Blog Posts

New York Times Story on Maine's Demographic Winter

9/19/2016

From my perspective, the the two most important issues facing our state are issues relating to climate change and demographics. These two factors profoundly touch on every aspect of Maine's economy and identity, from likely changes in our natural resource economy, sea level rise threatening our coastal communities, to work force availability, education policy, and tax base, just to name a few. These issues are even more vexing because they are long-term problems where any solution or mitigation is going to need to go beyond one legislature, one gubernatorial administration, and, truly, one generation.

I was honored to have been consulted on this story, which deals with immigration to Maine. While immigration is certainly not the only answer to our demographic puzzle, it is going to have to play an important role, and current administration policies (as well as those being favored on the Federal level by one of the Presidential Candidates) are doing nothing to encourage it.

Here's the Story by NYT reporter Kit Seelye.

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Solar Meltdown at end of Session: A Bitter Disappointment.

5/2/2016

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As you likely know by now, we were unable to muster the votes needed to override the Governor's veto of the solar bill. This was is a bitter disappointment for me, and represents a victory of "feelings over facts" about the nature of this power source, and this very bold bill.

We lost by just a handful of votes - 3 or 4. Adding insult to injury is the fact that no fewer than five Republicans decided to "take a walk" during the voting, suggesting that they did not have the courage let their positions be shown, likely because they were so out of sync with their own constituents on this issue. As he was urging his members to vote against this measure, Minority Leader Ken Fredette emphasized that "Republicans Support Solar." I find that a very difficult statement to reconcile with what I saw yesterday.

I am very frustrated by the fact that there is now very little regulatory certainty for people across Maine who installed solar arrays based on a set of ground rules that have been in place for a long time. I am equally concerned about the fine growing businesses that have taken hold in Maine to meet what, until now, was a steadily growing market for solar power.

I do want to express my sincere thanks to those members who worked hard on this issue, especially my colleagues Marty Grohman, Bobby Beavers, Chris Babbidge, Deane Rykerson, Jennifer DeChant, Norm Higgins and Mark Dion; I am very grateful for the extraordinary hard work of Assistant Majority Leader Sara Gideon who negotiated this down to the last minute, when Paul LePage signed the veto letter in her presence; and I appreciate the innovative thinking of our public advocate (and Portland neighbor) Tim Schneider, who determined how this bill would save money for all ratepayers.

I appreciated every one of the hundreds of calls, letters, hall visits and communications I received - not one of them suggested that this was something to vote against. Not one. Not one told me how this was going to raise costs for ratepayers - because, of course, that was only a mythological reason to oppose this.

This was a bill that had the support of solar installers, CMP, municipalities, various environmental advocacy groups, and others (including the Public Advocate, who represents ratepayers). I really appreciated that this was crafted in collaboration with all those groups, and I hope that coalition will continue to work on solving this issue.

WHAT"S NEXT:

Time to move on - good solar policy will happen eventually, of that I am confident. But in the meantime, I am very sorry that we could not provide a framework to support those who have already invested in this power source, and to allow solar energy to start making some of the inroads it has made in other New England states. This issue now lies with the Public Utilities Commission, an agency with a narrow mandate that does not necessarily take into consideration ancillary benefits to the state and society of solar power. We don't know yet when they will be taking this issue up - but I will certainly pass the relevant information along once it's available. While they may not be amenable to proactive solar regulation, there is some likelihood that they might be receptive to "grandfathering" those people, like many of you, who have invested in home solar.

I can also virtually guarantee that this legislation will be back - There is also talk of a referendum campaign. Neither of these would be immediate fixes, but it's clear to me that this issue is not going to disappear.

My fingers are crossed, which is not exactly the most effective policy strategy, but that's the one we currently have open to us.

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Bangor Daily News: Students Urge Maine Lawmakers to Support Arts Education

3/25/2016

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On March 24, the State House was swarmed by a lively group of middle and high school kids arriving to advocate for the importance of arts education in the schools. I was delighted to meet with several of them who had come from Portland, including Maeve Porter Holliday and Maggie Ruff.

All too often art, theater, music and dance are dismissed as expendible items in a society that is ever more focused on so-called "STEM" education. To be sure I support STEM, though, as a person who has had a career in cultural administration, and one who is married to a person with degrees in both English and Engineering, I am a strong believer in the importance of both domains if any education is worthy of the name. You can read the whole story of the kids and their message here:

https://bangordailynews.com/2016/03/24/living/students-urge-maine-lawmakers-to-support-art-education/?ref=moreInstate

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So Long Cary, Farewell Oxbow

3/22/2016

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Next week or maybe the week after, I’ll be voting to end the existence of two Maine towns. I’ve taken votes like this before and I am guessing that these will likely occur without any floor debate and without opposition, reflecting the desires of local residents. The deorganization of a town is always a poignant moment, and it’s one that I think deserves more notice than it gets, tucked into a corner of the House agenda, along with water district and rural cemetery charter changes.
Just a few weeks after these votes pass, both former towns will become part of Maine’s unorganized territory. This is a vast region, with a land area larger than Maryland, but with a population of just around 8,000 people. Consider that Portland’s average population density is over 3,000 people per square mile, and it quickly becomes clear that trying to maintain even a skeletal municipal government in the most rural areas of Maine becomes costly. As the industries that created these communities in the first place (lumbering mostly) shrink and become less locally based, many of our smallest towns are simply fading out of existence. I’ve not found exact statistics, but it appears that at least half a dozen Maine townships have deorganized in recent years, ceding their self-government, and becoming mere names on a map, just wide spots on rural roads. Later this month, the municipalities of Oxbow and Cary Plantation, both in Aroostook County, will join that list.

We often hear that Maine has the oldest population in the nation, and deorganizations like this directly illustrate the problem. My office mate, the walking history book known as Representative John Martin, notes that “there’s just nobody left in these places except for few elderly folks. No students, no jobs.” And while it’s not likely that any policy change will reverse this trend for Oxbow and Cary, shifts like these point up the need to keep our population growing and our young people in Maine. This is a tall order, but it’s going to involve for starters, proper funding of public education at all levels, encouragement of diversity and immigration, and extensions of some of the business development efforts that have helped make greater Portland and Bangor the engines for whole regions. In my estimation, our aging population is the number one challenge facing Maine. And if we fail to find a way to change that, the consequences are serious—whether in a deepening inability for Maine businesses to find workers, or in a shrinking tax base, or even in our state losing national clout in going from two to just one representatives in the US Congress, a likely outcome of the next census, if current trends persist.

So as we say farewell to Oxbow and Cary—and it will be a quiet farewell—I’d like to raise a toast before I press the button. Alas, that’s not permitted in the Maine House, so instead, I’ll urge you to see this not as something happening to a few folks up near Canada, but as something happening to all of us across Maine, something in which we all have a stake and of which we should all take notice.

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Op-Ed: Tax Breaks at the Expense of Students

2/16/2016

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The tax conformity debate in the State House boils down to this: Democrats are fighting against an unproven tax giveaway that would come at the expense of Maine students and taxpayers. Democrats and Republicans are in complete agreement that Maine should fully conform to the federal tax code for the next two years. We are delighted that Republicans can agree with President Barack Obama and other Democrats that the middle class and small businesses deserve the tax breaks in the federal tax code.
We’re glad they’re on board with adding mortgage insurance to the mortgage interest deduction, making higher education and child care more affordable and providing deductions to teachers who use their own money to provide supplies in their classrooms. We’re glad that they recognize the importance of incentives for small businesses like mom-and-pop ice cream parlors and flower shops and for Mainers who make a living as plumbers, carpenters, fishermen and loggers.
Republicans and Democrats part ways on a questionable tax break called the Maine Capital Investment Credit.

Read The Complete Op-Ed Here:
http://www.centralmaine.com/2016/02/16/tax-breaks-hurt-maine-students/

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A Look Back at the First Session of the 127th Legislature

12/10/2015

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The Maine Legislature limped across the finish line during the summer, having endured six months of bruising work and narrowly avoiding a state shutdown. It did not have to be that way, but contention and division have become the hallmarks of governance during this frustrating period. It’s one where Maine is beginning to feel a little too much like Washington. Whether one measures dysfunction by the hundreds (!) of vetoes, the Governor’s choice to withhold voter-approved bonds, the state boards and commissions being hobbled by a lack of appointments, or by various bizarre diversions from the important business that the state is facing, nothing seems to be running smoothly. Add to it all a steady beat of anti-Portland rhetoric, and the picture, though not without some notable bright spots, is pretty bleak.

I am the first to acknowledge the validity of different political viewpoints, even those I don’t agree with, but only harm comes when arguments turn personal, and “my-way-or-the-highway” politics become the norm. This fall, the most frequent comment I’ve heard from people is some version of “I don’t know how you stand it up there”. And while my standard response has been to smile and acknowledge that I don’t know either, I want to reiterate that despite the difficulties, I’m grateful to represent this city. We are getting things done, and –perhaps just as significantly-- we have been able to block some very bad policies from taking effect.

We found funds to rebuild the Hall Elementary School, to support the rail improvements at the international Marine terminal, and expand the homestead exemption. We increased funding for higher and K-12 education, and we passed legislation encouraging local community renewable energy. We also stopped the Governor’s devastating cuts proposed for the Drugs for the Elderly program and a dangerous weakening of mining rules, just to note a few examples.

There’s every indication that the upcoming session will continue to be a roller coaster ride, likely to be made worse by posturing around next year’s critical election. That said, I remain what is probably best described as a “pathological optimist” – I believe that good things can happen when we focus on the immediate work at hand, bill by bill, issue by issue. And while that’s not necessarily the expansive statewide vision I would prefer, it is a pragmatic approach to assure that we will, at the end of next year, continue to make progress, regardless of what happens around us. I’m grateful for my talented and very hard working colleagues in the Portland delegation, and for the hard work of city officials, led by Mayor Brennan, who has been relentless in coordinating our efforts, and advocating for this city and its needs.

As for the coming session, I’d just urge you to hold on tight.

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Tempest in a Cat Food Can

4/3/2015

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Recently I have received dozens of letters decrying the Governor's plan to remove a $20 surcharge being paid to Maine by pet food manufacturers. It's $20 per year on each product being sold. Not $20 per truckload, or $20 per case - just one charge of $20 per product. And there's more: home-based pet food makers are exempt. This modest surcharge helps pay for spaying an neutering of unwanted pets, and it's a contributor to the fact that we are among the states with the lowest incidences of euthanasia. I am opposed to this proposal to provide "tax relief" to an industry that is clearly not having any difficulty in selling its products here.

When you buy a car battery or tires you pay a fee to help offset the environmental costs. My clumsy analogy is that un-spayed / neutered animals are an environmental side effect to domestic pets, and a robust (and easily funded) spay and neuter program is both humane and economical. I am the happy owner of a succession of shelter cats. Maine's animal shelter system has done a great deal to manage the problem of unwanted pets - our very low rate of euthanasia is almost certainly the result of the Help Fix Me program.

I am very pleased to report that as of yesterday, the Agriculture Committee voted unanimously to drop this proposal from the budget. It's not dead yet, but it's been dealt, I am happy to say, a severe blow. You could say it's been spayed.

Mr. Johnson, pictured above, doesn't vote and in general has a very limited interest in public policy. But even he, who deals more directly with this issue than anyone else in our household, surely could not fail to find appropriateness in this basic mechanism to help solve a very specific problem

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Voting While Holding My Nose

2/14/2015

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Every year, the Legislature passes a tax conformity bill to keep Maine law in conformity with the Federal tax code. This year, one of the provisions that the Federal Government adopted was to extend so-called "Bonus Depreciation", which allows companies to accelerate the depreciation on equipment that they purchase - if done as a one-time measure at the start of a year, there is an argument that businesses thinking about buying equipment will be moved to do so, thereby stimulating the economy. But like "tax amnesty" plans these things don't work as stimulus if they take place year after year. This year, the Federal government extended bonus depreciation right around Christmas - at a time when any purchases made in 2014 would have already occurred.

So when it came time to conform Maine to Federal law, a bonus depreciation component was added to the bill. We explored a number of ideas to use the cost of this piece (around $10,000,000) to accomplish something else, such as property tax relief or early childhood education, but we counted and did not have the votes to accomplish that.

I don't think the Federal Government providing a post-facto "incentive" of this sort accomplishes much of anything, It's a dumb policy.

That said it's not a policy that benefits just giant corporations, which is how it has been characterized. Indeed, it will provide accelerated depreciation for equipment purchases for more than 4000 Maine businesses, the vast majority of which are small businesses, many of which are sole proprietors, and a lot of whom are in Portland. I'm sure it benefits big business too, but as I looked at the list of distribution of payees, they were not the bulk of the beneficiaries.

It's also worth noting that because this is a depreciation schedule change, it's money that will come to the state anyway - on a different schedule. True this provides a sort of no-interest loan to these businesses, but it's worth noting that our revenues this year are up by about $5m thanks to Bonus depreciation granted in years past. It does not make this less of a stupid policy, but it's not quite the giveaway that opponents have described it as.

For that reason, I supported the conformity bill (with my nose held around the bonus depreciation issue) AND in recognition of the fact that there are other provisions in the bill that benefit schoolteachers who use out of pocket funds for their classrooms, mortgage holders, and other small businesses. If the whole tax conformity bill went down because of the bonus depreciation issue it would have been a disaster.

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Skeletal Holiday Greetings

12/20/2014

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Stevens Memorial Hospital is a "critical access hospital" - a small facility serving the rural community of Norway, Maine. I had the opportunity tour the hospital on Tuesday as part of an effort to better understand the rural health care network in Maine, where, as with so many other services, our dispersed population makes it difficult to cover every town. I was impressed by the level of care being provided there, and enjoyed many of the staff members. One of the more memorable parts of the tour included this bulletin board in the X-ray department.

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My Time with the Supremes

12/11/2014

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In early December I had the opportunity to spend a day at the Cumberland County Court House, where I had a chance to view various aspects of the judicial system as it operates in Maine. The volume of the people moving through the system, the thinness of the staffing, the critical aspect of the indigent legal aid system, and the frequent complexity and nuance of almost every case are challenges. I was greatly impressed by the care and "customization" provided by the various judges and court staff as they sort through this massive workload. My impression was that the judges went out of their way to provide respectful, fair, and humane treatment of those who came before them.

My question is how can we slow down the volume of cases in this strained system? Our criminal code is way overdue for an overhaul - and aspects like mandatory minimum sentences are among the issues that are causing the most trouble. The other thing that was abundantly clear was the need to find a way to assure support for indigent legal services, which are in constant demand and chronically underfunded.

I also had a chance to briefly view the Maine Supreme Court, which happened to be in session that day, which led to the photo taken above. Thanks to Chief Justice Sauffley for taking the time to answer my questions, and for suggesting that we take a picture!

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Forward>>

New York Times Story on Maine's Demographic Winter

Solar Meltdown at end of Session: A Bitter Disappointment.

Bangor Daily News: Students Urge Maine Lawmakers to Support Arts Education

So Long Cary, Farewell Oxbow

Op-Ed: Tax Breaks at the Expense of Students

A Look Back at the First Session of the 127th Legislature

Tempest in a Cat Food Can

Voting While Holding My Nose

Skeletal Holiday Greetings

My Time with the Supremes

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