NRCM news release, statement by Lisa Pohlmann
Maine needs healthy people and a healthy environment. To pit one against the other is disingenuous and misleading.
Governor LePage has had the weakest environmental record of any governor in recent history, so this sudden concern about the effect of MaineCare spending on natural resource agency budgets seems wholly fabricated. During his first year in office, Governor LePage proposed a sweeping package to measures to gut Maine’s environmental laws. He has not proposed any initiatives to strengthen Maine’s natural resource protections. He has never mentioned Maine’s environment in a State of the State speech, and he has vetoed several environmental bills and refused to sign the few environmental laws that he, reluctantly, has allowed to pass his desk.
If the Governor were concerned about funding levels for environmental agencies, we would have seen completely different behavior over the last three years. Instead, we have seen efforts to weaken and undermine these budgets, which collectively are only 2-3 % of Maine’s General Fund.
