Michigan News Channel 3 - Talking with Senator Gary Peters

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Democratic Senator Gary Peters says he's been busy since taking office in January.

Senator Peters says he sees some great opportunities and some great challenges for West Michigan in the coming few years.

Newschannel 3's Andy Dominianni spoke to Senator Peters on Wednesday about his priorities and some recent accomplishments.

"It's becoming more and more clear that it's very difficult to get a good paying job with just a high school diploma," said Senator Peters, "you need to have some advanced training, whether it's community college or college."

From improving early education to creating and maintain an educated workforce, U.S. Senator Gary Peters has already sponsored several bills designed to benefit the school experience.

On Wednesday Senator Peters introduced two amendments to the Every Child Achieves Act, which is the bipartisan bill to reform the No Child Left Behind law. One of those amendments would support high school students taking college courses to get ahead, the other would introduce money matters to Michigan's youth.

"Financial literacy is absolutely critical," said Peters. "In fact, it's one of the most important things that you possibly learn in school."

And, much like his congressional counterpart, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Senator Peters sees unique potential in West Michigan and in the Battle Creek Air National Guard Base and Fort Custer, two fighting arms of the U.S. Military that he is fighting to protect and grow.

"We've got a great runway there, it can bring in large aircraft, you also have a lot of land available, plus you've got skilled labor," said Peters. "I'm working closely with Senator Stabenow, I'm also working with a congressional delegation so that as a Michigan delegation we can work in a bipartisan way to hopefully make this a reality, it will be a big deal for our state."

Senator Peters also knows that tourism is another big deal for Michigan. On the heels of the wildly successful Pure Michigan campaign and West Michigan's emergence as the craft brewing capital of the country, he says small batch distilleries are the next big thing.

"We're number three in terms of small distilleries in the country," said Peters. "I have a bill to reduce some of the excise taxes for the very small distilleries."

Senator Peters also recently visited Mill Steel in Grand Rapids to call on Congress to renew the charter of the Export-Import Bank, a non-taxpayer funded revenue source which will help West Michigan companies grow by exporting their goods abroad.

"We've got over 200 companies in Michigan that use the bank in order to make products that they sell to Mexico, to Canada, to Saudi Arabia, really to all places around the world, and it's about jobs," said Peters. "We're competing with other countries that have very similar banks that want to beat our companies when it comes to selling their products, we can't let that happen."

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