Energy:

  • FAM has consistently intervened in major utility (Consumers Energy & DTE Energy) electric rate cases.
  • FAM specifically focuses on metal melting rate tariffs which are essential for cost-effective foundry electricity.
  • Our efforts have resulted in significantly lower tariff rates than originally proposed by the utilities—saving our members tens of thousands of dollars per year. 

Solid/Hazardous Waste:

  • FAM has saved members multiple thousands of dollars per year through our advocacy in the characterization and taxation of solid waste in Michigan.
  • FAM has successfully opposed legislative and regulatory efforts to significantly increase solid waste tipping fees in Michigan as a stealth tax on industry.  The latest proposal is to increase the solid waste tipping fee from 36 cents per ton to $5.00 per ton, a 1,289% increase.
  • FAM was instrumental in establishing a separate tipping fee rate category for high volume, low hazard waste (e.g. foundry sand, slag, etc.).  The current rate is 12 cents per ton instead of the general municipal solid waste rate of 36 cents per ton.
  • Additionally, FAM was successful in characterizing spent foundry sand as a product (not waste) when used as a construction material at a landfill or applied as alternate daily cover at a landfill (Beneficial Use 4) —- making it totally exempt from any landfill tipping fees.
  • FAM, with an environmental consultant, helped keep shakeout sand from being characterized as hazardous at shakeout.

Labor/Employment:

  • FAM was successful in preventing the state from taking money from the Michigan Dust and Silicosis Fund and redirecting it to the state’s General Fund.
  • FAM testimony was instrumental in getting OSHA to reconsider its ergonomic standards to avoid onerous requirements on foundries, including the proposed use of a specially redesigned hammer.