A yooper has represented northern Michigan in U.S. Congress for decades — a tradition that state Sen. Tom Casperson (R-Escanaba) wants to continue. Casperson is running to fill the seat that Rep. Dan Benishek is vacating in the 1st Congressional District. Casperson sat down with IPR News Radio for an interview last week.
“The overreach from the federal government has caused problems we’re faced with here in northern Michigan,” Casperson says. “I’m one that’s convinced that most of the governing should take place at the state level.”
For example, Casperson wants to ease regulations on the timber industry, which he says is being choked by undue regulations.
“It’s kind of a ‘come, see and look but don’t touch’ attitude,” Casperson says about federal timber regulations. “That doesn’t work well for our communities.”
Besides regulatory changes, Casperson says if elected he will also push for a new shipping lock at the Soo Locks.
“You need to twin the locks. You need two of them," Casperson says. "Right now they have the Poe [lock]. It’s the only one that can handle a thousand foot freighter. If that goes down, the big freighters are done until the lock is restored."
“That is a dangerous scenario because of the impact it [could have] ... on the entire region. It’s that big of a deal.”
Casperson, a two-term senator, ran in the 1st Congressional District in 2008 and lost to longtime Democratic representative Bart Stupak. He also served six years in the state House of Representatives from 2002-2008.