Category: Maine
Snowe Will Vote No; Finance Committee’s Bill will have no GOP Support
SNOWE INSERT
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Sept. 16, 2009
WASHINGTON —
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), one of the Senate Finance Committee’s so-called Gang of Six, has long played coy about whether she would support the committee’s eventual bill. She had long said that she would not support a straight public health insurance option, and instead pushed a “trigger” option, a fail-safe subsidized option that would kick in should the cost of health care not decrease.
Snowe said as early as Tuesday that she would not support the bill Finance chairman Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) unveiled Wednesday, citing concerns about how the reform package would be funded. Baucus’ bill, which carries a price tag of $856 billion, is the cheapest plan for health care reform of the five bills that have been introduced.
Though she said she will not support the bill in its current incarnation, Snowe said in a statement Wednesday that she and the other members of the Gang of Six “fully intend to keep meeting, moving forward and continuing to work with the chairman during the committee process toward crafting a bill that I, and hopefully other Republican members of the Finance Committee, can support.”
She also said that committee members should have had more time to read the bill before Baucus made it public.
In a 2006 survey conducted by Project Vote Smart, a voter education project that tracks members of Congress’ voting records and political actions, Snowe said that she did not support the following statement: “Providing health care is not a responsibility of the federal government.” However, one of Snowe’s sticking points in the recent health care reform negotiations has been her opposition to the inclusion of a public option.
In the same survey, she indicated that she did not support the implementation of a universal health care program to guarantee coverage to all Americans regardless of income.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) called Wednesday’s bill “an improvement over the House bill and the bill reported out of the Senate HELP Committee” in a statement and praised some of the preventative care and incentives for accountability introduced in Baucus’ bill.
“I remain committed to working with my colleagues for a bipartisan bill that improves quality while reducing unnecessary cost,” Collins said. Like Snowe, Collins’ reservations stem primarily from the cost and scope of the bill, which Collins said “affects every American and one sixth of our economy.”
###
Pathogens are the New Weapons of Mass Desctruction, and They’re Here
WMD
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Sept. 10, 2009
WASHINGTON –The term “weapons of mass destruction” may be connected in the minds of many with nuclear warheads and rocket launchers, but the latest homeland security legislation, introduced by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), deals not with giant bombs but with the tiny pathogens that can be found in many labs across the country.
Eight years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the anthrax attacks by way of the postal system, the bill, introduced Tuesday aims to improve security and regulation of domestic labs that house pathogens that could be used as biological weapons in an attack.
“America must not become complacent,” Collins, the senior Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “Terrorists haven’t given up; they haven’t gone away. Our enemies remain fixed on their avowed goal of committing mass murder.”
The bill would provide $50 million for federal grants that would go toward improving the security of labs housing the deadliest pathogens.
A congressionally mandated commission on weapons of mass destruction and terrorist attacks published its report last December, saying that a WMD terrorist attack is likelier than not to occur by 2013, and that it is likelier to be biological than nuclear.
“Given the urgency of the threat, we enthusiastically welcome [the bill],” said Bob Graham, chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, in a statement. “This act will enable the decisive actions required to defend America from these threats.”
“The commission’s report is a call to action,” Collins said in a statement.
The act targets improving the safety at labs where harmful pathogens are kept, requiring the Department of Homeland Security to designate those labs that keep pathogens that could be used as biological weapons and work with the U.S. Postal Service to quicken the deployment of life-saving drugs to combat the effects of some of these pathogens in case of an emergency.
A unique partnership among the postmaster general, the Health and Human Services secretary and the Homeland Security secretary would be forged with passage of the act, requiring the three to develop a plan using the Postal Service to dispense medical countermeasures to a bioterrorist attack.
The Postal Service-based program already exists in pilot form, and passage of the act would mandate its expansion to five additional cities within a year and 15 more the next.
The Postal Service could be quickly co-opted for emergency use. People exposed to pathogens could take shelter in their homes if the exposure was environmental or could be quarantined if necessary. Postal workers, trained in efficient home delivery, would be ideal conduits for transporting life-saving medicine in a timely manner.
A Government Accountability Office study released July 28 examined the Department of Defense’s readiness to respond to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosions. The GAO concluded that though efforts at strengthening responses to explosions was underway, a lack of central oversight in the Defense Department made it impossible to conclude how much the project would cost and difficult to track which components of the improved response plan were still unfulfilled.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said in a statement that national security and defense against terrorist attacks has improved since the attacks in 2001 but that there is still work to be done.
“I do think we are safer now than we were before 9/11,” Pingree said, “but we still have a lot of work to do. . . . President Obama has begun the task of creating a more cooperative and humane foreign policy. How we interact with the rest of the world has a direct effect on how safe and secure we are here at home.”
A Gallup Poll released in early July showed that 83 percent of Americans think that the security measures instituted to prevent additional terrorist attacks after 9/11 are still necessary, though fears about terrorism have reached a five-year low. Thirty-six percent said hey are very worried or somewhat worried that they or a family member would be a victim of a terrorist attack, down from the high of 59 percent in October 2001.
“Over the last eight years, thousands of Americans, both in and out of government, have worked tirelessly to improve our nation’s security and to protect our people,” U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine) said in a statement. “Americans remain steadfast in our determination to disrupt, dismantle and defeat terrorist organizations. However, we must continue to be vigilant as we look into the future and keep working to improve our national security efforts.”
###
After Obama’s Health Care Reform Speech, Maine Delegates Left Divided
MAINE REACTION
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Sept. 9, 2009
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has delivered 262 speeches since he took office nearly eight months ago, 28 of them specifically about health care reform. The one health care speech that Obama will be remembered for, however, was delivered to a rare joint session of Congress Wednesday night.
U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, one of 52 fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats in the House, said in a telephone interview after the speech that he will not decide whether he will vote in favor of the reform package until he sees the final bill. He also voiced concerns about possible cuts to Medicare, as a relatively high number of Mainers rely heavily on the federal program for their health care.
“We have to make certain that the cuts will not affect the services that those elderly and other people who need them are receiving,” Michaud said. “Now it’s really up to Congress to really move forward to get health care reform passed sometime this year.”
Michaud also noted the blunt criticism Obama laid out on what Michaud referred to as “conservative groups who are just trying to scare the American people” by dropping terms like “death panel” into the national conversation.
“He did hit those who were opposed to health care reform pretty hard,” Michaud said, “and he probably realized that if he gets any support on the Republican side, it’ll be very little.”
Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, part of the Senate Finance Committee’s bipartisan Gang of Six, has spoken out against the public option, which the president mentioned, but did not explicitly endorse.
“I would have preferred that the issue [of a public insurance option] were taken off the table as I have urged the President – given that any bill with a public option will not pass the Senate and this divisive subject is unnecessarily delaying our ability to reach common ground,” Snowe said in a statement.
Snowe said she was “encouraged” to hear that the “trigger” option she has championed is still on the table. With this option, a safety net of further health care savings measures would be implemented if private insurers fail to provide affordable health care after an initial health care bill is passed.
“Moving forward,” she said, “I will continue my work within the Gang of Six to produce a consensus bill that will curb spiraling health care costs and ensure the health security of all Americans.”
Republican Sen. Susan Collins voiced concerns about the cost of reform in a statement issued after the speech, saying that “any reforms must also take into account our country’s exploding national debt,” and citing the Congressional Budget Office’s $1.6 trillion price tag over the next decade.
“[Health care reform] affects every American and one-sixth of our economy,” she said.
Democrat Rep. Chellie Pingree said in a statement that she was pleased with Obama’s speech.
“In many ways it’s the same message I have heard from people in Maine all summer—the time has come to bring about the reform we’ve been talking about for so long,” Pingree said. “Maine people have had it with the bureaucracy of insurance companies, skyrocketing premiums and out of pocket expenses and they are tired of living in fear of losing their health insurance.”
###
Maine Delegates Wait for Obama’s Take on Nation’s Health Care Reform
Maine Preview
Bangor Daily News
Kase Wickman
Boston University Washington News Service
Sept. 8, 2009
WASHINGTON – As the debate over President Barack Obama’s push for reform of the health care and insurance industry rolls on, Maine’s congressional delegation finds itself in the eye of the storm. Wednesday evening, Obama will address a joint session of Congress for the second time of his presidency.
This speech marks the first non-State of the Union, non-introductory address to a joint session since President George W. Bush spoke to Congress Sept. 20, 2001 about the War on Terror.
Maine has been entangled in the debate from the beginning, boasting both Blue Dog Democratic Rep. Mike Michaud and Sen. Olympia Snowe, one of three Republicans in the Senate’s so-called Gang of Six, a bipartisan group on the Finance Committee hammering out details of the committee’s version of the bill.
Michaud has not yet confirmed a vote either way on the president’s reform efforts and said in a statement that Obama “needs to provide clear direction and be open and direct with the American people.”
“We must do what we can to make sure that every American has access to affordable health care,” he said. “At the same time, we must provide security and stability to those who are already insured.”
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said that she expects Obama to be “quite forceful and bold” in his speech and that he “understands the urgency and importance of moving Congress forward.”
“More than anything else,” Pingree said, “people want to see progress and move forward” with health care reform. People in Maine “want to believe that the president is working as hard [on reform] as the delegation in Maine.”
On the issue of bipartisanship, a buzzword from the very beginning of health care reform’s current life, Pingree was lukewarm, saying that it would be “great,” but that “allowing that to stand in the way of passing a bill and moving forward on the issue would be a tragic mistake.”
Republican Sen. Susan Collins), who has been vocal with her concerns about the reform package’s price tag, said in a statement that she is “eager” to hear what Obama has to say Wednesday night and hopes “that he will focus on reducing the cost of health care.”
Collins said that if the cost of the reform package was not reduced – it will cost an estimated $900 billion over the next decade as it stands – she would not vote for the bill, calling it “simply unaffordable.”
Snowe, who spent her first day back from Congress’ August recess on a conference call with fellow Gang of Six senators picking through the version of the reform bill Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus outlined Sunday, said the president’s address was both “unexpected” and “critically important.
“It’s important to hear his position on specific issues,” Snowe said. She said she hopes to hear Obama explicitly de-emphasize the public health insurance option, which she does not support, and “move on to different approaches.”
###
Long Road Ahead for Baldacci’s Energy Vision
CORRIDOR
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
April 23, 2009
WASHINGTON –Gov. John Baldacci made his priorities clear last month when he said he wants to be remembered after the end of his term as “the independent energy governor” who brought more jobs, cheaper energy and additional revenues to Maine.
Since he said that, Baldacci has moved quickly to stimulate renewable energy projects in the state while promoting energy conservation, including a proposal to combine once-scattered energy programs under a new independent council called Efficiency Maine Plus.
As early as last year, however, the governor laid the cornerstone to his energy agenda with a call for an “energy corridor” spanning the state.
In establishing his energy priority, Baldacci was echoing President Barack Obama’s promise in his February address to Congress to reinvent U.S. energy policy with billion-dollar investments in cleaner power plants and new transmission lines.
Baldacci’s proposed Northeast Energy Corridor, officials say, would offer jobs, energy and income from fees collected from corridor users in a state reeling from double-digit unemployment in some counties. But before the plan makes it off the drawing board, it must navigate a winding path through often conflicting local, environmental and business interests.
Baldacci aides point to interest from Irving Oil, Bangor Hydro and New England Independent Transmission Co., which is financing a separate underwater power line from Wiscasset to Boston, as signs of private-sector support. They say they can avoid costly and often contentious battles over private land by running electrical power lines, natural gas and oil pipelines along interstate highway rights-of-way.
“We know that the right-of-way exists,” state Public Advocate Dick Davies said. “The questions we’ll be looking at are technical ones. For instance, if you had an oil pipeline next to a natural gas pipeline directly under an electricity transmission line… how do we minimize the physical and environmental impacts?”
Before that, Baldacci and state legislators must also answer political questions. Washington County Commissioner Chris Gardner, who traveled to Augusta earlier this month to voice his concerns over the plan at a legislative hearing, says he likes many parts of the governor’s energy initiative but wants the state to play its hand more strongly before committing to a project that offers the Canadian energy industry a windfall in potential revenue.
“Some of Canada’s positions seem to be grounded a little bit in protectionism,” Gardner said in an interview. “If this is a great idea for New Brunswick [today], it will be a great idea for New Brunswick tomorrow. They need us to work with them to allow them to grow their economy and energy sector.”
Conversely, Maine-based Calais LNG needs the Canadian national government to allow liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers to pass through Passamaquoddy Bay to where the company wants to build a terminal to bring the fuel to market. Canadian officials say the Head Harbor waterway to Calais could be too dangerous for the energy-packed ships to use, and New Brunswick-based Irving Oil has nearly completed its own terminal farther north in St. John, N.B.
Some Maine industry advocates accuse Ottawa of blocking potential competition to its own LNG terminal under the guise of safety and environmental concerns, especially after a U.S. Coast Guard waterway suitability report in January found the passage to a nearby LNG project safe. The project still awaits impact reports from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
“Maine has some of the highest electricity costs in the country, and we pay more for natural gas than anywhere in the United States,” said Tony Buxton, counsel for the Industrial Energy Consumer Group, a Maine business coalition that advocates for lower energy costs. “If you were [planning] an LNG facility, you would want to bring it closest to the land and where demand is highest. If we build an LNG facility in Maine, there’s no question we have a market for the gas.”
Natural gas burns more cleanly than coal or oil and can generate electricity cheaply and reliably. The biggest challenge for energy companies is moving the gas to market because it takes up so much space. To make it easier to transport, producers chill the gas until it turns to liquid, making it easier for ships to haul. The fuel is then reheated at facilities like the proposed terminal in Calais – or the nearly complete Canaport terminal in St. John – before entering pipelines for distribution.
New Brunswick Minister of Energy Jack Keir says Canadian authorities are not opposing any LNG facilities in Maine outright but have the right to review projects that would bring massive tankers through their waters.
“That’s all we’re asking,” Keir said. “In Canada, for the LNG [project] to move forward, it had to go through a very stringent environmental study both provincially and federally.”
While Calais LNG works to clear regulatory hurdles before breaking ground, natural gas is already flowing through its neighboring province’s Brunswick pipeline, Keir said.
A state-backed pipeline through Maine would allow Canada to export natural gas to energy-hungry southern New England and possibly beyond.
Baldacci aides point out that they support bringing LNG facilities to Maine and are proceeding cautiously with their corridor plan. No cash has been appropriated to the corridor project, and its actual route has not even been studied.
“It would be very premature to say that this intended to promote or encourage or block LNG or any other form of energy,” Public Advocate Davies said.
It is not clear whether renewable energy projects would reap as many immediate benefits as traditional fossil fuels if either pipelines or transmission cables are built. In a Feb. 17 joint letter to Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Baldacci and New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham pitched a reliable transmission conduit “with an emphasis on renewable power,” but also “important bridge fuels such as petroleum products and natural gas.”
Renewable energy, not including hydroelectric power, accounts for 24 percent of Maine’s electricity generation, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration – more than any other state. Since January, two developers have filed for permits to build massive wind farms in Lincoln and Oakfield.
Although Buxton said he supports energy corridors that reduce energy costs for consumers in Maine, he notes that conservation would generate environmental and economic benefits more quickly than simply “putting steel in the ground.”
Weatherization is one way to lower peak energy use, and the governor has set a far-reaching goal of weatherizing all Maine homes by 2030, partly using the revenue that would be gained from leasing out the energy corridor. But there are other methods on the cutting edge of energy technology that the state could also use.
Buxton points to demand-response technology, which is relatively cheap to install, as an underused way of saving electricity. Using smart meters installed in homes and businesses, the electrical grid could tell users when demand is highest, allowing heaters and air conditioners that don’t immediately need the power to shut off until demand retreats.
Because a region’s power grid is designed to meet peak demand, a system of smart meters could potentially avoid the need for new power plants or electricity imports from neighbors, Buxton says.
John Kerry, director of the Governor’s Office of Energy Independence and Security, says the governor understands the importance of conservation in reducing the state’s energy burden and lowering costs for businesses, which is why he submitted his efficiency and weatherization plans together with the state energy projects that would finance them.
“When businesses are trying to locate in Maine or relocate in Maine they look at the cost of energy,” Kerry said. “The governor has made it eminently clear that he wants tangible economic and environmental benefits to come from the development of these corridors.”
Buxton says Maine industries would like to see more local energy projects combined with efficiency upgrades that would save them money before it imports or transports energy through the state. That means combining renewable energy, natural gas, computer models and demand-response conservation incentives.
“With the rising price of energy, people are becoming very creative about how they can lower their costs,” he said. “The magic of the grid is its diversity.”
###
U.S. Slaps Tariff on Canadian Lumber
TARIFF
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
April 8, 2009
WASHINGTON – The United States fired another shot in a decades-long trade dispute with Canada Wednesday by imposing a 10 percent tariff on Canadian softwood lumber imports, alleging that Canadian provinces violated the terms of a court agreement.
The tariff, which U.S. lumber advocates say equals the 10 percent tax that four Canadian provinces were ordered to levy under a Feb. 26 London Court of International Arbitration ruling, will go into effect April 15 and last until the United States collects $54.8 million.
“These are difficult times for everyone, and the U.S. has only asked for fair competition and fair enforcement,” Zoltan van Heyningen, executive director of the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, said. “The ruling called for a remedy with an economic effect, and as has been consistently the case in Canada… they try to get out of it. We’re very glad that the U.S. government did not allow this to happen.”
Canada was supposed to impose the taxes by March 28 on lumber from Manitoba, Ontario, Québec and Saskatchewan, according to the ruling. The decision was the most recent arbitration agreement reached in a decades-long dispute over lumber from Canada, which U.S. industry representatives allege is unfairly subsidized by provincial Canadian laws.
The Canadian government offered to satisfy the court decision by paying the U.S. Treasury $46.7 million Canadian [about $37.7 million U.S.], but on April 2 the United States refused the offer. Canadian trade officials said they were disappointed by the tariff and have appealed to the London court for another arbitration session.
“In any relationship between two countries there are times when there are disagreements,” Canadian International Trade Minister Stockwell Day said Tuesday, according to a transcript of remarks with reporters. “We have a disagreement right now with the United States. We have made a payment that we believe satisfies or cures the breach, in the language of the tribunal, related to the softwood lumber dispute. The Americans do not agree with that.”
In a statement, U.S. Trade Representative Ronald Kirk said Wednesday that Canada “made this action necessary” by choosing not to honor its commitments. He acknowledged the double threats U.S. mills are facing from foreign competition as well as from “extremely weak demand.”
Residential construction permits dropped 44 percent in February over the same month in 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, in a statement on Wednesday, hailed the U.S. decision to impose a tariff, calling it a strong defense for American workers against unfair competition from trade violations.
“I sincerely hope that this action is the first step toward a renewed willingness on the part of [the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative] to swiftly and consistently enforce U.S. trade rights,” she said.
###
‘Cash for Clunkers’ Program Gets a Jump-Start
CLUNKERS
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
April 2, 2009
WASHINGTON – As lawmakers look for ways to give the ailing U.S. auto industry a life-saving jolt, a plan to convince drivers to trade in their old, gas-guzzling vehicles for more fuel-efficient replacements with cash vouchers is gaining traction.
A bill sponsored in January by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., calls for a four-year program that would provide up to $4,500 for drivers who turn in a fuel-inefficient vehicle to be scrapped and buy a new or used vehicle which gets significantly better mileage.
The bill never made it into the final Recovery Act Obama signed in February, but on Tuesday the president said he would like to reshuffle some stimulus funds to pay for such a program.
“Such fleet modernization programs, which provide a generous credit to consumers who turn in old, less fuel-efficient cars and purchase cleaner cars, have been successful in boosting auto sales in a number of European countries,” Obama said in a speech at the White House. “I want to work with Congress to identify parts of the Recovery Act that could be trimmed to fund such a program, and make it retroactive starting today.”
The legislation is seen as a way to stimulate demand for new cars, which have piled up at car dealerships and seaport lots amid a punishing economy. Franchised new car dealers sold 13.2 million new vehicles in 2008, down 18 percent from 2007, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association, as uncertain consumers hold on to their old cars.
“Taking these cars and trucks off our roads and highways would help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, decrease greenhouse gas emissions and stimulate the economy,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, one of the bill’s original co-sponsors, said in a statement.
Lawmakers have drafted several versions of the idea, including two slightly different proposals, one from Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and the other from Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Ohio. A White House spokeswoman said the president has not endorsed any particular proposal, but said the effort will require legislation.
“We will be working closely with Congress to try to move legislation that meets the goal of both boosting auto sales and improving the fuel efficiency of the vehicle stock,” the spokeswoman said.
Under the Senate proposal, owners can trade in an old vehicle for any new or used vehicle that exceeds federal fuel economy standards for its class by at least 25 percent. Vouchers also could be redeemed for public transportation fares.
The trade-in must be a registered vehicle in “drivable condition” to qualify for a voucher, the act states, to prevent actual clunkers from being taken off junkyards to gain the credit. The value of the voucher rises progressively up to $4,500 for newer trade-ins and more fuel-efficient replacements. The replacement also must have a manufacturer suggested retail price of less than $45,000.
####
Small Businesses are Key to Economic Growth, Maine’s Members of Congress Say
BUSINESS0401
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
April 1, 2009
WASHINGTON – Maine’s members of Congress say the key to reviving Maine's faltering economy lies in restoring national confidence in small businesses by encouraging firms to start spending and investing now.
“In Maine, it’s small businesses that are creating virtually all the new jobs,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said last week in an interview. “Virtually all the large businesses that we have in Maine are scaling back their operations.”
Sen. Olympia Snowe, the senior Republican on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said the nation will be “almost wholly dependent” on small firms in bringing the economy out of the recession, which is why Congress and the administration are lowering credit barriers for small businesses.
Snowe said the 2010 budget proposed by the president and modified by Democrats last week guaranteed less funding for the federal Small Business Administration than she would have liked, but its $700 million baseline funding represents an improvement over past years.
“I think there is a depreciation of the value of small businesses in our nation’s economy,” Snowe said. “We simply don’t do enough. Small business was a natural constituency for Republicans, yet we diminished and undermined [the SBA] for eight years.”
Karen Gordon Mills’ confirmation Wednesday evening as head of the SBA could signal a shift in the role of the agency, which Snowe said did not receive enough funding under the Bush administration.
Snowe also co-sponsored a bill Wednesday aimed at retraining workers for emerging sectors of the economy like nursing and information technology that demand at least a two-year college degree. The legislation, which was proposed last year but never passed, would organize firms, unions and educational institutions into partnerships, which could then apply for a grant.
The growing need for relief was highlighted last week by new unemployment figures. After months of continuing job losses, Maine’s unemployment rate rose to 8 percent in February, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Among other temporary assistance efforts, the Labor Department offered a $254,516 emergency grant to assist workers laid off from Wausau Paper after Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, requested the aid in December.
Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, a small business owner herself, held an open house at her Portland office last month for business owners to learn how to benefit from stimulus dollars.
Looking ahead, Collins said she finds the idea of tax breaks for small business dividends an “intriguing” way to free up capital market.
A second proposal being discussed aims to persuade businesses to speed up their own investments through a tax credit that shrinks progressively over the next year and a half. The credit could serve as an incentive for firms to spend early, helping break the cycle of uncertainty that has brought new investments to a crawl, Collins said.
“A lot of business owners have told me that they’ve put investment decisions on hold because the economy is so uncertain,” Collins said. “If you can unfreeze those investments by giving a tax credit that’s only going to be available for 18 months and that is more generous the earlier you use it, it would unlock some of those investments.”
In the meantime, lawmakers also are working to help businesses cut costs on energy and health care. The stimulus package included a tax credit for wind, geothermal and to a lesser degree biomass, tidal and hydroelectric energy. As these industries, which could provide less expensive electricity, are developed, new jobs would be created.
“Maine is perfectly positioned based on its natural resource base, its entrepreneurial predisposition and its inclination for innovation to develop renewable energy sources,” Snowe said. “I think we’re going to see a real potential there for investments in those rural areas.”
Renewable energy production could prove an economic driver “in and of itself,” Maine State Chamber of Commerce President Dana Connors said in a telephone interview, but he cautioned that any legislation must not raise the overall cost of energy in the state.
“The bottom-line test for all of these initiatives is will it reduce our costs,” Connors said. “Don’t add costs, because we’re all living on razor’s edge.”
###
Senate Committee Confirms Mainer to head Small Business Administration
MILLS
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
April 1, 2009
WASHINGTON – Brunswick resident Karen Gordon Mills was poised to become administrator of the nation’s Small Business Administration Wednesday after she pledged to free up credit for struggling firms and fund programs to stimulate innovation at this time of economic crisis.
Mills, who appeared before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, answered more than an hour of questions on what role the Small Business Administration should take in the Obama administration. The committee later confirmed her unanimously.
She could receive full Senate approval by week’s end.
Mills said she would focus on encouraging businesses owned by minorities, women and veterans while expanding the number of banks willing to dispense loans backed partially by the government. Statistics on business growth and job creation will be vital to judging the SBA’s success, she said.
“I’m a metrics-oriented person,” Mills said. “I’m looking for ways of using those kinds of metrics so that we know what kind of progress we’re making.”
Mills is a former private equity trader who moved to Maine in 2001 when her husband, Barry Mills, became president of Bowdoin College. She is a graduate of Harvard College and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.
“Ms. Mills' entrepreneurship is quite literally in her blood," Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said. "Her grandfather was a box supplier for Tootsie Roll, and during the Great Depression took over a controlling interest in the company, which he later passed on to his family, and by the way it’s still run by her parents.”
Mills’ father, Melvin Gordon, 89, is the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Tootsie Roll Industries and her mother, Ellen Gordon, 77, is the president and chief operating officer of the company, according to Forbes.com
Mills co-founded the New York-based investment firm Solera Capital in 1999. In 2007, Gov. John Baldacci named her chair of the Maine Council on Competitiveness and the Economy. She also served as president of the investment firm MMP Group in Brunswick.
During Wednesday's confirmation hearing, Snowe renewed her call for the administrator of the SBA to be re-elevated to a cabinet level position, as it was during the Clinton administration, but Mills avoided calling for her own promotion, saying only that she would increase the agency’s involvement in the economy.
Snowe also criticized federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, for not meeting their small disadvantaged businesses contracting requirements, which usually amount to less than 5 percent of an agency’s total spending. After bringing up the topic in several hearings, Snowe said she hopes a new SBA with a higher stature can steer those contracts back to the female- and minority-owned companies for which they were intended.
“This is money that is going to be spent by the federal government,” Snowe said after the hearing. “It’s not as if we have to spend more.”
Mills said, “Sometimes agencies don’t know how to buy from small businesses,” but said she would encourage them to contract with smaller firms. She also pledged to make the SBA more accessible “on the front-end” by making borrowing “more paperless and more seamless.”
Answering a question from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., on what constitutes a small business, Mills said she would remain conscious of the administration’s mission to help small businesses, but does not want to risk crowding out promising businesses.
“There are at least two kinds of businesses served by the Small Business Administration,” Mills said in her opening statement. “The first are the small businesses on Main Street…. The second are high-growth, high-impact businesses, which have the potential to grow into the next American giants.”
Snowe said the stimulus provisions designed to aid small businesses are not being implemented fast enough to save Main Street companies on the brink of bankruptcy, and called for certain loan incentives and government contracts with small business to go into effect within a month.
“Make sure that these provisions are implemented very quickly,” Snowe said. “It truly does concern me that we won’t do the things that these programs are designed to accomplish quickly and immediately.”
Small businesses make up 97 percent of Maine firms, according to Snowe.
Committee Chairwoman Mary Landrieu, D-La., at one point mistakenly referred to Snowe as “co-chair” of the proceedings before correcting herself. Snowe is the senior Republican on the committee.
Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, praised Mills as “an ideal candidate” to lead the agency charged with supporting small businesses.
“Now is the time to strengthen the SBA so that it can be a robust part of our economic recovery,” Michaud said in a statement. “I look forward to Karen’s leadership in reviving this agency’s mission to provide small businesses the capital, counseling, and advocacy that they need.”
###
Service Sector Jobs Bring Less Pay for Laid-off Mill Workers
FOODANDMEDICINE
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
March 27, 2009
WASHINGTON – Laid-off mill workers in Eastern Maine who have taken jobs in the service sector have found their pay and benefits sharply reduced, primarily because much of the industry is not unionized, according to a report released in Maine Friday by the workers’ rights group Food AND Medicine.
The report surveyed 107 Eastern Maine workers who were dismissed during the past eight years, asking in person or by telephone how their health care, retirement security, new wages and other factors affecting their quality of life have changed.
“These are the people behind the statistics,” said Steve Husson, the project’s coordinator. “Through no fault of their own, they’ve been hurt, and we’ve got to change the policies now, or more people are going to be hurt.”
Food AND Medicine is a Brewer-based advocacy group that seeks higher wages and affordable health care for working-class Mainers.
The organization used the interviews to build the case for legislation aimed at increasing protections for U.S. workers, including the TRADE Act, which would renegotiate U.S. trade agreements, and the controversial Employee Free Choice Act, which would let workers unionize by having a majority of the workforce sign authorization cards rather than using a secret-ballot election.
“It’s virtually impossible to organize in the service sector,” Jack McKay, director of Food AND Medicine, said. “There are simply very few unions that have been formed in the last 30, 40 years… the cards are stacked so much against workers.”
Peter Gore, vice president of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, disputed the group’s claim that current law does not adequately protect workers who want to unionize from employer intimidation, saying the National Labor Relations Board gives both sides a fair shot. Nothing will hurt Mainers’ standards of living more than further job losses, he said.
“The way you grow the economy in this country is to create new jobs,” Gore said. “You’ve got to have jobs in this county before you can unionize them.”
About 90 percent of the former mill workers surveyed last fall found some other form of employment by the end of 2008, but those workers rehired by service-sector companies like Wal-Mart and The Home Depot complained they earn far less as non-union workers. Only 23 percent of those surveyed by Food AND Medicine still worked at union jobs by 2008, down from 93 percent in 2000.
Of the surveyed mill workers, all of whom had health insurance before they were laid off, 25 percent said they relied on their spouses’ insurance plans, and 21 percent reported ending up with no insurance at all. Thirty-five percent said they were working without any pension plan.
In the introduction to the report, 2nd District Rep. Mike Michaud said Maine will need temporary unemployment assistance as well as long-term trade and health care reforms to give workers “a fair shake.”
“Workers who make a company profitable should also share in its success,” he said.
Michaud said the card-check unionization bill also would be “a step in the right direction.” First District Rep. Chellie Pingree also supports the legislation, but its chances of passing the Senate remain uncertain, even more so after Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he would not vote for it. Maine Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe also oppose the bill.
-30-
