Obama Sharpening the Michigan Message

"Detroit ended up making investments in SUVs and large trucks because that's where they perceived a competitive advantage and that's where they felt they could make the most profit," Senator Barack Obama told Meet the Press host Tim Russert on May 4, 2008.

"I think it was a mistake for them not to plan earlier. Now we're seeing a huge growth in fuel-efficient cars that is benefitting the Japanese automakers, and Detroit is getting pounded some more. And I think that we can make those cars here in the United States."

"We want the strongest possible auto industry," Sen. Obama said in an interview with the Detroit Free Press. "But unless we change some of how we do business, we won't be competitive in the global marketplace."

"The auto industry is on the move but they can't do it alone," Sen. Obama said yesterday according to Gongwer News Service. "They need a partner in the White House and when I am in the White House they will have a partner."

Terminator Targets Car Makers

"I said, 'While you're whining you should be creating new technologies," Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar told the Associated Press after meeting with the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers.

The official press release was slightly more diplomatic.

"I want to thank the automakers for meeting with me today," the governor said. "I believe there is an opportunity for us to be strong allies. In fact, California may be doing more to save the U.S. auto industry than anyone else because we are pushing them to change. The automakers need to have a long-range vision and develop the technology that will make them competitive in the world arena."

Detroit's Disdain for History

Old Tiger Stadium in the Corktown neighborhood isn't the only incredibly meaningful historic structure that's contributing to the City of Detroit's decline rather than powering its renaissance.

It's one of many.

Henry Ford's pioneering car factory, for instance, lies in ruins just a short drive from the crumbling ball park. The facility once stood as a symbol of American - and Michigan - strength and innovation.

Today the brick walls are tagged with graffiti and the windows are broken and boarded. Boxes are stored inside. But the sign out front says the place should be a museum.

"Home of the Model T," it reads. "Here at his Highland Park Plant Henry Ford in 1913 began the mass production of automobiles on a moving assembly line. By 1915 Ford built a million Model T's. In 1925 over 9,000 were assembled in a single day. Mass production soon moved from here to all phases of American industry and set the pattern of abundance for 20th century living."

The building today, like once vibrant Tiger Stadium, represents a very different extreme: the poverty of leadership, pride in place, and an ability to make things happen.

“This is an old city," Timothy J. McKay, executive director of the Greater Corktown Development Corporation, told the New York Times. "But history here is discounted by a lot of people.”

Wire to Wire Week with World's Wind Leader

On Monday May 5 Vestas Wind Systems fired off a terse letter to Michigan bemoaning the lack of courage and umph in the state's proposed renewable energy law. Essentially, Vestas said 'we want to make next generation energy technology in your stumbling, unemployed state but your policy isn't drawing us in."

Today, the company announced plans to construct the world's largest wind-turbine-tower manufacturing plant in.....drum roll.....Colorado.

The move will leverage approximately $250 million in new investment and employ 400 people by the end of 2010, according to the report in the Denver Post.

"This definitely helps create the cluster effect in Colorado," Craig Cox, executive director of the Interwest Energy Alliance, told the Post. "Vestas is one of the biggest names in wind, and certainly other supplier companies will want to locate closer to the market and closer to other manufacturing companies like Vestas."

Culture Change Comes to C-Town

What's the quickest way to change an entrenched culture that clings to the past, fears the future, and is hesitant to change no matter how many young people, jobs, or good ideas leave? Welcome new people. Signs of the shift in Cleveland....

"I see a lot more Asians on the street than I used to, especially Asian-Indians," Alyssa Naragon told the Plains Dealer.

The report reveals that Ohio lost about 24,000 white people from 2000-2007. But a surge in minority populations - most notably a 32 percent boom in Asians, one of the more educated demographics in America - led to an overall gain of 102,000 new residents in the state.

Wind Proponents Say MI Proposal is Hot Air

Legislation to promote energy innovation now under consideration in the Michigan Senate will do little to stimulate wind power production in the state, could actually retard industry growth, and should be squashed if it reaches the governor's desk in its current form, according to a group of the nation's leading wind power authorities.

The concerns, outlined in a May 6, 2008 letter the American Wind Energy Association sent to Governor Jennifer Granholm, is the first direct public opposition to a package of legislation designed to spur energy innovation passed by the Michigan House of Representatives in mid-April.

Michigan, once an innovative industrial powerhouse, has done little but slash jobs, shudder factories, and cede population for three decades. But the state strives to organize much of its economic recovery plan around the booming global renewable energy industry.

The Great Lakes region's blowing wind resources have the potential to power hundreds of thousands of homes with clean energy, stimulate $80 billion in new economic activity, and generate 300,000 jobs, according to the United States Department of Energy.

Most agree Michigan, one of the windier states in the region, can capture a significant share of that market with the proper policy and spending strategy.

The bills recently passed by House lawmakers would, among other things, require utilities to satisfy 10 percent of energy demand with renewable sources like wind and solar by 2015.

Environmentalists rushed to support the legislation.

Traditional business leaders are keeping a watchful eye on the proposals as they head to the Senate.

But the nation's leading wind power advocates, including Vestas, the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer, and Rich Vander Veen, president of Michigan-based Mackinaw Power, say the proposal fails to establish a meaningful market for wind energy. The proposal, as passed, does not effectively incentivize wind power production; contains weak bench marks for renewable energy production; and could potentially undermine the wind industry in Michigan

“The House legislation, as a package, cannot accurately be described as a renewable energy standard, and the public should not expect economic benefits to result from the package," the letter states. "To avoid unwarranted market and public confusion created by opaque legislation, our industry asks for your assurance of a veto should such legislation reach your desk."

Fill 'er Up with Nonsense

The Guy household keeps two gas guzzling trucks - one Ford, one GMC - in the driveway. But we don't support rolling back any fuel taxes, as Senators John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and a small band of shortsighted pseudo-leaders now propose. If anything, fuel taxes should go up.

That could not only encourage conservation, it would also generate a windfall of public money for investment in American energy innovation, modern mass transit systems, and basic road, highway, and bridge maintenance. Rather invest in those basic elements of civilized society over the need for new tires and alignments the pot holes raise for the household fleet because cities and states can't afford to repair roads.

Responsible conservatives understand this reality, as the right-leaning Grand Rapids Press reminded us yesterday.

But "the people need relief," says the political leadership in New York.

And a gas tax holiday would encourage tourism and boating, according to elected officials in Michigan.

Aspirants for public office in Indiana are actually running on the idea.

Meanwhile, a formidable chorus of independent-minded leaders and analysts is pushing back with common sense.

"It's a quick fix for people who believe cheap gas is their birthright," Tom Kloza, chief analyst at an oil research firm told CNN Money. "It's not a prudent thing to do."

"Somewhere down the road you have to use less," Kloza added. "As painful as it might be, higher prices do sway behavior toward a more energy disciplined America."

Mad about Great Lakes Manufacturing

Looking to cash in on the tech revolution? Financial guru and host of CNBC's Mad Money Jim Cramer says forget about Apple and Sun Micro. "They're just refining luxuries."

Invest instead, he says, in future-oriented American manufacturing outfits and, more specifically, two Cleveland-based companies - Eaton and Parker Hannifin - that produce vital goods and have a level of growth and innovation levered to the global economy.

"These stocks have become not metal benders, but new technology stocks," Cramer said on last night's broadcast. "That's right. When you think tech you probably think of Texas Instruments or Cisco or National Semi. Gimme a break. What are those companies really doing? They trying to build a better gadget. Maybe make some chips for a flashier camera. Come on. That's old tech.

"The manufacturers, the companies like Eaton, that make things the world really needs, like technology that reduces carbon emissions or allows us to save energy, that's technology. These are real things, real necessities, that the rest of the world is buying because [America] makes them better and cheaper."

Cramer's analysis - and the profit performance of companies like Eaton and PH - is a breath of fresh air for Great Lakes industry. Not only is it welcome publicity for a sector shedding jobs, shuddering factories, and struggling to reorganize for global competition. But many prophets of Great Lakes 3.0 - including some analysis on this page - suggest that manufacturing won't lead to prosperity in a 21st century economy that rewards higher education and creativity.

But the reality, Cramer rightly reminds us, is that not everybody in the manufacturing business is a high school dropout. The Great Lakes sector, for instance, boasts some of the best research, development, and engineering expertise in the world. Focusing that talent on timely and strategic innovations - like technology under development at Parker Hannifin that cuts fuel consumption in delivery trucks by 50 percent - points the way to big pay offs.

“The Street’s just not bullish enough on this one," Cramer says. "Buy some Parker Hannifin.”

True Transit Tidbit

"For the cost of two or three highway interchanges, we could develop a corridor between two major cities," Amtrak CEO Alex Kumant told NBC Nightly News tonight about the Acela which, at a top speed of 150 MPH, is America's fastest - and most popular - passenger rail service.

Plans reportedly are on the shelf to expand 100 MPH routes routes connecting Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, and Cleveland. But America doesn't yet embrace investment in rail infrastructure as a realistic strategy to promote transportation. Nevermind economic prosperity, environmental protection, and opportunity for people from all walks of life. Ironic for a nation that grew up on - and is now stumbling in a number of ways without - extensive commuter rail service.

Waiting for Wind Off North America's Coasts

The top of the webpage for Emerging Energy Research says "investment in wind power is surging globally, rising from an $8 billion per year plateau from 2002-2004 to more than $18 billion annually on average for 2008-2010, with most of the growth in North America and Asia."

But the latest report issued by the group based in Cambridge, Mass. says "the birth of the Canadian offshore wind industry is years away, despite vast resource potential off the coast of British Columbia and in the Great Lakes off Ontario," according to the Toronto Globe and Mail. The same is likely true on the American side of the Great Lakes.

Meanwhile, back at Emerging-Energy.com, we read this analysis in the featured View Point: Enter Goliath - European Utilities Ramp Up Offshore Wind.

Expanding the Field for Floating Wind Farms

For the past couple of years Ohio and Ontario have been the primary competitors in the regional contest to build the world's first substantial wind farm on freshwater.

But now Wisconsin apparently is making a serious push to be a major player.

Meanwhile Michigan, which has as much if not more wind power capacity than any of these places, not to mention significantly more shoreline, barely recognizes the race is on.

The Great Lakes State, it seems, remains on the sideline watching the rise of the clean energy economy happen, as evidenced by the Muskegon Chronicle's cut-and-paste approach to the above Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article.

Then again maybe there's more energy innovation happening on Lake Michigan's eastern shore than we previously knew existed, as revealed by this recent Muskegon Chronicle story about Consumers Energy's emerging investment plan for that windy area.

Name That Transit Tune

The marching band played across the street. Blowing bagpipers walked all around the grounds. And inside the Michigan Capitol yesterday the activists that make up the state's increasingly loud public transportation movement all sang the same song: modern mass transit is key to achieving economic competitiveness, environmental stewardship, and social justice in the 21st century.

As a whole, Lansing is tone deaf to the urgent need for imagination, leadership, and unity on the public transportation issue. Speaker of the House Andy Dillon, for instance, who was scheduled to speak in the afternoon press conference, showed up for a minute, posed for a couple photo opps, then mysteriously exited stage left right in the middle of the briefing. I'm guessing he wasn't rushing to catch the bus.

There is, however, a handful of strong voices emerging in the Legislature. State Representatives Hoon-Yung Hopgood and Marie Donigan, both from metro Detroit, and Tom Pearce, from the Grand Rapids suburb of Rockford, are three stand out acts. The pressing question is how much longer will they play solo.

"Michigan's dream has always been two cars in every driveway," said Rep. Pearce, a Republican. "But now we're beginning to understand that not everybody has a driveway. Not everyone has a car."

"The costs of owning a car in this day and age. The environmental concerns that vehicles create. The economic effects [of investment in mass transit]. These are all reasons pushing us to prioritize public transportation," Rep. Pearce continued. "It is certainly time for public transit to grow in the State of Michigan."

Prospecting for Wind

There's still a handful of influentials left in states like Michigan poo-pooing the potential for energy innovation to generate jobs, stimulate investment, and help reverse decades of decline.

But the experience of states like Montana, which two years ago adopted the modest goal of achieving 15 percent renewable energy by 2015, tells a different story. Check out this sampling of quotes from an article titled 'The New Gold Rush,' which ran yesterday in the Great Falls Tribune:

"In a way, it's like a mini-little gold rush," Bozeman attorney Hertha Lund said about negotiations between landowners and wind developers.

"The Montana market has gone absolutely crazy with leasing the past few months," said Sarah Hamlen, a Montana State University Extension agent in White Sulphur Springs. "A lot of landowners are getting hit by a variety of different companies."

"They wanted to make me a millionaire," said Gordon Brittan, director of Wheeler Center for Public Policy at Montana State University. "Some big money is being made."

"It's real jobs," said Cascade County Commissioner Peggy Beltrone. "It's a tax base increase in areas that have had declining tax base."

Translating the Terrible Transition

Richard Longworth's new book - Caught in the Middle - has sat on the desk here for several weeks. Right on top of Lincoln's Sword and Me Talk Pretty One Day, one of those rare laugh-out-loud reads.

I'm sure Mr. Longworth's book, subtitled America's Heartland in the Age of Globalism, is really smart, and full of common sense revelation. That's why I bought it.

But with chapter titles like 'From Rust to Bust,' 'Left Behind,' and 'Flunking Out,' I'm content reading Jack and the Beanstalk to my one-year-old daughter. We're planting seeds for bigger and better things.

Here's what Mr. Longworth, a decorated journalist and senior fellow at the Chicago Council of Global Affairs, told the Grand Rapids Press yesterday in advance of a visit to that city tonight...

"You are in a terrible period of transition. The Industrial Age created the Midwest, and that age is over. It's time we started talking together, planning together and working together. Michigan is not in competition with Indiana or Ohio. It is in competition with China."