Legislative Summary 2007

First Session, 123rd Legislature

The 123rd Legislative Session was both busy and challenging. With a record number of bills submitted and many priority issues on our agenda, Maine Audubon’s plate was full.

Our team at Maine Audubon looks forward to continuing our success working with legislators and coalitions, with the support of grassroots advocates who let their representatives know how deeply they care about Maine's wildlife and special places.

Maine Audubon Supported

Significant Funding for the Land for Maine’s Future Program

Passed as amended.

Sponsors: Rep. Pat Flood, Speaker of the House Glenn Cummings, House Majority Leader Rep. Hannah Pingree, Sen. Bill Diamond, Rep. Herb Adams

Action Update

Fact Sheet

Together with the Maine Land Coalition, Maine Audubon is seeking significant multiyear funding for the Land for Maine’s Future program. Since its inception twenty years ago, the award-winning program has conserved over 440,000 acres and protected 919 miles of shorefront, 113 miles of “rail trails,” and over 5,800 acres of farmland. It has secured forever mountain summits, salt marshes, rivers, lakes, ponds, farms, forests, and shoreline. In 2005, Maine citizens overwhelmingly approved $10 million in bond money for the program, which was committed last spring to a broad range of projects including rystal Spring Farm in Brunswick, Caribou Bog near Bangor, Grafton Notch in western Maine, the Dead River Trail in Somerset County, and an addition to the Wells National Estuarine Reserve in Southern Maine.

Bond dollars also provide a great return on investment: since 2000 every Land for Maine’s Future dollar has been matched by hree dollars of federal, private, and other matching funds. However, without additional funding, Maine will be unable to protect the productive woodlands and farms, vital wildlife habitat, and access to land for outdoor recreation that are threatened every day by forestland subdivision, the loss of family farms, and sprawl.

Maine’s economy is based on protecting its quality of place. The Land for Maine’s Future program has and will help Maine citizens and towns with their critical conservation needs—but its needs funding now.

Riverfront Community Development Bond

Passed as amended.

Sponsor: Sen. Peggy Rotundo

Action Update

Fact Sheet

Press Release

In many rivers across the state, people can once again swim, fish, and canoe, and habitat restoration projects have begun to bring back long-diminished runs of sea-run fish. Many more communities are intent on revitalizing their riverfronts to improve the quality of life in their towns.

By creating a competitive grants program to support voluntary, community-driven projects across Maine, the $25 million Riverfront Community Development Bond will:

• promote and enhance environmentally sustainable economic activity along rivers; • help local communities revitalize their riverfronts by transforming run-down areas into productive use;
• restore and improve habitat for fish and wildlife;
• develop and promote a range of public uses supporting new jobs, public access, boating, and fishing; • allow communities to invest in riverfront parks and trails; and
• leverage other private and public resources.

Additions to the State’s Endangered and Threatened Species List

Passed as amended.

Sponsor: Rep. Mark Bryant

Action Update

Fact Sheet

Protecting species at risk in Maine is a core issue for Maine people, who deeply value the state’s diverse wildlife.

When Maine’s Endangered Species Act was passed over 30 years ago, the state began listing its threatened and endangered species. The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is now proposing to revise the list, for the first time in ten years, by adding fourteen animals:

• New England cottontail (endangered)
• least bittern (endangered)
• redfin pickerel (endangered)
• juniper hairstreak (endangered)
• rapids clubtail (endangered)
• Barrow’s goldeneye (threatened)
• black-crowned night heron (threatened)
• common moorhen (threatened)
• great cormorant (threatened)
• short-eared owl (threatened)
• purple lesser fritillary (threatened)sleepy duskywing (threatened)
• boreal snaketail (threatened)
• brook floater (threatened)

We support the list. Maine's Legislature should, too. The purpose and benefits of the list include:

• Maintaining a current list of species most at risk of extinction in Maine—a list based on scientific data about the health of a species’ population—is the first step to protection.
• Based on the list, Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife can develop management and recovery plans for a listed species and review projects that might affect them, assuring negative impacts are avoided or minimized wherever possible.
• The list is a public document that helps businesses, landowners, government agencies, and others know which wildlife is rare and vulnerable in Maine. It can help eliminate uncertainties, costly petitions, and legal action.
• The list provides a reason for landowners to work cooperatively with the state, and creates opportunities for positive public education about Maine wildlife for Maine residents and visitors.
• By helping to protect species at risk, the list can help protect rare habitat.

Chickadee Check-off

Killed.

Sponsor: Rep. Bob Duchesne

Much of the nongame programming at the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is funded by voluntary programs such as the Loon Conservation License Plate, the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund lottery ticket, and the Chickadee Income Tax Check-off. Started in 1984, the Chickadee Checkoff originally raised significant funding—approximately $115,000 per year. However, when all of the check-offs were moved from the first page of the income tax form in 1998, revenues decreased by up to 50 percent. Still, a percentage of Mainers continue to make the effort to voluntarily support this important work. Maine Audubon is asking the Legislature to return the check-off to the first page of the income tax form and help boost contributions to fund important nongame work.

Significant Wildlife Habitat

Passed as amended.

Sponsor: Rep. Ted Koffman

Action Alert

Maine rules protecting important high- and moderate-value wading bird and waterfowl habitat, significant vernal pools, and shorebird nesting and feeding areas were adopted by the Legislature with near unanimity last session. However, some Mainers have challenged the rules and numerous bills have been submitted to repeal parts or all of the rules. Maine Audubon is committed to finding productive solutions to short-term concerns while at the same time protecting the core of the rules, these important habitats.

Because shorebird and wading bird habitats—including mud flats and wetlands where birds nest and feed—are highly vulnerable to disturbance, development, and environmental contaminants, the “significant wildlife habitat” rules require a permit to develop in or near those areas.

These reasonable rules protect the last remaining feeding and resting areas for migratory shorebirds as they travel from the Arctic circle to as far away as Chile where they spend the winter. Some of these areas, like around Harrington and Addison, are nationally significant to shorebirds. Shorebirds are declining, and once these places are gone, there will be no where else for the birds to go—we risk losing them altogether.

Shorebirds and wading birds desperately need this habitat, but Maine people need it, too—not only to maintain our quality of life, but also to keep drawing the visitors who bring millions of dollars to the state each year.

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

Passed.

Sponsor: Reps. Hannah Pingree and Ted Koffman

Fact Sheet

The Power Plant Global Warming Bill allows Maine to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a program of national—even international—significance. Based on input by state agencies and stakeholders throughout the Northeast, “Reggie,” as it’s known, sets a limit on the amount of global warming pollution from fossil fuel-burning power plants in six to eight Northeastern states, including Maine.

The bill proposes to:

• reduce global warming pollution from large fossil-fueled power plants by nearly 20 percent by the year 2019;
• increase Maine’s impact by joining with other northeastern states, who together add up to the seventh largest source of global warming pollution in the world;
• use a flexible, efficient, market-based approach that has already worked to reduce acid rain and ozone;
• stimulate economic investment and support energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies; and
• protect Maine’s environment.

Eliminate Toxic Flame Retardant Deca

Passed as amended.

Sponsor: Rep. Hannah Pingree

Action Alert

Fact Sheet

This bill will protect wildlife and human health by requiring safer alternatives to the use of “PBDE”s (chemical flame retardants) in consumer products. Added to plastics and textiles to reduce the spread of flames in a fire, PDBEs are long-lived and build up in the food web. High levels have been found in young children and are on the rise in breast milk, household dust, sewage sludge, and wildlife including harbor seals, fish, and birds. The PDBE Deca has been found in peregrine falcons at levels that may harm their development. Effective alternatives are available to meet the highest fire safety standards for TVs, mattresses, and furniture.

Quality of Places

Sponsors: Senate President Beth Edmonds and Speaker of the House Glenn Cummings

Last fall, the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institute issued a comprehensive report Charting Maine's Future: An Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Places. The report identifies major trends including: Maine's population is growing, Maine's economy is reorienting its base away from goods production and extraction industrires towards diverse and innovative services, and Maine's landscape is shifting from rural to suburban. The impacts of Maine's changing growth and development patterns were also analyzed. Obstacles and challenges to greater prosperity are identified and considered. Last, the report proposes an action plan.

A critical component the action plan is to establish a $190 million Maine Quality Places Fund. The fund would:

• promote the revitalization of Maine’s towns and cities;
• augment land and farm conservation;
• protect traditional uses of and access to Maine forests, farms, and lakes; and
• promote high-quality tourism and outdoor recreation.

The premise for the fund is that the state’s increasing growth is causing widespread suburbanization and sprawl, which is driving up costs and threatening the state’s “top calling card”—its scenic beauty, the feel of its towns, and its quality of place. The fund would protect these qualities so essential to our economy.