AUGUSTA, Maine — While closing another budget gap will be their top priority, lawmakers are expected to grapple with a number of complex and potentially contentious issues dealing with the environment, land use and Maine’s energy mix during the shortened legislative session that began Wednesday.
In some instances, lawmakers will consider new twists on old topics, such as the latest iteration of a plan to consolidate natural resource agencies as well as another re-examination of Maine’s always-controversial laws regulating trash and landfills. Other issues are relatively new.
Environmental groups are gearing up for political battles with the Republican administration of Gov. Paul LePage over renewable energy and no-development buffer zones near duck and wading bird habitat. And proposed reforms to the Land Use Regulation Commission could generate heated debate.
“I think this session will be as tough as last year,” said Maureen Drouin, executive director of the organization Maine Conservation Voters.
Reforming LURC could be one of the first major issues taken up by lawmakers.
On Jan. 10, Commissioner Bill Beardsley of the Department of Conservation is expected to brief a legislative committee on a task force’s recommendations to improve planning, zoning and permitting within the 10.5 million acres in LURC’s jurisdiction.
The task force recommended, among other things, increasing the number of commissioners from seven to nine but giving six of those seats to the counties with the most acreage within the Unorganized Territory. Currently, all seven LURC members are nominated by the governor.
Rep. Peter Edgecomb, a Caribou Republican who is co-chairman of the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee, said lawmakers will carefully review the recommendations.
“I’m hoping to get a unanimous vote from the committee, which would make it easier on the floor” of the House and Senate, Edgecomb said.
Edgecomb’s committee also will consider a LePage administration proposal to merge the Departments of Agriculture and Conservation.
LePage spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett said Wednesday that the legislation has yet to be completed but that the administration still plans to pursue consolidation this session after lawmakers have had time to work on the budget.
LePage’s consolidation plan is less sweeping than the “superagency” proposed by Democratic Gov. John Baldacci. But the governor still may have to convince some skeptics from the farming and forestry communities who worry about losing access or influence.
On the issue of energy, LePage is expected to submit legislation to make it easier for natural gas suppliers to expand their infrastructure in Maine as a way to reduce the state’s reliance on higher-cost heating oil. Rep. Stacey Allen Fitts, R-Pittsfield, said lawmakers are still waiting for the specific proposals, however.
“Those cards haven’t been shown,” said Fitts, co-chairman of the the Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee.
Maine policies encouraging the development of renewable energy could be another hot topic, although a potential statewide referendum this fall could delay action in the legislative arena.
LePage has been critical of the way the state’s energy conservation policies are implemented and has called for reducing the amount of energy that must be produced from renewable sources, arguing such requirements are inflating energy costs.
But a coalition of environmental and conservation groups is soliciting signatures for a ballot measure that proposes to increase the percentage of energy generated by renewable resources such as wind and solar. If the groups are successful, lawmakers likely would delay action on any bills from the governor’s office dealing with the issue.
Picking up where it left off last year, the Environment and Natural Resources Committee is expected to take up a half-dozen bills carried over from last session that deal with the capacity of Maine’s landfills, fees on construction and demolition debris, and other waste-related issues.
Rep. Bob Duchesne, D-Hudson, said for the first time in his years in the Legislature all of the committee members appear well-versed in the issues and eager to fix perceived problems.
“We will delve in right away,” said Duchesne.
The committee also will review a proposal from the Department of Environmental Protection to relax permitting requirements for development near wetlands that has drawn fire from environmental groups concerned about impacts on ducks and wading birds.
Drouin with Maine Conservation Voters said that while lawmakers will consider fewer bills during 2012 than last year, she expects her organization and others to stay busy.
“Like last year, going into this session we expect to be defending our existing environmental protections,” Drouin said. “So our top goal will be making sure laws that protect our air, land and water are not weakened.”
I’m sure the “ducks and wading birds” had a better economic year than the majority of Mainers. Thank goodness for that….
Indeed, they live in a free market with very little government perversion of their economy and employ a ‘survival of the fittest’ attitude to daily affairs…no wonder they had a better economic year than most Mainers!!
There’s millions of Canadian Geese, Loons, Heron, Ducks, etc. in the Walmart retention ponds, Home Depot detention ponds and all over peoples yards in the South. Ducks just gotta shop. (you could build your house over the water and they will nest under it.) This isn’t an environmental issue, it’s a control issue. Bird chopping windmills and totally ineffective, sun absorbing, solar energy are the new BROWN energy sources. Question: What lives under a mass of ugly solar panels? Answer, not much of nothin’.
Sadly, in place where development is great, migrating birds find their ways to man made ponds. I hear that Liberty Mutual employees in Portsmith, NH are plagued by aggressive geese. Is it a GOOD thing that the birds have no other option? No. And housecats kill about 4 times as many birds annually as windmills–maybe we should ban them, too. No one is saying that we should put out solar farms in Maine–it would make no sense because of the latitude e.g. short winter days–but you can use it on your house to offset your own energy costs.
What lives under an oil spill ?
As it turns out a lot.
Oil spills have occurred in the Gulf of Mexico for thousands of years and there are a lot of micro organisms who’ve evolved to ‘feed on them’. Oil spills are part of the ecosystem…or didn’t you know that one mitigation strategy is to seed these organisms in the spill?
That makes them fine ?
I know the offshore oil fields.
People saying alternative energy is not environmentally better have never tied up
under a drilling rig, nor seen Port Author, or Texas City I’d wager.
Then, in the long run… when oil becomes scarce again, due to politics
or or due to pumping all of the dinosaurs out their graves,
no matter which, every kilowatt of renewable energy will be gold
and CRITICAL TO NATIONAL SECURITY.
See:
U.S. Army Embarks On $7 billion Renewable Energy Overhaul … idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/…/us-army-embarks-on-7-billion-re…25 Sep 2011 – The U.S. Army has embarked on an ambitious $7 billion series of utility-scale renewable energy projects. The new program involves building …Military spearheads clean-energy drive – The Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com/…/military…energy…/gIQAyZkSxK_story…25 Sep 2011 – With federal support for renewable energy under fire on Capitol Hill, …alternative fuels in the Navy and the Marine Corps is to make us better war fighters. …the Pentagon has many reasons to want to diversify its fuel sources. …Army Initiative Could Be Boon for U.S. Solar Companies – NYTimes … www.nytimes.com/…/16greenwire-army-initiative-could-be-boon-for…16 Sep 2011 – And U.S. companies won’t be competing with their often-cheaper … for nascent renewable energy technologies that other military projects did …
Remember the Gulf has over 30,000 oil/gas wells and has the most productive shrimp fishery in the world…making a mockery of your ‘gloom n doom’ view point. Everyone knows the best fishing is around a rig. Where you been boy?
Oil scarce? maybe….but the petrochemical engineering community is divided over natural gas; which they keep finding at depths beyond which there is any remainder of organic matter.
o Abiogenic petroleum origin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_originAlexander von Humboldt was the first to propose an inorganic abiogenic hypothesis for petroleum …. At greater depths, even natural gas would be pyrolyzed.
o In July, Mike Lewan had an unusual conversation with his new neighbor, who had been reading lately about oil from deep sources that “can’t be explained.” Lewan, though slightly amused, was not entirely surprised to hear this topic in casual conversation.
o In the 1980s, Thomas Gold, an astronomer at Cornell University, received support from the Swedish government to drill into the Siljan Ring, the site of an ancient meteorite crater in central Sweden (shown here), in search of “inorganic” oil from Earth’s mantle. Gold believed that natural gas migrates upward from the mantle where it transforms into more complex gases and oil, and that the petroleum could be expelled through large releases of energy such as a meteor impact. The experiment, which did not find large quantities of such gas, still helped mobilize a small community of scientists who reject the theory of organic origins of petroleum.
Lewan is an expert on the origins of oil, and quite familiar with an idea that has been lingering within some scientific circles for many years now: that petroleum — oil and natural gas — comes from processes deep in Earth that do not involve organic material. This idea runs contrary to the theory that has driven modern oil exploration: that petroleum comes from the heating of organic material over time in Earth’s shallower crust.
Lot’s of gas found very deep….+18,000 ft.
Stay tuned and open your closed mind a bit….it needs a bit of scientific skepticism!
There should be just and sufficient cause to promulgate any land use ordinance or regulation, a protect all approach does not consider individual circumstances which should be left to the municipalities and local citizens.
If you read any environmental report who are the “stakeholders”? Groups like Audubon, Sierra club NRCM, state agencies, and Universities.. There is no citizen involvement beyond environmental activists. There is little or no municipal input. There needs to be a balance between, the environment, the economy, and property rights that is now non existent. Can solutions be formulated that are workable, absolutely. However as long as the activists run over the rights of citizens and fail to engage them, it will come back in the form of a major backlash against them. Everyone needs to be a stakeholder, not just some elite group with a fixed agenda and fixed solutions. They can lobby legislators while the working people and citizens have no time or no say. The term “battle” indicates it is an “us against them” proposition when it should be a united proposition.
Ah, but there’s the rub. “Stakeholders” like giant logging companies and big developers like Plum Creek have a staff of attorneys, land use specialists, architects, geographers, geologists, etc. Whoever they need, they can hire.
So who protects the interests of “stakeholders” like Joe and Jane Average? Well, I go and I hire groups like Audubon, Sierra club, NRCM, by means of my donations, because they might be better able to make my arguments for protecting the environment (you know, the only one we have…).
Environmental law is complicated, time-consuming and yes, specialized. I don’t have time to drive to Augusta to appear before all the relevant boards and committees. (But you can bet I do e-mail my opinions to them, and to my state reps too–several times a week!)
When you need a plumber, you call a plumber. I will keep groups like Audubon, Sierra club, NRCM in business with my money.
I think that if we were neighbors you’d abuse my environment when you mow your lawn , wash your car , snowblow your driveway , turn on your radio , let out your dog…..do you get it ? Let the people who live in the area govern it !
”
Let the people who live in the area govern it !”
Are corporations “persons” to you ?
“Let the people who live in the area govern it !”
Up to a point, which is why we have laws. You might think driving 55 mph on my dirt road is OK, but my neighbors with kids might disagree. I mow my lawn with a quiet electric mower, do not wash my car at all, the radio is played indoors, and I have no dog, nor do my cats go outside to bother the chickens.
On the other hand, I tolerate my neighbor with chickens well enough. I did complain about teenagers doing .22 target practice in the back yard of an adjacent neighbor, as I walk my woods, and bullets can ricochet, and they stopped, since shooting within 300 feet of a home is illegal anyway. But good to know there is a law about that, if we needed to take it further.
Similarly, it is also not OK if my paper mill dumps its waste into the river that flows onto your land 1, 5, or 100 miles away, as it pollutes. I may not live in your immediate area, but what I do can effect you, and vice-versa.
It’s why we have laws, and why we need a DEP to enforce them. Maine would not be half as beautiful a place if people did “what they wanted.” Just consider for example, those who think the roadside is the place to throw their coffee cup, soda/beer cans.
The CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION is the real ‘goliath’ in these debates; with their staff of 34 lawyers and fancy estate in S. Freeport;..here’s several pages of ‘warriors’
http://www.clf.org/about-clf/the-clf-team/ advancing a regional agenda that has not been politically validated, which is why they are circulating a referendum petition.
Despite being a non-profit corporation; they are heavily involved in promoting elected officials who promise to advance their agenda, JUST LIKE ALL THOSE ‘evil’ CORPORATIONS THEY HAVE TRAINED YOU TO OPPOSE!
I see CLF has the same agendas I outlined as causing rate hikes…..NRCM and these people are BSing the people..but as u say….they have the lawyers…..
You missed my point. There is no balance in the debate. Where are the citizen stakeholders. Our representatives certainly don’t represent us and I am not going to donate to any organization that can not see the forest through the trees.
devonshire11:
I sympathize. Your reps SHOULD represent you, or vote in someone else!
But first, they need to know what you think, so tell them in no uncertain terms (“nicely,” of course) and organize your neighbors to do the same.
Find organizations that do see things your way and donate to those. You might just have to start one yourself. That is how Audubon, Sierra club, NRCM and them all came about: people saw a need not being met and worked together to make it happen. Just like a union of workers, or an association of businessmen, organized to do lobbying for their side. Ain’t illegal, yet. Not sure if it should be, but should be on a more level playing field certainly.
Or, you could look up the committee meetings and drive to Augusta yourself…
We did vote someone new in in 2010. We were communicating for 6 months. Now nothing and he has changed his position on everything. I think a better approach is to get the citizens in town to go to town hall with a proposal to selectmen. If every town organized it would make a huge difference. Look at the town of Blue Hill that passed an ordinance allowing local growers to sell to local consumers “Nullifying” the federal baloney under the food safety modernization act. Now a local Blue Hill farmer is getting sued by the state, for selling raw milk, by the very guy (Cmmsr. Whitcomb) who sold the farmer his cow in the first place. Decisions on whether milk should be pasteurized probably should be left to the locals also as long as they are aware of the potential consequences and safe handling practices. As the adage goes “all politics is local”, in my book all politics beyond local is a dictatorship.
Smarten_Up is right–citizens donate to the groups that you mention; they put their money where their mouths are to get results.
Plus, how do small municipalities pay for the staff and time it would require to manage their own natural resources?
Well… that’s called “crony capitalism” they have the money to buy and pay the politicians. Us regular citizens are having a tough time paying for heating oil and the environmental groups just love paying the politicians to do their bidding.
As far as small municipalities they have manged their resources here in Maine well for a couple of centuries without these environmental groups or the state or federal government being involved. In my town most of the people here on Town boards are volunteers. It’s called participating in your town’s government and believe me we don’t need the dictates of some bought and paid for politician.
Environmental groups have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying the Maine legislature. What have they done for the people of Maine?
Maine DEP needs to go. We have a Federal EPA that writes more than enough laws to protect our environment. We don’t need a to pay for our own mini EPA just to make the state bigger.
Who would enforce the laws in Maine?
The EPA would, the same as they do now. The only thing we get from the DEP is one more regulatory agency doing the exact same job. They don’t prevent the EPA from coming here anyway, they just do it as well.
The EPA regulates Federal laws and regulations, the MDEP overseea Maine’s laws which in some cases are more restrictive than the federal laws or cover instances that Federal laws do not cover.
Other States do just fine without their own version of DEP. Please show me one Maine law that EPA regulations would not cover adequately.
Every state has their own DEP and some large cities even have them.
Every State has something but they all don’t exactly model or attempt to exceed what the EPA has and does. Some don’t attempt to manage storm water, some let the Feds rules for Hazardous Waste be the norm, etc…..
Ours tries to double down on everything the Feds do.
If you had a business and you had to choose a place to put your next large facility, why would you choose a State that makes it twice as expensive for you to do business?
I’d probably choose one where it doesn’t get down to 40 below zero every winter. Maybe one where there were a lot of high-quality colleges so I could easily recruit well-educated workers. Maybe a state where there were more paved roads, and where things weren’t quite so spread out like they are in Maine. Every state has rules, and taxes. Every town has more rules. They are all different, and where a place is more lax in one area, they will be more stringent in another. There isn’t any free lunch anywhere.
So because we have all of these other more natural negatives you think it is OK to create more?
We create many of the reasons why our children are forced to leave to find work. It’s time to stop.
If you got rid of all regulations, Maine would still not get a new large employer to come to this state because of our low population density, if for no other reason.
So liberals have done so much damage to our economy we can’t come back from it huh?
Might as well close up the State and give it to Rich people like Quimby as their playland.
Maine’s 250 foot buffer on lakes and streams. That is more restrictive than the federal law so the EPA would not enforce that law but the MDEP would.
That is just one law off the top of my head. Now prove that every one of Maine’s environmental laws, rules and regulations would be enforced by the EPA.
That law EPA put in place is good enough for the whole USA but not Maine for some reason? Bull!
As to your follow up, if Maine DEP ceased to copy EPA we would use Federal law. Since Maine can not do LESS than that by law why not? We do not need to take everything the Federal Government hands down and make it harder to live with.
That is just insane.
If you had at least some vague idea of what the LAWS that DEP has to enforce are trying to accomplish, and what would happen without them, you would at least have a chance of making sense. As it is, you aren’t even coming close.
The federal guidelines are the bare minimum, most states that care about their citizens and the environment have stricter guidelines. If you want to be as polluted as TX, LA and MS to name a few then by all means adopt only the bare minimun federal guidelines.
Does this sound like the “bare minimum” to you?
“Effluent guidelines are national standards that are developed by EPA on an
industry-by-industry basis, and are intended to represent the greatest pollutant
reductions that are economically achievable for an industry.”
http://water.epa.gov/scitech/wastetech/guide/questions_index.cfm
So here’s a question for you. If EPA sets what is “economically achievable for an industry”, what are we doing when we go beyond what EPA requires?
Other states ALL have their own version of the DEP. http://www.epa.gov/epahome/state.htm
Stop making up “facts” to support your silly ideas.
As I’ve answered to the other econazis poster here, the devil is in the details. They do have other State agencies by various names but the only one that even comes close to being as nasty as ours is California and they are wiping out their economy in the same way we are destroying ours.
Once you legislate the people out of this State who will pay for your DEP then?
How about the laws regulating sound impacts from wind towers. How about shoreland zoning laws. How about wildlife habitat protection. How about wetland protection. How about oil and hazardous material spill response teams. The nearest EPA office is in Boston. How would you like to wait for them to show up to clean up a fuel spill from a rolles-over tanker in your front yard?
Most of this stuff is better handled by local ordinances and DEP just gets in the way of 90% of the process.
As for cleanup. Most of that is done by local cleanup crews with one flunky from the DEP response team showing up to nod his head and approve of the process.
Other States manage just fine with less Cost to the State Tax payers.
So you want out-of-state FEDERAL regulators to take over from Maine DEP.
Really?
Yeah Really!
Why do we need Maine agencies mirroring everything the Feds do? Do you enjoy have two sets of rules you must research every time you wish to do anything?
MDEP makes sure that Maine’s environmental laws are followed. The US EPA only makes sure that Federal laws and regulations are followed, they do not monitor state or local environmental laws and regulations. That is up to the local or state environmental agencies.
Also are you under the mistaken impression that since we have a Maine DEP the FEDERAL regulators don’t still come here as regularly as ever?
Now we just have both of them and for no real purpose.
When have you ever seen a EPA agent on a job site in Maine? I’ll give you a hint: never. Their nearest office is in Boston. They don’t have field staff.
I’ve seen them here quite a bit actually. Here is a link to just their enforcement actions in the State. Keep in mind these are just enforcement and only a small percentage of the inspections done.
Violations to obscure hard to follow rules is how Uncle is helping to fund them.
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/reports/endofyear/eoy2011/nationalmap.html
Enter Maine and see what you get.
The nearest EPA office is in Boston. You want to go there for all your permits and meetings, and pay them to drive up to Fort Kent to do site visits? You want flatlanders who have no sympathy for local businesses and no local knowledge to be making decisions for you? I’ll take the local guys, thanks. They may not be YOUR idea of the best way to do stuff, but if you don’t give a crap about the environment, then your way of doing stuff is pretty short-sighted.
Other States manage it just fine and there was never a problem taking care of the paperwork before DEP was authorized to manage programs.
No matter how we work it we end up with flatllanders managing our affairs it’s just a matter of how far south they have to drive from.
There is no such thing as a “local guy” in DEP regulatory. In response there is, but not the regulators.
So the local guys from the Bangor DEP office are somehow not local guys? Other states ALL have their own equivalent of the DEP. Check your “facts” before you rely on them. The EPA does nothing regarding local shoreland zoning laws, nothing regarding protection of wildlife habitat, nothing regarding impacts from wind power projects, nothing regarding hundreds of other things that DEP handles. And they sure as s**t don’t hold public hearings on wind power projects. You should stop complaining about the DEP regulators – they are understaffed and overworked and have to deal with a constantly-changing management structure where every new political hack appoints his unqualified big-headed friends to run these agencies with no idea of what the law requires, and then the legislature changes the laws. The regulators don’t get choices about how they rule on applications, they just get the bullseye painted on their backs by the legislators who want to run the state into the ground.
The Local guys from Bangor are nothing but paper pushers. They do nothing and are nothing in the big scheme of things. As for how overworked and and understaffed DEP is, they get no sympathy from me. I don’t want them doing as much as they do now.
Really.
I’ve been working with regulators for decades, in Maine and in other states as well, on projects from single-family homes and accessory buildings to office parks and high-rise condominiums. DEP (and other state and local regulators) are not the do-nothing nobodies you seem to think they are. In most cases, they care about the purpose of the regulations they are charged with upholding, and they also care about the people whose lives they affect, and if you give them a chance they will work with you to come up with a project they can approve. I’m guessing you tried to get some inappropriate project approved and got shut down, and now you think the world is out to get you. If you do a little up front research and ask for help, they will almost always bend over backwards to show you the easiest way to move forward. They don’t make the rules, but they have to deal with them just like everyone else. They have the advantage of seeing them up close and personal every day, so they know what works and what doesn’t.
You don’t want any regulations? That’s brilliant. I’l be starting construction on my new sewage treatment plant next door to your house tomorrow.
“You don’t want any regulations?”That’s not what I said anywhere here and you know it. It’s about balance. Judging by your all or nothing attitude you have no idea what the word means but we need more of it. Your side has gone too far with this state and now we can’t get work here. We need to have more balance between your end and no regulations at all.
As for this quote, “They don’t make the rules,” it kind of shows how little you do know about the Maine DEP. I’ve been to their meetings where they do make the rules and in most cases the rules they make go further than the laws that were written.
This state even has a “Rules” section and a “Law” section so that DEP can write things that were never actually in the laws.
Maybe you need to do some research and go to a few meetings because I’m guessing we aren’t at the same ones.
They do make the Rules, literally.
Ahhhh…flip that…we need to get rid of the EPA and keep Maine DEP. The closer the regulator is to home the better. We know our state lands, water, and wildlife better than some bureaucrat in Washington DC does. Central planning for the environment on a national scale simply doesn’t work for a nation of 310 millions souls across a very dynamic landscape with drastically different regional considerations and issues.
If there were any chance of the Feds giving up their power I would agree with you, but since we both know they will not why must we duplicate every function the Feds already perform?
The task force recommended, among other things, increasing the number of commissioners from seven to nine . Just what we need, More Commissioners. (NOT). I am sure the Gov. can find a couple somewhere on his family tree.
Here is the perfect opportunity for our legislators to do something good for the residents of the UT and the people of the state of Maine if it is a thoughtful, logical, meaningful, and productive debate and decision. Unfortunately, I feel this administration is going to shove something down everyone’s throat in the best interests of big business and at the benefit of everyone else. THIS is something the people of the state of Maine can not let happen and everyone needs to be involved. And, I challenge ACF to step up to the plate and do what’s right for your people and their rights, the people of the State of Maine, the environment, and not what is on someone else’s agenda.
we have a re-newable fuel, it’s called wood. cut split and delivered has stayed the same price for six years that we’ve been using it. has the fuel you use to heat your house stayed the same for the last six years? Maine should have more folks who use new wood stoves/ boilers in their homes. Solar is a good option and I believe each house and building should be able to produce “some” of their energy needs. We are so far behind european countries(especially germany) who have wind turbines off their coasts, solar array panels over land fills and on their buildings, but america has decided to leave the energy question to the big corporations who could care less about the environment or the people who live in fear of running out of heat during the winter.
bIg corps have banks of lawyers and tout the creation of JOBS, but really are only concerned about their selfish aims, we need the Sierra Club etc. to help protect us from avericious corporations. think i’ll send out a small donation today.
The government has been subsidizing renewable energy development at the cost of Maine ratepayers. As a result, energy prices have skyrocketed over the past decade and we can no longer expect Maine people to foot the rising bill.
1. Reliability Maine; 8% of $30 billion for Maine would be $2.4 billion in expense for Maine ratepayers. = rate hike = 2.400,000,000 / 560,000 =$ 4,2857 per household.
2. Efficiency Maine , a program that places a surtax on everyone’s electric bill. That’s an increase = rate hike.
3.Add a cent of stranded cost(biomass 1980’s) to your per kilowatt hour charges—‘cha-ching’.
4. Shutting Maine Yankee before its expected lifetime added one cent to two cents to your bill–“cha-cjing’
5. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) pushed by the NRCM——add another cent.–‘cha-ching’
6. Capacity payments, the payments made to standby-on-demand industrial and commercial electricity producers, yep, pushed by these environmentalists. One cent more—‘cha-ching’.
7. long-term contracts to the wind industry and conservation charges lobbied for by NRCM employees—another cent, ‘cha-ching’.
any more????
Just one more thing, we, the peopl,e subsidize the nuclear energy and fossil fuel industries.
We maintain a very large military presence in the Persian Gulf region for the express reason of keeping the shipping lanes open. That cost does not show up in the price of gas or heating oil but would increase that cost by a large margin.
The federal government mines, processes and transports the nuclear material necessary to run nuclear power plants and the US government undersigns (ie insures the industry against losses) because private insurance costs would be prohibative. If these costs were added to the price of electricity than nuclear power would be one of the most expensive, and dirty if you consider the environmental effects of mining uranium or the possible environmental damage of a meltdown, types of power. Not to mention we have no idea how to take care of the spent nuclear rods safely.
so..we are paying in our electric bills to stop that expense??? why?? did we have to buy out Maine Yankee?
In answer to alice mckay barnett:
Our state has a decommissioned plant, Maine Yankee, in Wiscasset, with an array of 64 “dry cask canisters” that hold the spent nuclear fuel rods and other radioactive materials.
This article states ( http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/03/16/politics/lepage-administration-still-eyeing-nuclear-despite-japan-crisis/ ):
“…ratepayers pick up the estimated $6 million to $8 million annual tab to store and monitor the radioactive fuel…” from the Wiscasset plant. Since 1996, that is an average of $7 million x 15 years = $105 million. And it produced NO electricity for us in those 15 years, just cost us money.
Well, since there is no other option for storing this poison, and it needs to be kept secure for the next 25,000 years… let’s do the arithmetic…that is $175,000,000,000, not counting for inflation. $175 Billion just in storage costs.That is just one plant, that produced electricity from 1972 to 1996, a real short 24 years…
How many of those plants are there? 104 working ones in the US, a good percentage of which are near earthquake zones, BTW.
I would rather see all of a large wind turbine farm blow over in a monster storm. Imagine: some twisted steel to haul out, several dozen trees knocked over, some soil erosion to repair—-versus-—thousands of cancer deaths, for decades and decades, hundreds of square miles as no-go zones, food supplies contaminated, etc. for a nuke plant.
Some people are just blind to the facts.
Thanks for the answer for Alice
Point made is……Hydro is constant and renewable…do not mess around with experimental.
So what if rate money goes to Canada..it is less money out of our pockets.
Quit with trial and error. Gas will fill the void (in the meantime) for oil.
Jeez I thought the PUC announced that electricity costs in northern AND southern Maine are going DOWN not up – even as we add more wind turbine capacity to the grid.
I guess they don’t watch FOX news or listen to Maine Heritage Policy Center propaganda.
CMP had millions of dollars in stranded costs due to canceled nuclear reactors it unwisely invested in…
The owners of Maine Yankee shut down the plant because it was uneconomic and they could not afford to keep it running.
Wind power outcompetes gas-fired electricity in NE ISO and lowers the cost of electricity for all.
RGGI money comes back to Maine the form of grants to businesses to lower their electric bills through conservation and installation renewable energy systems.
The GOP fools no one.
The glaring truth is that there is a lot of money being made on WIND FARMING; so much money that Fitts ‘lunched’ with a table of them, i.e. CIANBRO, etc. in the Cross Cafeteria yesterday, so much money that towns are being given numerous tax and other incentives by the wind farmers in an identical technique perfected by oil & gas leasing companies over the last century.
The governor’s bottom line is a level playing field for energy suppliers; right now the playing field is tilted heavily toward wind farms because they’ve been successful in keeping low cost hydro power out of the equation.
The ‘Achilles heel’ of this strategy is that the more we are forced to rely on wind; the more we have to have ‘instant on’ backup power AND THAT IS GAS-FIRED GENERATORS or as Europe has discovered, pumped storage hydro.
Maine has thousands of hydro-powered villages with dams and other infrastructure that once powered a village economy. Put them back into service and you have a LOCAL source of electricity that can be reliably used 80%+ of the time(unlike wind which only delivers 28% of the faceplate output).
Time to put hydro/tidal power back into as a local renewable that has multiple benefits and is sustainable.
Open Space would make the parcel eligible for a 20% reduction in the assessment. If the owner wishes to allow public access to the property then he would be eligible for an additional 25% reduction making it a 45% reduction in total. There are further levels of Open Space that may allow up to a 95% reduction
Unfortunately, tax losses from the Farmland and Open Space Programs are not reimbursed to the Town.
Hey enviro freaks, go ask Roxie if you can squat on her land… If you weren’t getting paid to take away people’s property rights, what job would you qualify for???
Who’s property rights have been taken away?
And you have a problem with Quimby’s property rights?
What a joke.