ABOUT JEFF IRWIN:
Senator Jeff Irwin is a fearless advocate for the environment, public education, and criminal justice reform, among other areas. He is serving his second term in the Michigan Senate.
Since 2018, Senator Irwin has introduced legislation tightening regulations against polluters and ensuring our schools are properly screening students for dyslexia — and getting them the help they need. He has worked to allow more juvenile offenders to seal their records, expunge all cannabis-related offenses, ban PFAS in food packaging and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Irwin has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Michigan and lives in Washtenaw County. He represented the City of Ann Arbor in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2011 to 2017.
ABOUT LISA WOZNIAK:
Lisa’s career spans over two decades of environmental and conservation advocacy in the political arena. She is a nationally- recognized expert in non-profit growth and management and a leader in Great Lakes protections. Lisa is a three-time graduate from the University of Michigan, with a bachelor's degree and two ensuing master's degrees in social work and Education.
Lisa serves a co-host and content partner in 89.1 WEMU's '1st Friday Focus on the Environment.'
RESOURCES:
Michigan League of Conservation Voters
Michigan Fiscal Year Budget 2026
TRANSCRIPTION:
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU, and you may have heard the Michigan Legislature early this morning finally passed a state budget for the fiscal year that was to begin October 1st. I'm David Fair, and welcome to the October edition of WEMU's First Friday Focus on the Environment. The $80 billion spending plan slightly boosts spending on K-12 schools while cutting taxpayer-funded economic development incentives. It includes $1.1 billion directed towards roads, paid for in part by a new 24% wholesale tax on marijuana and an increase in the state fuel tax. Now, when it comes to matters of environmental protections and investment, we're still sifting through the budget. My partner and co-host on First Fridays is the Executive Director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, Lisa Wozniak. Thank you for coming in!
Lisa Wozniak: Absolutely! Glad to be here! And I'm very interested to learn more about what's in the new fiscal budget. This is obviously not a very easy process. Republicans had their priorities, and Democrats fought to maintain what they thought was absolutely essential in the budget. Our guest was right in the thick of things all the way to the end, which came at about 3:00 this morning. State Senator Jeff Irwin is a Democrat from Ann Arbor and is on the other end of the WEMU phone line. I bet it was a long night, Senator!
Sen. Jeff Irwin: Absolutely! Thanks for having me on, Lisa! Thanks for helping me on, David!
David Fair: We obviously want to dive deeper into some of the environmental components in the new budget, but first, I want your first-hand account and impressions of what this year's budget process was like. Why was this year seemingly so much more difficult?
Sen. Jeff Irwin: Well, this year, we moved from having Democrats control the House and the Senate and the governorship to Republicans now controlling the House, so it was divided government. There was not as much agreement, and I think the new Republican speaker was more to the right, I think, of previous Republican speakers, and he also was, I think, adopting some of the strategies we've seen on the national level. From the very beginning of the year, he was threatening a state shutdown. And he knew that that would increase his leverage in the process, so he kept threatening that all the way until early this morning.
Lisa Wozniak: So, in the days to come, we'll have an opportunity to take a closer look at specifics, but we can at least get a snapshot right now. And you are the chair of Appropriations for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. What do you see as the most critical environmental priorities that were secured in the state budget?
Sen. Jeff Irwin: Well, I think that the most positive environmental priority that was secured in the state budget was probably that public transit got any piece of the new revenue that's going towards transportation. Road funding was the big winner of the day, and priorities like environmental protection took a small cut. The one positive thing I can say is that, as I mentioned, transit funding will get a $70 million bump as part of that $1.8 billion total road package.
David Fair: So, obviously, you don't sound completely satisfied with the manner in which this turned out. What environmental opportunities in your mind were missed or what critical services were cut as part of this spending plan?
Sen. Jeff Irwin: Well, as I mentioned, I think, within the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, within the broader environmental concerns, including folks over at DNR and whatnot, when the Republicans passed their proposed budget, there were dramatic cuts proposed to drinking water safety and brownfield cleanups and really across the board. And so, I think there are probably some folks in our state departments and certainly some folks probably out there who are looking out for an environment who thinks that avoiding those huge cuts was a big win. And I think that you can certainly look at it that way. That's not how I look at it when I'm dealing with a bully, but I think that that's fair to say. But the biggest concern, I think, is that there's been this talk about how we can increase the gas tax in a way that doesn't cost drivers anymore because we're going to reduce the sales tax on gas. Well, that happened last night, but they did it in such a way where the gas drivers will not have a tax increase, but drivers of EVs will pay another $100 a year, and drivers of plug-in hybrids will pay another $50 a year. So, I was very disappointed that we have a system in place currently where EV drivers and plug- in hybrid drivers pay an extra fee that is meant to pay for their fair share. Well, now, because of this change, they're going to pay a little more than their fair share, and I really think we should be striving to build the cars of the future here in Michigan, not looking for new ways to tax the cars.
Lisa Wozniak: And that surcharge, Senator Irwin, if I'm not mistaken, it's the highest surcharge in the country. Is that correct?
Sen. Jeff Irwin: Yeah. Like I said, we are going to be out in front in terms of taxing EVs. I've heard some arguments that maybe, for some reason, California's is a little higher. I don't know, but their gas tax is also a little higher. I think the unique thing here in Michigan is that the Legislature went out of their way to control costs for gas drivers but didn't exercise the same concern to make sure that costs for EV drivers and plug-in hybrid drivers remained commensurate with a cost that represents their fair share. And now, they're actually paying more than that, which is a big win for the Republicans because they are in line with and loyal to the fossil fuel industry, and they wanted to do something to make EV drivers pay more.
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU's First Friday Focus on the Environment. We're getting a snapshot of the new state budget passed early this morning as it touches the Michigan environment with Democrat Jeff Irwin. He's a state senator from Ann Arbor and chair of the Appropriations Committee for EGLE. And in talking about electric vehicles and commitment to the fossil fuel industry, it seems like this spending plan is going to make the local and state carbon neutrality goals more difficult. Is there an increase in revenue sharing that local units of government could utilize to maintain progress toward that end?
Sen. Jeff Irwin: No. Actually, there is a small decrease to revenue sharing. Well, it's more complicated than that, I suppose. On one level, there are the normal and ordinary increases that go along with inflation, and so that's part of the budget. But in another part of budget, because we are no longer charging the 6% sales tax on gas in an effort to make sure drivers don't experience a tax increase from the increase in the gas tax, the drivers won't experience that. The EV drivers will. But part of what happens when you take away the 6% sales tax on gas is that the revenue sharing that would have been generated from that 6% sales tax is no longer generated. So, local governments are going to lose out a little bit on that revenue. Now, I think that local governments are going to arguably get more dollars out of the road funding formula. But those dollars don't fall equally. And so, for instance, townships are the ones who are losing constitutionally protected revenue sharing, but none of the road funding dollars flow directly to them. They'll have to hope to get some from the county road commissioners that are getting more.
Lisa Wozniak: So, another big issue these days is data centers. They require huge amounts of energy and water. And we've seen recent local proposals in Ypsilanti, Saline, and Augusta Townships. Last fiscal year, the state worked to attract these businesses with tax incentives. Does this new budget address the environmental challenges or opportunities that come with this growing industry?
Sen. Jeff Irwin: No. As far as I'm aware, there's nothing in the budget that speaks to this issue. As you know, Michigan passed that law last year, which was trying to bring additional data centers into our state. We already had about 44 of them. But now, I think the push is on to build these very, very large ones. And of course, Michigan's change last year that offers a sales tax break to these firms to locate these here has some protections for ratepayers and some protections for our water. For instance, it requires them to use municipal water. There's a line in the law that says that ratepayers can't pay more to subsidize these. But we're still going to have to, I think, improve those protections, but also, most importantly, actually enforce them. It's one thing to have them in law. It's another thing to enforce them.
David Fair: With the federal government in partial shutdown, is there a possibility the state Legislature is going to have to go back and revisit this budget plan once a federal spending plan is in place?
Sen. Jeff Irwin: I think there's a possibility of that. I think that there are other reasons that the Legislature might have to go back to the drawing board. I mean, you mentioned in the opener that there's this new 24% tax on cannabis. There's lot of discussion about that, but this is a citizen-initiated statute, which means that, normally, it would require a three-quarters majority for the Legislature to amend it. The Legislature, in this case is trying to amend it with less than a three-quarters majority. And there are some people who think that's legal through... I don't know. They believe that maybe this tax is somehow not amending the initiative, even though the public set both the taxation rate and--
David Fair: It seems certain it's going to end up in court.
Sen. Jeff Irwin: So, yeah. Thanks for pushing ahead. Yeah, this is going to end up in court, and it may get overturned. And if it does, that's a $400 million-plus hole in this plan. And also, I think there's a really large chance that this plan isn't going to raise the revenue that it was promising to. There was some very rosy estimates as to what would happen from this cannabis tax. And I think that was necessary for some folks to get there on the budget. The speaker said last night that that was absolutely necessary for him to have a budget. But it's going to create problems down the line when it gets challenged in court and when customers start flocking to the black market.
David Fair: The governor called it a balanced and bipartisan initiative. I get the sense that you're not as enthusiastic as she.
Sen. Jeff Irwin: Well, you don't have to be enthusiastic to know that our schools were twisted in the wind. They needed a budget. They didn't know what was going to be funded, and school had already started. And that's completely ridiculous, right? So, even though I'm not bouncing off the walls about it, I never thought I would be given what we were hearing from the Republican House--the threats they were making to cut half of the drinking water staff to eliminate our PFAS standards and to make big cuts in those other priorities that we haven't talked about as much on this show, but education, health care, public safety. They attack every single priority of state government. And so, even though I may not sound thrilled about the budget, I do have a lot of respect for the folks who flaunt through it with that individual to get something on the table that could keep our state running and that could give our schools the signal they need to understand what their budgets are going to look like for a school year they've already gotten a month into.
David Fair: That is State Senator Jeff Irwin, a Democrat from Ann Arbor, discussing the new state budget on 89.1 WEMU-FM Ypsilanti.
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