court of Appeals had agreed, ruling that the Secretary of State “must follow the requirements of the Michigan Administrative Procedure Act and that under the state law a department can set new rules only after it has gone through the public notice and comment process.”
In its opinion, however, the majority overturned that decision, noting exceptions written into the law exempting from the rulemaking process “a form with instructions, an interpretive statement, a guideline, an informational pamphlet, or other material that in itself does not have the force and effect of law but is merely explanatory.”
In a dissent, Republican-nominated Justice Brian Zahra said the majority opinion that the revisions to the guidelines were merely explanatory did not square with the fact that challenges by credentialed election challengers would be “subject to the arbitrary whim of the newly designated challenger liaison who is vested by the Secretary’s new rules with authority to deem a challenge “impermissible.” The Secretary’s revisions to the manual are, in fact, ‘rules’ that must be followed and followed without a trace of public discussion, accountability, or transparency.”
Benson, in a statement after the opinion was issued, said she was grateful the court had recognized her department’s legal responsibility to issue guidelines to clerks.
“As Michigan’s chief elections officer, the authority provided by the Legislature to issue uniform guidance to more than 1,600 clerks throughout the state is necessary to ensure every eligible voter can cast their ballot, while maintaining the security of our elections and the safety of our polling places,” said Benson.
“As our guidance has consistently made clear, challengers have a right to participate in the election process and they play an important role. But election officials have a responsibility to maintain order in the polling place and ensure voters can cast a ballot without interference. This clarity will help election officials, poll workers, challengers, and voters alike as we prepare for the November General Election and beyond. As always, we are committed to following the law as we administer accessible, secure, and transparent elections for Michigan citizens.”
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