U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) privately met with local officials in Alpena on Friday to discuss the impact of March’s historic ice storm.
WCMU spoke with Slotkin after the meeting about the funding the state has requested from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as what her stance is on the Line 5 tunnel project and the No Gotion Act, which passed in the U.S. House of Representatives as part of Trump administration's Big Beautiful Bill.
‘Quite literally my job’: Slotkin Pushes for FEMA
On May 16, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer requested $137 million from FEMA, which will ultimately need to be approved by the Trump administration.
Slotkin sits on the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which oversees FEMA. She said that it is her duty to get this funding approved.
“It is quite literally my job to receive the ball from the governor and bang pots and pans with FEMA until we get that declaration, and until we get the reimbursement, the money,” she said.
Local officials in Alpena spoke with Slotkin about their experience during the ice storm and proposed their plan to make the Alpena Event Complex into a shelter for future disasters. Officials are requesting around $2 million from FEMA.
“(There was) a lot of discussion of power generation,” she said. “Not having enough generators to run warming centers, not having the infrastructure ready for a warming center. That came up over and over and over again,” Slotkin said.
Her support for more energy production, not Line 5
During the annual Mackinac Policy Conference, protesters gathered on the island to express their frustration with the acceleration of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' environmental review of the Line 5 Tunnel Project.
Slotkin was one of the many politicians who attended the conference.
“There were protesters who were there wearing all the same T-shirts, so they were hard to miss for the people at the up at the Grand Hotel,” Slotkin said.
The senator says she supports the expansion of energy production, but found Line 5 to be dangerous.
“I think we all understand that we're going to need more energy in the future, but that means we should be investing in all kinds of energy and not giving up on any one kind of energy like wind or solar and all those things,” she said. “Let's just do it in a way that doesn't spoil our natural resources up here in the Great Lakes.”
Slotkin didn’t state whether she was for or against the tunnel project, but she did express that more federal oversight is needed to ensure the project is done safely.
“I just want to make sure that there's true oversight because I don't want any problems with the tunnel,” she said. “I don't want a problem with laying the tunnel. I don't want a problem after the tunnel is made. I want to make sure things are done by the book.”
Slotkin shares her thoughts on Chinese manufacturing in the US
Last week, U.S. Representative John Moolenaar’s (R-Caledonia) No Gotion Act passed in the House after being attached to the Trump Administration’s Big Beautiful Bill. Slotkin and the rest of the U.S. Senate are now debating the bill.
The No Gotion Act aims to ban companies affiliated with the Chinese government from receiving green tax credits that were established under the Inflation Reduction Act.
When asked if she supports Moolenaar's bill, Slotkin didn’t give a clear stance and said she would need to see the exact language in the bill but said Chinese companies should be analyzed fully before any property is sold.
“I do not support selling manufacturing sites, manufacturing facilities and farmland to Chinese government entities without vetting them,” Slotkin said.
During her time in the Michigan House of Representatives, Slotkin proposed a bill that would’ve given the Committee on Foreign Investment more power to review sales to China-based companies. The bill never passed.
She said that she is still in favor of a similar bill.
“I have a very similar bill that is basically saying we shouldn't be selling to a Chinese company or another company of concern unless they've gone through a thorough national security vetting,” Slotkin said.
