Augusta, ME – This week in the Portland Press Herald, a Maine forestry economist called out Susan Collins for voting to harm Maine’s forest industry. The op-ed calling out Collins comes just days after her campaign released an ad which sparked a firestorm by deriding Troy Jackson’s logging background.

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Portland Press Herald: Susan Collins may finally have overstayed her welcome

By Mary Ignatiadis

October 29, 2026

• For 20 of the 24 years that Susan Collins has been Maine’s senator, some of our biggest mills have stood empty — Great Northern in Millinocket, Lincoln Paper and Tissue in Lincoln and many others. That’s not a coincidence.

• Maine has lost many opportunities over the years to put these towns back to work with new forest product manufacturers, companies that would have refined our pulpwood into advanced fuels and turned our sawlogs into mass timber. A big part of the reason that we lost those opportunities was unfriendly and inconsistent federal policy from Collins and her colleagues.

• Now, finally, there are new companies moving into these mills. The question is whether Maine will have a senator who will fight to keep those companies, and the thousands of jobs they could create here.

• It’s true that Collins has brought a lot of grant money to Maine’s struggling forest economy — about $100 million since 2008. The first problem is that $100 million over 18 years is nothing compared to the $1.3 billion that Maine loses every single year from those closed mills.

• The other problem is that Mainers don’t want government handouts. We want real economic growth for our heritage industries. And Collins has repeatedly voted against creating real demand and real advantages for Maine’s forest sector.

• For example:

• 2002, 2005: Voted against the Renewable Electricity Standard, which would have given biomass energy some of the same tax advantages as fossil fuel energy (Energy Policy Acts of 2002 and 2005).

• 2008: Voted for long-term fossil fuel production tax credits, but not for long-term biomass production tax credits (Emergency Economic Stabilization Act & Renewable Tax Extensions).

• 2009: Voted against a national carbon market that would have promoted the use of mass timber and other wood-based construction products (American Clean Energy and Security Act).

• 2015: Voted against New England’s transition to cheap renewables, keeping Maine manufacturers locked into the most expensive electric grid in the country (Clean Power Plan).

• 2017: Voted to subsidize fossil-fuel-based resins and composites, using taxpayers’ own money to destroy demand for Maine-made, wood-based resins and composites (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017).

• 2021: Voted against federal procurement standards prioritizing US-grown mass timber and other wood products over foreign steel and concrete (Build Back Better).

• Another pain point for our industry is diesel prices. How much lower would diesel prices be if we had someone fighting for more cheap renewable energy, leaving a strategic diesel reserve for the heritage industries that really need it? There may have been a time when what was good for the fossil fuel industry was also good for the forest products sector, but that time passed decades ago.

• Collins doesn’t seem to care that voting on behalf of her fossil fuel donors means taking opportunities away from Maine. Seeing our senator throw our future away in return for cash is, to say the least, frustrating.

• I’m voting for Troy Jackson because I believe in the future of Maine’s forest industry. I believe that Maine’s mills should be producing world-leading forest technologies instead of sitting empty. I believe that Maine should be celebrated not just as “Vacationland,” but as a place where our heritage industries can thrive.