Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Power Source - 5/16/2008

Here’s what the majority Democrats had to say when they passed this energy bill package last month.

“The Michigan House of Representatives today passed a comprehensive, long-term energy plan that will create thousands of jobs now for Michigan workers, keep electricity affordable for consumers and businesses, and ensure that our state has the safe, reliable power supply necessary to achieve major economic growth.”

Welcome to the wonderful world of doublespeak, Funny, but the House Democrats seem to have failed to mention that they also agreed to change the rate structure so that residential customers will pay a whole lot more and businesses a whole lot less.

True, this bill does set targets for renewable energy. But when I read the bills, I was unable to figure out just what penalty the utilities will have to pay if they don’t meet the renewable energy targets.

When I talked to the governor’s special energy advisor about this, I got a lot of doubletalk. And I came away utterly convinced that if any penalties are assessed, the utilities will cheerfully be able to pass them on to the consumers. They will also be allowed to propose rate increases that will automatically take effect if the state public service commission doesn’t stop them within a certain time period.

However, it gets worse.

These bills are now before the state senate, which, unlike the House, is still controlled by the Republicans. I have a hunch that they will fight to make any renewable energy targets strictly voluntary.

And you just know how fast these big utilities will move to spend money to make any change that they don’t have to make. Especially now that these bills also newly enshrine the CMS Energy and DTE Energy’s near-monopoly status.

What these bills are really designed to do is please the big two utilities, while maybe, at best, giving them a gentle nudge in the renewable energy direction. I’ll bet they drag their feet.

What is needed is a bill with teeth. Set a schedule for realistic renewal energy targets, and prescribe a system of rewards for making them and penalties for missing them. The penalties need to be real, and not something that can be passed on to consumers.

Something, say, requiring state government to open the field up to new competitors hungry enough to get it done. We also need to be honest. The governor has talked about renewable energy creating 19,000 jobs in the near future.

Skip Pruss, her energy advisor, talked as if most of these jobs would be created in tool-and-die shops. He sees an avalanche of orders for windmill parts from other states hot to get in on the renewable energy craze.

Call me a cynic, but I’m not convinced.

If we want renewable energy, we need to push for it. But not via a bunch of bills basically designed to create a safe monopoly for two energy companies who are still going to build coal-fired plants.

We can do better. Starting by insisting that our politicians be more honest.

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Interview: Skip Pruss - 5/16/2008

Governor Jennifer Granholm is a big proponent of renewable energy. A package of bills now before the state Senate would require that power producers obtain at least ten percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2015. Skip Pruss is the governor’s special advisor on alternative energy and the environment. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him about the energy legislation.

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Interview: Mark Brewer - 5/15/08

Michigan Democrats have been struggling for months to come up with some way to have a delegation seated at the Democratic National Convention in August.  Last week they came up with a solution they will present to the national party on May 31st.  But will it fly?  Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry put the question to Mark Brewer.  He’s chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. 

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Essay: Nightmare Scenario - 5/14/2008

Imagine this: It is mid-October and the electoral math is starting to gel. Barack Obama and John McCain are locked in a close race.

Most of the states are breaking along familiar lines, but the economy has given the Democrats a boost in a few formerly red states. But to seal the deal, Obama needs to carry Michigan.

That hasn’t been a problem for a Democrat in recent years, so long as they get a big turnout in Detroit, and stay competitive in the suburbs. But this year, Detroit means Kwame Kilpatrick.

Polls show the mayor has a near-universal negative rating in the suburbs. Republicans have been working the Kwame issue as hard as possible, crafting appeals that range from the sublime to the openly racist. The Internet is flooded with cleverly altered pictures that seem to show Obama and Kilpatrick together, wearing dashikis.

“Soul Brothers,“ one caption reads. Posters appear: “If you like having a black mayor, you’ll love having a black President.”

Naturally, the Republicans deny responsibility for them, but they are having an effect. Then, his trial approaching, an increasingly desperate Mayor wants to meet with the Democratic presidential candidate. Obama would rather appear holding a chunk of raw plutonium. But there is a veiled threat behind that request.

Meet with me, or the turnout in Detroit may not be as large as you need or want. Obama knows that without Michigan, he may not be able to win the presidency. He also knows that he can kiss white votes good-bye, in Michigan and maybe elsewhere, if he is seen as being in bed with Detroit’s indicted mayor. What can he do?

What can he possibly do?

***

That scenario, or a similar one, has been flickering through the minds of Democratic strategists for weeks. Some are now urging Gov. Jennifer Granholm to do the right thing, and remove the mayor.

She has the legal right to do so. As they see it, that would be a win-win situation for virtually everybody. The city could get back to something like normalcy, and go back to trying to compete for new jobs and convention business in this difficult economic environment.

The former mayor could concentrate full-time on trying to defend himself. And the city would have a mayor people, including a candidate for president, would cheerfully be willing to be seen with.

That all sounds lovely. Except, it is very unlikely to happen.

And it probably shouldn’t happen. Not yet, anyway. Kwame Kilpatrick has, by any measure, disgraced and damaged his city.

But unless its citizens or its council remove him, he is entitled to his day in court, even if he thereby proves further that he cares about nothing and no one except himself. For the governor to remove him arbitrarily would set a very bad example for the future.

This state and its largest city have endured a lot, including fires, riots, and invasions. We’ll survive this too, in the end. But it would be nice if sometimes, it was just a little bit easier.

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Interview: Bill Rustem - 5/14/2008

Yesterday, Detroit City Council voted to do three things…to censure Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, to ask the governor to remove him, and to start a process to remove him themselves. We wondered if anything like this has ever happened in Michigan’s history. And could it conceivable happen in other cities in the state. To find out Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry called Bill Rustem. He’s the head of Public Sector Consultants.

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Essay: The Ethanol Craze - 5/12/2008

Depending on whom you talk to, corn-based ethanol is either the future, or the biggest con job since the perpetual motion machine. Nobody doubts any more that we need to do something different. The first time I ever saw a solar cell was in seventh-grade science class.

The teacher told us that by the time we grew up, our cars would be powered by these. I think the electric battery was supposed to get us through cloudy days. Sounded great to me. However, that was in the fall of ... 1963, and I have yet to see a solar-powered car.

As far as the solar powered future is concerned, I am running out of time to enjoy it.

The fact of the matter is that we still don’t have an agreed-upon replacement for gasoline. General Motors is once again working hard on an electric car. All the automakers are working on hybrids of some kind. Stan Ovshinsky, the now-retired founder of Energy Conversion Devices in Troy, is betting the future will be hydrogen. Others are betting on corn-based ethanol – at least as a transitional fuel. Then there is so-called cellulosic ethanol, which we first heard about when George W. Bush suggested making fuel out of switch grass.

In Illinois, a company called Coskata says it can make ethanol out of everything from table scraps to old tires. And their arguments were convincing enough to get General Motors to invest. The one thing all these people have in common is that they know the world’s fossil fuel reserves are running out.

Gas and oil are getting more and more costly, and nobody has a clear-cut solution as to what to do next. Actually, these are things we’ve known for decades, but never did anything about them.

Some say the oil and automotive industries did their best to make sure nobody did anything about them. Well, that’s changing now. We may not have one common fuel, at least not for awhile.

And we do need to experiment with as many alternatives as possible. But while I am no engineer, I have serious doubts as to whether corn-based ethanol makes sense.

Our sensible neighbors to the north get it. Monday, the Ottawa Citizen ran an editorial highly critical of the whole idea.

Noting that rising global prices and increasing food shortages have sparked recent riots in Haiti, the newspaper said “Food supply is a complex thing. But it is becoming clear biofuel production is playing a role in shrinking that supply.”

The image of peasants starving so we can fill up our Lincoln Navigators with ethanol-based fuel is not charming. The Ottawa paper suggests refocusing biofuel research towards algae. That sounds good. Making gasoline out of mosquitoes would sound good, too, But whatever we do has to pass two tests:

Will it work? And perhaps more importantly, what damage would it do to the environment and the ecosystem?

We are in a process of transition, and here’s something else they didn’t tell us back in seventh grade.

Whatever we do, it won’t be easy.

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Essay: State of the State - 5/9/2008

When I read Charlie Ballard’s state of the state survey this morning, a few things never mentioned in it popped into my mind.

First of all, it seems clear that anyone who wants to win Michigan this fall better stop talking about silly side issues, and start addressing our state and our nation’s serious economic problems.

So far the Democratic candidates have spent a lot of time squabbling about who was most against Iraq. Meanwhile, we’ve paid vast attention to a retired preacher whose words have since been repudiated by the candidate who used to go to his church.

Ballard’s survey, which is one of the most accurate in opinion polling, indicates what voters think of those issues. The answer is: Not much. Only seven out of every thousand feel that foreign policy is a top issue in this campaign.

And only two in every thousand think that race relations and diversity should be on the front burner. What about the so-called ‘moral issues” that seem to surface every election season?

Well, they are of concern to precisely one half of one percent of Michigan’s population. We are facing tough economic times this year, and our hearts are in our wallets.

Two thirds of us think the top issues are either jobs or the economy. When you throw in taxes and budget issues, that rises to about eighty percent of us.

When you look at these numbers, it is hard to see how any Democratic candidate for president could possibly fail to win Michigan this fall. A solid majority think George W. Bush has done a poor job.

They don’t much like Jennifer Granholm either, but she isn’t running. What they really worry about, however, could be best summed up by the title of Charlie Ballard’s last book:

Michigan’s Economic Future.

Four out of seven of us say we are worse off than a year ago. Less than one in every four of us thinks we are in better shape. We still are hopeful about the future.

Americans are traditionally the most optimistic people on the planet. But we aren’t starry-eyed. Forty-four percent of us think we’ll be better off this time next year. Thirty-five percent say worse off. And that’s the most pessimistic they’ve been since this survey was started. Voters are going to be looking for a president who can help us get out of this pothole, and avoid bigger ones.

Twenty-eight years ago, I covered another presidential campaign that looked like it would end in a dead heat. Then the candidates had a single debate. “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” the challenger asked, “Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores?”

Days later, the man who said those words carried 44 states, including Michigan. Today, we once again know the answer to those questions.

For the rest of this year, voters are going to be looking for someone who can make them feel better off four years from now.

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Interview: Charles Ballard - 5/9/2008

The results of Michigan’s annual State of the State Survey were released today. The survey asked Michigan residents about their economic situation and what issues they thought were most important. Charles Ballard is a Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. He is also the director of the State of the State Survey. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Repellent Ruling - 5/8/2008

Since the 1960s, conservatives have been whining about liberal judges who they say, “legislate from the bench.“ That is to say, judges who make up new laws on their own, and then pretend what they want is somehow implied in or required by the constitution.

My liberal friends won’t like what I am about to say, but that is  in some cases an intellectually valid argument. I am totally in favor of what is called a woman’s right to choose. 

But I think it is really a stretch to find that the Constitution requires the complex trimester ruling of Roe vs.  Wade.

However, if any of the so-called strict constitutionalists support what the Michigan Supreme Court did yesterday, they are utter hypocrites. Yesterday, in a completely partisan ruling, our elected high court ruled that no unit of government could provide health benefits to same-sex couples.

Regardless of how you feel about that, here’s the complete text of the Michigan Constitutional Amendment their ruling was based on, an amendment passed in 2004.

To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.

Not exactly a literary masterpiece, but its meaning is clear enough; it says marriage can involve only a man and a woman.

But it says nothing whatsoever about health care.

As I understand the logic of it, what the court did yesterday was imply that units of government, including state universities, cannot extend any health care benefits to anyone who is not married to one of their employees.

Logically, then, my seven-year-old goddaughter should lose her  health care. Her father works for the State of Michigan, and he is only her father, not her husband. You would say that is absurd.

And you would be right. But so is denying domestic partner benefits based on this amendment.  Sometimes judges who are struggling to interpret the Constitution go back and read ancient documents and letters to try and discern what may have been the founding fathers’ original intent in framing some passage.

Well, in this case we only have to go back four years. Those campaigning for this amendment told audiences, over and over again, that all it was meant to do was ban gay marriage, that it wouldn’t touch anyone’s benefits.

They may have been lying, but that is what they said.

The root of the problem is that a flaw in our state constitution has given us a Supreme Court that is largely a collection of partisan hacks. They issued a ruling on our presidential primary earlier this year that was so blatantly unconstitutional a federal judge threw it out as soon as it landed on her desk. But unless we change the system or elect better judges, we can expect more of the same.

So, dear voters, I guess that leaves it up to you.

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Interview: Jay Kaplan - 5/8/2008

Yesterday, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that no public employer in the state is allowed to provide health care benefits to same sex couples. In a straight party-line decision, the Republican majority said that the ban was required by a 2004 constitutional amendment that prohibited gay marriage in the state. Jay Kaplan is an attorney for the ACLU of Michigan. He has been working on the case. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke to him.

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