LANSING ? Michigan Senate Majority Leader-elect Arlan Meekhof on Wednesday pointed to creating a more well-rounded energy future for Michigan as well as improving access to and quality of the state’s regulatory program regarding health care as some of his immediate goals as the next leader of the Senate in January.

In an interview on WKAR’s Current State program, Meekhof (R-West Olive) responded to a question about items on his “legislative wish list” with a quick response pointing to the state’s energy future and health care system, among other things.

“Michigan is a peninsula, so we’re not necessarily easy to move energy about the state … especially in the U.P., given some of the challenges that are going up there with some of the power plants,” Mr. Meekhof said in the interview.

He said his personal policy would be one that includes an “all the above” strategy, which generally refers to meeting the state’s energy needs through renewable energy mandates and improving energy efficiency. As far as specific renewables, it allows for traditional methods like wind and solar energy, but also for increasing the usage of natural gas. But even so, he hits on a point that has left some close to the energy situation scratching their heads: How to transfer that energy in a reliable and cost-effective manner.

For that, he said, he has been “recently aware” of a new battery technology that could store certain energy.

“But we do need to have some sort of baseload energy that continues to supply the state, and I think there’s some entrepreneurs out there that can help us do that,” Meekhof said.

Whether the state increases its renewable energy mandate (currently set and expected to be met at 10 percent of all energy generation created through renewable resources by 2015) has been an issue largely since a 2012 ballot drive urged residents to vote in support of changing the state’s Constitution. That drive failed, but the question remained of what the state should do when that mandate and others included in a 2008 overhaul on energy policy expires.

As for improving health care, Meekhof has previously been quoted as expressing an interest in updating Michigan’s “antiquated” regulatory program on it, and he was pressed again on that matter on the radio show. Meekhof maintained that a big concern in the industry is handling all of its changes while tending to the needs, especially, of baby boomers. The sheer size of the generation, matched only by their children, known as generation y or millennials, could be problematic, Meekhof said.

“How are we going to make sure there’s access and quality, and how are we going to control those costs?” he said, adding that while the state has continued to “make exceptions” to current law to meet demands, it’s making things too complex.

Comparing it to his time in local government, Meekhof said, “If you had a piece of property that you zoned for some future development … and you kept making exceptions to that zoning, you probably don’t have the right zoning. I would say the same is true of public policy that is 30, 40 years old. We keep making exceptions to it all the time … that a policy cannot keep up with what we need to do in terms of providing quality, access, and costs.”

NO INTEREST IN ELECTORAL COLLEGE: Meekhof also said on the radio program that while a proposal from Rep. Pete Lund (R-Shelby Township) to change the makeup of the how the state divvies up its Electoral College votes is “interesting,” it is not “a very interesting topic for the average voter.”

“I don’t see that we’re poised, at least on the Senate side, to make any action on that,” he said, noting that topics like energy, health care, improving schools and others should come first.

ELCRA CHANGES: Meekhof also said that he did not think there was much interest for the Senate in making changes to the state’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. He said he would be fine with a ballot proposal on the issue, though.

And as for House Speaker Jase Bolger’s (R-Marshall) bill on assuring “religious freedom” associated with extending Elliott-Larsen’s protections to residents based on their sexual orientation (but not gender identity – a hot button issue in Lansing for now), Meekhof said, “I think we have religious freedoms at this point that are well established, so I think, again, we’re not interested in anything like that. I think the Senate doesn’t have an appetite for it.”

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