Business & Economy

Advocates question Snyder’s shyness on social topics

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By CHEYNA ROTH
Capital News Service
LANSING — Gov. Rick Snyder has a track record of trying to run Michigan like a business with a focus on jobs and the economy, but when it comes to tackling cultural or social justice issues, Snyder has a self-acknowledged history of staying away. “I don’t spend much time on social issues,” Snyder said in an interview with Capital News Service correspondents. “I spend the vast bulk of my time on economic development, making Michigan better, public safety, all the other issues, because I think that’s typically what our citizens are most concerned with.”
Social issues, particularly same-sex marriage and the question of whether business owners can deny service to people with whom they have religious differences, have been in the spotlight recently. Michigan’s constitutional ban on gay marriage is being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. And the legislature is considering a bill to let businesses turn away customers for religious reasons that is similar to a recent law causing a backlash in Indiana.

Business & Economy

Snyder’s higher-ed budget bump a departure from GOP peers

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By COLLIN KRIZMANICH
Capital News Service
LANSING — Gov. Rick Snyder’s move to increase higher education funding separates him from a number of gubernatorial peers in Republican-run states who are proposing dramatic cuts to public universities. “We have a governor who is keeping higher education as a priority as he starts his second term,” said Mike Boulus, executive director of the Presidents Council, which represents Michigan’s 15 public universities. Under Snyder’s budget proposal, Michigan’s universities would receive an additional $28 million, or 2 percent, to go toward university operations. Community colleges would receive an additional $4.3 million, or 1.4 percent, in state funding. In order to receive the additional funding, universities must limit tuition increases to 2.8 percent or less.

Campus News

Free Laundry In the Dorms

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Michigan State University’s Residence, Education and Housing Services will be providing free laundry for students living in the dorms for the Fall 2013 school year. Students give their thoughts and Assistant Director Ashley Chaney gives us details on the new perk.

Environment

Will changing rules help or hurt the environment?

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By BRIAN BIENKOWSKI
Capital News Service
LANSING — Proposed changes to Michigan’s environmental rules would eliminate red tape and redundancy, the Snyder administration says, but environmental groups say air, water, soil and health protections would be weakened. “The real meaningful changes are more process-related than actual requirements,” said Skiles Boyd, vice president of environmental management and resources at DTE Energy and a member of an advisory committee that recommended he changes. “Some of the processes we go through are too burdensome to get the result that we already know we’re going to get,” Boyd said. But James Clift, policy director at the Michigan Environmental Council, said, “I dissented on changes that I thought reduced the state’s role of protecting public health.”
In January, a committee assigned to make the state more business-friendly proposed 77 recommendations to Gov. Rick Snyder to overhaul environmental regulations. Snyder rejected three of them.