NEWS

Local lawmakers look to tackle energy, climate change

York County delegation also ready to work on workforce shortages

Deborah McDermott
dmcdermott@seacoastonline.com
Energy sources and costs, climate change, workforce shortages, opioid treatment and vaping are some of the big issues ahead for Southern Maine legislators as they prepare to return to Augusta after the holidays. [Courtesy photo]

AUGUSTA, Maine — Energy, climate change, workforce shortages, opioid treatment, even cigarette butts are on the minds of local legislators as they prepare to head to Augusta after the holidays.

The upcoming legislative session will be much less hectic than the first, which is generally the time new bills can be introduced. Carry-over bills and new emergency bills will be heard, but this session tends to be a time for committees to digest reports and plot work with administration departments.

The expertise of the Seacoast's group of legislators tends to fall into two broad categories. One is climate change and its implications, now that Gov. Janet Mills has made it a priority to reach 100% renewable energy by 2050. The other is health and human services issues, to include tackling the critical shortage of caseworkers following the death of two children in Maine in recent years, and the shortage of health care workers in the state.

Sen. Mark Lawrence, D-Eliot, and Deane Rykerson, D-Kittery, are on the Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee, which Lawrence chairs. In the last session this committee passed several major pieces of legislation, including a comprehensive solar bill and a bill to increase Maine’s renewable portfolio standard to meet Mills’ goal.

Rep. Lydia Blume, D-York, who serves on the Environment and Natural Resources Committee and the Marine Resources Committee, is also tackling climate change as one of only four legislators named to Mills’ newly appointed Climate Council, which draws on expertise in sectors like energy, transportation, coastal issues, housing and more.

Rep. Patricia Hymanson, D-York, is chair of the Health and Human Resources Committee, on which state Rep. Michele Meyer, D-Eliot, sits. During the last session, the committee worked to increase Child and Family Services caseworkers, heard bills to fund opioid prevention and treatment, passed a Death with Dignity bill that both local legislators championed and banned vaping in public schools – among many other issues.

Climate action

Lawrence said his committee had “a lot of pent up energy” in the last session of the Legislature, given eight years of legislative challenges during the tenure of former Republican Gov. Paul LePage. “We almost got out in front of what (Gov. Mills) wanted to do, before the governor’s Energy Director Dan Burgess came on. But when the administration and the committee got in sync, we made significant progress.”

He touted in particular passage of a comprehensive solar energy bill that will incentivize residential and commercial use of solar. “My understanding from talking with people in the industry is that what we have done has generated quite a burst of energy, no pun intended, in the solar industry in Maine. A lot of new projects are going on in the state right now.”

Mills’ 2050 goal for 100% renewable energy presents challenges and opportunities to not only his committee but many of the other committees in the Legislature, he said. To meet the goal, the state will have to take a hard look at the two largest hurdles, transportation and home heating. “You have to find a way to convert your economy to use more electricity in those areas. But when you do that, there’s more pressure on the grid and electrical production.”

For instance, the Legislature passed a bill to promote 100,000 new heat pumps in the state, but they operate on electricity. “You have to have reliable electricity from renewable sources, and obviously, we have to find those resources. So we need to think long term about where they are coming from.”

The major bill before the committee this session is one that calls for ratepayer ownership of Central Maine Power. The bill was carried over, awaiting a report from the Maine Public Utilities Commission on its implications. Introduced by Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, it calls for the creation of the Maine Power Delivery Authority, similar to the Maine Turnpike Authority, which would be self-financed.

“It will be a pretty big deal in this session because everyone hates CMP so much” due to issues with billing, metering and high electricity rates since it was taken over by Spanish company Iberdrola USA, said Rykerson. “I think it could work. I think there’s a good case to be made for ratepayers owning the company rather than an overseas corporation.”

Lawrence said, for him, “the big concern is the impact on ratepayers. Obviously, there’s going to be debt floated to purchase it. What will be the purchase price and how much debt will the ratepayers take on?” He said other states have successfully taken utilities public, so Maine would not be inventing the wheel.

Blume said she will devote much of her time in the upcoming session to her work on the governor’s Climate Council, which will get into full swing come January. Lawrence’s thoughts about his committee’s work on the overall 2050 goal are being duplicated across sectors, and all have representation on the Climate Council.

“Right now, we have siloed information. For us to meet this challenge, we will need to learn how to collaborate between silos. It’s going to be a real communication challenge,” Blume said, but necessary, as the council is expected to formulate a Climate Action Plan by December 2020. She said she takes heart that there is a science and technical group supporting all the working groups created under the council. “That’s really important. The science is what’s driving this,” she said.

Blume is also a member of the coastal and marine working group, which is looking at mitigation, adaptation and resiliency measure – critical as oceans acidify, rise and warm.

And as for those cigarette butts, one of her carry over bills would require cigarette producers to find a way to make their product more environmentally friendly, such as creating a biodegradable butt. “They’re a real source of pollution and bad for our whole ecosystem,” she said.

Health and human services

Hymanson said her committee faces another kind of challenge for Maine – a workforce shortage. While this is not confined to the health care and home health care field, those fields are feeling a disproportionate hit, which affects everything under the Department of Health and Human Services from the opiate response to a crisis in caring for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

“The shortage affects everything – group homes, nursing homes, home care, child protection, adult protection and more. So how do we get systems to work despite the crisis?”

For instance, the Legislature approved 33 additional child case workers last session, and a recently released report from the DHHS stated an additional 33 are needed. But that decision spurred concern about adult protection workers.

“They said, ‘What about us?’ and they had a right to say that. Funding is only part of the issue," Hymanson said. "We could keep salaries high and still have a workforce crisis because we don’t have enough good people to fill these important jobs. And our committee isn’t alone. Every committee chair will say the workforce crisis is the No. 1 issue.”

She said, to her mind, part of the solution is getting underemployed people into the workforce to fill these jobs, such as senior citizens, people with kids at home and others. “But the game changer is immigration to Maine. We need to get people into the state who are not here now. This has to be a cultural turnaround for Maine. Otherwise, we will be in big trouble.”

A key solution, for her, is for Maine to increase its immigrant population. The Maine State Chamber of Commerce, she said, has become a leader in this discussion, underscoring the widespread support for such measures.

As with Lawrence’s committee, Hymanson said her committee is now working in sync with a “new and very talented” DHHS. “We’re good partners now. Because of the transparency within the department, we’re able to provide our oversight responsibilities in a meaningful way.”

The committee will hear an emergency bill this session filed by Sen. Rebecca Millett, D-Cape Elizabeth, that would ban the sale of vaping products in the state. Rep. Meyer said while she’s proud of the committee’s work last session to prohibit vaping products in schools, “there’s so much more to do.”

Meyer, a nurse, said she is particularly concerned about the burgeoning use of vaping products by teenagers.

“With flavors like lucky charms and fruit loops, big tobacco and (e-cigarette manufacturer) Juul are clearly targeting our kids," she said. "They see them as the next generation of addicts.”

Meyer said school administrators, school nurses, parents and even students have reached out to her and asked her to support measures to curb vaping.