Upper Peninsula Independent

Casperson Introduces Redundant Gun Legislation

Perhaps unaware that Michigan law already prohibits public disclosure of gun license information, State Senator Tom Casperson has co-sponsored a bill that would, redundantly, prevent gun licensing information from being considered a public record under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

Supporters of the bill, as well as the Marquette Mining Journal, have cited a Westchester, New York newspaper’s publishing of the names and addresses of some local residents with licenses to own pistols. However, Michigan law already prohibits such disclosure, policy strengthened after a 1999 state Supreme Court ruling. Read the rest of this entry »

EPA: Air Pollution Laws Good for Jobs, Public

At a recent meeting in Marquette, Susan Hedman, Great Lakes regional director for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited coal-fired power plants as the largest source of mercury contamination in the United States, a burden often suffered by citizens.

We Energies' Presque Isle Power Plant, in Marquette

Speaking at Operation Action U.P.’s annual meeting, Hedman said, “I would suggest that [power plants] consider the cost that they have been imposing…on you, by failing to do their part. People who live and vacation in the Upper Peninsula can’t eat their fish because [upwind] states haven’t been doing their part to solve the problem.” Read the rest of this entry »

EPA Talks Jobs & Regulation

While citizens around the country fight to sustain their livelihoods, corporations have stayed one step ahead by exercising control over regulatory agencies and gutting, altering, and writing the very laws that regulate their operations.

From jobs to natural resources and elections, the regulatory system is increasingly being criticized for serving the interests of corporations, a concept supported at private sector economic development group, Operation Action U.P.’s annual meeting. Themed “Jobs vs. Regulatory Burden,” the meeting featured a panel representing the mining industry, as well as a keynote presentation by Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Great Lakes Region 5 Administrator, Susan Hedman (Click here to watch a video of the meeting). Read the rest of this entry »

KI Sawyer Community Center Deserves Another Chance

Less than a week after one Community Hand-UP leader, Lisa Johnson, received a community service award for her work in trying to reopen the KI Sawyer community center (check out our December article for some background), the Marquette County Board voted, 5-4, against helping Johnson’s citizen group purchase the building, turning down a 15-year land contract option, with a 60-day “out clause.”

Already West Branch Township (the current owner) is selling off equipment inside. It took vigilant citizens and a phone call to the police before everyone realized what was going on. The building, prized by a community that already lacks many of the amenities found elsewhere in the county, might soon be reduced to a gutted-out scrap heap after an auction slated for May 21st. Turns out the county could’ve bought it for only $110,000. Read the rest of this entry »

Casperson Takes Heat at Marquette Meeting

Senator Casperson faces challenges to state's budget cuts

Facing a crowd openly hostile to his support of proposed budget cuts and other measures that crack down on Michigan workers, seniors, and students, Michigan Senator Tom Casperson expressed his support for big business at a town hall meeting in Marquette yesterday evening. Casperson insisted that forcing corporations to pay more in taxes will hurt efforts rebuild the state’s economy.

Negaunee resident and Michigan Education Association UniServ Director for the area, Stuart Skauge, along with most of the packed audience, wasn’t buying it.

Negaunee resident and Michigan Education Association UniServ Director for the area, Stuart Skauge, asks Casperson questions

“I’ve got a question on that, why is it with the flat tax then – the 6% – that 95,000 businesses in this state won’t pay any state taxes for business – 95,000?” asked Skauge. “And then they’re going to take it away from the schools. Are you people idiots down there?” Read the rest of this entry »

Poor Reporting on Rio Tinto Road Unacceptable

Turns out local citizens aren’t the only ones who have questioned the Marquette Mining Journal’s often appalling coverage of the Rio Tinto 595/Woodland Road ore hauling issue over the past year.

On February 4 the Mining Journal published an article called “Marquette County Road 595 Push.” That same day staff at federal and state agencies discussed the baffling number of “mistakes” in this one article.

Referencing the Mining Journal’s oft-repeated claim the planned road would impact fewer wetland acres than previously thought, and that the EPA “opposed” the road project, one state regulator at the Department of Natural Resources and Environment wrote, “we did not hear anything about a reduction in impact from 27 acres to 22 acres nor did the epa go on record as opposing the Co. Rd 595 project at our December meeting.”

An EPA staff member responded “there is a lot of misinformation in the article . . . I was careful not to say that EPA opposed CR-595. I told them that I would review the application when it came in. And they told us that they didn’t have a route, so we did not know what the impacts would be.” Read the rest of this entry »

Mining Road Plan Must Public Priorities, Not Rio Tinto Profits, in Mind

Claiming they will drive through the city of Marquette to haul nickel ore, Rio Tinto should stick with original rail plan instead of endangering the public and Upper Peninsula’s outdoors heritage

Last week Rio Tinto announced plans to drop its pursuit of the 22-mile 595/Woodland Road to haul ore from its Eagle Mine to the Humboldt Mill, in Marquette County. The company’s project director, Andrew Ware, claimed Rio Tinto will now “move forward with the originally designated route” and drive through the city streets of Marquette.

Problem is, Rio Tinto didn’t really have an original route to do so.

Click here to read text of Rio Tinto's original and approved ore hauling plan (page 21 of permit application) shows plans to load ore onto a railhead northwest of Marquette, thus avoiding the city's streets

The originally designated route, allows Rio Tinto to haul ore on public roads to a rail line just northwest of the city of Marquette. From there the company can use an existing rail system to haul ore to Sudbury, Ontario, or amend its plan and build a short spur to transport it to the nearby Humboldt Mill. Read the rest of this entry »

Stabenow Amendment Would Block EPA Climate Regs

Originally published at Michigan Messenger.

U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) has proposed an amendment to small business legislation that would suspend U.S. Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse gas regulations for two years.

The Senate is expected to vote today on S493, a bill to reauthorize the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs of the Small Business Administration.

Republicans have offered numerous amendments aimed at forcing Democrats to vote on EPA powers.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) offered an amendment that would prohibit EPA from taking any action to address climate change.

Stabenow’s amendment would give coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other industrial sources a two year exemption from new EPA rules that require them to report their greenhouse gas emissions. Read the rest of this entry »