Tlaib Introduces Make DTE Pay Act in Response to Clean Air Act Violations, Repeated Rate Hikes

DETROIT — Today, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), co-founder of the House People’s Environmental Justice Caucus, introduced the Make DTE Pay Act, which would substantially increase monetary penalties on utilities like DTE Energy when they seek customer rate increases within the two years preceding or following Clean Air Act violations. 
 
“Corporate polluters like DTE treat violating our environmental protection laws as the cost of doing business,” said Congresswoman Tlaib. “It’s so insulting to our families that DTE wants to jack up their bills year after year while poisoning the air they breathe. We need to change the math and make polluting our communities as bad for business as it is for our health. The Make DTE Pay Act stands up for our families by forcing DTE and other dirty utilities to make a choice: follow the Clean Air Act or pay huge financial penalties when they try to hike customer rates.” 

On February 17, 2026, U.S. District Court Judge Gershwin Drain found DTE liable for Clean Air Act violations that poisoned communities in Detroit and Downriver and ordered it to pay $100 million in fines. Just two days later, DTE received a $242.4 million electric rate increase, and last week DTE once again filed for an additional $474.3 million electric rate increase. DTE previously received a $217 million electric rate increase in January 2025.

In response to DTE’s outrageous behavior, the Make DTE Pay Act would amend the Clean Air Act to increase penalties against investor-owned utilities that sought or seek customer rate increases within the two-year period preceding or following an assessment of a Clean Air Act financial penalty. For each rate increase, the underlying Clean Air Act penalty would be increased by an amount equal to the original penalty assessment. 

“Our office spent years in court to get DTE a $100 million Clean Air Act penalty for poisoning residents of Detroit and River Rouge,” said Andrew Bashi, Staff Attorney at the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. “It was a hard-fought win, and it sounds like a huge sum until you realize that DTE saved $70 million by breaking the law in the first place. This bill gets us one step closer to a world where following the law is more cost effective than breaking it. That’s essential, because money is the only language investor-owned utilities like DTE speak.”

You can read the full bill text here.

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