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Editor, Maine Environmental News

Democrats plan to push clean energy to lower bills and challenge Trump’s fossil fuel agenda

ASSOCIATED PRESS • November 8, 2026

Some Democrats are promising to push for more clean energy to help tackle rising energy costs when they take control of Congress in January, though President Donald Trump says he will use his veto power aggressively. With new majorities in the House and Senate after last week’s midterms, Democrats can set an agenda boosting clean energy and addressing climate change. While those are traditionally core priorities of the party, climate was not a central topic in this election cycle.

Bristol solar project fined $94K for environmental violations

MAINE PUBLIC • November 8, 2026

Maine environmental regulators have fined a Bristol solar development almost $94,000 to resolve violations of Maine's erosion control and water pollution laws. The Maine Board of Environmental Protection approved a consent agreement between the state and Overlook Solar Partners last week. According to the settlement, erosion control measures at Overlook's 5 megawatt solar site failed in 2022 and sediment-laden water runoff polluted nearby wetlands. The company later corrected the violations and stabilized the site. Overlook is an affiliate of Luminace Holdings, a solar development company that is itself a subsidiary of energy giant Brookfield. Another Luminace subsidiary, Tower Solar Partners was fined $236,000 by state regulators last year for violations in Emden that led to sediment pollution flowing into the Kennebec River.

Opinion: Maine needs Hannah Pingree to take the lead on the environment

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • December 8, 2026

Mainers are grappling with rising costs; growing threats to public health; and the impacts of severe storms, droughts and heat waves. Meanwhile, our federal government is rolling back vital environmental protections. These challenges are deeply connected. Protecting our environment goes hand in hand with making life more affordable, improving public health and building a stronger future for Maine families. The governor-elect has the chance to address some of the most pressing challenges facing our communities. Here are three key priorities: First, make polluters pay. Second, ensure affordability and accountability. Third, modernize permitting while protecting communities. Environmental justice must remain central to each of these. ~ Kate Sinding Daly, Conservation Law Foundation, Portland

Column: Maine’s most popular game bird is declining in other states. Why is it thriving here?

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 7, 2026

The ruffed grouse is Pennsylvania’s official state bird, yet its population has declined so dramatically that the bird may disappear altogether. Several states have banned hunting them. Others have listed the birds as threatened or endangered. Yet Maine’s population remains in good shape. Why? Ruffed grouse require young forests, preferably with lots of aspens and birches. The buds and catkins of those trees, supplemented by berries from young shrubs, help the birds survive the winter. In spring, the chicks need plenty of insects for the protein that supports their rapid growth. That ideal habitat precisely describes Maine’s working forest. We have young trees and abundant bugs. ~ Bob Duchesne

Maine Lobstermen’s Association welcomes change in federal whale policy

MIDCOAST VILLAGER • November 7, 2026

“The Maine Lobstermen’s Association welcomes a major shift in federal whale policy following its landmark court victory against the National Marine Fisheries Service,” the trade industry group stated in a Nov. 6 news release. On Nov. 5, NMFS announced that new scientific analyses indicate U.S. fisheries may be meeting the federal standard for protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Letter: Maine should be rallying behind clean energy permitting reform

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • December 7, 2026

New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) is now delivering clean Canadian hydropower to New England, displacing fossil fuel generation. Its completion should be a point of pride. Instead, years of lawsuits and political battles added more than $500 million to its cost — a burden that ultimately falls on ratepayers. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act would help prevent such delays without weakening environmental protections. ~ Don Parent, Cumberland

This weekend might be the last chance this year to drive up Acadia’s Cadillac Mountain

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 6, 2026

This could be the final weekend this year for Acadia National Park visitors to drive to the summit of the park’s highest peak — and they won’t need a reservation to do it. Cadillac Summit Road will close Monday so the park can resume construction on a pedestrian pathway connecting the summit’s east and west parking lots. The roadway, which requires a vehicle reservation during the park’s busy season between May and October, will reopen Nov. 25 for Thanksgiving weekend, marking the final chance for visitors to ascend Cadillac Mountain by vehicle this year — if the weather cooperates.

Scientists discovered an unknown baby right whale off Canada. They say it's a cause for joy

MAINE PUBLIC • November 6, 2026

It would seem difficult to miss a 15,000-pound baby, but for months scientists who study rare whales did just that, and now they couldn't be happier. Researchers in Canada captured images of an unidentified baby North Atlantic right whale, one of the rarest sea mammals in the world, off Anticosti Island in Quebec in September. Scientists with the New England Aquarium in Boston said this week that after analyzing photos and data about right whales, they have determined it was a calf likely born months ago that went unseen during winter surveys for the giant animals. The discovery puts the number of baby right whales discovered from the most recent birthing season at 24, the most productive year for the whales since 2009. The whales number only about 380 in the world, and their population has fallen since 2010.

Upstream pig poop stymies Maine town’s desire to reopen polluted clam flat

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 6, 2026

Soft-shell clams face steep challenges along the coast of Maine, where harvests have fallen by 75% since the mid-1970s amid warming waters and the arrival of invasive green crabs that eat their young. On the shores of Herrick Bay in the Hancock County town of Brooklin, once its most productive flat, testing suggests harvesters face an additional issue: pig feces washing down into a bay from Selectman David Reiley’s small farm upstream, where remediation efforts have apparently stalled for more than a year.

An illegally killed bull moose became an unusual classroom lesson for Maine students

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 6, 2026

East Grand High School students in Danforth got a hands-on lesson in processing wild game Wednesday, learning how to butcher, package and preserve meat from a bull moose. The Maine Warden Service recovered the moose last week after it was illegally shot in northern Maine during Maine’s antlerless-only moose hunt.

Undeveloped 30-acre island in Blue Hill Bay hits the market for $1.75M

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 5, 2026

A 30-acre private island located just north of Swans Island in Blue Hill Bay is on the market for the first time in at least 50 years. Orono Island, part of the Acadia Archipelago, is largely undeveloped except for two docks and a roughly 10-by-20-foot shelter with wooden sleeping bunks. The property hit the market on Monday with an asking price of more than $1.7 million and has already garnered the attention of multiple prospective buyers.

Judge grants injunction to temporarily halt removal of beloved York tree

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 5, 2026

A York County Superior Court judge has issued a restraining order against the town of York, temporarily halting the removal of a tree that some residents want to save. The honey locust tree, located on a traffic island in York Village Square, has been at the center of a weekslong debate over whether it should be saved as work begins on a long-awaited revitalization plan.

Hannah Pingree taps former Republican and tribal leader to build her Cabinet

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 5, 2026

Gov.-elect Hannah Pingree on Thursday named a former Republican state senator who once co-hosted a TV talk show with her and a Penobscot Nation leader to co-chair the committee that will help pick her Cabinet. Roger Katz, a lawyer who served four terms as a state senator and was Augusta’s mayor, and Maulian Bryant, the executive director of the Wabanaki Alliance and former ambassador for the Penobscot Nation, will lead a volunteer Transition Committee whose full membership will be announced in the coming days.

Maine fisheries biologists study stocked salmon in Albany Twp.

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 5, 2026

Songo Pond in Albany Township was the focus last month of a salmon-sampling program by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. It is is known as a “put-and-take” winter salmon fishery, according to IFW Fisheries Resource Supervisor Jim Pellerin. That’s because it is stocked for fishing by the department with the expectation that the fish will be “harvested relatively soon after stocking. We’re not really looking or expecting to create a quality fishery with multi-age fish,” he said.

Column: Do Mainers really save energy with daylight saving time?

TIMES RECORD • October 5, 2026

Daylight saving time comes from the era of incandescent bulbs: Shift the clock so people are awake during more daylight, and they’ll use less energy to see by. Congress adopted it in 1918 to conserve fuel for World War I and extended it into November in 2007. The evidence for savings is thin. The U.S. Department of Energy found the 2007 extension saved just 0.03% of the nation’s yearly electricity. DOE estimates you can save up to 10% a year on heating and cooling by turning your thermostat back 7-10 F for eight hours a day. The catch: more than two-thirds of EIA survey households with a programmable thermostat never programmed it. ~ Fred Horch and Peggy Siegle, Sustainable Practice

Animal rights group petitions Maine agency to adopt rules for salmon farms

MAINE MONITOR • November 4, 2026

An animal rights group has petitioned the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry to establish new rules improving the welfare of farmed salmon in aquaculture operations. Animal Outlook, a Washington-based animal welfare nonprofit, launched the petition drive. Ben Williamson, Animal Outlook’s executive director, said the group took action after conducting two investigations into conditions at Cooke Aquaculture USA’s Bingham hatchery. Cooke Aquaculture USA, the U.S. subsidiary of Cooke Inc., holds 24 active permits covering 620 acres of Maine waters. It is by far the state’s largest finfish aquaculture operation.

New Opportunities for Our Parks

NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION • November 4, 2026

The next Congress will look very different with many new park champions. This is the biggest change in America’s congressional representation in modern history. Every new seat represents a fresh opportunity to elevate our public lands and inspire the next wave of champions that our national parks so desperately need. The past two years have tested our parks like few times in our history. Together, with the help of park advocates across the country we fought off the largest proposed cut in the Park Service’s history and defeated an effort to sell off millions of acres of public lands. Our national parks belong to all of us. Let’s keep standing together to protect them. ~ Tiernan Sittenfeld, President and CEO, National Parks Conservation Association

Who Governs the Oceans? The Law of the Sea in a Shifting World Order, Nov 7

CAMDEN CONFERENCE • November 4, 2026

Ezgi Yildiz, Assistant Professor of Government at Bowdoin College and a Research Associate at the Global Governance Center of the Geneva Graduate Institute, traces how the modern law of the sea took shape, what it has achieved, and why it now faces growing strain. At Camden Public Library, November 7, 2:30 pm.

Preliminary results in major Maine political races

• Governor: Hannah Pingree (D)
• US Senate: Troy Jackson (D)
• US House 1: Chellie Pingree (D)
• US House 2: Matt Dunlap (D) and Paul LePage (R) too close to call
• Maine Senate: Ds 16, Rs 8
• Maine House: Ds 66, Rs 28