Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Bridging the Gap - 4.30.10

Canada made an offer yesterday… one Michigan might not be able to refuse. Our neighbors to the North agreed to front Michigan’s expenses for a proposed, new bridge from Detroit to Windsor. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry has more…

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For months, those opposed to a new, publicly-owned bridge over the Detroit River have had one powerful argument:

Michigan can‘t afford it. Unemployment is the highest in the nation. The state government is struggling to close a massive deficit. There is no money for a new bridge.

Those in favor of the Detroit River International Crossing Project, or DRIC, argued it would be well worth the expense. The Ambassador Bridge, built in 1929, wasn’t designed for today’s heavy trucks and tomorrow’s traffic volumes.

Billions of dollars in trade, mainly heavy components for the auto industry, move across the Ambassador every year. If something were to happen to it, there is no backup except already overused facilities in Port Huron and in Buffalo, New York.

And there is virtually no security.

Complicating all this is the fact that the Ambassador Bridge is owned by a private individual, the billionaire trucking magnate Matty Moroun. Mostly, he relies on the president of his bridge company, Dan Stamper, to deal with government and the media.

For years, Stamper and Moroun have tried to have it both ways on a number of issues.

They’ve claimed neither Canada nor the U.S. have the right to inspect the Ambassador Bridge and at the same time, that it is not subject to Michigan law because it is a “federal instrumentality.” The U.S. District attorney has, by the way, asked a court to make them stop using that term.

They argued for years that a second bridge isn’t needed - and then announced they would twin the Ambassador Bridge instead. Part of the way they prepared to do that was to construct unapproved ramps and buildings, which they have been ordered to tear down.

Unfortunately for Moroun, just about everybody opposes twinning the Ambassador Bridge.

Canada has made it clear it won’t allow it, no matter what. For years, both countries have been carefully planning a second bridge, to be built two miles south.

They say it would create as many as ten thousand construction jobs. But for it to proceed, the Michigan legislature has to approve some preliminary funding - it’s not clear how much - by June 1.

And money is tight. Yesterday, however, that argument was taken off the table. Governor Jennifer Granholm announced that the Canadian government would front our expenses.

Canada has agreed to pay up to $550 million of Michigan’s cost of the proposed publicly owned bridge. This isn’t a gift; they propose to get it back through toll revenues. In fact, the total amount Michigan was expected to have to pay is much less - maybe $100 million.

The governor now solidly supports the new bridge. Her Department of Transportation has been saying for months that the DRIC is needed. This makes it hard to see what justification the legislature now could have for not continuing work on the project.

True to form, however, Dan Stamper did his best. He questioned the governor’s loyalty, saying she was “selling the border to Canada.” He argued that the project would create only Canadian jobs, take twenty years, and bankrupt the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.

None of that seems to be reality-based, but in politics, it’s never over till it is over. The final decision is up to the legislature.

The Ambassador Bridge folks have proven this, however: Losing gracefully is a lost art.

Essay: Mass Transit - 4.29.10

Daily commuter rail service between Detroit and Ann Arbor was supposed to start this fall but, once again, funding fell through. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry looks at the state’s mass transit dilemma…

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Many years ago, I was sent to Brazil to write a series of stories on economic development there. Later, in Washington, a cynical expert told me, “Brazil has a great future … and always will have.”

What he meant by that was that it was a giant nation full of promise which somehow always fails to fulfill its potential.

In recent years, I’ve often thought of that slogan. Not, however, in connection with Brazil, but in terms of mass transit and Michigan.

We are always said to be just on the verge of mass transit. Light rail on Woodward, or extending the people mover in Detroit, or more recently, expanded commuter rail service.

But somehow, it never happens.

Barely three months ago, officials of SEMCOG, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, were talking about daily commuter rail service between Detroit and Ann Arbor by the end of October. Carmine Palombo, SEMCOG’s director of transportation programs, was talking about four trips a day.

This was to be sort of a demonstration project. It would be relatively easy, because the track is already there. The hope was that when people saw how convenient it was, funding for more lines would follow. But then the inevitable “Brazil moment” arrived.

The money SEMCOG was counting on fell through.

Local leaders have raised thirty-three million dollars for the project, but need something like fifty million more. They were counting on a hundred million dollars in federal funds.

But Washington said no. The cost-per-rider would be too high, the feds said. There is another problem. Even if everything worked out, they’d still need at least $10 million dollars a year for basic operating costs. SEMCOG hasn‘t got it.

“The project isn’t dead,” Palombo told the Detroit News, trying to put the best possible spin on his commuter train wreck. “But we have two big problems: We have no one to run it,” long-term. Additionally, he added, they lack a stable, “dedicated, source of funding.” If that doesn’t mean the project is dead, it does put it in sort of the same category as NASA’s plans to go to Mars.

They are still talking about offering commuter train service to some special events. But … don’t hold your breath. The commuter rail delay was greeted with dismay. Mass transit is something that everybody says they want. But two things aren’t clear:

First: Would people really use mass transit on a regular basis if it was available - or just hope their neighbors would?

Second: Are people willing to pay for it? Everybody is willing, of course to apply for federal funds. But even if they come, other money is likely to be needed for any system. SEMCOG‘s Palombo observed that “No matter how popular the service proves to be, it will die without proper state funding.” His preferred solution would be a rise in the gas and vehicle registration tax, with some of the money used for mass transit, and some to fix our wretched roads.

But, State Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop has vowed no new revenue for anything, no matter what. So it looks like we will go on thinking that mass transit is the wave of the future.

We’ll just leave it to other states to do it. Which should make thing interesting for Michigan when the petroleum finally runs out.

Essay: Building Bridges - 3.3.10

Earlier this week, the U.S. Coast Guard rejected the Ambassador Bridge Company’s application to build a second bridge across the Detroit River. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry takes a look at the implications of this decision…

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It is now perfectly clear that Matty Moroun is not going to be allowed to build a second bridge across the Detroit River.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Coast Guard sent his firm, the Detroit International Bridge Company, a letter terminating his application to build a second span next to his Ambassador Bridge.

The Coast Guard explained they couldn’t even consider his application for a number of reasons. First of all, it notes that there are issues of property rights that haven’t been resolved.

Actually, they have been resolved. Resolved against the Ambassador Bridge company. Last month a Wayne County judge ordered Moroun to tear down a duty-free store and some gasoline pumps he had constructed in anticipation of building a second bridge. The judge said they were built illegally, on property owned by the city of Detroit, and had to be removed.

Late last year, a different Wayne County judge ruled that Mr. Moroun had illegally occupied and fenced off part of the City of Detroit’s Riverside Park, and ordered him to vacate that too.

The Ambassador Bridge Company is appealing both decisions, but wouldn’t seem to have much chance. Additionally, it’s clear that the Canadian government doesn’t want him to build a second bridge next to his old one. There is considerable evidence that it would cause terrible traffic congestion and be an environmental hazard.

But it is equally clear that a new bridge is needed, The Ambassador has narrow lanes, no shoulders and is wearing out.

Traffic flow, which has been down because of the recession, is beginning to pick up. Bill Shreck, communications director for the Michigan Department of Transportation, noted that this is the “busiest and most important border crossing in America.”

There are four bridges between Niagara Falls and Buffalo. New York. If anything were to happen to the Ambassador Bridge, the economies of both Michigan and Ontario would be swiftly devastated.

Fortunately, there is a backup plan: For years, a group called the Detroit International River Crossing, or DRIC, has worked on a plan to build a second bridge across the rover, about two miles south of the Ambassador. This would be a publicly owned bridge, jointly supervised and inspected by the governments of both nations.

But, as I understand it, private investors would be welcome to invest in the new DRIC bridge as well, probably by buying bonds. Remarkably, this plan has the backing of just about everybody across the spectrum. Former Governors John Engler and James Blanchard favor the DRIC bridge. So does liberal Jennifer Granholm and the staunchly conservative Oakland County executive, L. Brooks Patterson. The Michigan Department of Transportation supports it, as do the governments of the United States and Canada.

Additionally, this proposed bridge has received environmental approvals from several agencies, including the Coast Guard.

But preliminary funding and approval has been held up by Mr. Moroun’s supporters in the Michigan Legislature, most notably Senator Alan Cropsey.

The last thing our state needs is someone risking our economic future for political games. The Coast Guard’s decision to cancel the Ambassador Bridge application ought to be seen as definitive.

We need a new bridge for international trade. It’s now clear that Mr. Moroun isn’t going to be allowed to construct one. Which means that it we don’t build it, prosperity isn’t going to come.

Essay: Bridging the Gap - 2.18.10

MDOT’s director took a stand recently over the controversy about a new bridge across the Detroit River. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says that isn’t so surprising when you look at the facts.

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Kirk Steudle, the director of the Michigan Department of Transportation, isn’t a politician. He‘s a engineer and a career political servant who has been with MDOT since 1987. He isn’t in the business of courting controversy; he just calls them as he sees them, whether the politicians like it or not.

This week, he told the legislature it was significantly underfunding our highway system, and, as a result, we can expect to see our roads swiftly deteriorate. And last week, he asked the lawmakers to do something that was very unpopular with the Ambassador Bridge Company.

MDOT wants the legislature to approve financing for the opening phase of the proposed internationally-owned Detroit River International Crossing bridge between the United States and Canada. MDOT’s director says extra capacity is needed, and that the way to go is with a modern bridge, built with both public and private funds, but jointly managed and inspected by both nations. Governor Jennifer Granholm supports the DRIC bridge. So do the governments of Windsor, Ontario and Canada, and most Michigan business interests.

But one man doesn‘t support it: Manuel J. “Matty” Moroun, the sole owner of the Ambassador Bridge. He wants to do everything he can to stop the DRIC bridge from being built. Instead, he wants to build a second span next to his old bridge, which was built in 1929 and has serious signs of wear. Environmentalists think putting two bridges in the same place would be a poor idea, and it makes little sense from the standpoint of traffic patterns.

The government of Canada is refusing to give him the necessary permits. But he isn’t giving up. Right now, he is focused on preventing the other bridge from happening. Moroun has never been shy about spreading campaign donations around, and he has his champions in the Michigan Legislature -- principally, State Sen. Alan Cropsey, who argues that Michigan doesn’t have the money to spend on a bridge, and this should be left to the private sector.

That argument might have some merit, except for two important considerations. This isn’t merely about a bridge, but the United States and Canada’s most important international crossing. More than a hundred billion dollars in trade flows across the river every year. To allow one private citizen to have complete control over that makes no sense.

For years, Mr. Moroun refused to allow either nation to thoroughly inspect his bridge. The Ambassador is also old, and has many well-documented security concerns.

Additionally, Matty Moroun has been anything but a poster child for good citizenship. Last week, a Wayne County Circuit Court judge ruled that he had illegally constructed a duty-free store and gasoline pumps on property owned by the City of Detroit -- and ordered him to tear them down. The U.S. government is suing his company for improperly referring to itself as a “federal instrumentality.”

And late last year, another Wayne County judge found that Moroun had illegally occupied part of the City of Detroit’s Riverside Park and ordered his company to leave. Yet the Ambassador Bridge Company hasn’t left the park, and is now belatedly appealing.

If our lawmakers exercise even the smallest amount of common sense, and have even the slightest desire to protect Michigan’s most important trading connection, doing the right thing about building a new bridge should be crystal clear.

Essay: Farewell to a Free Mind - 2.11.10

Congressman Vern Ehlers of Grand Rapids announced yesterday that he was retiring at the end of this term. Michigan Radio's Jack Lessenberry looks back at his remarkable career.

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I have to tell you, that news left me a little depressed, all day. Not for the congressman himself. For him to step down now makes a lot of sense from a human perspective, as does just about everything Ehlers has done throughout his career.

While he is as mentally sharp as ever, the congressman turned 76 last week. He has a healthy, well-rounded attitude towards life, more so than most politicians I've known.

Serving in Congress is hard work if you do it right. His wife Johanna has had health issues, and he decided he wanted to enjoy some of the years they have left. He said something yesterday that was so sensible it's hard to believe a politician said it:

"Each of us should recognize that the world doesn't depend just on us. I've been there 16 years now. That's more than enough time for most people and I've accomplished a great deal."

So why am I sad? Because he was that rare thing in politics, a work horse, not a show horse; a man who had a mind open to compromise and who actually got more done than he got or took credit for. He was a man of both science and faith.

His background was unique. He is a conservative Republican and a deeply committed Christian who was also a scientist; a kid from small-town Minnesota who earned a PhD in physics at UCLA.

He became a physics professor in Grand Rapids and got into local politics because he cared about waste management issues. Before he knew it, he found himself in the state legislature. Then it was on to Congress, after Paul Henry died tragically of a brain tumor. There, the professor became a master of getting things done behind the scenes. You've heard a lot about Asian carp lately? Few did more to fight them then Vern Ehlers.

In fact, he was the man responsible for the electric barrier designed to keep them out of the lakes -- something that might have worked if the authorities had turned it on and kept it on.

Nobody has done more, in fact, to get funds to clean up our lakes and fight invasive species. But you haven't heard him grandstanding about that. Nor do most of us didn't know that Vern Ehlers was the man responsible for moving the House's computer, vote-tallying and e-mail systems out of the stone age.

He liked to tell high school kids that he had been a nerd, and telling them not to look down on the nerds of their generation, because the cool kids would all end up working for one.

Ehlers wasn't comfortable criticizing his colleagues. He did, however, once tell me this: "Conservatives ought to remember their legacy of conservation, and that to be conservative means to conserve what is good. Unfortunately, some vocal members of our party tend to forget that." That philosophy led him to oppose drilling for oil in the Arctic, and to oppose parts of the Patriot Act.

There are many issues on which I disagreed with the congressman. But if I lived in Grand Rapids, I think I would have voted for him, every time.

Essay: The Politics of Carp - 2.9.10

Yesterday's so-called Asian carp summit in Washington produced no dramatic solutions. Michigan Radio's Jack Lessenberry has been thinking about politics, and fish.

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Governor Jennifer Granholm and Attorney General Mike Cox don't like each other much, but they have a few things in common. Both came out of nowhere to be elected Michigan attorney general, and soon started thinking about running for governor.

And both think the federal government isn't doing nearly enough to stop Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes.

Yesterday, the White House held what was billed as an Asian carp summit, to figure out how to deal with these fish, they've been migrating north ever since they accidentally got into the Mississippi River in Arkansas, about twenty years ago.

It would be hard to exaggerate their potential threat to the Great Lakes. There are two varieties. The bighead carp is an ugly fish that can get up to four feet long and weigh a hundred pounds. The silver carp are slightly smaller, but have a distressing habit of jumping. They have knocked boaters unconscious and broken bones. Worse, these fish multiply rapidly, and suck up most of the plankton other fish need to survive.

Experts differ on how quickly they could establish themselves in the Great Lakes. But it is clear that if they do, it could wipe out the fishing industry, which is worth something like $7 billion a year.

We can't take chances, in other words. Now, we should have seen this coming. For years, Asian carp have been working their way north. But now, silver carp DNA has been found in Lake Michigan near Chicago, though no fish themselves have been found yet.

Michigan officials wanted a series of artificial locks connecting the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to Lake Michigan closed, permanently. Illinois and Chicago officials oppose this, saying that would hurt their economy. President Obama is from Illinois, and he sided with them. Ever since, Attorney General Cox, a Republican, has been bashing the President. Governor Granholm has to be far more circumspect about this, but it is plain she disagrees too. However, it is worth noting that the U.S. Supreme Court, which can hardly be accused of doing Obama's bidding, also refused to close the locks.

Yesterday, the federal government did propose a $78 million plan to try and keep the carp out. This would not in fact be new money, but money intended to improve the lakes in other ways. The government intends to build new barriers to try and stop the fish.

They also intend to improve efforts to search for the carp. While it seems likely that some fish have strayed into Lake Michigan, experts say it would take several hundred to establish a permanent breeding population. So it may still be possible to stop them.

I am by no means an expert in aquatic biology, but I do know something about politics and people, and here's what I think.

Our only hope to save the lakes ecology from being destroyed by these creatures is eternal vigilance; we need to forget political grandstanding and stop looking for one-step solutions.

We need to fund and put in place a host of federal, state and regional measures designed to keep out the carp. That is, unless you would rather explain to your grandchildren over one more carp dinner that there were once perch and walleye in the Great Lakes too.

Essay: Fighting the Carp - 1.20.10

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court refused to close a barrier blocking Asian carp from the Great Lakes. The news came as researchers said they found Asian Carp DNA for the first time in Lake Michigan. But, Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry thinks all may not be lost…

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Yesterday was a grim day if you care about stopping the migration of giant Asian carp into the Great Lakes.

First, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to issue a preliminary injunction closing two navigation locks in Illinois that separate carp-infested waters from Lake Michigan. Within hours, word came that even if the court had complied, it might have been a case of closing the aquatic barn door after the fish had swum through it.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that new tests reveal that the carp are probably already in Lake Michigan. Asian carp DNA was found in water samples near the Chicago shoreline.

It would be easy enough to look at those two developments and reach the conclusion that the lakes are doomed, as is the hugely profitable sport and commercial fishing industry they support.

That’s because Asian carp are the equivalent of aquatic crabgrass, sucking up most of the available nutrition from the water wherever they manage to establish a breeding population.

They are large - up to a hundred pounds - ugly, and eat up to one-fifth their body weight in plankton every day. That means they starve out most native species of fish. They also intimidate swimmers, water skiers and boaters, since one variety likes to jump out of the water and into people, sometimes causing serious injuries.

We should have seen this coming. In fact, we did. Asian carp escaped from fish farms into the Mississippi River in the 1980s and have been migrating north for years, but nobody did much about it. Not until the last few weeks, any way, when first the governor, then Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox sounded the alarm.

However, all may not be lost. Governor Jennifer Granholm did exactly the right thing when she learned that the Supreme Court wouldn’t close the locks. She immediately joined other Great Lakes governors in calling for a White House summit. President Obama opposed closing the locks, evidently on the grounds that it would have been too costly to the economy. But he should be taking the lead in helping his fellow Great Lakes residents craft a solution.

In a way, the Supreme Court ruling might have been a blessing in disguise. Closing the locks would have been a temporary solution at best, and might have lulled us into dangerous complacency.

Now, everyone is going to have to scramble to figure out how to meet this menace. The good news is that even if a few carp are in Lake Michigan, that doesn’t mean they have an established breeding population. Not yet, anyway. Some years ago, some fool put a few Asian carp into Lake Erie, but they died out.

To breed, the fish need to be able to find each other. Yesterday, the deputy regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service estimated it would take several hundred fish to reach a critical mass.

There still may be time to stop that from happening. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to use nets and electricity to fight the carp in the areas where they found their DNA.

There are other measures that can be taken, if everyone is willing to work together. The philosopher Edmund Burke said the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

That’s exactly why the carp have been winning, up to now. Let’s hope that enough of us are finally willing to take on these fish.

Essay: Bridge Wars - 1.18.10

Billions of dollars worth of trade travels across the Ambassador Bridge each year… Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry takes a look at the future of the bridge.

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Many of us have been paying more attention to homeland security concerns ever since the failed attempt to blow up an airplane over Detroit on Christmas Day.

But it’s become increasingly clear that our biggest potential terrorist target is nowhere near any of our airports, but involves two nations and straddles the Detroit River. I am talking about the eighty-year-old Ambassador Bridge. Billions in trade move across it every year, including heavy machine and auto parts.

There is really no backup system. If something were to happen to the Ambassador, the cost to our already battered economy would be devastating. The Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron is too far away to be an economically viable alternative. Besides, it is often backed up now with its normal flow of people and commerce.

Most of the vital material that comes over the Ambassador can’t be taken through the Detroit-Windsor tunnel. What’s more, there is virtually no security protecting the bridge; boats and barges move under it constantly, and gasoline tankers park under its approaches.

Not surprisingly, major efforts are now underway to construct a second bridge. A bi-national group calling itself the Detroit River International Crossing Project, DRIC for short, has a site picked out about a mile south of the Ambassador. The bridge would be funded by private investors, but owned and inspected by both nations.

That project has the blessing of most governments and many top business officials in both countries. But Manuel Moroun, the owner of the Ambassador Bridge, has been fighting it savagely.

Moroun, who everyone calls Matty, is a billionaire trucking magnate who has made a lot of money from the Ambassador, and wants to keep his monopoly thriving. He wants to twin his bridge, building a second span right next to the first.

Almost nobody thinks that‘s a good idea. The government of Canada has refused to give him the necessary permits, but he keeps on preparing to build anyway. And he is doing everything he can to try to torpedo the effort to build a second bridge downriver.

Last week, for example, it was learned that he had suddenly bought forty-two acres of land which include some of the territory needed to build the DRIC bridge. Now, government could, of course, later force him to sell that land under eminent domain.

But it adds one more complication to an already complex process. Moroun’s next move was both fascinating and insidious. Michigan is so broke right now that the state risks losing up to $1.6 billion dollars in federal highway funds, because the legislature can’t come up with the legally required twenty percent in matching funds.

So the Ambassador Bridge company dangled this deal. It has $400 million in toll credits earned for improving the bridge.

Moroun offered to give those to the state so it could get the rest of the badly needed road repair funds. There was, of course, one big string, namely, that Michigan could not use any of the money to help any entity that might compete with the Ambassador Bridge.

There’s also another problem, which is that it isn’t at all clear that those credits could be used instead of cash.

These machinations are fascinating, but get us nowhere nearer the goal of having a safe and secure way to ensure the flow of vital international trade. Even with everything else we’re facing, it’s time to get moving, and get the job done.

Carp in the Courtroom - 1.15.10

The U.S. Supreme Court is meeting today to consider a request to close shipping locks to try and block Asian carp from Lake Michigan. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry looks at why that’s so important…

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The U.S. Supreme Court today is meeting behind closed doors to discuss a case that could have a powerful impact on our futures.

This has to do with Asian carp, which are very close to getting into Lake Michigan. If that happens, it could effectively destroy the fishing industry in the Great Lakes. Last month, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox sued, asking the court to close the locks connecting the already contaminated Chicago River with the lakes.

That lawsuit has been joined by Cox’s counterparts in Minnesota, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin. But it is being opposed by Illinois, and by the Obama Administration. The President is a political native of Illinois, and shipping industry interests in Chicago say closing the locks could cost the local economy $30 million in revenue, and inconvenience the entire region.

That, however, seems a small price to pay, given that many biologists think an Asian carp infestation could wipe out much of the Great Lakes‘ $7 billion dollar commercial and sport fishing industry, and do other ecological damage as well.

It is hard to exaggerate how great a threat Asian carp represent. There are two species, the Bighead carp, which can easily get up to a hundred pounds, and the Silver carp, which top out at half that size, but have another deadly feature.

They jump. Boaters and water skiers on the Mississippi have had jaws broken, equipment damaged, and faces lacerated by these appalling fish. But the bigger problem is what both kinds of carp do to the food supply. They suck it all up, consuming as much as a fifth of their body weight in plankton every day, starving out the other fish.

This all started years ago, when some fish farmers in Arkansas imported Asian carp and were raising them in outdoor fish farms. Then along came a flood, and they got into the Mississippi River. They’ve been working their way north ever since.

Six weeks ago, I reported here that an electric barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that was supposed to stop the car had failed, more than likely because it was never turned on full-strength. This fall, an Army Corps of Engineers study found Asian carp DNA in the water within eight miles of Lake Michigan.

Closing the locks, at least for a time, seems to be the last realistic hope of stopping them. It is anyone’s guess how the high court will rule. It seems to be the first U.S. Supreme Court case in history where one state has sued another over invasive species.

More importantly, as Attorney General Cox says on his website, “the present situation presents a unique opportunity in the long and unfortunate history of invasive species entering the Great Lakes to prevent an invasion before it starts.”

Let’s hope that happens. There’s no guarantee the carp aren’t already in Lake Michigan, or that closing the locks will halt them forever. And, we should remember this too:

We could have done more to stop them a long time ago. Yesterday, Cameron Davis, a senior advisor to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, told a group of Michigan legislators that everyone had seen the Asian carp threat coming for many years.

Yet nobody did much about it.

Americans have a habit of waiting till one minute before midnight before addressing serious problems. One of these days, that’s going to be just a little too late.

Essay: New Year - 1.4.10

As the state prepares for another challenging year… Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry takes a look at what a difference a decade can make…

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We’re already one percent into the year, so, Happy New Decade, everybody. Let’s think for a moment about what a difference a decade can make. Hard to believe now, but ten years ago we were all congratulating ourselves on having come through what some thought would be the biggest crisis of the decade, Y2K.

If you don’t remember, that was the nickname for what was seen as a potentially catastrophic worldwide computer problem.

Early computers only used two digits to indicate the year. Then one day, the experts started worrying about what would happen when the millennium flipped over, and we reached the year double-zero.

What if all our computer-operated institutions broke down? What if the robots in our auto factories went haywire, and Lansing dated all the state tax refunds 1900? We managed to scare ourselves half to death, with a giant assist from the media. In the end, nothing much happened, apart from a few tiny glitches.

Everyone had long since forgotten about Y2K by the time the real defining moment of the decade occurred less than two years later. Nobody predicted Sept. 11, 2001. Nobody now can predict when we will finally move beyond its aftereffects.

Yet it is worthwhile going back ten years, a period of time that can seem like both the blink of an eye and an eternity, to look at what has become of the State of Michigan in the decade gone by.

Ten years ago, our unemployment rate was an astonishingly low 4.1 percent - below the national average. Today, that figure is 14.7 percent, more than three times as high. Michigan has the highest jobless rate in the nation, as it has had for months.

Ford Motor Company was rolling in dough. So much cash, in fact, that it bought Jaguar, Volvo and Land Rover for what turned out to be far more than those franchises were worth. General Motors was also swimming in profits; it had more revenues than any other company in the world. For awhile in 1999, it was viewed as the hottest stock on Wall Street.

Today, all that seems hard to believe, thanks to the near collapse of the domestic auto industry. Ten years ago, Michigan was the 18th highest state in terms of per capita income.

We’ve fallen to 37th now, meaning we are poorer than exactly two-thirds of the other states. We’re facing another grim year in Lansing, though things seem to have stabilized for the moment.

There’s general agreement that what we’ve been doing hasn’t been working. Our core industry has shriveled, and our state government has two major problems. First, it doesn’t seem to work very well, as last year’s year-long squabbles over the state budget show. Second, our present system doesn’t generate enough money to pay for what we want government to do.

What this means is that we need major structural reform, and we need it now. This is an election year, and we’ll be voting to fill every political job in Lansing. You’ll see a lot of campaign rhetoric, and more bickering over this year’s budget.

But what we need most is for our leaders to try to fix the deep-seated flaws in our system, if we have any hope for a prosperous future. I’ll be watching all year to see if they actually do this.

And most of all, I hope you will be watching too.