I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Financial trouble pushed state and national leaders to suggest abandoning longstanding environmental programs this year and some even blamed air and water quality regulations for Michigan’s economic problems.
Some of Michigan’s largest polluting corporations are receiving millions in tax breaks for installing environmental control equipment that is required under state and federal law. With the state facing an ongoing budget crisis, some say these tax breaks have become a costly and unnecessary entitlement program.
Employees of the state departments of Natural Resources and Environmental Quality have received notice that their departments will merge as of Jan. 17, 2010. DNR Director Becky Humphries and DEQ Director Stephen Chester told their staff members to expect details of the restructuring plan to be announced in an executive order to be issued by [...]
Although some areas of the 2010 state budget remain under negotiation, both chambers of the Legislature have approved a 39 percent cut in general fund support for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, a move that will scale back environmental enforcement in the Great Lake State.
“If the state doesn’t have resources to establish programs to use federal funds or provide matching funds, Michigan is going to watch those funds go elsewhere,” said Noah Hall of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. “The federal government doesn’t want to give money if the state hasn’t shown it will value the program.”
It’s been four months since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initiated new dealings with Dow Chemical over the handling of dioxin contamination in Michigan’s Saginaw River watershed and the agency says it expects its closed-door cleanup framework negotiations with the company to conclude by Friday.
GRAND RAPIDS — Lt. Gov. John Cherry, in a public gathering where about 45 participants got to vote on the value of the functions of state government, said that before elected officials undertake an effort to streamline or restructure state government, Michigan residents and officials need to understand what it is supposed to do.
Four months after Gov. Jennifer Granholm publicly tasked her No. 2, John Cherry, with leading an effort to streamline government, Michigan’s official unemployment rate has hit 14.1 percent, the state is undergoing the steepest decline in revenue in at least a half century, and the state legislature is moving ahead with plans to combine two departments, Natural Resources and Environmental Quality.
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