One year ago today, Governor Janet Mills unveiled a four-year plan, known as Maine Won’t Wait, to fight the climate crisis and achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. In the year since, Maine has made significant progress in combating the climate crisis, seeing record numbers of electric vehicle registrations, new electric vehicle charging stations, and installations of high-efficiency heat pumps. Because of this progress, the state is on track to hit its extremely aggressive goal of generating 80% of its energy through renewable sources by 2030.
Yet with notorious climate change-denier Paul LePage running for governor in 2022, all the progress the state has made is at risk. Throughout LePage’s eight years as governor, he baselessly questioned scientific consensus about climate change and stymied a wide variety of attempts to embrace a clean energy economy. He actively fought against the development of clean energy in the state, opposing funding for clean energy research, and rejecting proposals that would help create well-paying clean energy sector jobs. And while he claimed to be a protector of “Maine’s natural beauty,” his administration would have given free reign to corporations to pollute and ravage Maine’s environment had his attempts to weaken the state’s anti-pollution laws and encourage offshore drilling been fully realized, and by appointing a former chemical, drug, and oil lobbyist to head the Department of Environmental Protection.
A return to LePage’s obstruction of climate action would have real costs for Maine. As Maine’s Climate Council points out, if carbon emissions are not curbed, the consequences will be disastrous--from catastrophic coastal flooding to the degradation of the state’s natural beauty to the devastation of Maine’s historic industries like lobstering, agriculture, and forestry.
“After years of Paul LePage’s hostility to clean, renewable energy, Maine has made great strides in fighting the climate crisis to protect our people, our environment, and our economy under Governor Mills,” said Maine Democratic Party Chair Drew Gattine. “If elected to a third term, LePage would reverse Maine’s progress, hold our state and its people hostage to the interests of oil and fossil fuel companies, and usher in environmental disaster that would fundamentally change Maine for all future generations. For the sake of our children, grandchildren, and our beautiful state, we must continue to make progress in the fight against climate change and not allow Paul LePage to take us backward.”
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