Portland Press Herald. April 13, 2024.
Editorial: Perfection is the enemy of our environment
The scuffle over permission for a wind energy facility on Sears Island offers a template for how not to take on climate change.
The defeat by the Maine House of Representatives of a bill designed to pave the way for a significant offshore wind energy manufacturing facility is concerning and frustrating. This is a major opportunity that should not be blown.
The 100-acre site on Penobscot Bay, selected by the Mills administration in February after much evaluation, became a point of serious contention in recent weeks.
At times, the argument over its fate appeared to pit environmentalists against environmentalists; those focused on the preservation of the coastline and the site’s wildlife against those focused on the urgent need for Maine to support an offshore wind industry with a longer-term and further-reaching rationale: the mitigation of climate change.
The bill that failed in the House would have authorized the Department of Environmental Protection to grant a permit to build the terminal on a site featuring a system of coastal sand dunes. The proposal drew supposedly environmental arguments out of unlikely corners. A right-wing news site, complaining “Gov. Mills thinks she can change the weather,” posted an op-ed warning that Sears Island could “be the next victim of Maine’s radical climate agenda.”
What’s radical about an attempt to forge an offshore wind industry in 2024 – in a place where the winds are among the strongest and most consistent on earth? We’re not sure.
Opponents to the siting seem to have lost sight of the bigger picture. Let it be said: It’s not a pretty picture. The climate emergency is making uncomfortable demands of communities the world over. Reminders of the unfolding climate crisis are everywhere, Maine’s latest warm and destructive winter among them. Our grid is going to need the power and our energy mix must get away from carbon. The trade-offs can be undesirable but must be made.
“At least Sears Island is safe for now,” a user of the social network X, formerly Twitter, posted after the House vote last week. Safe for now.
At what cost? At the costs of hundreds of well-paid permanent manufacturing jobs – by one estimate, Maine could gain up to 33,000 short-term and 13,000 long-term jobs – and a significant setback to the state’s appropriately ambitious climate goals.
If we do not move to green energy sources and reduce our reliance on carbon, none of our beloved environments will be “safe.”
The excess of caution expressed in the vote seems, at best, to disregard the fact that the legislation would have only allowed the Department of Environmental Protection to proceed with the Sears Island project after a state and federal permitting process with all laws and relevant rules complied with.
This is not the Catch-22 situation that opponents to the turbine port would have you believe. Rockland legislator Rep. Valli Geiger, a self-professed environmentalist, put it well in an interview with the Press Herald. Geiger said she struggled with the prospect of the Legislature needing to “roll back sand dune regulations because they’re in the way of development.”
In the end, though, she said she supported the rollback, recognizing the critical environmental need for the wind port.
“Ultimately, for me it’s the larger overarching issue of climate change that has led me to ‘yes,’” Geiger told the paper.
Fifteen years ago in 2009, then-Gov. John Baldacci’s Ocean Energy Task Force formally reported on the promise of wind to supply energy to Maine and to make it a “net energy exporter.” Due to relentless foot-dragging and other obstructionism, we have not even begun to realize that vision.
The longer this kind of unproductive and complacent zig-zagging continues, the longer we squander the high-quality wind that blows in the Gulf of Maine. Offshore wind is estimated to be in a position to generate about half the renewable energy needed by Maine by the end of the next decade. If we get started on it. Events of last week show us that it’s still an unacceptably big “if.”
Maine simply can’t afford to continue like this, economically or environmentally. There is no perfect location for an offshore wind turbine port. Years have passed since the development of this industry was first mooted and still, despite knowing better, we are running down the clock. These hard realities should make people who continue to stand in the way of obligatory progress think twice.
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Bangor Daily News. April 15, 2024.
Editorial: New office can offer another avenue to revitalize tribal-state affairs
While larger issues of sovereignty remain unresolved, tribes in Maine and state government have worked together to move forward on several issues, including tribal courts, water quality and gaming.
So, it is a bit distressing to again see the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission (MITSC) mired in disagreement. However, a new office of tribal-state affairs, which is currently being considered by Maine lawmakers, could offer a new venue to continue this important work.
LD 1834, as amended, would create an Office of Tribal-State affairs within the Secretary of State’s Office. According to the bill text, the office is meant to “promote positive government-to-government relations between the state and the Indian tribes in a neutral manner and without advocating either for or against the interests of the state or of the Indian tribes.”
The bill has been passed by both the Maine House and Senate. Now, it is awaiting funding, which lawmakers should approve to get this new office up and running.
While this may seem duplicative of MITSC, it is worth noting that the role of the commission more narrowly focuses on implementation of and changes to the 1980 Indian Land Claims Settlement Act. This new group would have a broader focus, and, perhaps more importantly, does not come with the history that has stymied MITSC.
The commission, which was created as part of the 1980 Indian Land Claims Settlement Act, is meant to be a forum for evaluation of the effectiveness of the act and the relationship between the state and the five tribes in Maine. It is made up of six tribal commissioners chosen by the tribes, and six state commissioners nominated by the governor, with a 13th member — a chairperson — who is selected by a majority vote of the commissioners.
The 13-member commission could and should play a significant role in helping to resolve disputes between the tribes and the state and to help foster a better relationship between the two entities.
Instead, the commission has too often become mired in disagreement and dysfunction. In 2003, for example, Penobscot and Passamaquoddy members stopped attending commission meetings for more than a year after voters rejected a tribal casino proposed for Sanford. Gov. Paul LePage did not fill vacancies on the commission when they occurred during his second term in office.
More recently, however, the commission was instrumental in developing a long list of areas where the state and tribes can take action to improve the wellbeing of members of the four federally recognized tribes in Maine. Those recommendations have been the basis of several successful pieces of legislation that have become law.
Late last month, some members of MITSC objected to three men that Gov. Janet Mills had nominated to serve on the commission. The group’s executive director, Jill Tompkins, and chair, Newell Lewey, took the unusual step of sending a letter to the chairs of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee critical of the nominees’ past statements, including a column published by the Bangor Daily News. “The current MITSC commissioners will work with any individuals recommended by this committee and confirmed by the Senate, of course. However, we respectfully request that you consider what kind of atmosphere will be created by adding three individuals with such obvious opposition to tribal concerns and interests,” Tompkins and Lewey wrote.
The governor has since withdrawn two of the nominations, leaving the commission short of members. This is unfortunate because the municipal voices that the nominees represent are often muted in conversations around tribal-state issues.
As a former commission member, James Cote, wrote in a column published last week by the BDN, serving on MITSC was frustrating work that felt bogged down by administrative concerns rather than tackling long-standing issues of racism and conflict.
Penobscot Nation Ambassador, Maulian Bryant, who is not a member of MITSC, has also been frustrated by the commission’s history of dysfunction.
“The tribes really want MITSC to work,” Bryant, told the BDN editorial board in an interview. “It is not in anyone’s interest to only have litigation and disagreement.”
We, like Bryant and Cote, are hopeful that MITSC can be revitalized to play a positive role. We also see a vital role for the new office that would be created by LD 1834. As Bryant explained, the new office could engage new people and new perspectives on issues that are important to tribes in Maine and the state without the fraught history and narrow focus of MITSC.
Tribal and state representatives have worked together to make significant changes, including amended legislation to strengthen tribal courts that awaits (and deserves) final passage and funding in the Legislature. Those steps can be built upon through both a revitalized MITSC and a new office of tribal affairs.
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Boston Globe. April 17, 2024.
Editorial: State commits to moving 2,400 people out of nursing homes
Court settlement will help people with disabilities move into the community.
Occasionally, a lawsuit prompts a policy shift that will improve thousands of lives. That’s just what happened Tuesday.
Governor Maura Healey’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services moved to settle a lawsuit, Marsters v. Healey, with a promise to move at least 2,400 people with disabilities from nursing homes back into the community over the next eight years. State officials estimate they will spend $1 billion over that period on housing, counseling, and other services to help people leave nursing facilities.
Healey, in a statement, called the settlement “a natural next step forward as our administration expands community living options available for individuals residing in nursing facilities.”
Steven Schwartz, special counsel with the Center for Public Representation, who represented the plaintiffs, called the agreement “spectacular” and said it will make a big difference in giving nursing home residents the support and the information they need to move out. “So many people prefer to remain in their own homes with families or with communities,” Schwartz said. “Once they’re given both information about choices and real options, I think a very significant percentage of people in nursing homes will likely choose to be in the community.”
In the long term, there will likely be money saved as people move out of nursing homes into less expensive forms of care, like community-based supports.
The Massachusetts Senior Action Council and a group of nursing home residents with physical and mental disabilities sued the state in 2022. They said the state was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by unnecessarily institutionalizing people with disabilities rather than providing sufficient home- and community-based services.
Similar lawsuits filed under previous governors had resulted in the transition of thousands of people with brain injuries and intellectual and developmental disabilities from nursing homes into community settings, and this board had urged the Healey administration to reach a similar settlement.
The 54-page settlement agreement filed in US District Court in Massachusetts, which still needs a judge’s approval, includes serious commitments by the administration to help move people with disabilities who want to leave nursing homes into their communities.
The administration will expand programs that provide transition counseling to nursing home residents, advising them of their rights and options and helping them develop plans to move. Every nursing home will be assigned a team to provide counseling and casework. Residents will be given help locating housing and offered opportunities to visit community-based programs and service providers. Services will be provided in a “linguistically and culturally competent” way.
Of course, moving back into the community is only possible if there’s a place to go. With Massachusetts facing a housing crisis that will likely make it hard for seniors to find new homes, the state has committed to expanding funding for housing programs for this population. It will add beds in group homes and expand supportive living services. It will add 800 new subsidized housing opportunities, including a mix of funding to support the development of new units and new vouchers to help people afford existing units. There will be a rental voucher program designated specifically for people with disabilities seeking to transition to the community. Money will be earmarked for home modifications for people moving into their own or a family member’s home.
The US Department of Justice is also investigating whether the state violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by not transitioning people out of institutions, and the court settlement, if approved, could likely help resolve that investigation as well.
The challenge with any legal settlement is that while the administration can agree to a settlement, the Legislature must fund it. Lawmakers have generally been committed to funding legal settlements, and they should expeditiously fund this one in accordance with any budget requests Healey submits.
John Simmons, a 73-year-old man with multiple medical conditions, used to live independently in Boston with a subsidized housing voucher. He ran his own errands, occasionally ate out, spent time with family and friends, and attended his medical appointments, according to a court brief. But after multiple hospitalizations, he lost the housing voucher, moved in with his sister in Fall River, then landed in a nursing home following another hospitalization. In the nursing home, Simmons’ depression increased, and he missed spending time outdoors. He applied for a state waiver that would have given him support to live independently in the community, but there was a long waiting list.
Simmons was the lead plaintiff of the lawsuit when it was filed. He died in the nursing home waiting to move. But his legacy will live on when others in similar positions are able to return to their homes and their communities through the resources made available by this settlement.
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