There’s a scene that plays out in homes across Michigan every month that never makes the news.

A family sits down at the kitchen table and opens the electric bill. They look at the number, pause for a moment, and start doing the quiet math of everyday life. Maybe the thermostat comes down a few degrees. Maybe dinner out waits until next month. Maybe something else gets pushed a little further down the road.

They make it work. Michigan families always do.

But they shouldn’t have to make those choices because of decisions made in Lansing. That’s why this week I introduced Project Lighthouse, a plan to bring reliability and affordability back to Michigan’s energy policy.

Electricity isn’t a luxury. It’s the foundation of modern life. It heats homes on cold January nights. It powers the factories that built the American middle class. It keeps hospitals running, schools open, and small businesses alive.

When government drives up the cost of electricity, it isn’t just a policy decision in Lansing. It shows up as a bill on your kitchen table every month.

In 2023, Lansing Democrats passed a sweeping mandate requiring utilities to reach 100 percent so-called “green energy” by 2040. It was framed as bold leadership. But behind the slogans, a basic question went unanswered: what happens on a freezing Michigan night when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining?

That’s not a hypothetical. It’s a Tuesday in Michigan. And the honest answer is that intermittent power sources alone can’t carry the load when demand is highest and reliability matters most.

Project Lighthouse repeals those mandates and replaces them with something simpler and more grounded: an energy policy built around reliability, affordability, and accountability.

Reliability means asking a simple question first: will the lights stay on when families need them most? Affordability means telling the truth about what energy policy costs. Accountability means your electric bill should pay for electricity, not for political advocacy or special interests lobbying to make energy more expensive.

Michigan didn’t become the engine of American industry because of government mandates. It became that because our autoworkers, engineers, and farmers didn’t wait for Lansing to tell them how to build a better future. They rolled up their sleeves and built it themselves.

Project Lighthouse is an invitation to return to that confidence. We trust the engineer over the bureaucrat, the market over the mandate, and the Michigan family over the political talking points coming out of Lansing.

Because Michigan’s energy future shouldn’t be built on political slogans.

It should be built for the family sitting at the kitchen table, flipping the switch and trusting the lights will come on and the bill won’t break the bank.