Report Creates Green Checklist for Next Governor

Just in time for Maine's gubernatorial campaign, a coalition of 25 environmental, conservation and public health organizations representing over 100,000 members on Thursday issued a set of recommended policies for the next governor to embrace.

Ranging from land-use planning to clean energy policy, the check list — called a "A Trail Map to Prosperity” — touched on sweeping goals with a raft of strategies, including regulation, spending, planning, creating tax incentives and bonding.

"We're at a political crossroads because we're about to elect a new governor and a legislature who will chart our course for the next four to eight years," Maureen Drouin of the Maine Conservation Voters Education Fund/Environmental Priorities Coalition said Thursday during a press conference at Ocean Gateway marine terminal.

The 20-page Trail Map targets policymaking, jobs and the economy, livable communities, natural legacy, clean energy and healthy people. Some solutions may sound familiar to Portlanders, where subjects such as public transit and organic food sources regularly criss-cross the city's politics.

"In the next five years, we need to get the worst of the worst toxic chemicals out of consumer products, out of workplaces and out of community environments," said Heather Spalding, associate director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.

"Maine needs to reduce its local sources of air pollution through renewable energy and use of cleaner fuels and cleaner burning chemicals," Spalding said. "Maine also needs to increase the number of farmer's markets and the number of large organic buyers including Maine's school kitchens. We need more organic farms and at least 10 percent of Maine's farmland protected."

Only 1 percent of Maine's 1.2 million acres of farmland is protected to make sure it remains in production, she said.

Nancy Smith of Portland, GrowSmart Maine executive director, said from 1980 to 2000 Maine developed more than 1,300 square miles of rural land, roughly the size of Rhode Island, due to suburbanization.

"Mainers can create vibrant village centers surrounded by walkable and bikable neighborhoods in both urban and rural areas where schools and stores are within reach and local commerce is alive and well," Smith said.

About 270 towns have completed comprehensive growth and land use plans under Maine's growth management law, "while innovative transportation plans are underway in many towns across the state," she said.

Public transit is poised to expand, as Maine received $35 million in stimulus funds to extend passenger train service from Portland to Brunswick.

"Today's Trail Map shows us that in the next five years, we need to increase our use of smart growth strategies and principles," Smith said, citing the need for roads designed for all users and more transit-oriented development.

The coalition said members "will be educating candidates over the summer on the specific policy changes outlined in the report," but at least one gubernatorial candidate was represented at Thursday's press conference.

Ted O'Meara, campaign manager for Eliot Cutler, independent candidate for governor, said Cutler will review the Trail Map and talk to members of the represented groups.

Much of the report focuses on job growth through environmental investment. Candidates already are hearing about the need to make Maine more business friendly, but from many different perspectives. The Maine Heritage Policy Center, a conservative group, in late June issued a report, "Maine Job Creation from the Birth or Death of Establishments," that showed a net loss of jobs in Maine from the demise of businesses between 1989 and 2007.

The net 9,057 lost jobs between 1993 and 2007 equals a loss of .4 percent of Maine's 1993 workforce, ranking Maine 30th in the nation for job growth due establishment births and deaths, the group reported. First-in-the-nation Florida saw a 29.8 percent increase in workforce due to establishment births and deaths. Of the five other New England states, only New Hampshire, ranked 28th, saw positive jobs growth (1 percent increase in workforce). Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts rank 38th, 47th, 48th and 50th, respectively, in job growth due to establishment births and deaths.

"Anecdotally, we always knew Maine was losing jobs to New Hampshire, but it appears the facts back it up," said MHPC Chief Economist Scott Moody, author of the report, when it was released June 21. "The next governor and Legislature should take time to truly understand why establishments are leaving Maine, where they are going, and what reforms we can make to empower and encourage greater entrepreneurship. A robust business community is key to new jobs and economic recovery. The state must change the way it does business, so it can keep businesses in the state."

Maine’s Environmental Priorities Coalition had its own list of issues, including "climate change, economic development and skyrocketing health and energy costs."

O'Meara with the Cutler campaign said the environment and economy don't need to be viewed as dueling priorities.

"I don't think anybody would argue today that having clean rivers in Maine is not a huge part of our economy now. I think we've proven over the last number of years that we can have both and we need to have both, we can have a clean environment and a sound economy, and the two have to work together, and that's what Eliot's campaign is about," he said.

For more information on the "A Trail Map to Prosperity," visit www.protectmaine.org/ourfuture.  For more information on "Maine Job Creation from the Birth or Death of Establishments," visit www.mainepolicy.org.