Bliss bill would outlaw idling

    State Rep. Lawrence Bliss (D-South Portland) has
submitted a clean air bill to the Maine State Legislature. The bill,
titled “An Act to Establish Clean Air – No Idling Zones,” was
referenced to the Transportation Committee recently.

The bill establishes the zones, with a dual purpose of protecting
public health and the environment by reducing tailpipe emissions and
conserving fuel by restricting the unnecessary operation of motor
vehicle engines.

    Idling produces unnecessary pollution that
contributes to climate change and smog, causes health problems, wastes
expensive fuel, and contributes to our dependence on foreign fuels,
according to Bliss.

    “Over 13 percent of Maine children suffer from
asthma,” Bliss said. “It’s the highest rate in New England. Vehicle
emissions can trigger asthma attacks and other respiratory and
cardiovascular health episodes. Vehicle emissions contribute air
toxics, as well as nitrogen oxides, which react with sunlight to form
ozone pollution. We should do what we can to minimize this clear risk
to our health and our economy.”

    The bill establishes as “Clean Air – No Idling”
zones areas within 100 feet of Maine State Ferry Service loading areas;
within 100 feet of state-controlled drawbridges and within 100 feet of
a public building that are designated as areas where smoking is
prohibited.

    The bill provides exceptions for on-duty emergency
vehicles, and vehicles with refrigeration units requiring engine power.



Eberle offers three environmental bills       

Rep. Jane Eberle, D-South Portland, submitted three environmental bills
recently that would help fight milfoil, promote municipal energy
conservation, and improve lake water quality by restricting phosphorus
use.

    “I am excited about these three bills and their
potential to protect our invaluable natural resources,” Eberle said.
“Preventing phosphorus and invasive plants from degrading our lakes and
streams, and reducing the carbon going into our air will help Maine
keep its environment and economy strong and its citizens healthy.”

    Eberle testified in front of the Legislature’s
Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee on LD 153, which would
streamline the milfoil sticker program by combining it with boat
registration. In-state residents would receive only one sticker that is
a combination boat registration/milfoil sticker. Out-of-state residents
would still have separate stickers.

    The program would create savings and generate
revenue to help fund the invasive plant prevention programs that have
been extremely successful in Maine due to the participation of lake
associations and volunteers partnering with the Department of
Environmental Protection and Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

    LD 645, An Act to Promote Municipal Energy
Conservation, would establish funding for grants to municipalities in
order to identify energy conservation measures and improvements to
municipal buildings and vehicle fleets. The bill would provide grants
of up to $40,000 for five to 10 municipalities annually. Eberle
presented the bill to the Utilities and Energy Committee, which has
oversight over the state’s energy providers, and considers bills aimed
at improving efficiency.

    The third bill, LD 587, would protect lake water by
banning the sale or use of fertilizers that contain phosphorous for
most household use. Phosphorous runoff has been linked to algae blooms,
which can lead to decreased fish populations due to lack of oxygen in
the water. Eberle presented the bill to the Natural Resources
Committee, of which she is a member.



Dill seeks study of NH tax policy

    Rep. Cynthia Dill, D-Cape Elizabeth, challenged the
Taxation Committee to address tax reform by conducting a bi-partisan
study of the tax structure in New Hampshire, since the state is a
constant point of reference in the debate on tax reform.

    “If there are things that New Hampshire is doing
that we should be doing, we need to seriously consider them,” Dill
said. “Otherwise, explode the New Hampshire myth.”

    New Hampshire is one of only two states in the
nation with neither a broad-based income tax nor a significant sales
tax. The other is Alaska. According to a report by Governing magazine,
New Hampshire ranks 50th in the nation for overall tax burden, which
measures state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income.
Conversely, Maine ranks second in the nation, though the disparity
between the neighboring states results in part from a disparity in per
capita income. Whereas New Hampshire is ranked seventh in the nation,
Maine is ranked 34th.

    “The best solution to lowering our tax burden may be raising the incomes of Mainers,” Dill said.

    The New Hampshire coast benefits from a close
proximity to Boston and serves as a bedroom community to commuters with
high-paying Massachusetts jobs. New Hampshire is also approximately
half the geographic size of Maine, with fewer roads and rural
communities to service for a similarly sized population.

    However, an increasingly tumultuous relationship
between taxes and public education has called into question the
sustainability of New Hampshire’s tax structure. After a 1999 Supreme
Court decision challenged the state’s minimal contribution to public
education, the New Hampshire Legislature had to assist localities with
$900 million a year, nearly half of which had to come from new
revenues, including a new state property tax.

   

Cap and trade comes to Maine?

    Maine lawmakers recently joined Governor Baldacci to
support a broad new consensus plan to limit global warming causing CO2
emissions in Maine, crafted by what may have seemed liked an unlikely
alliance between some of Maine’s largest commercial and industrial
businesses and leading environmental advocacy groups.

    The coalition of business and environmental leaders
worked with Baldacci, state lawmakers, and the Department of
Environmental Protection to craft a bill that could make Maine one of
the first states to take legislative action on the multi-state
agreement to fight global warming, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas
Initiative, “RGGI” known as “Reggie”.

    According to Speaker of the House Glenn Cummings,
the consensus between environmental and industrial leaders in Maine
represents a breakthrough on the issue of global warming, and makes
Maine a model for progress in the region and in the nation.

    In addition to Maine, nine other New England and
Mid-Atlantic States have signed onto RGGI, including New Hampshire,
Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, New
Jersey, New York, and Maryland.

    The multi-state RGGI plan would cut emissions of the
global warming pollutant CO2, by using a flexible market-based “cap and
trade” system that would control the right to emit by setting an
overall emissions cap, but would allow companies to trade carbon
credits to meet their emission requirements.

    The free market system would provide flexibility to
companies to reduce emissions in a cost-effective manner, while
providing incentives by allowing more efficient plants to sell their
allowances to plants that have trouble making reductions.

    The bill would use the revenue from the sale of the
carbon allowances to create a trust fund that would invest the money in
energy efficiency projects for both residential and commercial energy
consumers, helping to lower long-term energy costs and make Maine more
economically competitive.

    The consensus plan also includes a price “safety
valve.” Under the new proposal, if the price of carbon allowances rises
over five dollars per ton, any of the additional revenue would be
returned directly to consumers through credits on their electricity
bills, to ensure that the cost of electricity is not affected.

President Greg Sweetser of the Ski Maine Association, which operates
several resorts and ski mountains, was one of the large commercial
business leaders that joined the governor and Democratic and Republican
lawmakers to announce support for the new consensus plan.

“The Maine ski industry contributes more than $300 million dollars to
the Maine economy annually, as well as providing healthy, outdoor,
winter recreation to tens of thousand of Maine skiers,” said
Sweetser.  “Climate change obviously threatens our industry and we
support legislation that is properly designed to mitigate climate
change. This legislation, as presently written, is a step forward.”

The RGGI consensus bill is sponsored by Governor Baldacci, Rep.
Koffman, Sen. Phil Bartlett, D-Gorham, and co-sponsored by a
bi-partisan group of lawmakers.  The bill was referenced by the
Legislature on Wednesday, and will have a public hearing in the coming
weeks.