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Click here to learn more about our top priority bills and follow their progress through the Legislature.
Schedule of Hearings and Work Sessions at the State House
Take our online quiz to learn about our legislative priorities.
Our top priority bills for the 2007 Legislature:
"Deca" bill to reduce toxic pollution in our homes. (Read recent updates on this bill.)
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) bill to reduce global warming pollution.(Read recent updates on this bill.)
Continued funding for the Land for Maine's Future Program. (Read recent updates on this bill.)
Riverfront Community Development Bond. (Read recent updates on this bill.)
The new Legislature arrived and was sworn in on January 3rd, and now the Statehouse is abuzz with committee hearings, budget deliberations, and policy debates. As always, NRCM jumped right in and began conversations with legislators about our top priorities for protecting Maine’s environment and the health of Maine families. We are optimistic that good things will happen this year, but time will tell. We have a lot of work to do in the upcoming months.
Partly as a result of Maine’s term limit law, which restricts legislators to eight consecutive years in office, the Statehouse is awash with new legislators. Almost one-third of the 151 members of the House are newly elected lawmakers with no prior service in state office. Getting to know these new decision-makers poses a major challenge, but an exciting one. Based on conversations thus far, we are impressed with the new group of legislators who ran for office for the first time last year, won, and now will be carrying out the responsibility of serving the people of Maine.
Getting to know new legislators is an important component to starting the new session for NRCM. So is reviewing all bills—and this year lawmakers introduced a record 2,400. We are deep in the process of reading through each and every one of these bills to determine which ones will have an impact on Maine’s environment—either positive or negative. We already have identified almost 200 that we will be keeping track of throughout the legislative process.
We are working with public health, business, and community groups, and with other conservation organizations to build support for our top priorities. The Legislature has an opportunity this year to achieve important progress in reducing global warming pollution from power plants, reducing toxic pollution in our homes, protecting endangered species, and providing additional funding for land conservation and riverfront community development projects.
These will be our highest priorities, but we also will be providing testimony, talking with legislators, and working to affect the outcome of dozens of other bills. Bad bills that would weaken Maine’s environmental safeguards emerge in every session, and you can be sure that NRCM will do everything in its power to make prevent any roll-back bills from being enacted.
We cannot do our work without the help of supportive legislators, coalition partners, and, most importantly, our members and activists across Maine. Time and again, we hear from legislators that the voices of their constituents have a big influence on how they vote.
If you are not part of NRCM’s “action network,” we encourage you to sign up today. You’ll receive up-to-minute news on our priority bills as wells as opportunities for you to help ensure a positive outcome on them. We also encourage you to visit our website often for updates on what’s happening at the Statehouse. With your help, we will protect what’s special about Maine. —Pete Didisheim, Advocacy Director