Legislative Updates

Keeping everything in perspective this week, the most important news is that Deputy Director Krysta West had an 8lbs. 6 oz baby boy named William James West on Tuesday. We wish them well while Krysta is out on leave.  The legislature is working diligently to finish committee work by next Friday the 26th. Committees will vote […]

This week, Governor Mills introduced the second part to the biennial budget in the form of a $900 million spending package. The language has not yet been released, but it is reported that the package contains $432 million in new spending and $455 million in transfers, bringing the overall budget to just over $10.3 billion.

This was yet another busy week in Augusta as committees work overtime to complete the work before them. The timing of this session is unprecedented, with nearly 3oo bills yet to be printed and referenced to committees of jurisdiction. Even so, committees have until the end of this month to wrap up their work to

As we enter the month of May, the pace continues to pick up in Augusta with the traditional two-week public hearing notice now reduced to just two days. This means that as bills continue to be printed and referenced to committees of jurisdiction, there will be very little time for the public to analyze details to

While this was a shorter week than normal due to the holiday on Monday, legislative committees have continued to push through the enormous workload that remains. The pace continuously increases as bills are printed and referenced to committees of jurisdiction. With just shy of 1,800 bills printed, roughly 400 remain in draft form, yet the

This was yet another busy week in Augusta as committees work their way through an unusually high volume of bills. With roughly 500 bills yet to be printed and assigned to committees and roughly one month left for committees to complete work for the year, the pressure is on. In order to accommodate this work

This week committees quickened the pace, with the standard two-week notice period for public hearings being reduced to a one-week notice period. What this means is that from here on out, we will have less time to mobilize our membership around certain bills of interest, so keep an eye on your inbox for our communications. We will

This was yet another busy week in Augusta with committees in full swing working through the large volume of bills presented this session. At this point, the Revisor’s Office has drafted language for just over 1,400 of the 2,200 bills. A number of high profile and complex bills are still in the drafting process, yet

This was a busy week in Augusta for the Council, as there were many moving parts and a number of bills we unfortunately had to play defense on. On Monday, the Council testified before the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee in support of LD 1048, “An Act Regarding the Authority of Municipalities to Regulate Timber Harvesting.”

Committees were hard at work this week in Augusta working their way through a number of bills of interest, but before we dive into the previous week, I would first like to draw your attention to two bills that are scheduled for public hearings next week that are opposed by the Maine Forest Products Council.