LePage, P gov

==<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/susan-collins-celebrates-the-return-of-divisive-paul-lepage-to-maine-politics/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/susan-collins-celebrates-the-return-of-divisive-paul-lepage-to-maine-politics/</a>=
Maine Gov. Paul LePageAround the world, private firms have been given “carte blanche rights to mine local groundwater supplies at the expense of local populations, say experts.” In 1997, Swiss food giant Nestlé signed a contract with the privately- owned water services provider in Fryeburg, Maine, to buy freshwater in bulk for its Poland Spring brand of bottled water. Fearing that large-scale commercial water exploitation would lead to groundwater depletion and the Saco River drying up, the town of Fryeburg enacted a Land Use Ordinance that required that any company pumping more than 10,000 gallons of water a day get approval from the planning board. With a constant stream of litigation and appeals, however, Fryeburg Water Co. was able to buy time while continuing its moneymaking sideline business without interruption.Read the rest by Jonas Persson and Mary Bottari -- LePage Supports Pumping Public Water for Private Gain -- on PRWatch.<div>
</div>only non- deep confederate state to oppose LEED?3/19<ol start="3" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 50px; list-style: none; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal;">Paul LePage says whites will become “forgotten people” if the Electoral College is eliminated.</li></ol><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which seeks to nullify the Electoral College, is now being debated in the state of Maine. But the state’s former Republican governor, Paul LePage, opposes it — and gave an eyebrow-raising <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/former-gop-governor-if-we-abolish-the-electoral-college-whites-will-become-forgotten-people/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">explanation</a> in an <a href="https://www.wvomfm.com/episode/ghrt-rewind-02-26-frm-gov-paul-lepage-1315/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">interview</a> with WVOM on Tuesday.<div class="p18_34" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“What would happen if they do what they say they’re gonna do is white people will not have anything to say,” said LePage. “It’s only going to be the minorities that would elect. It would be California, Texas, Florida … we’re gonna be forgotten people.”<div class="p19_34" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is nonsense. Adopting a popular vote would make everyone’s vote count equally. In fact, while the Electoral College does <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/11/22/13713148/electoral-college-democracy-race-white-voters" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">benefit many white voters</a>, it outright disenfranchises tens of millions of others. In California, 4.4 million voters backed Trump, including <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/california/president" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">45 percent</a> of the non-Hispanic white electorate, and yet California awarded zero of its electoral votes to Trump. Under a popular vote, all of those votes would be counted too.<div class="p20_34" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LePage, who once <a href="https://www.pressherald.com/2016/01/07/lepage-accused-of-making-racist-comment-at-bridgton-meeting/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">said</a> drug dealers named “D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty” were impregnating “young white girl[s]” in his state and implied Hispanics <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/26/this-is-gov-paul-richard-lepage-i-would-like-to-talk-to-you-about-your-comments-about-my-being-a-racist-you-expletive/?utm_term=.f370accf3fb5" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">should be shot</a>, is clearly just thinking of how white voters elected Trump while the popular vote as a whole didn’t. But putting white power over democracy is a dangerous game.=https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/now-joe-arpaio-wants-run-jeff-flakes-senate-seat...Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff who has had several brushes with the law of his own, is thinking about running for the open Senate seat that will be vacated at the end of 2018 by the retiring Jeff Flake. Arpaio <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/arizona-sheriff-joe-arpaio-strongly-senate-run/story?id=51660980" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told ABC News</a> he was "strongly considering" mounting a run, and also <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/sheriff-joe-arpaio-not-interested-in-trent-franks-seatbut-seriously-seriously-seriously-considering-the-us-senatehttps://www.thedailybeast.com/sheriff-joe-arpaio-not-interested-in-trent-franks-seatbut-seriously-seriously-seriously-considering-the-us-senate" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told the Daily Beast</a> Thursday that he wanted to take Flake's seat.Given the Republican electorate's recent willingness to overlook controversial candidates like Donald Trump and Alabama's Roy Moore, he might have a chance.Arpaio, 85, came back into the national spotlight in August after he was <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/08/25/trump-issues-friday-night-pardon-for-sheriff-joe-arpaio/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">issued a presidential pardon by Trump</a> for a contempt of court citation after he continued authorizing semi-official citizen "patrols" <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/07/31/judge-former-arizona-sheriff-joe-arpaio-in-contempt-of-court/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">in defiance of a judge's order</a>.The July contempt sentence was the latest in a string of episodes during which Arpaio had run afoul of the criminal justice system in his desire to exact harsh punishments against inmates and illegal immigrants.In 2008, Maricopa County, his former jurisdiction, was required to pay more than $1 million to a man that Arpaio's deputies had framed in a <a href="https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/a-phony-murder-plot-against-joe-arpaio-winds-up-costing-taxpayers-11-million-6629798" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fake assassination plot against the sheriff</a> in which deputies purchased bomb parts and delivered them to the defendant.In a preview of Republican voters' seeming willingness to overlook numerous charges of sexual harassment against Trump, Arizona voters continued re-electing Arpaio despite the incident. They also seemed not to care about Arpaio losing court rulings for his operation of outdoor tent prisons which he called "concentration camps."Several years later, Arpaio and Trump became political allies as the then-sheriff became the top law enforcement booster of Trump's conspiracy theory that former president Barack Obama had not been born in the United States. Arpaio became a hero to far-right Republicans for sending deputies to Hawaii and Africa in pursuit of proof that Obama had forged his birth certificate.An Arpaio Senate run might also be a boon to Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon who has reportedly been seeking to find a better candidate for the Senate seat than Kelli Ward, a state senator who failed to gain significant traction in a previous campaign she had operated against Arizona's other U.S. senator, John McCain.Bannon has been trying to encourage far-right candidates who will swear undying loyalty to Trump in several states. The president, meanwhile, has been trying to enlist Senate candidates on his own as well, reaching out to Maine's bellicose governor Paul LePage to<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-wants-lepage-to-challenge-king-in-maine-senate-race/2017/12/06/796af484-daca-11e7-8e5f-ccc94e22b133_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> encourage him to run against Angus King</a>, a political independent who usually votes with Democrats.Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2017/12/08/arpaio-seriously-seriously-seriously-considering-run-senate-yeah-right/934952001/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">cast doubt on the idea that Arpaio might right for Senate</a>, citing the fact that he is 85, has become increasingly unpopular with Republican voters in recent years, and has become known locally for repeatedly trying to raise money for himself through fake campaigns that never materialize."This isn’t the first time that Arpaio has floated the idea that he would run for higher office. By my count, it's the sixth time," she wrote.On the other hand, Trump himself was known for pretending to run for office as well. In 2015, he actually followed through. We all know what happened next....<div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/first-nation-law-bans-all-flame-retardants-big-win-families-and-firefighters" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">http://www.alternet.org/environment/first-nation-law-bans-all-flame-retardants-big-win-families-and-firefighters</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><a href="http://www.globalpossibilities.org/maines-republican-governor-is-keeping-the-state-from-adding-hundreds-of-solar-jobs/">http://www.globalpossibilities.org/maines-republican-governor-is-keeping-the-state-from-adding-hundreds-of-solar-jobs/</a>4/15 ecowatchThe future of <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/06/states-solar-energy-monumental-year/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">solar energy</a> in Maine was left in the hands of Gov. Paul LePage this month, but he decided to drop it.LePage vetoed <a href="http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/display_ps.asp?ld=1252&PID=1456&snum=126" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; transition: color 0.2s linear; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">L.D. 1252</a>, a bill that would have helped create more than 1,250 new solar panel and hot water projects at homes and businesses across the state. Those additions would have come at a tax that he deemed too expensive to pay—0.011 cents per kilowatt-hour.“This is a particularly painful time to impose an additional tax on electricity,” LePage wrote in a <a href="https://docs.google.com/a/bangordailynews.com/file/d/0B2GGUTXhI8gQaUh3THZWLWpma0k/edit?ref=inline" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">veto message</a> uploaded by <a href="http://bangordailynews.com/2014/04/11/politics/lepage-vetoes-solar-energy-bill-two-others/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Bangor Daily News</a>. “Energy taxes are regressive and disproportionately hurt our low-income households. This bill would impose the tax on thousands of hardworking families just to provide the few who have the means to purchase a $20,000 solar system with a rebate of an estimated $2,000.”<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the eyes of renewable energy advocates, LePage’s veto also means passing on the private investments that usually follow after government shows confidence in a burgeoning technology. Dylan Voorhees, clean energy director of the <a href="http://www.nrcm.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Natural Resources Council of Maine</a>, estimates that the bill would have fostered nearly $25 million in private investments in the state over time.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The governor’s rhetoric on this bill does not match reality,” Voorhees said in a statement. “If high electric rates are a concern, then it is essential that we change course from building an increasingly expensive transmission grid only to meet summer peak demand (and boost utility profits). Rooftop solar can help cut that demand and reduce costs borne by all ratepayers.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The governor and his allies used the tiny, immediate cost of this bill to justify a do-nothing strategy that will cost Maine far more.”<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Voorhees added that Maine is behind other states when it comes to solar energy. According to a <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/04/states-renewable-energy-grade/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Vote Solar and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council report</a> on net metering and interconnection, Maine achieved a ‘B’ grade, thought report accounts for other renewable forms, too.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Solar is booming in states around us, and why Maine is now at real risk of continuing to pay more in rates,” Voorhees said. “If heating oil costs are a concern, then solar is part of the solution, too.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Main street companies like the <a href="http://www.bucksportmotorinn.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Bucksport Motor Inn</a> have used solar to slash their oil consumption for hot water heating.”<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The bill was sponsored by State Rep. Terry Morrison, D-South Portland, and passed by wide margins in the state Senate (<a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mainelegislature.org%2FLawMakerWeb%2Frollcalls.asp%3FID%3D280048144&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEZ0S8dIBj1-LZee7XHcK2JMAp3lQ" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">21-12</a>) and House (<a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mainelegislature.org%2FLawMakerWeb%2Frollcalls.asp%3FID%3D280048144&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEZ0S8dIBj1-LZee7XHcK2JMAp3lQ" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">109-30</a>).<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We simply can’t afford to ignore solar energy, which is renewable, clean and helps keep down electricity bills that are rising because of the expansion of transmission and distribution lines,” Morrison said. “This veto is even more baffling because a Republican amendment improved the bill by adding heat pump rebates for low-income Mainers.”Earlier this year, Politico declared LePage <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/paul-lepage-maine-governor-crazy-101923.html#.U06xoOZdXFf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">“the country’s craziest governor,”</a> citing <a href="http://www.pressherald.com/news/LePage-Democratic-leader-giving-it-Mainers-without-Vaseline.html?pagenum=full" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">crude sexual remarks</a> about a state senator, the <a href="http://www.pressherald.com/news/Statoil_pulling_out_of_Maine.html?pagenum=full" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">sabotage of a wind energy project</a> and publicly telling President Barack Obama to <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42886.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">“go to hell.”</a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">——–<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">YOU ALSO MIGHT LIKE<p itemprop="name" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/06/states-solar-energy-monumental-year/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">10 States That Led Solar Energy to a Monumental Year</a><p itemprop="title" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a itemprop="url" href="http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/04/states-renewable-energy-grade/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">What Is Your State’s Renewable Energy Grade?</a><p itemprop="name" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/01/15/maine-offshore-wind-future-u-s/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Future of Offshore Wind Could Be Shaped By Key Approval in Maine</a><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; line-height: 14.3999996185303px; outline: none; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); font-family: 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Around the world, private firms have been given “carte blanche rights to mine local groundwater supplies at the expense of local populations, say experts.” In 1997, Swiss food giant Nestlé signed a contract with the privately- owned water services provider in Fryeburg, Maine, to buy freshwater in bulk for its Poland Spring brand of bottled water. Fearing that large-scale commercial water exploitation would lead to groundwater depletion and the Saco River drying up, the town of Fryeburg enacted a Land Use Ordinance that required that any company pumping more than 10,000 gallons of water a day get approval from the planning board. With a constant stream of litigation and appeals, however, Fryeburg Water Co. was able to buy time while continuing its moneymaking sideline business without interruption.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 14.3999996185303px; outline: none; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); font-family: 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: right; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Csz07Cpb97rS%2BxnqmI7XuiIPK18lFliX" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 204); line-height: 1.2em; outline: none;">Read more</a>

2014 race<a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/governor/me/maine_governor_lepage_vs_michaud_vs_cutler-3558.html"> http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/governor/me/maine_governor_lepage_vs_michaud_vs_cutler-3558.html</a>

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AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine Gov. Paul LePage says the state's proposal to opt out of some anti-smog regulations is a common sense reform that will improve the state's ability to attract business.

In a letter to House Speaker Mark Eves of North Berwick and Senate President Justin Alfond of Portland on Wednesday, LePage said the administration will continue to protect Maine's environment and grow the economy.

It is a response to a letter Eves and Alfond sent LePage on Tuesday. Eves and Alfond said they were concerned about Maine's environmental department's proposal to allow new or newly-upgraded industrial polluters to be exempt from federal Clean Air Act measures designed to reduce ground-level ozone.

LePage says similar changes to the state's anti-smog regulations were undertaken by former Govs. Angus King and John Baldacci.

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7. Paul LePage, Maine

"To all you able-bodied people out there: Get off the couch and get yourself a job," Maine Governor Paul LePage told the <a href="http://www.mpbn.net/News/MaineNewsArchive/tabid/181/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3475/ItemId/21735/Default.aspx">Republican State Convention in May</a>.

The governor wants to impose his own form of welfare “reform” on the state in the middle of an ongoing jobs crisis—and he's even willing to <a href="http://bangordailynews.com/2011/12/16/politics/forbes-lepage-welfare-quotes-inaccurate/">make up stories</a> and <a href="http://bangordailynews.com/2011/12/17/news/state/lepage-says-maines-welfare-numbers-are-bloated/">fudge numbers</a> to get his way. And what does he consider “welfare”? Everything from disability benefits to MaineCare (the state's version of Medicaid -- healthcare for low-income people). His Medicaid cuts alone could hit 65,000 people.

How LePage can complain that Maine has more people receiving benefits than paying taxes, and then say he wants to eliminate the personal income tax is a bit of a mystery, but <a href="http://bangordailynews.com/2012/03/18/politics/lepage-takes-step-toward-eliminating-personal-income-tax/">he doesn't seem to see the conflict</a>. Maine collects over half of its total revenue from the personal income tax—but LePage wants to lower tax rates on the top earners. Next year the rate will fall from 8.5 percent to 7.95, and the governor wanted to drop it to 4 percent but couldn't get away with that and keep the state functioning.

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by Scott Keyes

This article was originally published by <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/12/28/395496/maine-election-day-registration-alec-group/" title="reference on Think Progress" target="blank">Think Progress</a>. The Center for Media and Democracy is cross-posting it as part of our ongoing efforts to <a href="http://alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed" title="reference on expose the American Legislative Exchange Council" target="blank">expose the American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC) and its attempts to disenfranchise voters across the country.

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Last month, Maine voters delivered a major rebuke to Gov. Paul LePage (R) and the Republican-held legislature when they <a href="http://bangordailynews.com/2011/11/08/politics/early-results-indicate-election-day-voter-registration-restored/" title="reference on approved" target="blank">approved</a> a referendum restoring election day voting registration rights in the state. Earlier this year, state legislators passed a <a href="http://www.mainelegislature.org/LawMakerWeb/summary.asp?ID=280041037" title="reference on bill" target="blank">bill</a> repealing the state's 38 year-old law allowing citizens to register at the polls on election day.

Tens of thousands of Mainers responded by petitioning for the matter to come to a referendum. Issue 1 was one of the most-anticipated votes on election day this year, with pundits watching closely to see how citizens would react to the Republican-led <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/what-states-are-doing-to-restrict-voting-rights/" title="reference on war on voting" target="_blank">war on voting</a>, which ramped up in states across the country this year.

Recognizing the referendum's importance, voting rights opponents poured money into the campaign to repeal election day registration. In fact, just two days after the state's campaign finance reporting deadline, a secret conservative donor <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/11/03/360076/maine-election-day-registration-conservative-money/" title="reference on funneled $250,000" target="_blank">funneled $250,000</a> into the race, allowing the "No On 1" campaign to make significant TV ad buys in an inexpensive media market.

Per state law, however, the identity of donors must be revealed within 45 days after the election. In fact, the entire $250,000 worth of late money came from a <a href="http://www.mainecampaignfinance.com/Public/entity_financial_transactions.asp?TYPE=PAC&ID=5583" title="reference on single source" target="blank">single source</a>: the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Justice_Partnership" title="reference on American Justice Partnership" target="self">American Justice Partnership</a>.

The AJP is a conservative legal organization based not in Maine, but in Michigan. On their <a href="http://americanjusticepartnership.com/fundee.php" title="reference on website" target="blank">website</a>, the group states they are fighting against "the scheming George Soros money machine," which is "trying to sabotage your right to vote," a claim apparently made without a hint of irony. Though the AJP doesn't disclose where its funding comes from, the Bangor Daily News <a href="http://bangordailynews.com/2011/12/22/politics/last-minute-campaign-donations-becoming-the-norm-in-maine/" title="reference on notes" target="blank">notes</a> that it has partnered with the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Legislative_Exchange_Council" title="reference on American Legislative Exchange Council" target="_self">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC) in the past, a group that has been <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/05/10711/voter-suppression-bills-sweep-country">instrumental</a> in the proliferation of voter ID laws across the country.

The AJP's secret $250,000 contribution ultimately accounted for over 78 percent of all the money raised by the No On 1 campaign. In other words, over three-quarters of the funding for opponents of election day registration in Maine came from Michigan. (This money was then used to run ads decrying "outsiders from other states" who were influencing the Maine election.) With Mainers of all stripes <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/11/07/362267/maine-election-day-registration-vote/" title="reference on explaining" target="_blank">explaining</a> to ThinkProgress why they cherish having the option to register at the polls on election day, it's not altogether surprising that the predominance of financial support for "No On 1" came from out of state.

Though AJP's website correctly <a href="http://americanjusticepartnership.com/hijacked.php" title="reference on warns" target="blank">warns</a> that "Your right to vote is at stake," it's groups like AJB and ALEC that are threatening that right in the first place. Maine voters stood up to the influence of voting rights opponents in November, however, <a href="http://bangordailynews.com/2011/11/08/politics/early-results-indicate-election-day-voter-registration-restored/" title="reference on passing Issue 1" target="blank">passing Issue 1</a> by an overwhelming 61-39 margin and restoring election day registration in the Pine Tree State.

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This article was originally published by <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/12/28/395496/maine-election-day-registration-alec-group/" title="reference on Think Progress" target="_blank">Think Progress</a>.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/11208

<h1 class="headline" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.4em; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 1.5em; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.2em; color: black;">Maine guv freaks out after local media report on his corrupt environment chief</h1>

By <a href="http://grist.org/author/claire-thompson/" title="Posts by Claire Thompson" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none;">Claire Thompson</a>

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It’s almost surprising that Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) has never run for national office. In the realm of GOP presidential aspirants, he could give Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann a run for their money when it comes to political ineptitude and pure crazy. He’s told the NAACP to “kiss my butt,” and he recently used a violent <a href="http://www.wmtw.com/news/vaseline-comment-sparks-controversy-at-maine-state-house/-/8792352/20647280/-/12malidz/-/index.html" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">sodomy analogy</a> to describe a state lawmaker at a public rally.

But alas, we could be hearing less from LePage in the future: His spokesperson announced on Tuesday that <a href="http://www.pressherald.com/politics/LePage-spokeswoman-.html?pagenum=1" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">the governor’s office will no longer communicate with three leading Maine newspapers</a>, because their parent company, MaineToday Media, “made it clear that it opposed this administration.”

Evidence of this alleged opposition came in the form of a <a href="http://www.pressherald.com/special/Lobbyist_in_the_henhouse_DEP_series.html" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">seven-month investigation of Patricia Aho</a>, commissioner of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and a former corporate lobbyist, the results of which were published in the Portland Press Herald, theKennebec Journal, and the Morning Sentinel. The papers reported that Aho “has scuttled programs and fought against laws that were opposed by many of her former clients in the chemical, drug, oil, and real estate development industries.” The commissioner stalled a 2008 law to keep dangerous chemicals out of children’s products, weakened enforcement of real-estate and development laws, rolled back recycling programs, and oversaw a purge of information from the DEP’s website and a restriction of its employees’ ability to communicate with lawmakers, the public, and each other.

Aho’s performance lines up with LePage’s well-established allegiance to corporations before citizens. Elected in a low-turnout, four-way 2010 contest with only 38 percent of the vote (a whopping 216,000 people), LePage <a href="http://grist.org/article/2011-01-27-paul-lepage-new-maine-guv-takes-aim-at-the-environment/" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">started his term off with a bang</a> by issuing a list of environmental safeguards he hoped to weaken or destroy, including a phaseout of BPA in children’s products (<a href="http://grist.org/food-safety/2011-02-24-maine-governor-on-bpa-worst-case-is-that-some-women-may-have-lit/" style=" border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">“the worst case is some women may have little beards,”</a> he declared of the chemical’s safety risk). He went on to <a href="http://grist.org/list/2011-12-21-maine-bans-leed-in-state-buildings-at-timber-industrys-behest/" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">ban the use of LEED green-building standards for state buildings</a> to keep Maine’s timber industry happy.

Cliff Schechtman, executive editor of the Portland Press Herald, said the newspaper wouldn’t be doing anything differently as a result of the governor’s new edict (aside, I assume, from not calling LePage or his spokesperson for a quote) and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/06/19/us/ap-us-maine-governor-newspapers.html?ref=news&_r=0" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">offered the Associated Press</a> a simple assessment of the situation:

This is about probing journalism that examines how powerful forces affect the lives of ordinary citizens. That makes the powerful uncomfortable. That’s what this is about.

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Indeed, LePage has never had what one would call a comfortable relationship with the press. Last month, he kicked reporters out of the ceremonial signing of a unanimously supported suicide-prevention bill — after complaining that the press wouldn’t want to cover the event. Even before this week’s gag order, the governor refused comment on a myriad of issues and funneled most media requests through his spokesperson, Adrienne Bennett. This is not atypical for a governor, but <a href="http://www.pressherald.com/politics/LePage-spokeswoman-.html?pagenum=1" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">as the Press Herald reports</a>, LePage’s mistrust of the media verges on the paranoid:

LePage has had a rocky relationship with the press since the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, storming out of a news conference amid questions about his paying property taxes in Maine.

LePage also said that he would like to punch a reporter from the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, during a taped interview with the network. …

In 2012, during a presentation at Waterville Junior High School, LePage told 150 eighth-graders that reading newspapers in Maine is “like paying somebody to tell you lies.”

In February, during a <a href="http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/lepagereads-to-students_2013-02-01.html" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">reading with schoolchildren</a> at St. John Catholic School in Winslow, LePage said: “My greatest fear in the state of Maine: newspapers. I’m not a fan of newspapers.”

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Bennett pointed out that the MaineToday newspapers can still use the state’s Freedom of Access Act to obtain information about the administration. (The best way to do research on a deadline, as any reporter knows.)

How ironic that the same camp accusing a media outlet of biased reporting has decided to make balanced newsgathering impossible by refusing to offer their point of view. It’s a back-asswards stubbornness that journalists run into frustratingly often, and that sources don’t seem to realize will backfire. When does “no comment” ever make you look good? (At a <a href="http://grist.org/climate-energy/push-to-derail-coal-export-plan-draws-strength-from-all-corners-of-cascadia/" style=" border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(157, 157, 157); text-decoration: none; max-width: 100%;">public hearing on proposed coal terminals in Washington state</a>, for example, some of the few terminal supporters in attendance only talked to me after I pointed out that their refusal to be quoted would force me to write a more one-sided story.)

From the AP:

Kelly McBride, a media ethics specialist from the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism think tank, said such storms between politicians and the media tend to blow over. But in the meantime, she said, the governor’s posture will serve only to make him appear petty and to increase readership of the newspaper series.

“Publishers and editors face belligerent sources all the time. As long as they continue to be loyal to their audience, rather than their sources,” she said, “it usually works out for the journalist.”

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Originally published June 16, 2013

Flagstaff Lake near Eustis, seen here last month with Bigelow Mountain in the background, experiences dramatic changes in water level in summer, thanks to utility drawdowns at a dam on the eastern side of the lake. Residents say the drawdowns adversely affect the quality of life in and around the lake. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection, led by Commissioner Patricia Aho, missed a filing deadline and deprived the state a say in how the dam is regulated. The DEP’s inaction cleared the way for the issuance of a new federal license that lacked stricter water-level rules and will remain in effect until 2036. Aho’s office called the blown deadline an oversight, but internal documents and department insiders tell a very different story.

Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

<h3><a href="http://www.pressherald.com/news/Whose-interests-is-Maines-DEP-commissioner-serving.html?pagenum=full#addPhotos">Additional Photos Below</a></h3>

<h3>Related headlines</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.pressherald.com/special/Lobbyist_in_the_henhouse_DEP_series.html">'The Lobbyist in the henhouse' DEP series</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.pressherald.com/news/Sierra-Club-tells-LePage-to-can-environmental-commissioner.html">Maine Sierra Club calls for Aho's resignation</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.pressherald.com/news/Efforts-to-reduce-risks-to-kids-run-into-a-powerful-foe-2013-06-17.html">Efforts to reduce risks to kids run into a powerful foe</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.pressherald.com/news/LePage-spokeswoman-.html">LePage issues new policy: No more talking to 3 newspapers</a></li>

</ul>

<div style=" font-size: 9px; text-align: right; margin: 0px -1px -1px 0px; padding-bottom: 10px;"><a href="http://mainetoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/index.asp" style=" color: #aaaaaa;">Select images available for purchase in the

Maine Today Photo Store</a></div>

<h4 style=" font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 8px; text-align: center;">From lobbyist to DEP commissioner</h4>

Please click to enlarge

HERE'S WHAT WE FOUND

A Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram investigation has found Patricia Aho, a former industrial and corporate lobbyist who became commissioner of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection in 2011, has scuttled programs and fought against laws that were opposed by many of her former clients in the chemical, drug, oil, and real estate development industries. Under Aho, the DEP has:

• Frozen the Kid Safe Products Act – a 2008 law to protect fetuses, babies and children from potentially damaging chemicals – by blocking efforts to bring more chemicals under the law’s jurisdiction, chemicals produced by Aho’s former lobbying clients.

• Reduced enforcement actions by 49 percent against large developers and landowners. Aho had unsuccessfully fought to weaken many of the laws at issue as the longtime lobbyist of the Maine Real Estate and Development Association.

• Fought to roll back recycling programs that are strongly opposed by former clients of Aho and a still-active lobbyist, Ann Robinson, the governor’s regulatory reform adviser.

• Oversaw a purge of information from the DEP’s website and a clampdown on its personnel, restricting their ability to communicate relevant information to lawmakers, the public, policy staff and one another.

THIS WEEK IN THE PRESS HERALD

MONDAY: Led by a former chemical industry lobbyist, the Maine DEP has stalled efforts to regulate substances that are potentially harmful to children and to the development of unborn fetuses.

TUESDAY: So-called “product stewardship” regulations – even recycling efforts with industry and bipartisan support – find staunch resistance at the Maine DEP, where a former corporate lobbyist has taken the helm.

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EUSTIS — On a Wednesday in April, Flagstaff Lake was draining away.

When full, it is the state's fifth largest freshwater body, nurturing a local tourist economy and providing boating and swimming opportunities for thousands of residents and others visiting Maine.

But on days like this -- when the dam owner opens the sluiceways of the Long Falls Dam to generate power farther downstream -- the lake begins to disappear, leaving behind thousands of acres of muddy and largely lifeless bottom. Docks are left high and dry and shorefront homes, camps and parks become isolated behind hundreds of yards of exposed, foul-smelling muck.

"They're killing our area up here," says Jay Wyman, a longtime selectman in Eustis, where many families moved in 1950 when the newly completed dam drowned their nearby hometowns of Flagstaff and Dead River.

People in the Eustis region fought for nearly a decade to defend their livelihoods, property values and tax base by pressuring state authorities to require the dam owner to keep the lake fuller in summer and early fall as part of its federal relicensing, which comes up for review only three or four times each century.

They'd sparred with the longtime owner, Florida Power & Light, from the hearing rooms of Augusta to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

By the summer of 2011, it looked like they would win -- until the state's top environmental official stepped in.

That's when the state commissioner of environmental protection, Patricia Aho -- who just months before had been working as a lobbyist for the law firm which represented the Florida power company -- met with Matthew Manahan, who was FPL's attorney and Aho's former colleague at Pierce Atwood, the state's largest law firm. After the meeting, Aho's department quietly did exactly what FPL hoped it would: nothing.

Despite detailed briefings from staff experts and a last-minute warning from the Attorney General's Office, the DEP quietly let the clock run out, missing a critical federal deadline to influence what happens at the dam for another quarter-century.

Her spokeswoman would later claim it had been an oversight, suggesting staff had dropped the ball when, internal documents and interviews with former staff reveal, the ball had been taken from them and handed to Pierce Atwood's client for an easy layup.

It is not an isolated incident.

A seven-month Maine Sunday Telegram investigation has found that commissioner Aho has acted against a range of consumer protection, pollution reduction and climate preparedness laws she had previously tried but failed to stop from passing the Legislature as a lobbyist for chemical, drug, oil and automobile companies. Present and former department employees say they have been pressured not to vigorously implement or enforce these laws, which were long opposed by companies represented by the commissioner's former law firm.

<a title="Search for more information related to: Gov. Paul LePage" href="http://www.pressherald.com/search?searchterm=%22Gov.+Paul+LePage%22">Gov. Paul LePage</a> has pledged to make the state more business-friendly and to reduce red tape. But in many cases, the <a title="Search for more information related to: Department of Environmental Protection" href="http://www.pressherald.com/search?searchterm=%22Department+of+Environmental+Protection%22">Department of Environmental Protection</a> has been scuttling laws in ways that benefit Aho's old clients or those of past and present clients of another lobbyist embedded in his office: Ann Robinson, a top lobbyist at the Preti Flaherty law firm, who moonlights as the governor's regulatory reform adviser and has drafted and promoted policies that would benefit her clients.

Internal documents and interviews with about two dozen current and former DEP employees reveal how the administration has systematically sedated some of Maine's environmental laws.

Under LePage and Aho, the DEP has:

• Stifled the Kid Safe Products Act -- a 2008 law to protect fetuses, babies and children from potentially damaging chemicals -- by blocking efforts to bring more chemicals under the law's jurisdiction. Many of the chemicals were produced by Aho's former lobbying clients, who fought similar laws in Connecticut, California and the state of Washington.

• Recommended a rollback or elimination of certain recycling programs that are strongly opposed by Aho's and Robinson's corporate clients in the automotive, waste and bottled-water industries, who would suffer if successful Maine programs that make manufacturers responsible for certain products are replicated in other states.

• Presided over a dramatic downturn in enforcement of laws affecting developers, with initial enforcement actions in the Land Division falling by 49 percent under the LePage administration. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.pressherald.com/news/theyre-just-not-doing-enforcement_2013-06-16.html">(See related story: "They're just not doing enforcement.")</a> Before becoming commissioner, Aho unsuccessfully fought to weaken many of the laws at issue as the longtime lobbyist of the Maine Real Estate and Development Association, or MEREDA.

• Purged information from the DEP's website and clamped down on its personnel, restricting their ability to communicate information to lawmakers, the public, policy staff, and one another. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.pressherald.com/news/sources-describe-a-department-under-duress_2013-06-16.html">(See related story: "Sources describe a department under duress.")</a>

"In both enforcement and in what we communicate to the Legislature, it almost seems like the commissioner is still a lobbyist for the clients she represented before she came to office," says one current DEP employee, one of many interviewed for this story who did not want their names used for fear they would be fired.

Aho agreed to one interview with the Telegram but declined subsequent requests. In the interview, conducted in late February, the commissioner was asked about perceived conflicts of interest in connection with her former Pierce Atwood clients. Aho said that while she had been a lobbyist, two years had passed since she joined the department and that these were all former clients. She emphasized that she has met all disclosure requirements.

"That's all out there, that's public documents," she said. The Attorney General's Office "walked through to me how to enforce those issues" when she was appointed deputy commissioner in February 2011, and she cited examples of times in which she had declared her past lobbying associations in public hearings.

Robinson and Pierce Atwood managing partner Gloria Pinza did not respond to interview requests.

Senate President Justin Alfond, D-Portland, said Wednesday he was concerned but not surprised by the investigation's findings. "It's crystal clear that this governor and this commissioner have biases against certain programs and initiatives, and they constantly slow things down, change interpretations, and make things as challenging as possible," he said.

• THE MESSAGE: CROSSING SPECIAL INTERESTS HAS CONSEQUENCES

Many of the nearly two dozen past and present DEP employees interviewed by the Telegram said they believed Aho was targeting diligent staffers at certain programs for isolation, elimination or reassignment, so their positions could be occupied with less knowledgeable replacements. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.pressherald.com/news/sources-describe-a-department-under-duress_2013-06-16.html">(See related story: "Sources describe a department under duress.")</a>

Few were willing to talk on the record for fear of reprisals against themselves, their colleagues or present employers.

Several cited the product recycling experts who they say were shut out of the creation of the department's report on product recycling programs. A two-time winner of the DEP commissioner's award was reassigned from leading efforts to educate businesses on energy efficiency to be a drain inspector, others noted.

But most pointed to one case that is part of the public record: the reassignment of the key staffer responsible for implementing the Kid Safe Products Act.

Andrea Lani, who had run the program since its inception and had been a technical expert at the department since 1999, was given the largely clerical task of compiling public records requests and was replaced by a less experienced employee.

The reassignment occurred shortly after Lani had provided expert testimony to the Legislature on March 29, 2011, on the harmful effects of bisphenol-A, which was to be banned from baby bottles and sippy cups under the 2008 law. She did so as a private citizen and had taken time off to do so, as per policy at the department, which had recommended and shepherded the ban a few months earlier under Gov. <a title="Search for more information related to: John Baldacci" href="http://www.pressherald.com/search?searchterm=%22John+Baldacci%22">John Baldacci</a>. But her stance was counter to that of Aho, who had recently been appointed deputy commissioner.

Lobbying disclosures show Aho had fought passage of the Kid Safe Products Act in 2008 on behalf of AstraZeneca pharmaceuticals, the American Petroleum Institute and lead paint manufacturer Millennium Holdings. Just weeks before being appointed to the DEP, Aho was working as the principal lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council, which has opposed the law.

At the time of Lani's testimony, the governor's regulatory reform adviser, Preti Flaherty lobbyist Ann Robinson, was a registered lobbyist of one of the groups seeking to defeat the ban, the Toy Industry Association of America, even as she was helping draft and roll out the governor's regulatory reform agenda. Robinson had also fought the Kid Safe Products Act in 2008 on behalf of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, and drugmaker Merck, and the Toy Industry Association had hired her firm to lobby for passage of a 2011 bill that critics said would have effectively repealed the law.

Two days after Lani gave her testimony, Aho ordered her investigated to see "whether she had improperly used state resources in developing her testimony," according to legal briefs filed in federal court. The investigation determined she had not violated any policies, but Lani was nonetheless reassigned to the records office shortly thereafter, leaving the Kid Safe Products Act in the hands of "a much less qualified individual who began working for the DEP in January 2011 at an entry-level clerical position," according to the brief.

Lani sued Aho and another DEP official in federal court for allegedly having retaliated against her "in reckless disregard of her federal constitutional rights." The state paid $65,000 to Lani and her attorneys in an out-of-court settlement reached in April 2012. Under the terms of the agreement, none of the parties is allowed to discuss the case or disparage one another. Lani remains the department's public records coordinator.

Several sources said the incident has had a chilling and lasting effect on staff.

"People including myself were horrified that something that blatant would be done to a staff person who was within their legal rights and very well-respected, bright, hardworking and caring," says biologist Barbara Welch, who resigned in January of this year and says she has filed harassment grievances against her supervisor, Samantha DePoy-Warren, a political appointee who was until recently the department's communications director. "We followed her case and were astounded by what happened to her."

"It was startling," says Bob Birk, a landfill cleanup specialist who had accompanied Lani to the State House when she gave her BPA testimony and who retired from the DEP last September. "People felt they had to walk on eggs and literally keep their heads down."

• THE TARGETS: ANY EMPLOYEES WHO DIDN'T 'WORK WITH INDUSTRY'

DEP employees interviewed by the Telegram reported there have been few if any changes within the Air Quality Bureau, while the Land Division and the Remediation and Waste Management Bureau -- which has oversight over the Kid Safe Products Act and product recycling laws -- have borne the brunt of the staffing and policy changes.

According to a detailed list of recommendations Preti Flaherty prepared for LePage in late December 2010, its industrial clients were satisfied with the air bureau but did not have "a great relationship" with the Waste Management Bureau. The firm's attorneys urged LePage to make a "serious effort" to rid the department of employees who didn't "work with industry" on enforcement issues.

"The areas of the department with the least disruptive change are those who work with traditional, highly regulated communities: water licensing and air licensing," says Malcolm Burson, who was DEP deputy policy director until November 2011. "They're going about business the way they always have gone about business."

"But you get into toxics or to land and it's totally different," he says. "That's where the significant changes have taken place."

Aho denied accusations that the staff changes were part of an organized effort to compel the departure or reassignment of particular individuals. "I think our department is doing great work, and I hope that doesn't get lost in the debate about if we are doing something differently," she said. "Yes, we're doing something differently, but to actually enhance the work that they're doing here and let them get out and be in touch with the environment perhaps more than in the other types and parts of their work."

• THE STRATEGY: SEE LAWS BLOCKED, UNIMPLEMENTED, UNENFORCED

With staff at targeted programs of the department on tight reins, Aho moved against laws she and Robinson had been unable to defeat at the State House. Some laws went unimplemented, while others went largely unenforced.

Aho stopped the department's efforts to add additional toxic substances to the two already slated for regulation under the Kid Safe Products Act by the Baldacci administration. An already completed proposal to ban a family of toxic flame retardants was left in the files, where it has sat since LePage's election in 2010.

She also sought to foil product recycling laws that keep mercury and lead out of the state's air, water and soil. At Pierce Atwood, the disclosures show, Aho had tried unsuccessfully to stop passage of the laws on behalf of mercury thermostat manufacturers, paper companies, automakers and other clients. (Maine is second only to California in the number of product categories covered by such laws, but a majority of states have at least one on the books.)

With Aho at the helm, the DEP created a report to the Legislature recommending these programs be considered for termination based on evidence critics charged was flawed and one-sided. No new products have been proposed for the program under Aho and LePage.

Aho's actions also benefited the owners of the Flagstaff dam -- Florida Power & Light and its NextEra Energy subsidiary -- who received a new federal license last summer containing water level rules it preferred. They will remain in effect until 2036. (In March of this year, FPL sold all 19 of its Maine dams to Brookfield Renewable Power, a subsidiary of a Canadian asset management group, for approximately $760 million.)

• THE FLAGSTAFF LAKE EFFECT: HOW MAINERS LOST AN OPPORTUNITY

By the time Aho took over the department in the summer of 2011, the fight for Flagstaff Lake had been years in the making. But residents, negotiating with the company from a position of weakness, often came up short.

In many summers over the past decade, the Florida energy company FPL dropped Flagstaff's water levels so low that by early August the local youth recreation program had to stop holding swimming lessons at the local beach and bused the children to a pool 20 miles away. Other residents reported foul odors wafting from the exposed lake bed and winds carrying silt and sand into a local elementary school and an elderly housing complex.

"You lose a couple feet here and people have to haul their boats," says Wyman, the longtime Eustis selectman. "You pull three or four feet and you get mud flats. They drain it out too much and you get sandstorms."

The problems kick in when summertime lake levels fall below three feet from what's called "full pond," townspeople report. At 4.5 feet below full pond capacity -- the level the newly issued federal license allows in September -- the Eustis end of the lake becomes a mud flat, with only the old channel of the Dead River containing any water. When the Telegram visited in mid-April, the Eustis end of the lake looked much as the town described it in regulatory filings: "a nearly empty bathtub surrounded by a dark ring."

For the past decade, Flagstaff-area residents had fought to get more stringent water level rules written into the dam's new license, which was up for renewal for the first time since the dam was built. The legal mechanism to do so was through the state DEP, which could impose such requirements under the federal Clean Water Act.

As early as 2004, federal records show, the town had asked the DEP and the <a title="Search for more information related to: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission" href="http://www.pressherald.com/search?searchterm=%22Federal+Energy+Regulatory+Commission%22">Federal Energy Regulatory Commission</a> to ensure that the dam's new license require that the lake be kept at certain minimum levels in summer and early fall. That same year, the Board of Environmental Protection -- an independent body that reviews environmental regulations -- ruled that FPL's winter drawdowns were too severe and, to protect aquatic life, should be limited to less than 9 feet below full pond capacity, rather than the 24 feet allowed under the proposed license.

There was a catch: DEP had to file paperwork by Nov. 15, 2011, or it would lose its seat at the table and, along with it, the means to modify the federal license, which FERC was otherwise ready to approve.

Aho missed the deadline.

Aho's spokeswoman, Depoy-Warren, later claimed the failure to file the paperwork had been an accident, "something that was lost sight of during the transition of leadership."

But according to both internal documents and Dana Murch, the staffer who oversaw DEP's dam relicensing efforts for more than 30 years until September 2011, Aho and other key officials had all been fully and repeatedly informed about the dam and its deadlines.

Murch said he personally briefed the commissioner and other senior managers face to face on the approaching Flagstaff deadline that summer. "She certainly knew what the regulatory options were and where the project file was," says Murch, who also highlighted the deadline in exit memos sent to staff.

Aho was also briefed on the issue by FPL. Department schedules and correspondence acquired by the Conservation Law Foundation through a public records request showed that Aho met in her office Aug. 4, 2011, with FPL's attorney -- her former Pierce Atwood colleague Matthew Manahan -- and two FPL officials seeking to "update Pattie on the status of Flagstaff."

DEP staff at various levels subsequently received reminders of the impending deadline, including one sent the day before to the staffer responsible for Flagstaff, Dawn Hallowell, by Assistant Attorney General Jan McClintock noting that if no action was "done by tomorrow, certification will be deemed waived by operation of law." Hallowell forwarded the email to her supervisor, land and water bureau director Michael Mullen, meaning that even at the last hour, key staff were aware of what was about to happen.

"I think it's disingenuous for the department to argue they did this in ignorance," says Jeff Reardon of Trout Unlimited, which had fought for tighter water level targets. "We could have gotten a better situation, and it's entirely possible Eustis and Stratton could have gotten a better summer target."

"This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a balance between hydroelectric energy generation and environmental values," says Murch, the longtime DEP dam relicensing expert. "The legally proper way to have moved forward would have been to (do an) analysis to try to figure out what the appropriate new water standards would be to meet all needs and impacts. Find out how much environmental bang you get for each foot of water you don't draw down from the lake and what the negative impacts are."

"They chose the sit-on-your-hands-and-do-nothing option," he adds.

The result was something of a slam dunk for FPL and anyone else who owns the dam between now and 2036, when the new license expires, as it killed more stringent limits on drawdowns, both in summer and off-season.

"Once the state made that decision there was no longer any legally binding obligation on the federal agencies or the dam owners to listen to what anybody has to say in Eustis or any other community," says Sean Mahoney, executive vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation. "It all comes down to money: Having to do studies, having to do recreational things, having limits on what they can draw down affects how much power they can generate and how much money they can get for their shareholders."

"By DEP waiving their authority, it gives the owner the best of all worlds: a non-appealable order that they needn't change or defend and they don't even have to pay for studies," Reardon says. "It's less expensive, more secure and gives them more authority."

The governor appears fully supportive of Aho's handling of the issue. Asked whether LePage had any concerns about the DEP having waived its powers under the Clean Water Act at Flagstaff, the governor's communications director, Peter Steele, gave a one-sentence written response: "The Governor is confident that DEP is appropriately managing the delegated (Clean Water Act) program."

Aho declined to be interviewed about Flagstaff and many other issues raised in this investigation. In mid-April, DePoy-Warren said DEP would not comment or respond to any further questions on this or other issues, saying she and Aho would "instead focus our efforts on the protection of our environment as the people of Maine expect us to do."

Colin Woodard can be contacted at 791-6317 or at:

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