Benishek meets with Marquette business leaders

Congress is still on its annual holiday break, but the House and Senate will both be back in session within the next several days. The Senate gets back to business on Monday, and the House will follow on Tuesday.

The Upper Peninsula’s voice in Congress will be returning to Washington on Monday, and he met with Marquette-area business leaders to talk about major issues today.

Congressman Dan Benishek met with the Marquette County Ambassadors for breakfast this morning. He spoke with them about health care, the tax code and other issues that affect businesses.

“Our office has been working on education initiatives to try to make vocational education more available to young people in the area so that they’ll be able to have the training to do the jobs that are available,” Benishek said.

Benishek said that he and state Senator Tom Casperson were meeting with We Energies later in the day about the future of the Presque Isle Power Plant.

“It’s unfortunate that there’s been problems with the power plant, as far as their customer base, their pollution problems with the EPA,” he said.

Cliffs Natural Resources was the plant’s primary customer until last September. After Cliffs decided to buy its power elsewhere, We Energies asked the Midwest regional power grid for permission to suspend operations at the plant in February. The request was denied, but the plant’s long-term future is unclear.