The BDN Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom, and does not set policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.
The full Maine Legislature convened in the State House in January for the first time in nearly two years. Lawmakers had a lengthy agenda and a lot of money to spend. The money helped make much of the ambitious agenda a reality.
From affordable housing, utility accountability, and college education to PFAS contamination, substance use disorder and sexual assult in the military, the second session of the 130th Maine Legislature should be remembered as a session that began amid concerns about rising COVID cases and ended with significant progress on a number of contentious and complex issues.
This session, which has been extended for a day in May, began with positive financial news as state revenue forecasters twice revamped their predictions for the state’s revenues in upcoming years, with a tally of $1.2 billion in expected excess revenue.
Gov. Janet Mills, building on a Republican idea, early this year committed to sending a significant portion of that revenue back to taxpayers and $850 check will soon be sent to most of the state’s taxpayers.
This was not the only significant investment that came through the governor’s supplemental budget proposal, which also included $20 million to fund free community college for the high school classes of 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 who saw their educations disrupted by the pandemic. Additional funding for Maine’s public university system allowed them to not raise tuition.
The budget, enacted by the Legislature with strong bipartisan support, also includes $60 million to establish a fund to begin to address the growing problem of PFAS contamination of land and water in Maine. Lawmakers also passed laws to stop the spreading of sludge containing PFAS on Maine farmland and to tighten state law to prohibit the importation of out-of-state construction and demolition debris to Maine landfills.
Three bills backed by tribes in Maine dominated the waning days of legislative action. While the larger question of tribal sovereignty remains unanswered as a comprehensive bill has been pushed to May, when the Legislature will convene for a day to consider vetoes from the governor, significant progress may be at hand. The Legislature passed and the governor signed a bill to enable the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point to regulate drinking water for its residents. A bill that would give tribes some tax relief and control over mobile sports betting, which would be new in Maine, awaits the governor’s signature. Mills said she would veto that bill, which her office helped negotiate, if the larger sovereignty bill comes to her desk.
In a letter to the tribes last week, the governor asked the tribes to end their efforts to pass the sovereignty bill but called for continued negotiations between her office and the tribes. Such negotiations must continue and can be bolstered by the progress made this session.
The Legislature also enacted a law to strengthen utility accountability by requiring the Public Utilities Commission to set metrics for evaluating performance of Maine’s electric utilities and to set penalties for poor performance. This bill comes largely in response to years of customer dissatisfaction with the state’s largest electric utility, Central Maine Power, which has been plagued by billing and reliability problems.
Another new law requires the PUC to speed up work to modernize Maine’s electrical grid for the development and delivery of cleaner energy and to support the electrification of transportation and heating, which are part of the state’s Climate Action Plan.
On one of the most pressing issues facing Maine – affordable housing – lawmakers took modest steps to modernize zoning and allow more dense housing development.
At the end of session, lawmakers funded the beginning of a public advocate system for defendants who cannot afford legal representation. Lawmakers approved nearly $1 million for a rural public defender unit, a group of five defenders who will travel throughout the state. This does not solve the problem of Maine’s inadequate indigent defense system, but it is a step in the right direction.
In another surprise, recovery advocates and Gov. Mills reached a compromise on a bill to improve Maine’s Good Samaritan law, which protects some people from prosecution if they call for help for someone who has overdosed.
The governor also signed a law that calls for new investigations in how the Maine National Guard handles allegations of sexual assault.
This is by no means a comprehensive list of the work done by the 130th Legislature. But, it shows that, at a time when we appear politically divided, Maine lawmakers and the governor deserve credit for making important progress on many challenging issues.
