DOJ tells Trump he can wipe out national monuments

E&E NEWS • June 10, 2025

A key legal adviser to the White House said that President Donald Trump has the authority to abolish national monuments created by prior presidents. Lanora Pettit, who helms the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), overturned a nearly 90-year-old precedent governing national monuments in a new legal opinion published Tuesday. The opinion declares that the Antiquities Act of 1906 not only allows presidents to create national monuments from federal lands, but also says they can declare that existing monuments “either never were or no longer are deserving of the Act’s protections.” Justin Pidot, a law professor at the University of Arizona who previously worked at White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, said the OLC opinion marks a “radical shift.” “This will go down as one of the most significant rollbacks in conservation in history,” Pidot said. Pettit’s interpretation of the Antiquities Act would effectively reduce protections for monuments to just the length of a presidential term, he said.

DOJ finds Trump can abolish areas protected as national monuments

WASHINGTON POST • June 10, 2025

Trump administration officials have concluded that President Donald Trump has the authority to entirely abolish protected areas set aside as national monuments by past presidents, according to a legal opinion released Tuesday by the Department of Justice. The document, which reverses a legal opinion issued in 1938, could be laying the groundwork for Trump to abolish or dramatically shrink national monuments, which confer federal protections to millions of acres of federal land. “It signals that the president is prepared to do something dramatic and at a scale that we’ve never seen before with respect to national monuments, which encompass many of our most cherished public lands,” said Justin Pidot, a professor at the University of Arizona’s College of Law and a former Biden administration official.

Hannah Pingree announces run for Maine governor

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 10, 2025

Hannah Pingree is running for governor, adding her name to a list of well-known candidates battling it for the Democratic nomination in 2026. Pingree said her campaign will focus on expanding access to affordable housing and health care, addressing the rising cost of living and building strong communities. She said she is “committed to growing the economy, creating good-paying jobs in every region and strengthening Maine’s workforce for the future,” as well as protecting  working waterfronts, farms and forests from the impacts of climate change.

Opinion: Maine’s fishermen tangled up in Medicaid cuts

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 10, 2025

The GOP megabill affects millions of Americans receiving Medicaid. With harsher requirements and more verifications, it would put health insurance to over 400,000 individuals in Maine in jeopardy. Among the groups in danger in Maine are fishing industry workers who rely on Medicaid. These are physically demanding jobs with high risks for physical and mental health implications. Among the nearly 33,000 workers in Maine’s fishing industry, rates of those with no health care coverage is 8.7% higher than the general population. Voice your support to preserve federal- and state-funded health care. ~ Marissa Williams, USM graduate in psychology, and Kristen Gleason, associate professor of psychology, University of Southern Maine

UMaine professor wins $1M grant to take a new look at old plants

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 9, 2025

A University of Maine professor has won a $1 million National Science Foundation award to develop faster, cheaper ways to study plants by developing technology to analyze the 390 million specimens already stored in archived collections around the world. Jose “Dudu” Meireles, an assistant professor of plant evolution and systematics, will use the grant to develop an open source computer model that will use genetic analysis and reflective light to study already collected plants, saving field and lab time and money and protecting rare plants from destruction. He believes it will eventually enable scientists to triple the amount of data collected from plants in a year.

As hurricane season begins, many worry over cuts to FEMA and National Weather Service

MAINE PUBLIC • May 9, 2025

The National Weather Service is predicting a particularly active hurricane season in the Atlantic region this year. This comes as the Trump administration has cut hundreds of positions within the federal emergency management agency and billions of dollars in funding. With federal cuts to funding and personnel at the National Weather Service, many who rely on its forecasts are saying they are worried that storm warnings will become less accurate. But Vanessa Sperrey of the Maine Emergency Management Agency said the state is prepared to address storms and natural disasters.

Hikers found on Katahdin died from exposure, family says

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 9, 2025

The two hikers whose bodies were found on Katahdin last week died from exposure during bad weather, a family member has said. Tim Keiderling was found dead Tuesday afternoon by a Maine Warden Service K9 search team on the Tablelands region near the summit of Katahdin. Esther Keiderling was found dead around 1 p.m. Wednesday in a boulder area between the Cathedral and Saddle Trails off the Tablelands. The pair of hikers had attempted to climb Katahdin on Sunday, May 31. Family members became concerned when they did not make contact by the evening, and park rangers initiated a search for the hikers on Monday, June 1. According to Heinrich Arnold, Tim Keiderling’s brother-in-law, the pair of hikers faced extreme conditions and died of exposure to the elements.

Here’s a guide to more than a thousand hikes in Maine—and it’s free

WCSH-TV6 • June 9, 2025

Not long after moving to Brunswick in 2011, Rebecca Goldfine, a lifelong hiker who grew up in Maine, found it challenging to figure out where to hike in an area that was new to her. At the time, the internet didn’t offer the wide array of hiking guides that it does now. So Goldfine decided to create her own online guide, aptly named Maine by Foot. You’ll find more than 1,300 posts, many of them covering two or three trails, offering information about whatever experience a hiker might be looking for--trails by town, by county, places to walk and swim, walks with art or history, trails on big mountains or modest hills, and more. The hikers who use these trails owe a debt to Maine’s many land trusts. “If you can, maybe think about supporting your local land trust,” Goldfine said. “I think they contribute as much to the community well-being as all the other social services and nonprofits.” Maine by Foot, which is free, has been around for over a decade. Remarkably, Goldfine keeps it going almost entirely by herself and has lost none of her enthusiasm for the project.

Canadian wildfires prompt another air quality alert for coastal Maine

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 9, 2025

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection says smoke from Canadian wildfires is again impacting air quality in Maine. Ground-level pollution concentrations in southwest coastal Maine were in the “unhealthy for sensitive groups” level Sunday and have continued in that range into Monday. The elevated level is most likely to impact children, older adults, and people with respiratory or heart disease.

Republicans in Congress axed the ‘green new scam,’ but it’s a red state boon

MAINE MORNING STAR • June 9, 2025

Clean energy manufacturers and advocates say they’re perplexed how the repeal of tax credits in President Donald Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” will keep their domestic production lines humming across the United States, particularly in states that elected him to the Oval Office. While some Republicans have labeled the billions in tax credits a “green new scam,” statistics show the jobs and benefits would boost predominantly GOP-leaning states and congressional districts.

Federal cuts may hurt Maine’s ability to meet climate goals, scientists say

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 9, 2025

Scientists and fishermen are eager to learn more about a sudden cooling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Maine, a new mystery in a body of water as well known in global science circles for its rapid warming as it is among foodies for its lobsters, oysters and scallops. That will be hard to do under a proposed federal budget that cuts funds for a national ocean monitoring system. Scientists are worried, both about the coming changes in climate and their ability to study them. Federal budget and staffing cuts may prevent Maine from achieving its climate goals.

The new plan to rein in the ‘runaway costs’ of Maine’s solar subsidies

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 9, 2025

Lawmakers have tweaked Maine’s controversial solar subsidy program several times since they launched in 2019, and they are divided over a bill expected to face votes in the next two weeks. The measure is drawing pushback from some solar firms and clean energy advocates who argue it will slash a program helping around 100,000 Mainers. But Rep. Sophie Warren, D-Scarborough, and Maine’s ratepayer advocate said it will protect small projects and ensure developers can still earn a fair return but limit steep rate hikes that Mainers have had to bear in recent years.

The man at the center of the high-stakes bet over a shuttered trash incinerator

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 9, 2025

Evan Coleman has been connected to about 10 projects. Some of them never came to fruition, such as strawberry greenhouses and warehouses, and some did, including four battery storage facilities in Maine and Rhode Island. Now, Coleman is at the helm of his biggest gamble yet: reviving the shuttered Orrington trash incinerator, valued at $16.1 million in 2024, that sits on the shores of the Penobscot River. The 32-year-old is the majority owner of Eagle Point Energy Center, formerly known as Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. He bought the facility in February 2024 but it hasn’t burned waste in more than two years, due in part to a fire that tore through the building in October 2024. Coleman’s latest estimate for reopening EPEC is more than a year away, and will require $25 million of improvements and equipment.

Kennebunk wildlife biologist killed in Alaska helicopter crash

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 8, 2025

A Kennebunk resident, wildlife biologist and former selectman was killed Wednesday in a helicopter crash in remote Alaska, where he was leading conservation work, along with the helicopter’s pilot. Shiloh Schulte’s death was confirmed Sunday in a statement from his employer, Manomet Conservation Sciences. “Shiloh was a deeply respected member of the Manomet Conservation Sciences team, whose passion for shorebird conservation and unwavering commitment to protecting our planet inspired everyone fortunate enough to work alongside him,” the organization said. Schulte and the helicopter pilot, Jonathan Guibas, were flying from Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay to a remote area in the North Slope region accessible only by helicopter, where Schulte planned to outfit shorebirds with recording devices.

His family has harvested alewives at the same Maine stream for a century

MAINE MONITOR • June 8, 2025

Thousands of alewives swim up the Nequasset Stream in Woolwich, Maine, from the sea each May, thrashing against the swift current, returning to the waters where they were born. The sleek, silver fish have undertaken the same mass migration, conquering the same rapids for the sake of their next generation, for millions of years. By comparison, Steve Bodge has only been harvesting alewives at Nequasset for 67 years, a mere blip in history but a span of time encompassing most of his life. He first learned the art of dipping for alewives with his stepfather at age 11, in 1958. Now a hale but slowing 78-year-old, Bodge isn’t sure how many more springs he’ll be able to operate the physically demanding alewife harvesting enterprise he runs for the town — which both his stepfather and older stepbrother ran before him. This year, for the first time, his daughter Jaime Burns, 45, is pitching in.

Hallowell volunteers survey ‘threatened’ Vaughan Brook watershed

CENTRAL MAINE • June 8, 2025

Hall-Dale High School senior Lily Drouin-Scease was one of four volunteers who inspected dozens of points along the Vaughan Brook watershed Thursday with the help of professionals from Ecological Instincts, an environmental consulting and planning firm. The goal was to identify places in the watershed where runoff could affect the quality of the stream — a requirement for securing long-term stream remediation funding. Vaughan Brook runs for about 3.7 miles through parts of Farmingdale and Hallowell, passing through Vaughan Woods before it empties into the Kennebec River. The stream drains about 5.9 square miles. Water quality testing in the Vaughan Woods portion of the brook over the past 13 years has repeatedly missed the state’s mark for supporting aquatic life. The brook is listed as “threatened” by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

A group of South Portland residents are aiming to plant more trees in the city — and are already doing so

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • June 8, 2025

A small group of South Portland residents, bonded by an interest in trees, has bloomed into ReForest South Portland whose mission is to improve the city’s tree canopy by planting more. Improving the city’s tree canopy comes with multiple benefits. Temperatures can be 25 degrees cooler under the shade of a tree, Barter said, which can lead to a decrease in air conditioning needs by 30%. “(Trees) make coastlines more resilient to the weather patterns increasingly common in a changing climate,” said Hillary Barter, a co-founder.

Editorial: Maine farmworker wage proposal deserves to become law

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • June 8, 2025

The difference between the federal hourly minimum wage ($7.25) and the Maine state minimum wage ($14.65, and automatically increasing according to inflation) is $7.40 an hour. This gulf, endured by the people who labor in the state’s fields and barns, is what stands to be closed by a legislative proposal (An Act to Establish a State Minimum Hourly Wage for Agricultural Workers) that passed 74-72 in the Maine House of Representatives last Tuesday and 22-12 in the Senate last Monday. Farmworker labor shouldn’t be relied on to subsidize Maine’s farms, some of which say they won’t be able to manage paying the increased minimum hourly wage. Other farms say they’re already paying the state minimum, and would like to benefit from parity in the job market. Those farms deserve that guarantee, just as the workers deserve it.

Community garden sprouting in Livermore Falls thanks to 10-year-old boy

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 7, 2025

A community garden is taking root behind the police station, all because 10-year-old Liam Reed asked town officials if there was one and when told no, stated there should be one. There are four raised beds, each with two sections. “We made them so people of all abilities can work in them,” Austin stated. “There will be 11 pots for herbs. We will have chives, lavender, basil, thyme, dill, sage.” Someone might want to make pickles, use herbs for cooking or other things.

What you need to know to climb Katahdin safely

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 7, 2025

The deaths of two New York hikers this week offer a tragic reminder that attempting to summit Maine’s tallest peak is a high-stakes challenge for even experienced mountaineers. Sometimes underestimated, Katahdin’s combination of challenging terrain and unpredictable weather have contributed to the more than 60 reported deaths on the mountain since officials began tracking that data in 1933. Despite the risks, climbing Katahdin remains a bucket list item for many Mainers. Those interested in attempting to summit the 5,267-foot peak shouldn’t take the challenge lightly. Here’s how they can do it as safely as possible.