Senator Mike Nofs, R-Battle Creek, said his office spent 16 hours reviewing the 2008 bill that currently is in effect and requires Michigan to produce 10 percent of its energy from renewable sources.

“We looked at all the options available to Michigan and set up a plan,” Nofs said. “We decided to go with options because we don’t know what the future will hold.”

Nofs said the current energy plan is obtainable, but that the 25 X 25 proposal would be hard to achieve.

“Twenty-five percent puts all our eggs in one basket,” he said. “No one knows 12 years from now what type of energy we’ll be using.”

Rich Studley, resident and CEO of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, said some people are trying to turn Michigan into California by putting a bunch of important proposals on the ballot in November.

“I want people to read the proposal and study the language,” Studley said. “Michigan homeowners cannot afford a 25 percent increase in energy costs.”

Studley also questioned where the money for the proposal would come from.

Joel Ferguson, chairman of the MSU Board of Trustees, also was in attendance and said government is give and take, and sometimes people can’t get what they want.

“Our students are really active,” Ferguson said. “They want 100 percent renewable energy and so do I.”

Ferguson said there is no way to tell where energy production will be in the future and added that when he was younger, there was little hope for things to get more high-tech than his Dick Tracy two-way radio.

State Rep. Tom Stallworth, D-Detroit, said changing the Constitution is the absolute wrong way to go about this issue.

“(The Constitution) should establish basic rights of citizens,” he said. “An energy policy should be very flexible.”

Stallworth, the minority vice chairman of the Michigan Energy and Technology Committee, said the procedure is just as crucial.

“How we achieve results is as important as the results themselves,” he said.

Michigan State Utility Workers Council President Pat Dillon said that for every clean energy job created, 2.2 regular energy jobs are lost.

“Operation of a fossil plant is labor intensive, but it doesn’t take much to run a wind turbine,” he said.

Dillon said he supports the state going to 25 percent renewable energy at some point, it’s just got to be at the right time and for the right price.

He closed by saying that he didn’t want Michigan to turn out like Iowa did with all the wind turbines and no tourism.

“People don’t come to Michigan to see windmills, unless they go to Holland.”