No harm, no foul

The Natural Resources Council of Maine gives passing grades to the legislature

By Noah Bruce

(To view a downloadable version of this table, click here.)

The 120th Maine state legislature was pretty kind to the environment in its first session. At least the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM), a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting Maine’s environment, thinks so.

In an effort to educate the public, the NRCM has issued an environmental report card for the 120th, as they’ve been doing at the end of every legislative session since 1997. “So many bills go through the legislature,” says Pete Didisheim, advocacy director of the NRCM, “that it’s hard for the public to keep track of them all. So, many bills don’t get a lot of attention. We wanted to capture in one document all the bills that would have added to or rolled back safeguards to the environment.” The report can be found on the web at www.maineenvironment.org.

This year’s report card praises the legislature for passing bills that curb the damage caused by the invasive plant milfoil, mercury, and dioxins; for closing a loophole that allowed unregulated subdivisions in the North Woods; for improving environmental practices of state agencies; for defending the Allagash; and for defeating a host of environmentally harmful bills collectively termed “the filthy 15”.

The report is really only critical of the legislature as a whole for failing to pass sustainable forestry legislation.

“They did a reasonably good job,” says Didisheim of their collective efforts. Didisheim considers the milfoil bill to be one of the legislature’s biggest triumphs. The bill, entitled “An Act to Prevent Infestation of Invasive Aquatic Plants and to Control Other Invasive Species,” establishes a program of public education and boat inspections to prevent the plant’s spread — a fast growing threat that can choke a lake of indigenous life by creating a mat of vegetation over its surface. Didisheim believes the passage of this bill was especially commendable because “they adopted [it] at a time of severe budget pressures.”

Representative Scott Cowger (D-Hallowell), chair of the natural resources committee, and a strong environmental advocate, believes that the legislature performed some of its best work when it passed laws to reduce mercury levels. “This year, we did a marvelous job with mercury, working towards our long-term goal of lifting fish consumption advisories,” says Cowger. Currently, pregnant or nursing women and young children are advised to avoid eating most freshwater fish and some seafood by the Maine Bureau of Health. In fact, all Mainers are advised to keep their fish consumption from lakes, rivers, and coastal waters to a minimum.

The legislature passed three mercury bills this session to help alleviate the problem. The first, “An Act to Further Reduce Emissions of Mercury from Consumer Products,” eliminates the sale of mercury thermometers, requires that products sold in Maine that have added mercury in them be registered with the state, and may allow Maine to use the federal government to force up-wind states to limit airborne mercury pollution.

The second bill requires that dentists inform clients about the mercury content in amalgam (usually called silver) fillings. These fillings pose two problems: it’s possible they cause health problems; and when they are eliminated by the body, they can be released back into the environment.

The third bill, “An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Department of Environmental Protection on Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Mercury,” establishes standards for allowable mercury contamination in Maine’s waters. With the closing of HoltraChem in Orrington, there is not one single large mercury producer in the state. However, says Didisheim, smaller polluters — like businesses that use large amounts of cleansers, film developers, paper companies, and even individual households that use some brands of mascara and soap — still contribute to the mercury problem. This bill will set stricter limits on the amount of mercury a person or business can put into the water.

The gradual approach to eliminating mercury from Maine’s waters is representative of the legislature’s overall environmental policy says Representative Bill Norbert (D-Portland).

“[Our record] does show that we’re a conservation state with a strong tradition of protecting the environment in incremental steps . . . at the same time heading off extreme measures like eliminating the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission [LURC].” A bill to eliminate LURC, the commission that oversees land use in Maine’s unorganized territories (two-thirds of the state) would likely have spurred development in the North Woods.

This bill, along with 14 others, made up what the NRCM called the “filthy 15” — 15 bills considered particularly dangerous to the environment. All 15 were defeated. Included was an act that would delay the health-protective standards for mercury discharge into the water, an act that would allow development on wetlands, and perhaps the most notorious anti-environmental bill, “An Act to Discourage Environmental Terrorism.”

This bill would have made it a felony to damage property in any sort of environmental protest. Though the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Joe Clark (D-Millinocket) says he has no problem with protesters — only those who “hurt someone else’s livelihood” — Norbert says the bill was written so broadly that it could be used against striking paper mill workers who damage a fence, or, says Didisheim, against someone who spray-paints anti-forestry graffiti on the walls of a paper mill.

Thing is, these are already crimes, the bill just specifies that property destruction in the name of environmental protest is a felony. For example, spray painting on a wall would still be a misdemeanor, but spray painting “stop killing trees” on a paper factory would be a felony. For these reasons, Maine’s assistant attorney general opposed the legislation.

The report card also praises the legislature for defeating several bills (one sponsored by the governor) that would have made it more difficult to initiate a citizen’s referendum. While not specifically anti-environment (the coalition to defeat these bills included members of the Christian right), the anti-referendum legislation would have limited a weapon in the arsenal of environmental groups.

However, some environmentalists are not ready to break out the champagne just because the legislature managed to defeat the “filthy 15.” Orlando Delogu, professor of environmental law at the University of Southern Maine, agrees “that the legislature managed not to do anything disastrous.” But he says, “it tells you a lot about where we are” that the NRCM is so pleased with the prevention of the environmentally negative bills. “If you look at the number of positive things they did, you can count them on one hand,” he says.

Delogu and Didisheim both feel the legislature’s environmental downfall was the failure to adopt new forest practices legislation. “Bills to curb clear-cutting and require sustainable timber practices were summarily defeated,” reads the report card. It says that a vague bill entitled “An Act to Promote Outcome-Based Forest Policy” was enacted, but it does very little.

Cowger would like to see a bill passed that would require timber cutting to be verified sustainable by a third party. Right now, says Delogu, “the issue is pretty much left in the hands of the paper companies.”

Delogu is also critical of the legislature’s decision to defer action on several environmental bills, especially one designed to curb sprawl. “An Act to Amend Maine’s Growth Management Law and Related Laws” would have set up funds for municipalities that want to manage development regionally to avoid sprawl.

“If we’re really serious about sprawl, we’re going to have to make hard decisions about where we’re going to allow growth to go,” says Delogu. “The legislature ducked the issue.”

Delogu believes deferring action is a method the legislature uses to “quietly kill” an issue it perceives as “a hot potato.” He says that the legislature rarely takes meaningful action on a deferred bill in the next legislative session.

That’s bad news for three other environmental bills that were carried over, including bills to increase funding for energy conservation, update pollution control tax credits, and force businesses to provide information on large water withdrawals.

In addition to grading the legislature, the report card also provides the voting record for each legislator on environmental bills when votes were counted. (Tallies of votes are not kept on every bill.) In the house, voting records were kept on 10 bills, including the environmental terrorism bill, the milfoil bill, one of the referendum limiting bills, and the mercury products bill. In the Senate, records were kept on only five environmental bills, including the environmental terrorism and milfoil legislation. Still, the tallies provide a good idea of how individual legislators voted.

The Portland representatives — Joseph Brannigan, Glenn Cummings, Ben Dudley, Boyd Marley, John McDonough, Bill Norbert, Mike Saxl, and Michael Quint — democrats all, have strong records of voting pro-environment. Cummings, Marley, and Dudley each voted pro-environment 10 of 10 times. In fact, McDonough, who voted pro-environment seven times, was the only Portland representative to cast any anti-environmental votes. The rest missed the perfect 10 due to absences; in the case of Quint, five times.

However, it may be easier to be an environmentally friendly legislator when you are from a city like Portland where your constituents do not earn their livings harvesting timber. “It’s true in parts of the state where there is a lot of resource extraction it does influence legislators’ thinking,” says Didisheim.

Representative Joe Clark (D-Millinocket), for instance, has many constituents who work for the paper companies. “I vote the way my constituents send me down there to vote,” he says. “I try to vote their conscience. We live in a paper community. Paper is our prime industry. If we do anything environmental we could lose close to 1700 jobs.”

Clark sponsored four of the “filthy 15,” including the bill that would have delayed the enactment of new standards for mercury discharge into the water and the environmental terrorism bill. Still, Clark serves on the natural resources committee and managed to cast four pro-environmental votes, including one that helps close a loophole that has allowed 210,000 acres of unregulated subdivisions in the North Woods in the last 30 years.

Didisheim, Cowger, and Norbert are quick to point out that environmentally-minded legislators come from all over the state, such as representatives Marc Michaud (D-Fort Kent), Ross Paradis (D-Frenchville), and Raymond Pineau (D-Jay), all of whom come from areas with resource extraction industry and cast at least eight pro-environmental votes.

Then there are folks like representative Albion Goodwin (D-Pembroke). Goodwin sponsored two of “the filthy 15” and failed to cast a single pro-environmental vote (though he was absent five times). Like Clark, Goodwin’s constituents depend on resource extraction industries and he says his main concern is for his constituents’ jobs. However, Goodwin goes further, displaying an outright disdain for both the southern part of the state, which he feels is meddling in attempting to regulate development in Washington County, and the environment as a whole.

“I don’t need environmentalists to tell Al Goodwin how many Christmas trees I’m going to cut on my property. I tell them to go to hell!” he says. He then asserts that next session he will introduce legislation to give Southern Maine a national forest so they’ll keep their hands off Northern Maine’s woods. “I’m gonna give Southern Maine a national forest to provide you folks with a place you can leave the asphalt jungle. I don’t give a shit what you got in Portland. You can burn the whole city down. I don’t give a shit.”

But the hostility goes even further. “I’m going to put a new bill for global warming,” he promises. “I want palm trees. I want tobacco farming. That will take care of those people selling oil in the desert . . . I don’t care about the planet. I only care about Washington County. I only care about our people paying their electric bill. I want to let people know that the people of Maine would love to have it warm up and to save some money on their heat and electric bills.”

Yes, Goodwin really is a state representative and he really said this. Let’s hope he isn’t serious. And let’s hope he finds little sympathy among his companions in the legislature, many of whom are doing their part to see Maine’s natural resources preserved.

Noah Bruce can be reached at nbruce@phx.com.