Dive Brief:

• Michigan has already begun working to develop a Clean Power Plan compliance strategy, and later this month is expected to announce a working group with a broad range of stakeholders to help develop a plan. 
• According to Midwest Energy News, the state has already spent $250,000 working on a strategy and has been in contact with environmental groups, utilities, manufacturers and large users of energy.
• While Michigan may be ahead of the curve in terms of preparing a compliance plan, Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette has joined a multi-state challenge to the greenhouse gas plan, which is expected to eventually wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dive Insight:

Michigan officials still have issues with the Obama Administration's Clean Power Plan, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions 32% by 2030 below 2005 levels, but the state's top executive is pushing ahead quickly to develop a compliance strategy in order to avoid needing to request an extension.

Midwest Energy News reports the state will use its administrative rules process to adopt a plan, which it expects to have ready by next September. “We will have a good idea of what Michigan will do by September,” said ​Valerie Brader, director of the Michigan Agency for Energy, 

“We’re really looking for very robust participation," Brader told the news outlet. "We don’t have a pre-cooked answer about what’s best for Michigan. It’s really important for us to understand what stakeholders think and what the tradeoffs will be based on which direction Michigan will go.”

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) issued a statement on Sept. 3 that his state would be developing a compliance plan.

“The best way to protect Michigan is to develop a state plan that reflects Michigan’s priorities of adaptability, affordability, reliability and protection of the environment,” Snyder said. “We need to seize the opportunity to make Michigan’s energy decisions in Lansing, not leave them in the hands of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.” 

The state aims to submit a plan by September 6, 2016. 

The Clean Power Plan has set off a large legal fight, with virtually all states picking sides. The more than two dozen states challenging the rule "are the most ever to challenge an EPA rule and, as far as I know, any federal action," said Bracewell & Giuliani attorney Jeff Holmstead.

Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) is leading a coalition of 18 states and some cities and counties in defense of the Clean Power Plan. The group has filed a motion to intervene to defend the federal greenhouse gas plan.