What's New in Michigan Politics?

A Coming Assault on the E.P.A.--N.Y. Times Editorial, December 24, 2010

Published: December 24, 2010 Republicans in the next Congress are obviously set on limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate a wide range of air pollutants — even if it means denying the agency money to run its programs and chaining its administrator, Lisa Jackson, to the witness stand. Fred Upton, who will become the next chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, says he plans to call Ms. Jackson so often for questioning that he’ll guarantee her a permanent parking space on Capitol Hill. It is equally plain that Ms. Jackson has no intention of abandoning her agenda or her defense of one of the most successful of America’s landmark environmental statutes. What is not clear is where the White House stands and whether it is prepared to resist industry’s standard litany that E.P.A. is as an out-of-control agency threatening jobs with unnecessary rules.

President Obama’s political advisers have shown little enthusiasm for environmental issues. Mr. Obama himself ceded leadership on the climate-change issue to Congress, which ended up doing nothing. On the other hand, his chief environmental adviser is Carol Browner, herself a former E.P.A. administrator whose aggressive clean-air initiatives in the Clinton years would never have prevailed without Oval Office support.

Which is just what Ms. Jackson will need in the months ahead. On her plate is: a proposed rule reducing pollutants like sulfur dioxide, the acid rain gas, from power plants east of the Mississippi River; a first-of-its-kind rule limiting toxic pollutants like mercury, which the agency has been ducking for years; and, most problematic, proposals imposing new “performance standards” on power plants to limit greenhouse gases.

Taken together, these and other pending rules should lead to a dramatically less polluting fleet of power plants, a process already set in motion by the rapid decline in natural gas prices. That has encouraged industry to retire dirtier coal-burning facilities. Everyone will benefit: citizens from cleaner air, lakes and fish from reduced mercury deposits, the atmosphere from lower greenhouse gases.

Some important players in industry are ready for change. In a recent letter in The Wall Street Journal, a group of powerful utilities including Pacific Gas and Electric and New Jersey’s Public Service said that industry had had plenty of time to prepare, that pollution could be reduced in cost-effective ways and that newer and cleaner plants will create jobs, not destroy them.

But this is hardly a universal view in industry and in Congress. Although the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the Clean Air Act gives the E.P.A. not just the right but the obligation to regulate greenhouse gases, the Senate tried to subvert that authority once. Senator John Rockefeller IV, a Democrat who represents West Virginia coal interests, will surely try again.

Ms. Jackson will have to be tactically smart, lest overreaching on one rule brings the whole house down. She has already delayed new air-quality standards for ozone. She says she needs more scientific evidence to set precise limits. Historically, clean-air rules are almost always litigated, so having sound science on her side is essential.

But she won’t get far without Mr. Obama’s backing. Ms. Browner could remind the president that it was after a dispiriting Republican midterm victory that President Bill Clinton found his feet on environmental issues. In 1995, the Newt Gingrich crowd came to town promising to overturn a whole body of environmental law. Mr. Clinton rose up, not only winning the big battles, but eventually compiling a sterling record. Mr. Obama should emulate him. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/25/opinion/25sat1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

"Why the Midterms Matter"

"...do you know the GOP agenda? In brief repeal health-care reform, so if you lose your job and your kid gets sick, you may have to sell the house; repeal financial reform, so Wall Street scammers and predatory lenders can return to doing everything they did before they wrecked the ceonomy; maintain corporate-welfare subsidies that move jobs overseas; reduce spending by slashing education funding and ending all clean-energy projects aimed at curbing dependence on Middle East oil. Of course, thse polkcies won't cut the deficit. Republicans insist on extending $700 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy and leaving the defense budget untouched. Entitlements would be "reviewed regularyy," the GOP leadership says, which is code for doing nothing....."

Outside money

In Michigan's three most competitive congressional races this year, groups other than the candidates' campaigns spent nearly $18 million in all -- or almost $3 to every $2 spent by the candidates themselves.

Upper Peninsula and much of northern Lower Peninsula

Dan Benishek, Republican (winner)

Spent himself: $1.3 million

Spent on his behalf: $3.3 million

Gary McDowell, Democrat

Spent himself: $790,649

Spent on his behalf: $1.5 million

Tim Walberg, Republican (winner)

Spent himself: $1.6 million

Spent on his behalf: nearly $4.5 million

Mark Schauer, Democrat

Spent himself: $3.3 million

Spent on his behalf: more than $4.7 million

Gary Peters, Democrat (winner)

Spent himself: $3.4 million

Spent on his behalf: $860,518

Andrew (Rocky) Raczkowski, Republican

Spent himself: $1.8 million

Spent on his behalf: $3.1 million

Turns out Halloween is one of Gov. Jennifer Granholm's favorite days of the year.

She revealed to capital reporters at a farewell dinner that she's gone to great lengths with home decorations and costumes as governor. The dinner conversation was off the record, but this tale is allowed: This year, the first family and groundskeeper went all out decorating the governor's residence in Lansing, including a fake coffin that required trick-or-treaters to stick their hands in holes and feel yucky stuff inside.

Granholm stood motionless off to the side, dressed as a scary clown. Hidden under the coffin was her 13-year-old son, Jack. When teenage tricksters showed up (not little kids), Jack would grab their legs, they'd scream and run and the governor would come "alive" and chase them down the driveway.

The governor is an avid runner, though she could not run for re-election under term limits.

Accolades roll in for Tim Walberg. He was named one of the "Ten Scariest Rep;ublicans Heading to Washington" by Right Wing Watch. The organization mostly finds Walberg scary because he's a righty, but focuses on accusations of his ties to "birthers (the fringe folks who question whether President Obama was born in the U.S..)

Michigan voters gave the GOP control of the House of Representatives, the Governor's office, Attorney General, Secretary of State plus two Supreme Court seats. This will have profound effects on Michigan. Among them are:

1. Pressure on employment, pay, health care and other benefits for teachers and state, county and city employees.

2. Pressure to make Michigan a right-to-work state, despite Snyder's campaign statement that this was not a priority issue for him. GOP conservatives are likely to try to change Snyder's mind on this issue.

3. Increased support for charter schools and watering down public school teacher tenure rights..

4. Complete GOP control of the congressional and state re-districting process will advantage GOP candidates in 2012 and beyond..

5. Union organizing will not benefit from a federal card count recognition bill. Instead, there will be efforts in Congress to require elections for union recognition in all situations even in those which are uncontested. Pressure on the budget of the National Labor Relations Board budget is likely.

6. There will be pressures in Michigan and in Washington to weaken environmental protections in the oil, mining, timber, chemical and electric power industries. Cap and trade and other climate legislation are now D.O.A.

7. Pressures to ban embryonic stem cell research and impose limits on abortions are likely.

8. GOP pressures in Congress for additional free trade pacts which won't help the dismal jobs picture in Michigan.

9. Adopting rational measures required to increase employment and recover from the recession will be more difficult.

10, Repeal of military "don't ask, don't tell" policy by Congress will be more difficult.

11. Comprehensive immigration reform is probably D.O.A.

The Republicans' capture of the three statewide elective offices (governor, attorney general and secretary of state), the state house of representatives and state senate plus two seats on the Michigan supreme court combined with the GOP's capture of the U.S. House of Representatives and gains in the Senate will have profound effects for Michigan. Some of the effects may be positive, but many are likely to prove to be negative.Although Rick Snyder portrayed himself as and may actually be, a moderate, he will not be able to ignore his more conservative colleagues in the state house and senate and the attorney general's office.

Some of the likely downsides from the state and national election may include--failure to take action on important environmental issues such as the pollution resulting from natural gas "fracking;" climate change, pipeline safety, and other water and air pollution issues; continued participation by Michigan's attorney general in the lawsuit seeking to invalidate the federal health care reform bill; and perhaps of greatest immediate concern, several hundred thousand unemployed Michiganders whose unemployment benefits will soon run out with no additional extensions in sight. Sadly, we will not have the good offices and expertise of Jocelyn Benson as secretary of state. This means we will have to watch Ruth Johnson's actions on voting rights and procedures to assure she isn't up to voter suppression tactics. Finally, the brief period of a Democrat majority on the Michigan supreme court came to an end on November 2 with the election of two John Englerite conservatives to the court which will bring more decisions catering to business interests and less concern for the rights of ordinary citizens.

One of the biggest downsides for Democrats from the election is that the Republican's will be in the driver's seat for redistricting. This will give them a huge advantage in 2012 and future elections.

On the bright side, Rick Snyder promised to "reinvent Michigan," and he actually may be able to make some headway in that direction if he can get cooperation from some of the Democrats in the state house and senate. Good luck to him in these efforts. But I'm not holding my breath. Snyder's appointment of three old Engler hands as his transition team doesn't inspire confidence that he'll govern as a moderate in the footsteps of William Milliken who endorsed him for governor.

Re “Some Fiscal Reality” (editorial, Nov. 11):

The current federal budget deficit was caused mainly by unnecessary wars and related military spending, the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, and large tax cuts and bailouts for the rich, all stemming from the Bush administration.

Now a bipartisan commission proposes that we solve the long-term deficit “problem” by cutting back Social Security, Medicare and other social welfare programs. Thus the poor, the sick and the elderly would pay for the tax breaks and bailouts for the already wealthy.

The Republicans have made it clear that they have only one economic goal: making the rich richer. Are there no Democrats left with any backbone?

Robert Ortner
Short Hills, N.J., Nov. 12, 2010

The writer was chief economist and under secretary of commerce during the Reagan administration and is the author of “Voodoo Deficits.”

Newly empowered republicans are demanding spending cuts of $5 billion to $6 billion a month as a condition for extending emergency unemployment benefits that otherwise will start expiring Dec. 1 for millions of workers who've been without jobs for half a year or longer.

Up to 2 million people could lose the benefits--which averate $310 a month nationwide--during the holiday season and up to 5 million by the end of February if a still-Democratic-controlled Congress doesn't act in a post-election lame-duck session to extend them.

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