Economy will be focus of Michigan Policy Summit Saturday

The 3rd Annual Michigan Policy Summit will bring together Michigan’s widespread progressive and liberal community to provide some progressive answers to Michigan's economy this Saturday at Cobo Hall.

The day will feature breakout sessions, a panel discussion and guest speakers. This year’s summit, sponsored by the Michigan Prospect, will focus on the economy with four priority issues that include clean energy, labor, health care and solving the foreclosure crisis. The unique thing about this group, for me, has always been getting progressive groups together to talk that may have different views that at times may seem the exact opposite, such as environmental groups and labor groups.

Registration is just $30, and it can be done in advance or on Saturday, May 16. The event runs from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The summit has brought in some excellent speakers in the past. Past speakers have included former Gore-Lieberman 2000 campaign manger and Democratic National Committee member Donna Brazile, former Lansing Mayor and state Representative David Hollister, author and the host and executive producer of Democracy Now! Amy Goodman and humorist Jim Hightower. This year’s keynote speaker is Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC.

There will also be a panel discussion featuring Jeffrey Howard, Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU Healthcare Michigan; Dan Kildee, Genesee County Treasurer; Dave Ivers, Secretary Treasurer, Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO and Jamie Scripps of the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth.

Michigan Prospect is a non-profit group formed in 1992 by a group of citizens committed to the principles of a just and humane society in order to encourage the development of sound public policies and effective public institutions through informed debate.

Policy summit brings together diverse progressive groups

LANSING -- Only the Second Annual Michigan Policy Conference, sponsored by the Michigan Prospect, could bring so many diverse progressive groups together under one roof.

More than 600 people gathered at the Lansing Center for an all-day summit to work toward some common goals. The day featured breakout sessions, skills workshops and speakers, like author and journalist Amy Goodman and author and humorist Jim Hightower. The summit centered on three policy areas: health care, the environment and education. The summit brought together diverse groups representing labor unions, the environment, civil rights, LBGT, health care and peace groups.

“The good news is we are here,” said Lynn Jondahl, Executive Director of the Michigan Prospect. “The bad news is we are facing a battle of every front.”
The mission of the Michigan Prospect is to connect citizens and government in order to advance a just and humane democratic society.

U.S. Sen. Carl Levin was also on hand, and he fired up the attendees. He said one of the goals in turning the nation's and state’s economy around is to address the $100 billon the U.S. is losing to companies who move offshore just to avid paying taxes.
“The Republicans are going to say you are raising taxes,” he said. “We are not raising taxes; we are enforcing the tax laws for people who are avoiding their fair share of taxes.”

The Iraq occupation is sucking billons of dollars that is increasing the budget deficit and could be used to address problems the country is facing.
“$600 billon is has gone to a war we never should have been in,” Levin said. “The only way to end that war is to elect a Democrat in November.”
Goodman is an author and the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, an independent national, daily, award-winning news program that airs on more than 700 radio and television stations in North America.

Goodman took the mainstream media to task for their failure to do its job in the lead up to the Iraq war and to look closer at the manufactured evidence the Bush Administration used to plunge the country into war. She said the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) did a study of the three network news programs in the three months leading up to the invasion, and it found 393 interviews were held about the war, but only three were with people who questioned or were against the war.

“That is no longer the mainstream media,” she said. “This is the corporate media that was beating the drum for war. We need the full diversity of opinion.”
Goodman said outlets like Democracy Now and blogs are the independent media voices. She said the so-called mainstream media is still not doing its job after it was reveled the media did not do its job looking at the manufactured evidence in the lead up to the invasion. She said one-third of the Iraq and Afghanistan vets who are not killed or wounded are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. The media has also not reported on the 120 suicides a week.

She cited the mainstream media’s lack of coverage of Winter Solider, recently held in Maryland over four-days sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War. It was modeled after the historic Winter Solider held in Detroit in 1971. It featured testimony from Iraq and Afghan vets, but the only media attention it got was a small mention in the Washington Post.

“We rushed down there to get our cameras in place because we knew this was not the know-nothing political pundits, this was the men and women who fought the war,” Goodman said. “We needn’t have worried; there was no other media there.”
Goodman also said the media has not done its job reporting on the Bush Administration’s torture policy. Goodman congratulated U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, on its vote to subpoena Vice President Cheney's chief of staff David Addington to testify about his role in the torture scandal.

“We are supposed to be a model of behavior to the world,” she said. “America is better than that.”

Renewable Portfolio Standard needed to create demand for alternative energy

Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) and clean, alternative energy was a hot topic at Saturday's Michigan Policy Conference at the Lansing Center sponsored by the Michigan Prospect.

Renewable Portfolio Standards mandate a certain percentage of a power company’s supply to consumers be generated from renewable fuel sources. Many people believe this is an absolute necessity in moving alterative fuel sources – like wind power, solar energy and ethanol – forward and making it a viable industry in the state and easing the country’s dependence on foreign oil and energy.

“Twenty four states have an RPS law on the books,” said Mark Beyer, the Director of Marketing Communications and External Relations for NextEnergy. “They have sent a signal to the world they are in the game, and Michigan has sent a signal it is not.”

NextEnergy is a nonprofit corporation founded in 2002 with a $30 million seed grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation to implement an economic development strategy to accelerate research, development and manufacturing of alternative energy technologies and create jobs in Michigan.

RPS has not met with much success in the Legislature. RPS bills introduced in the House in early 2005 died in committee. Critics oppose the standard because it adds costs to utility bills. A pair of bills have been introduced in both the House and Senate in the current session. Rep. Robert Jones, D-Kalamazoo, introduced House Bill 4539 on March 28, and it was referred to the House Energy and Technology Committee where it remains. In the Senate, Sen. Roger Kahn, R-Saginaw, introduced Senate Bill 219 on Feb. 20, and it was referred to the Senate Committee on Energy Policy where it also remains.

The difference between the two bills is the House bill requires a larger percentage of renewable energy sources sooner than the Senate version. The House bill requires utility providers like DTE and Consumers Energy to provide 7 percent of their total energy sold to consumers be from renewable sources by Dec. 31, 2009, and that requirement grows to 20 percent by 2020. However, an analysis by the nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency estimates it will also increase utility bills by the same 7-20 percent margin.

The Senate bill requires only 7 percent of energy come from alternative sources with a deadline by 2015, and it allows the Michigan Public Service Commission (PSC) to exempt a provider from the requirements of its portfolio standard.

There are many things in the works to both save energy and to provide alternative energy. In Detroit, there is a move to use empty lots to grow food and push urban farming. Many homes are also using cisterns to catch runoff rain water to water lawns instead of using municipal water, and there is also a push to use solar powered shingles on roofs.

“In the old days when you hung your clothes out to dry it meant you were too poor to have a dryer,” Beyer said. “Now it means you’re smart enough to know it saves energy; my alternative energy was sunshine and a nice breeze.”

Although those are great ways to save energy, Beyer said they do not create many jobs, and that’s what NextEnergy wants to do. He hopes an RPS will create a demand so that entrepreneurs will meet that demand and create jobs. It’s also hoped Michigan will be a leader in providing alternative energy equipment, like manufacturing the equipment that provides wind power.

“There are all these great alternative sources,” he said. “The demand can be created, but we need the RPS to help.”

But proponents of renewable energy say all of these new sources will not completely erase the need and demand for fossil fuel sources, and it’s imperative that any new and existing generating plants be built safer and pollution free as much as possible.

“You cannot build enough wind farms or solar plants to provide enough energy for Michigan,” Beyer said. “You will still need the large plants that employee hundreds of workers, so you just need to build them right.”

Policy summit brings diverse progressive groups together

LANSING – Only something as ambitious and progressive as the inaugural Michigan Policy Conference sponsored by the Michigan Prospect could bring together such diverse progressive groups - such as the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) to the Jewish Labor Committee to organized labor and environmental groups - under one roof.

More than 500 people from Michigan’s progressive community gathered at the Lansing Center Saturday for an all-day summit to work toward getting all of Michigan’s diverse groups working toward building a progressive movement with common goals. The day featured breakout sessions and speakers, like former Gore-Lieberman 2000 campaign manger and Democratic National Committee member Donna Brazile and former Lansing Mayor and state Representative David Hollister. The summit centered on three policy areas: health care, clean energy and education.

Hollister opened the conference with a summary and preview of the day, and as a former mayor, state Representative and most recently the former director of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth he has a unique insight into the three policy areas.

“Michigan and the nation are in a phase of transition,” he said. “It’s a time of tremendous change, and it’s also a time with exciting opportunities.”

Hollister said the aging of America is one of the biggest concerns facing the nation. He said today there are more than a million Americans who are 100 years old or older, and people age 85 and older are the fastest growing segment of the population. In 1950 there were 17 workers supporting one retiree, but that has shrunk to just three workers supporting one retiree today. That has placed a tremendous strain on both Social Security, as well as health care, as people live longer.

“It has a massive impact on things we do in America,” he said. “As we get older, what do we spend money on? Health care.”

Hollister said the health care system in the U.S. is broken and dysfunctional. We spend more than 17 percent of our Gross Domestic Product on health care, but there are still 48 million Americans without quality health care; with the number growing everyday. The escalating health care costs are making it difficult for U.S. automakers to compete globally because foreign governments are helping foreign auto companies compete by providing health care for employees for help with health care costs.

“Now, we are talking about legacy costs and shedding legacy costs,” he said. “Shedding legacy costs means more people without heath care.”

Hollister said the economy is also changing, and it illustrates a need for more investment in education. In 1950, 60 percent of jobs were for non-skilled labor, but now most jobs require at least two years of post-secondary education, requiring a K-14 education system in Michigan. Workers now have to be both functionally and technologically literate. We are also in a global economy because one out of six people now work for a foreign corporation.

“We are paying for the war in Iraq with money we are borrowing from China,” he said.

Hollister said entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations and government have to be partners in the new economy. He also said all of the real job growth and success is occurring regionally instead of locally and statewide, such as the North Carolina region, the Boston metro area or the Atlanta region. Hollister also said it’s going to take investment in the state to make it grow, such as the Governor’s 21st Century Jobs Fund designed to spark new investment and creating high-tech companies and jobs and make the state a leader in life sciences, alternative energy, advanced automotive manufacturing and homeland security. The plan was to invest $100 million a year in those areas annually for a decade, but that only occurred in the first year in 2006.

“Unfortunately, the second year funds are tied up in the legislative process,” he said. “It is tied up in the budget mess.”

But Hollister said although things look bleak in Michigan with a 7 percent unemployment rate in the state and a looming budget crisis, things have been worse in Michigan.

“I was there in 1980 when the unemployed rate was 17 percent,” he said. “I was there when if five Japanese banks had not bailed us out we would have been bankrupt. We are not in a financial crisis, we are in a crisis of will.”