Federal oil and gas leasing plan could include Maine coast

MAINE PUBLIC • April 30, 2025

The Trump administration is developing an offshore oil and gas leasing plan that could include waters in the Gulf of Maine. The Natural Resources Council of Maine warns there are no economically recoverable fossil fuels in the region and that drilling risks environmental and economic harm. "Offshore oil and gas exploration would directly threaten our marine ecosystems, risk devastation to our vibrant tourist economy, and harm our heritage fishing industry," the council's climate and clean energy director Jack Shapiro said in a statement.

MDI Bio Lab president joins panel warning Congress of long-lasting impacts from Trump budget cuts

MAINE PUBLIC • April 30, 2025

The president of MDI Biological Lab joined a panel of biomedical researchers on Wednesday who warned members of Congress that the Trump administration's cost-cutting measures could have long-lasting impacts on scientific research and public health. "The lives we save tomorrow depend on the decisions we make today," Hermann Haller, president of MDI Bio Lab in Bar Harbor, told the Senate Appropriations Committee. Since taking office, the Trump administration has eliminated thousands of jobs at agencies like the National Institutes of Health and paused or threatened to cancel billions of dollars in federal research grants to universities and laboratories. A preliminary budget document circulating within the Trump administration proposes cutting more than $47 billion — or roughly 40% of funding — from NIH.

Electric vehicle owners may have to pay a $250 annual fee in Maine

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 30, 2025

Maine may start charging owners of electric vehicles a $250 annual registration surcharge if a bipartisan proposal before lawmakers gets approved. The proposal is aimed at raising revenues for the state highway fund and making up for gas tax revenue that is lost with the increasing popularity of electric vehicles that don’t rely on gas. But it is also facing opposition from environmental groups that say the $250 charge is too high and runs counter to efforts to encourage people to buy electric vehicles and help the state meet its climate goals.

Canada-based Acadian Seaplants closed its Maine operations earlier this month

MAINE PUBLIC • April 30, 2025

Canada-based Acadian Seaplants has closed its Maine operations in Jonesboro, citing the exchange rate, transportation costs, and tariffs as the drivers of the decision. Company president and CEO Jean Pierre DeVeaux said tariffs will cost his business millions of dollars on an annual basis. He said if 25% tariffs continue it could drive Canada into a recession. Six staff members and 30 independent contractors are affected by the Jonesboro closure. The Maine Rockweed Council estimates 17 million pounds are removed each year along Maine's coast with a value of about $1 million.

Maine bill to ban floating camps meets some opposition

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 30, 2025

Businesses that offer rentals of floating houses moored off their docks or in front of their companies were the only ones who opposed a bill that would ban floating camps on Maine’s waters during a legislative hearing Wednesday. They suggested adding a grandfather clause to protect the businesses like them, including floating restaurants. The bill, L.D. 1763, An Act to Regulate Nonwater-dependent Floating Structures on Maine’s Waters, presented by Rep. Allison Hepler, D-Woolwich, would ban floating camps.

Maine activists at the helm of newly-formed national Coalition for Sludge-Free Land

MAINE PUBLIC • April 30, 2025

Maine activists are at the helm of the newly-formed Coalition for Sludge-Free Land launched Wednesday. Maine was the first state to ban land application of sludge in 2022 after the discovery of widespread PFAS contamination of farms. Representative Bill Pluecker, who chairs the legislature's Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee, said this coalition will allow Maine to advocate for changes across the country.

Opinion: Fight against climate change requires cooperation

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 30, 2025

When I think about all that’s wrong, I feel an acute sense of powerlessness. It’s not totally hopeless, though. We must integrate action across many scales to bolster awareness, implement comprehensive policies and build efficient structures for widespread change. While individual action may seem more attainable, scholars hope for it to spill over into the collective realm. By demonstrating that everyone has the ability to demand action from leaders, we can make meaningful change. Alone, we can only carry so much, but together we can make our home hospitable for generations to come. ~ Noa Nasoff, first-year student, Bowdoin College

Forgoing moratorium, committee backs plan to study health impacts of artificial turf

MAINE MONITOR • April 30, 2025

Forgoing a moratorium on new artificial turf fields, lawmakers are recommending the state still study the effects they could have on public health and the environment. The members of the Legislature’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee who were present for a work session Wednesday afternoon unanimously endorsed an amended version of LD 1177. The bill will next go to the Maine House of Representatives and Senate for approval. However, the amended bill backed by the committee nixed the moratorium and narrowed the study to look at how synthetic turf affects ambient air, groundwater and surrounding organisms, as well as disposal options once the fields reach the end of their life. The study would also evaluate any release of microplastics from the fields and the effect of that on the surrounding environment and human health. 

Freight rail service resuming in the midcoast

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 30, 2025

A Maine railroad operator is resuming freight service between Brunswick and Rockland after it was stopped in June of last year in the wake of a Thomaston cement plant closing its manufacturing. Dragon Cement, which was recently acquired by Heidelberg Materials, will begin using the freight line again. Maine Switching Services has also proposed reopening a rail corridor between Brunswick and Augusta. This comes as state lawmakers votes on LD 29, which would remove the Lower Road to allow for its replacement with bicycle and pedestrian trails.

Amid rapidly evolving energy goals, Maine lawmakers seek more coordinated grid planning

MAINE MONITOR • April 30, 2025

Energy policy has moved quickly in the past few years as Maine has sought to achieve climate and affordability goals with deadlines that are not so far off. Rep. Gerry Runte (D-York) suspects there hasn’t been sufficient time to take a 50,000-foot view to see how all the pieces of energy supply and demand could plan and work together. He’s hoping the bipartisan bill he introduced during a public hearing Tuesday afternoon will formalize and increase collaboration between agencies involved in grid planning. 

The world’s largest clam garden is in Down East Maine

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 30, 2025

The Sipayik Community Clam Garden — a project that began in 2022 in Half Moon Cove and has since become the largest soft-shell clam garden in the world — is nearing its first harvest, according to steward Erik S. Francis. All of the clams from the harvest will be distributed to tribal members at no cost. “It’s a really good project for future generations,” Francis said. “We are trying to build the clam population back to where it used to be, even though we are dealing with green crab struggles.

Opinion: Reckless NOAA cuts endanger Maine

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 30, 2025

Officials within the Trump administration have advocated the removal of NOAA’s scientific research division, including programs related to climate, education and research grants, because they are “misaligned with the president’s agenda.” This is shortsighted and reckless. NOAA has already been the subject of mass layoffs by the Trump administration, which were reversed by the Supreme Court and reimposed by the administration. Last summer, I conducted research on the impacts extreme winter storm events had on Lincoln County. There was clear consensus that the most important parts of coastal resilience were warning before the storms and collaboration in recovery efforts. The budget cuts are detrimental to every American. The work NOAA does is critical for maintaining up-to-date climate records, which help farmers and fishermen across the country feed our nation. Maine’s fishermen, economy, coastal communities, students and future are all at risk. ~ Kyle Pellerin, Bowdoin College student

Letter: Forget about Freeport farm grant and focus on the planet

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 30, 2025

The canceled $35 million grant to Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and Environmental would have been wasted anyway since we’ve known for decades that the primary cause of climate change and environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, food insecurity and the rise in degenerative, zoonotic and environmental disease is raising animals as products. We have a garden, why eat from the slaughterhouse? Stop this addiction to “research” and make the long overdue urgent changes in the concept of agriculture needed for the survival of this planet. ~ Laura Slitt, Bartlett, N.H.

Column: You should pay more attention to your backyard birds

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 30, 2025

[Originally published in April 2023] Forest bathing is the practice of sitting quietly in the woods, relaxing in the presence of nature. I think I just invented forest showering this week — walking quietly in the woods, letting the sounds of nature wash down over me. The eastern phoebes went first. A red-bellied woodpecker called from my neighbor’s yard, sitting high in a tree, just above a singing tufted titmouse. Hairy, downy and pileated woodpeckers have been exuberantly vocal. The songs of black-capped chickadees joined the chorus. Dark-eyed juncos gathered. I heard a distant loon. Song sparrows and American robins are everywhere. A merlin called from the edge of the driveway. This forest shower was all about spending quality time with the routinely normal birds around my home. Anybody can do it, starting today. ~ Bob Duchesne

Salmon fishery heating up in parts of Maine

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 30, 2025

While fishing on Moosehead, Maine’s largest lake, is on the verge of heating up, a fishing guide says the state’s second largest is seeing some great salmon fishing. “The fish are big. The fish are healthy. Fishing is great,” said registered Maine guide Tom Roth, who lives on Sebago Lake and runs Sebago Lake Guide Service. “Catching salmon in the 3-5-pound range was unheard of until last year.”

Susan Collins and unions try to save funding for massive Maine battery project

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 29, 2025

President Donald Trump’s efforts to cut on funding for renewable energy initiatives may hit a rural Maine project that would be the world’s largest multi-day battery system. The potential loss of federal tax credits for the Lincoln battery storage project has brought together an alliance to back it: Democratic-aligned labor unions and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the top appropriator in the chamber. The Lincoln project is set to benefit from tax credits in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden-era bill Trump has sought to dismantle. Collins said she spoke with Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, about the Lincoln project “and pointed out that it aligns with the administration’s energy policies, would help improve the reliability of the New England electric grid, and would be beneficial in using a shuttered paper mill in a rural area of the state.”

Decision looming for Trump administration on 1st PFAS drinking water limits

ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 29, 2025

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency set the first federal drinking water limits for PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, finding they increased the risk of cardiovascular disease, certain cancers and babies being born with low birth weight. In a decision with consequences for tens of millions of Americans, the Trump administration is expected to soon say whether it intends to stand by those strict standards and defend the limits against a water utility industry challenge in federal court.

Orrington trash plant owes contractor $26K, company says

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 29, 2025

The owner of the Orrington trash incinerator owes a contractor $26,000, according to documents filed last week with Penobscot County. Eagle Point Energy Center owes $26,000 to Copia Specialty Contractors Inc., a Bangor-based company, for work done in December and January, according to a lien filed April 22. EPEC Asset Manager Evan Coleman denied Monday that the facility owes $26,000, and said it has already paid Copia $20,000. The shuttered trash incinerator was scheduled to reopen early this year but will likely be inactive for at least another year after a 10-day fire tore through the facility in October.

Public transportation advocates push measures to expand transit options in Maine

MAINE PUBLIC • April 29, 2025

Public transportation advocates are pushing a slate of measures aimed at streamlining and expanding transit options in the state. According to a new report from the Moving Maine network, two in five Mainers are "transportation insecure," meaning they lack reliable ways to get around. Josh Caldwell of the Natural Resources Council of Maine said that's fixable — but it's going to take coordination and buy-in at the state level. "We just need to keep investing in those things to ensure and expand those options, to ensure that Mainers have reliable and safe ways to get around, but are not simply a car," Caldwell said. Transportation is responsible for nearly half of the state's carbon emissions from fossil fuels.