Opinion | Barrett misleads again, this time on Michigan’s EV future

Tom Barrett, who is seeking to be Michigan’s 7th District congressman, recently alleged that crime is on the rise in Lansing, attacking the city and residents that he seeks to serve. Now, he continues to mislead by falsely attacking Michigan's electric vehicle industry and the thousands of jobs being created in our clean energy economy, many of them right here in the city I serve as mayor. His recent EV-bashing column in Bridge Michigan is filled with misleading claims about the success of our efforts to build electric vehicles and what the future holds for our state's automotive industry.

Make no mistake: electric vehicles are the future. We won’t force them on anyone (who said we would, Tom?), but they are efficient and will help keep the air clean for our children. They are the future, and we can either build them here or cede the technology, the market, and the jobs to competitors like China. Abandoning the effort to grow Michigan’s EV industry would be a historic misstep, leaving thousands of families behind and seriously damaging our state’s ability to drive the technological innovation that will determine the winners and losers in this global race. We can't allow that to happen.

Barrett also ignores the fact that thousands of Michigan workers in the skilled trades are on the job right now building the EV plants of the future. Steelworkers, electricians, plumbers and operating engineers are all putting food on the table thanks to the very state and federal clean energy investments Barrett says he's against. Under the current clean energy plan, there will be building projects that employ Michiganders for the next decade, which cannot be overlooked. These workers will be the first people affected by the rollbacks that Barrett, Mike Rogers and Donald Trump are clamoring for.

Here in Lansing, General Motors is investing nearly a billion dollars to retool the Lansing Grand River Assembly plant for EV production, with support from $500 million funded by the Inflation Reduction Act. The Biden-Harris administration prioritized a historic investment in clean energy, and the grant to us will help GM retain 650 union jobs at LGR and create at least 50 new jobs.

All of which could be lost if Tom Barrett keeps playing dangerous political games with our future. The stakes couldn’t be higher for Michigan. If Barrett wins and the MAGA Republicans take control in Washington, more than $26 billion in new clean energy projects that are creating over 21,000, good-paying jobs in Michigan — including 4,125 in the Seventh Congressional District Barrett hopes to represent — could simply vanish.

A recent report found that over 165,000 jobs will be created in the clean energy and EV sector in Michigan in the next 10 years, on top of the over 125,000 we currently have. Tom Barrett’s shortsighted thinking will jeopardize a better future for so many families here in Lansing and across Michigan. 

We can’t abandon our EV future. If we give up now, we will sacrifice our leadership in the technologies of the future and lose the battle over this key sector of the clean energy economy. It would be shortsighted, and cause real harm to Michigan families who depend on these jobs right now. We owe it to ourselves and the next generation to make sure our state’s historic legacy as a global automotive powerhouse also defines our future.