A climate denier had no place in EPA
At the end of December, I was with a dozen other Mainers who met with U.S. Sen. Susan Collins’ staff in Bangor to express our opposition to Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt. Pruitt doesn’t believe the EPA has the authority to protect Americans from the dangers of climate change — he even claims it is not real.
Should Pruitt be confirmed, the agency in charge of safeguarding our public health will be dictated by the dirty energy agenda, not by science-based evidence. In fact, a New York Times investigation revealed that Pruitt was part of an “ unprecedented, secretive alliance” with big fossil fuel companies.
As one of several attorneys general suing the very agency he is supposed to lead, Pruitt is determined to roll back the Clean Power Plan — the only tool we have right now to fight climate change. The Clean Power Plan sets the first ever federal limits on carbon pollution from power plants, and it would prevent up to 3,600 premature deaths and 90,000 asthma attacks in children every year by 2030, according to the EPA.
Our planet is in crisis. Every year there are more failed states and millions more refugees in a cascade effect that destabilizes still more countries. There’s no time for denial. When it comes to the EPA, there’s no place for a polluter puppet. We need a government that works. I urge Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King to vote against Pruitt’s confirmation.
Mark Whiting
Ellsworth
Tables have turned on Democrats
What I find to be truly amazing is that when the Democrats, led by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, were in control of the U.S. Senate with President Barack Obama in the White House, whenever the Republicans asked question the fitness of Obama’s nominees or various pieces legislation Obama was proposing, Republicans were accused of being obstructionist. Reid even went so far as to pull the trigger on the so-called “nuclear option” to eliminate filibusters to force through Obama’s judicial nominees for lower branch courts with a simple majority vote rather than two-thirds.
Now, the glove is on the Republicans’ hand, and it is the Democrats, now led by U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, who want to slow-walk President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees and are threatening to bring Congress to a dead stop if they don’t get their way.
In January 2009, when Republican were arguing with Obama about items to include in the stimulus package, Obama reportedly said, most prophetically, “ I won.”
What has changed? Aren’t the Democrats being as obstructionist now as the Republicans were then? My mother used to say, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” Those words are as true today as they were six decades ago, when I was growing up.
William Chapman
Rockport
Collins must fight ACA repeal
After 13 years working for the Bucksport mill, a changing economy cost me my job, just as has happened to families across rural Maine. Putting in a hard day’s work allowed you to provide for your family and ensure access to medical care. Now that the mill has closed, I’ll be going back to school so I can continue providing for myself. While at school, I will be one of the thousands of Mainers receiving insurance through the health care marketplace, if Sen. Susan Collins will let me.
Collins holds a pivotal vote in the Senate with regard to protecting our health care. Her vote will determine whether I finish school. Her vote will decide how many people with pre-existing conditions die. Her vote will impact the cost of prescription drugs for seniors and access to doctors’ visits for kids. She will decide whether cancer patients die hitting lifetime caps and how many people will go bankrupt because of medical bills.
As union jobs continue to decrease and be replaced with poverty wage jobs without benefits, it is more crucial that our public health care programs cover every single American. What’s more, corporations’ keeping the extra money that used to cover our health care is a major contributor to wealth inequality today. If Collins votes for an Affordable Care Act repeal, it would be another major tax break for corporations.
So I find it disturbing that Collins voted to move forward a piece of legislation that would leave Mainers with no safety net and no help.
Linda Murch
Bangor
Don’t throw seniors down the ‘doughnut hole’
I’m 74 years old, and like many seniors in the United States I benefit from the Affordable Care Act. Earlier this year, I was hospitalized for six days with a severe case of pneumonia. Despite having Medicare and not having insurance through the marketplace, as a Medicare recipient I reaped the benefits of a lesser known part of the law: the closing of the Medicare “doughnut hole,” which gives seniors like me a huge cut in our prescription drug costs.
I also am a retired nurse, and I practiced before the Affordable Care Act became law. I know all too well what health care was like before this provision. We frequently had seniors come into the emergency room who told us they had been prescribed medicine they were only taking at half-doses or taking them half the time because they couldn’t afford the refills.
This is medically dangerous, and it becomes expensive to the senior and our medical system, as Medicare winds up paying for the hospital visit resulting from this practice. I am terrified about the possibility that President-elect Donald Trump and Congress will reopen that doughnut hole.
Even more terrifying is the apparent complacency of Sen. Susan Collins in allowing that to happen. Collins supported a procedural vote that would allow for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, leaving countless people like me to choose between bare necessities and the prescriptions that save our lives.
Richard Bissell
Bangor