This week was a bit of a whirlwind with an evening session and a second Senate session day scheduled to work on the Supplemental Budget that contained critical funding to implement an Early Intervention Strategy on roughly 300,000 acres of Aroostook County this spring. This funding, in combination with federal and private dollars, is necessary for a successful spray program this spring. Unfortunately, after many weeks of back and forth and deliberations, LD 209 reached the end of the road yesterday afternoon after coming within one vote on final enactment.
While we are disappointed with this outcome, we understand that this funding was held up over disagreements that were well beyond our mission and what we are trying to achieve.
This spring, when the spruce budworm larvae emerge, our state will be faced with a quickly mounting natural disaster. The timing for the Early Intervention Program is critical; too much is at stake for Maine’s economy and environment to get this wrong. This remains the most important initiative of the session for the forest products industry and for rural Maine.
We remain hopeful that legislators will quickly identify another vehicle to move this important initiative forward on its own as emergency legislation, and we are thankful for the outpouring of bipartisan support that this issue has received. Thanks to all of our members that have taken the time to engage with legislators in support of the spruce budworm early intervention program.
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This week, we also engaged on a few other issues including LD 161, a bill to convene a stakeholder group tasked with overhauling our subdivision laws and LD 820, a bill proposing an amendment to our state constitution to establish a right to hunt and fish. The Council has taken a “neither for nor against” position on both bills in order to highlight some member concerns. Our testimony on LD 161 can be found here and our testimony on LD 820 can be found here.
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Looking to the week ahead, our team will be active in a number of committees on behalf of our membership (see preview below), but we would like to quickly bring your attention to LD 870, “An Act Regarding the Membership of the Maine Land Use Planning Commission.” This is the first bill that we will oppose this session before the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee, and our opposition to this proposal is unified and strong.
As drafted, this bill would bring us back to the dark days of LURC by diluting the voice of local residents and businesses within the Unorganized Territories (UT) by eliminating requirements for the governor’s appointee(s) to have a connection to the jurisdiction. The proposal also increases the number of appointees by the governor from one to five, implements a limit of two terms, restricting the flexibility that is rightfully granted to each UT county to appoint representatives of their choosing, and reduces the time that counties have to fill vacancies from 90 days to just 30. If counties are unable to fill a vacancy within the new unrealistic timeframe, they would lose the opportunity to appoint a designee of their choosing and the governor would fill the vacancy instead.
This bill is an aggressive attempt to restrict the opportunity of the residents and businesses in and around the UT to determine their own destiny, and it flies in the face of recommendations made by the Commission on Reform of the Governance of Land Use Planning in the Unorganized Territories in December of 2011. It is all around a bad idea, and it is unclear what problem this bill is trying to solve.
WE URGE OUR MEMBERS TO JOIN US IN TESTIFYING IN STRONG OPPOSITION TO LD 870
WHO: Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee
WHAT: Submit testimony online or join us in testifying in strong opposition to LD 870, “An Act Regarding the Membership of the Maine Land Use Planning Commission.”
WHEN: Thursday, March 20 at 1:00 PM
WHERE: Room 214 of the Cross Office Building or sign up to testify online/submit testimony online here.
Special interest groups looking to gain a seat on the Land Use Planning Commission are rallying their members in support of this legislation, so please make your voices heard!
That’s all for now. Should you have any questions about our policy positions, or if you have any questions about how to testify on Thursday, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Pat Strauch and Krysta West
Maine Forest Products Council