PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 13, 2026
The Environmental Protection Agency’s repeal of the legal basis for federal climate protections, announced Thursday, has cleared a path for upwind industrial polluters to send a wave of toxic exhaust into Maine — a state that already grapples with one of the highest asthma rates in the nation. Maine has strict clean air regulations and few big polluters, but the EPA’s rollback of the landmark 2009 determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health will strip the federal emission limits off upwind smokestacks and tailpipes in the deregulated Midwest and South. “Maine is already called the ‘tailpipe’ of the nation because of the air pollution that flows from other states into our atmosphere, and this misguided action will only make it worse,” Gov. Janet Mills said,