Lessons from Michigan's Perfect Storm: Term‐Limited Legislature Restores Mining's Exemption from Local Zoning

Abstract

From hydrofracking regulation to pipeline and renewable energy facility siting, resource‐related land use controls—and protections—are increasingly promulgated as inflexible statewide policies by state legislatures, sometimes in response to local exclusionary zoning practices. As recent events in Michigan illustrate, even a poster child for good local planning—recently vindicated in the stateʼns highest court for its careful balancing of resource needs against local industrial impacts—remains vulnerable to industry influence within a state legislature whose long‐term vision and institutional memory have been shrunken by term limits.—Ed.