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Open for business: Maine governor gutting environmental rules
Newly elected Maine Gov. Paul LePage wants to slash and burn a bevy of environmental laws and open up huge swaths of the state for development.
Thu, Jan 27 2011 at 12:59 PM
Maine woods.

Photo: Fisherman's Daughter/Flickr

Main Gov. Paul LePageMaine Gov. Paul LePage is not wasting any time making his mark on the Pine Tree State. He wants to not only rezone 10 million acres in northern Maine for development but also to do away with more than 30 environmental laws.
 
LePage wants to do away with a new law that creates a system requiring manufacturers to start recycling or take-back programs for their products. LePage would prefer if companies didn't have "to pay to recycle their consumer products." He wants to loosen rules for building on sand dunes, rewrite state environmental laws to conform with looser federal standards, and hobble the state Department of Environmental Protection with new rules and oversight.
 
Greenies around the state are not happy. Lisa Pohlmann of the Natural Resources Council of Maine told the Portland Press Herald, "this is an ideological push rather than a reasoned, science-based approach."
 
I live in Maine and am pretty bummed that this guy is our governor. He managed to win the top spot with just 38 percent of the vote by splitting a field made up of himself, a weak Democratic choice, Libby Mitchell, and the surprisingly strong independent Elliot Cutler.
 
One positive thing that could come out of LePage's term is if the state (and nation at large) woke up to the realities of Tea Party rule. This is what Tea Party rule looks like.
 
And at the very least, the rest of his time in office will be entertaining, in much the same way that it's entertaining to watch people get hit in the crotch on YouTube — except it's my state getting kicked.
 
Are you on Twitter? Follow me (@sheagunther) there; I give good tweets.
 
And if you really like my writing, you can join my Facebook page.
 
Photo: (Paul LePage) Wikimedia Commons
 

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Comments: 2
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anonymous
'Wudz Feb 06 2011 at 9:05 AM
I try so very hard to be politically non-bias however overwhelming actions by many (not all) Republican politicians seem to have life in their crosshairs. Always funneling back to that pursuit of the dollar bill. Claims of freedom, liberty, blah blah blah. Their reference of these words are pure exploition in attempt to say support from voters and to achieve personal gain. Example is the first tax deal cut within weeks of this new year. Extend the Bush tax cut for the elite and forsake just under
.... More
a TRILLION dollars in true taxes for the top 3%, reduce their estate taxes on their properties worth 5 million and up and then make spending cuts that help the common man/woman, the poor, the environment or infrastructure to save 100 billion. Sound reasonable? Give up just under a trillion in tax revenue or cut gov't spending to save 100 billion. That saving on the federal level will cost us all terribly. Anyone good in math?? They appear to embrace the innate (the lifeless material things) and forsake the living, favor the elite at the expense of the common man/woman/child. Is this the American value system? Create a fat bank account at the expense of the living or make an honest buck while respecting each other and the thing we all have in common, life. We do make the bed we sleep in. In a democracy, the people deserve the government they vote in. Have you hugged a tree today? They hug us right back in every single breath we breathe.
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anonymous
Jenn the Greenmom Feb 02 2011 at 8:36 PM

This breaks my heart. My parents live in Maine too, and it's just as upsetting to them...the idea that this guy can come in and just gut everything...Sigh. The Once-ler has come north, I guess.
--Jenn the Greenmom
www.greenmomintheburbs.wordpress.com

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