The federal government announced Friday that it plans significant investments in Maine to help boost the state’s lagging economy. Its cash infusion will follow a time-tested recipe: Put money into projects that already have proven results or that show great promise.
Perhaps more important than the money is the message it sends: With targeted investment and sustained support, industries can grow in Maine.
The grants and support from the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration are the result of a request from Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King and Rep. Bruce Poliquin. The three said they would ask for help from the Economic Development Assistance Program, which will send a team to Maine Aug. 17-19, in a long list of conditions they had for the creation of a national monument in the Katahdin region.
Just as the economic benefits of a monument would not be limited to a handful of towns along its boundaries, the federal government spread its financial support more broadly as well.
The Department of Commerce’s largest grant, for example, is a $1.6 million award to Central Maine Community College to expand its precision machining technology lab. The Auburn college’s Precision Machining Technology Center is the largest in the Northeast, and it operates around the clock to accommodate both students and businesses. Companies use the facility for employee training, product development and access to specialized equipment. Area companies expect to need an additional 900 precision machining employees in the next five years.
The next largest grant will go to C&L Aviation in Bangor. The $1.24 million from the Commerce Department accounts for a significant portion of the $3 million the company plans to use to renovate and grow its facilities in Bangor. The project will allow C&L to separate its work spaces for refurbishing corporate jets and regional jets, allowing it to do more work on both types of aircraft. It expects to hire 100 additional people over the next two years.
Three investments focus on the forest-products industry. Nearly $520,000 was awarded to Biobased Maine — a trade association that promotes the use of wood biomass for the production of biobased chemicals, materials and fuels — to develop a “road map” to advancing biobased manufacturing in the state. A grant of $345,000 will go to the Bangor Target Area Development Corp. in Orono to enable Twin Rivers Paper Co. to relocate its research and development operations from Montreal to Orono, where it will be in close proximity to the University of Maine’s Forest Bioproducts Research Institute. Twin Rivers operates a paper mill in Madawaska, one of the state’s six remaining paper mills. Finally, the Maine Development Foundation will receive $711,600 to build on the findings and recommendations made by the Maine Forest Economy Economic Development Assessment Team, which will tour the region later this month.
In addition, the Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency will invest $3.3 million in work underway at the University of Maine to use wood to make jet fuel.
With this support in place, it also makes sense for the delegation to support the creation of a national monument. Numerous studies have shown that preserved land, especially preserved land with the branding of the National Park Service, draws people to an area — both visitors and residents. Areas around national parks and national recreation areas, for example, saw greater employment growth and larger increases in personal income between 1970 and 2010 than did the United States as a whole.
“The future of EPI’s property is just one part of a greater need to improve economic opportunity in the Katahdin region,” King, Collins and Poliquin wrote to President Barack Obama in November when they asked for help from the Commerce Department. EPI is Elliotsville Plantation Inc., the foundation that seeks to donate more than 87,000 acres to the National Park Service for a national monument.
The future of that land, however, is an important part of that equation that, along with the investments announced Friday, can help diversify and grow the region’s and Maine’s economic opportunities.
