Category: Deirdre Fulton
Coast Guard Considers Change
WASHINGTON – Next month, the U, S. Coast Guard will move to the Department of Homeland Security, putting an amplified emphasis on port and homeland security. And that could create changes along Maine’s 3,500 miles of coastline.
The move will put a new focus on the Coast Guard’s homeland security role, which some experts worry will make it more difficult for it to fulfill its search and rescue, environmental protection and fishery management functions.
Adm. Thomas Collins, commandant of the Coast Guard, testified Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Oceans and Fisheries, chaired by Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe. He assured the subcommittee that although the transition will require significant shifts in responsibilities, the traditional Coast Guard missions will remain intact.
“We are working very hard to make sure this transition goes smoothly,” Collins said, referring to the buildup of military and port security responsibilities that began on Sept. 11, 2001. “The Homeland Security Act of 2002 provides that the Coast Guard will remain a military, maritime and multi-mission service.”
Because of consistent budget support, the Coast Guard will be able to maintain full “operational excellence” in all its missions, Collins stressed.
“We must be able to balance the rigors of homeland security with the demands of other crucial missions,” he said. “We can, and we will.”
Missions such as search and rescue and fisheries enforcement – crucial in the state of Maine – will be able to endure because of a multi-mission force structure that allows complete sharing of technology and funds, he said, emphasizing the importance of these missions for American citizens.
Some of the tension between the new and traditional Coast Guard functions was dispelled last year when Maine Republican Sen. Susan M. Collins, along with Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens and Snowe, insisted that a provision be added to the Homeland Security Act ensuring the Coast Guard’s integrity as a separate entity. The provision, enthusiastically pursued by the Maine senators, guaranteed that while homeland security would require the Coast Guard to have a new focus, maintaining Coast Guard infrastructure would be a priority.
Collins, who chairs the Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the Department of Homeland Security, has voiced her concerns about stretching the capabilities of the Coast Guard. She has stressed her commitment to maintaining full funds for the agency’s non-homeland securityfunctions.
“In Maine, the Coast Guard is called upon for nearly 300 search and rescue missions per year,” the senator said in a statement. “Whether people are on the water to earn a living or for recreation, it is imperative that there be someone out there in case of emergency, and the best people for that job are the men and women of the Coast Guard.”
Maj. John Fetterman, deputy chief of the Maine Marine Patrol, said in a phone interview Wednesday that he does not foresee any major changes in operation. He described the relationship between the state marine patrol unit and the Coast Guard as “closely aligned” and predicted that operational capabilities would depend on the nation’s overall alert status.
As for increased threats detracting from primary missions, Fetterman said, “I’ve seen it happen.” However, he said, if Coast Guard resources get overwhelmed, the marine patrol would willingly help to pick up the slack.
“Because of our close partnership, because of that cooperation that we have with them ongoing all the time, we can help backfill them,” he said. “We can help answer some of the search and rescue calls…. We can backfill for them and help pick up on some of the fisheries enforcement when they have to be on national security. We’re partners.”
JayEtta Hecker, director of the U.S. General Accounting Office’s physical infrastructure team, which has conducted a study of the Coast Guard’s transition, testified at the committee hearing and said such cooperation was a “critical success factor” for the transition.
“In the short term, there are numerous, complicated and significant challenges that need to be resolved, and they’ll take time and effort,” Hecker said, suggesting that approaches such as strategic planning, communication, partnership building and information management could help to ensure a successful reorganization.
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
Senate Select Intelligence Committee Hears Evidence of Terrorism, Weapons in Iraq
WASHINGTON – The Senate Select Intelligence Committee heard Tuesday what Maine Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, a member of the committee, called “a sobering reminder” of the threats facing the nation.
The United States faces terrorist threats from multiple sources, FBI director Robert Mueller and CIA director George Tenet told the panel at a public hearing. The two joined other defense and intelligence officials to testify about what they described as the unrelenting danger presented by Al Qaeda’s resourcefulness, determination and ties to Iraq.
Al Qaeda forces persist in developing plans for destruction, Mueller testified, and are the “most urgent threat” to the United States.
The intelligence regarding Al Qaeda that has come to the attention of U.S. officials in recent days “is not idle chatter on the part of terrorists and their associates,” Tenet said, referring to the terrorist threat level that was raised to high on Friday based on that intelligence. “It is the most specific we have seen, and it is consistent with our knowledge of Al Qaeda doctrine and our knowledge of plots in this network.”
In a statement after the committee session, Snowe said the hearing “was a sobering reminder that America must stand down an array of threats, from Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, that are poised against us.”
During questioning, Snowe said that while she was pleased that there has been increased communication between federal and state agencies, she was concerned about her experience at the Portland airport last week, when airport officials learned about the threat level only after hearing about it on CNN.
“I’m hoping that we are in the best position to disseminate this information, especially when we’re talking about the second-highest alert,” Snowe said.
In their testimony, Tenet and Mueller warned that Al Qaeda will aim at “softer,” less well-protected targets in future attacks while developing new ways to strike at the United States. Tenet also said there were signs that the terrorist organization has established a presence in Iraq and Iran and is “developing and refining new means of attack” like poisons and surface-to-air missiles – signs Secretary of State Colin Powell outlined in his speech to the United Nations last week.
Mueller emphasized that despite several agency successes since Sept. 11, 2001, including the deportation of many suspected terrorists and the damaging of terrorist networks in Seattle, Florida, Detroit and Chicago, Al Qaeda remains the “primary threat to our security.”
“FBI investigations reveal Islamic militants in the United States,” Mueller said. “We strongly suspect that several hundred of these extremists are linked to Al Qaeda.” These groups, he said, focus on fundraising and recruitment, but could also be tapped into to carry out terrorist attacks.
As Al Qaeda is evolving to develop new tactics, so must the FBI, Mueller said.
“The greatest threat is from the Al Qaeda cells in the United States that we have not yet been able to identify,” he added. “Finding and rooting out Al Qaeda members once they have entered the United States…is our most serious intelligence and law enforcement challenge.”
Information sharing among federal agencies has improved in the past 16 months, Mueller said. Because the FBI and the CIA have access to the same foreign and domestic intelligence, the agencies were better able to address certain threats that led to the rise in the terrorist threat level, they said.
Local agencies agree that communication has been much better between all federal and state agencies since the Sept. 11 attacks. Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said in a telephone interview that communication with Washington has been much more effective since then.
Maine emergency management officials have “taken the increased threat very seriously,” said Lynette Miller, public information coordinator for the Maine Emergency Management Agency. When the threat level was raised, Miller explained in a telephone interview, information was passed down “through a number of channels,” with messengers occasionally overlapping.
According to Michael Riccuti, chief of the anti-terrorism unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, regional anti-terrorism officials are collaborating and discussing ways to coordinate New England threat prevention and response in the future to make sure information is analyzed in ways that take the entire Northeast region into account.
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
Snowe Addresses Crisis in Small Business Health Care
WASHINGTON – Small businesses are experiencing a health care crisis, Maine Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe and a bipartisan group of Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee members said at a hearing Wednesday.
The cost of health insurance premiums is increasing by double-digit percentages yearly, participants said, and small businesses are being forced to deny employees health benefits as a result.
Snowe, performing for the first time in her new role as committee chairwoman, cited statistics she called “stunning” as evidence of the lack of affordable health care choices. Less than 50 percent of companies with fewer than 50 employees offer health benefits, she said, compared with 97 percent of larger firms. With two-thirds of Americans relying on their employers for health insurance plans, reform is necessary, she said.
Kathie M. Leonard, co-founder and president of Auburn Manufacturing Inc. in Mechanic Falls, shared her story with the panel, calling the health care system under which her company’s insurance premiums have risen from $650 per year to $3,400 over the past 17 years “broken.” For Leonard, whose company makes industrial textiles that save energy and substitute safe textiles for ones made with asbestos, rates have risen at an average of around 25 percent per year, she said.
“Small business finds itself in a hopeless situation with a few grim choices left,” Leonard said. “To drop the benefit entirely, to continue to reduce the benefit as premiums increase or to self-insure,” an option which she noted was feasible only for larger small businesses.
Maine small-business employers testified at the hearing to emphasize their support of legislation Snowe will introduce next week along with fellow committee members Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-Mo.) and Jim Talent (R-Mo.).
Snowe’s legislation would establish association health plans (AHPs), which would afford small businesses the opportunity to make the same bulk purchases of insurance that allow larger firms to get better rates. AHPs would “level the playing field,” Snowe said, by allowing groups of small-business employers to negotiate and purchase as a group.
According to the Labor Department, health insurers usually charge small businesses more per employee. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao testified at the hearing, endorsing AHPs as a viable solution that would partially address the large coverage gap affecting about 40 million uninsured Americans.
In Maine, the problem is significant, said Jim Nicholson, chairman of the advisory council to the Maine Small Business Development Centers. Nicholson, voted Maine and New England’s small-business accountant advocate of the year in 2000, said AHPs would help to lower skyrocketing insurance costs in the state.
AHPs would allow “small businesses to get quasi-affordable health care,” he said. “If small businesses could find a way to band together, they would have a tremendous voice,” he added.
When allowed to form groups to purchase health care, small businesses would find the prospect of lower rates and decreased paperwork more attractive, participants at the hearing said. Small businesses would in turn be more appealing for insurance carriers who would be dealing with larger bargaining groups.
AHPs would attack the barriers that prevent small businesses from getting affordable plans, Chao said, referring not only to cost barriers but legal, marketing and fraud impediments as well. Small businesses have been vulnerable to insurance scams in the past when carriers offered extensive coverage for little money and then were unable to make payments when the need arose.
If AHPs are placed under federal regulation, the Labor Department would monitor insurance providers, Chao said. In addition, she pointed out, the legislation’s requirement that only associations in operation for at least three years be allowed to sponsor AHPs wouldremove the risk of illegitimate associations formed solely to market insurance.
Democratic committee members like Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Carl Levin of Michigan) said their primary concern was the possibility of “cherry picking” – allowing AHPs to choose and carry younger and healthier clients under their plans. If this occurred, Kerry said, the “tendency to go for low-risk people” would result in other people paying higher premiums because the “risk pool has been made smaller.”
But Snowe’s press secretary, Dave Lackey, said the legislation specifically prohibits cherry picking. AHPs must offer and provide coverage to all people and cannot discriminate based on health records, he said.
The opposition, which includes major insurance provider Blue Cross Blue Shield, also questioned the Labor Department’s ability to manage and regulate AHPs. Some said state regulation would be more reliable than federal regulation. Chao countered that she was “very confident about resource issues” and that the department already has all the necessary infrastructure to implement the new programs.
According to Lackey, Snowe is optimistic about the bill despite the opposition. She is encouraged by the willingness of the opposition to engage in debate, he said, because they “don’t think that their objections can’t be met.”
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
Snowe Announces SUV Legislation
WASHINGTON — In an attempt to reduce national dependence on foreign oil, improve the environment and aid consumers plagued by rising gasoline costs, Sens. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., vowed Thursday to fight to close the "SUV loophole" and increase fuel efficiency.
Reintroducing legislation Snowe described as a "practical and attainable goal to address a national emergency," the senators held a Capitol Hill press conference to outline their proposal.
By requiring light trucks and sport utility vehicles to adhere to the same tougher fuel standards — laid out in the 1975 Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards — as passenger cars, the legislation would save 1 million barrels of oil every day, reduce oil imports by 10 percent and prevent damaging emissions into the atmosphere, Feinstein said.
Snowe and Feinstein introduced the same legislation last year, but deferred to an even more ambitious proposal offered by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and John Kerry, D-Mass. That bill failed to win approval, but Feinstein said she was optimistic about this year's attempt.
"I think now there's much more concentration — there are television spots on it, there are articles done on it all the time, there are people becoming much more aware," she said. "I think there may also be a feeling of guilt over the Congress for not moving when they know the science and technology are there."
The changes could be particularly beneficial for Maine, said Snowe press secretary Dave Lackey.
"Maine generates very little in emissions but we suffer disproportionately because pollution is transported by the jet stream to our state. That has an impact in a variety of ways — from CO2 and ozone to mercury in our lakes. Cleaner emissions result in better air quality," he said, adding that Maine residents would also benefit from lower gasoline prices.
When CAFE standards were first designed, light trucks were much less common and were given a less stringent fuel efficiency standard, creating the loophole that benefits SUVs and similar vehicles that make up 50 percent of today's road traffic. The proposed legislation would require these vehicles to increase their gasoline mileage per gallon gradually over the next eight years.
Snowe pointed to unstable oil sources like Venezuela and Iraq in asserting that the United States needs to reduce its dependency on foreign oil. Both senators stressed the negative economic impact of rising costs at the pumps.
"Not only do we have a national security issue when it comes to energy dependency from abroad -- we're talking about an environmental situation and we're also talking about stability of prices," Snowe said.
According to projected increases, the United States could depend on foreign sources for 70 percent of its oil by 2025, the senators said.
"If that isn't an emergency situation, I don't know what is. I don't know what has to happen to inject a sense of urgency," Snowe said.
The Bush administration announced its own fuel efficiency plan last December, proposing to increase CAFE standards for SUVs and light trucks to 22.2 miles per gallon by 2007. Snowe and Feinstein said they would pick up where the Bush effort left off. By increasing standards by approximately 1.3 miles per gallon per year after 2007 under the Snowe-Feinstein plan, SUVs would have to average 27.5 miles per gallon by 2011.
Brownie Carson, executive director of Maine's Natural Resources Council, said he appreciated the extra effort by Snowe and Sen. Susan M. Collins, a co-sponsor of the bill.
"Maine's two senators really understand the importance of a different kind of energy policy than has been proposed by the administration," Carson said, referring to the Bush initiative.
U.S. automobile manufacturers have to make the effort to experiment with new technology, Carson said, something Snowe and Feinstein say is possible.
"This legislation is carefully crafted, based on good science, and it contains increases which are technologically feasible," Feinstein said. "We have the technology to do this, we don't have the will."
Citing a 2001 National Academy of Sciences study, the senators emphasized that U.S. auto manufacturers could use existing technology to make new models of SUVs, minivans and light trucks more fuel-efficient.
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
Mixed Reviews From Maine on Bush Tax Plan
WASHINGTON – Some Maine legislators are skeptical about President Bush’s tax proposal, despite potential tax relief that could particularly benefit senior citizens.
Senior citizens in Maine have said they want lower taxes, according to a 2001 survey conducted by the Maine Development Foundation, a collaboration of private and public organizations formed to promote Maine’s economy. Second only to improved assisted living and home care, lower taxes were a factor named by a significant percentage of elderly residents as a way to help seniors stay independent.
Proponents of President Bush’s dividend tax cut proposal, included in the budget he sent to Congress Monday, say seniors will derive significant benefits if the tax cut is adopted. Currently, dividend earnings are “doubly taxed,” the administration says – first as income on the corporate level and then as income on the personal level – decreasing the amount of money placed in the pocket of the shareholder.
For seniors who live off a fixed income, with taxable dividends a significant portion of their earnings, elimination of the tax on dividends would provide more money and economic security, the administration says.
Approximately “half of all dividend income goes to America’s seniors, who often rely on these checks as a steady source of retirement income,” R. Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, testified at a Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing Tuesday.
Maine’s population is growing older. About 14 percent of the total state population is over the age of 65, according to Maine’s Bureau of Elder and Adult Services.
Certainly any type of tax relief for these people living on a fixed income is a beneficial thing, said Carol Palesky, 62-year-old president of the Maine Taxpayer Action Network.
But Maine officials expressed doubt about the number of Maine senior citizens who will actually reap the specific benefits of a dividend tax cut.
“Maine’s senior population is not affluent,” said Republican Sen. Susan M. Collins, a member of the Special Committee on Aging, in an interview yesterday. “The average Maine senior is not just living on dividend income.”
Collins said she was enthusiastic about other proposed reforms that could benefit the elderly population to a greater degree, including prescription drug benefits. While the elimination of the dividend tax can be intellectually justified and therefore considered in the future as part of a tax reform initiative, Collins said, she added that she worries it will not stimulate the economy in the short term and should not be considered as part of an economic stimulus plan.
Democratic Rep. Thomas Allen said the president’s tax plan would have little success in stimulating the economy. He added that while the elderly would be the major beneficiaries of the administration’s dividend proposal, it would be wealthy seniors – which Maine lacks – who would benefit most. Rather than improving the situation of low-income seniors and citizens in general,the tax cut would favor the wealthy and increase the debt, he said.
“There is not an ounce of fiscal responsibility in this budget,” Allen said. “If you’re low-income, you’re in big trouble under this budget.”
But regardless of whether seniors or any other Americans see a dividend check, they will benefit in the wider sense from an improved economy, Hubbard said at the hearing, which was held to examine the effects of the dividend tax cut on seniors. With more capital available, wages will be higher and low-income citizens will experience benefits as well, he said.
Maine Democratic Party chairwoman Barbara Raths, in a telephone interview, raised another concern related to the proposed tax cut. With a widening federal deficit, she said, less money would be available to states. According to Raths, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities—a think tank in Washington--calculated that if the Bush dividend tax plan had been in effect in 2000, Maine would have lost $31 million in revenue.
Collins predicted that the Senate would most likely reshape the president’s tax proposal as a whole and specifically address the dividend tax plan before approving the measure.
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
Early Education Programs in Jeopardy, Snowe and Collins Reach Out
Washington, D.C. – Concerned about the future of Head Start early childhood development programs, Jeanie Mills, executive director of Child and Family Opportunities, came down to Washington, D.C. yesterday to join hundreds of teachers in calling for congressional reauthorization of the Head Start bill – as long as reauthorization happens their way.
With the State of the Union address out of the way, budget season in Washington will soon be in full swing, meaning federal programs like Head Start will be evaluated to decide on policy guidelines and funding. Mills, executive director of Child and Family Opportunites, Inc., based in Ellsworth, said she was “a bit concerned about the direction the administration is taking,” regarding possible changes in the way administration of Head Start programs.
Mills, who also serves as chair of Maine’s Head Start Director’s Association, said she hopes changes during reauthorization do not shift the focus of the program, originally targeted at aiding in the overall social and academic development of low-income pre-schoolers. Head Start, she said, is not “just an early literacy program.”
President Bush has voiced his support for Head Start in general, but “has called for a major effort by Congress to strengthen the program, particularly the academic component,” said Dave Schnittger, communications director for the House Committee on Education and Workforce. Twenty to 50 percent of all children today are unprepared to succeed in school, he said, and the typical Head Start student still enters “far below” the national norm.
Head Start advocates gathered in Washington challenged the extra emphasis on literacy, saying they are worried it will crowd out the social and emotional development aspects of Head Start. Republicans, including Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE), House Education Reform Committee subchair, have pledged to leave non-academic factors, such as health and nutrition services, alone.
Another concern is the added emphasis on standardized assessment of Head Start programs, which Head Start administrators say is unnecessary and will be ineffective.
“There’s a lot of research on standardized testing for four-year-olds -- it’s just not going to work,” Mills said, adding her wariness of how the administration would use any information gathered from tests.
Sens. Susan M. Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, both Head Start supporters, said they would wait until a reauthorization proposal was formally issued before weighing in on the concerns. However, Snowe will be watchful of changes that draw Head Start too far away from its original purposes, said Dave Lackey, Snowe’s press secretary.
“She would be wary of undermining the success of Head Start in trying to realign the program in a direction where it’s not been focused before,” he said. “It’s important that students arrive at school ready to learn…but I think she wants to understand how such an approach would work before agreeing to support a significant shift from traditional Head Start mission.”
Both Snowe and Collins will continue to lobby for increased Head Start funds, nationwide and specifically for Maine. Assessing the overall progress of Head Start in Maine, Mills was optimistic but stressed the constant need for additional funds.
In Maine, approximately 40 percent of all eligible children are enrolled in Head Start programs, a number she said demonstrates the lack of adequate funds.
“We definitely need more funding to serve more children and families. We need more funding to increase and enhance the skills of our teachers, and then pay them the kind of salary that will retain them,” she said.
More hearings will take place before the reauthorization proposal is offered.
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
Bush Addresses Economy and Iraq, Maine Delegation Reacts
Washington, D.C. – Republican Senators Olympia J. Snowe and Susan M. Collins lauded President Bush’s State of the Union remarks regarding the economy and health care but remained reserved on the president’s analysis of the situation in Iraq. Meanwhile, Democratic congressmen Michael Michaud and Thomas Allen criticized what they labeled as a disproportionate economic plan favoring the wealthy and said the president failed to outline a convincing case for war in Iraq.
“I don’t think he made his case,” Michaud said, claiming the president presented non-compelling evidence against Saddam Hussein during his speech Tuesday night in an attempt to draw attention away from the ailing economy.
Collins said she was “troubled” by the new evidence presented in the speech, but advised the administration to give the inspectors more time, more resources and more intelligence information before making a hasty decision about war.
“I’m still hopeful that we will be able to avoid war,” she said, a sentiment shared by the entire delegation.
The delegation also united in general praise of potential the health care reforms President Bush stressed in his speech Tuesday night.
“His proposals for health care have a great impact for Maine because Maine is faced with a growing number of uninsured families due to rising costs,” Collins said after the speech. In his speech, the president proposed adding $400 billion over the next decade “to reform and strengthen Medicare,” specifically mentioning prescription drug benefits.
Snowe, while also praising president’s focus on Medicare and prescription drug reform, stressed the importance of “comprehensive prescription coverage,” which she worried might be passed over in lieu of the president’s proposed Medicare reforms.
Snowe and Collins both responded enthusiastically to the president’s economic plan as a whole and specifically to his mention of help for small businesses. Collins noted the special importance of this measure to Maine, which she described as “a state of small businesses.”
“Small businesses now account for a full 100 percent of net new jobs in our economy, so I strongly support the President’s call for adoption of this legislation, so unceremoniously dropped from our stimulus plan a year ago,” Snowe, chairman of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said in a statement.
Michaud and Allen blasted the president’s economic plan as inadequate.
“This president has failed to address the economy,” Michaud said. “He is more concerned with giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people. If the president had to work, like I have, in the mills beside men and women who are struggling from day to day, then he might pay attention to it.”
In the long run, Michaud and Allen agreed, the president’s plan would fail to stimulate the economy and create new jobs.
Instead, Allen said, it will “explode the annual deficit, drive up the national debt and in the long run, slow down the economy.”
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
Maine Delegation Tries to Aid Great Northern Workers
WASHINGTON-As a former Great Northern Paper mill worker, freshman Rep. Michael Michaud knows that closing the company mills in Millinocket and East Millinocket could have sweeping effects on the people and the state of Maine.
"The closing of the mills is definitely going to devastate not only the region but the state as a whole," the new District 2 congressman said in a recent interview.
Michaud worked for 29 years in the same Great Northern East Millinocket mill where his father and grandfather worked. The company, a major employer in the region, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Jan. 9 and laid off about 1,100 mill workers.
Great Northern purchased many of its products from state-run companies, and mill workers provided a large consumer base for state businesses as well, Michaud said. Without those significant economic factors in play, there will be a "ripple effect statewide," he predicted.
Before the management declared bankruptcy, most workers already had been out of work for as long as four weeks. Though lawmakers and employees alike remain hopeful about reviving the mill, potential investors have voiced their wariness of both the company itself and the current owners and management.
To avoid too much economic disruption, Michaud and his colleagues in the Maine congressional delegation are exploring ways to reopen the mill and aid the workers, including tax credits fo4 potential investors and state and federal aid for the displaced workers..
Michaud blamed U.S. trade policies for part of the plight of Great Northern and paper mills in general.
"When you look at the long-term issues that not only affect Great Northern but manufacturing in general, particularly the paper industry, it's our trade policies. They're killing us," he said, specifically mentioning competition from Canada.
Last Saturday, Michaud, along with Maine Sens. Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins, met in Millinocket with union leaders, town managers and company representatives to discuss trade policies and other issues surrounding the mill closing.
At the meeting, the lawmakers suggested that there be a separate account for health care money taken out of workers' paychecks. Before, Michaud said, the $186 a week taken out of paychecks for health care costs was placed in a general revenue account. The lawmakers also vowed to push for quicker Medicare reimbursements from the federal government after hospital representatives voiced concern about lack of payments from unemployed workers.
"Overall, the meeting with employees as well as the municipal officials was very productive," Michaud, a Democrat, said, stressing his and the two Republican senators' commitment to working together "to make sure people in the region get whatever assistance we're able to provide."
Both Snowe and Collins have expressed concern about the situation of the Great Northern workers, many of whom have been without work for four weeks. Snowe has encouraged Maine Gov. John Baldacci to apply for a national emergency grant through the U.S. Labor Department, according to her office.
These grants provide employment and training assistance to workers affected by economic upheavals such as mass layoffs or plant closures. According to the Labor Department, the grants provide funds to supplement local and state aid already being implemented. The Labor Department also could provide Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) benefits, which are similar to emergency grants in that they help to provide necessary services and money to workers laid off as a consequence of international trade agreements. Previous TAA grants cover many workers at the mill, but Collins has expressed concern about health insurance for displaced workers under these petitions.
Currently, the Labor Department is working with the state to help displaced workers assess their situation and tell them their options, said Mason Bishop, deputy assistant secretary for employment and training.
"We are very aware of and very concerned about the situation at the Great Northern Paper mills," Bishop said. "We will work diligently with the state to provide assistance."
Paper workers face a particularly difficult situation because they are not trained as builders or machinists, as employees in many other industries are, Michaud said.
"If you're a paper maker, unless you go to another mill, the jobs are not there and you have to get re-trained," he said. But employees, he added, "don't want training, they want jobs."
Workers in the region are worried, Michaud said. The longer the mills are down, he said, the harder it is to get them back up and running. In addition, the company "can't afford to lose what customers we have now," he added.
Taking these concerns into account, Snowe, Collins and Michaud have focused their efforts on getting the mill back in operation.
"I am committed to pursuing every angle and every option to help officials restore operations at Great Northern mills, because our foremost priority must be to return the workers to their jobs," Snowe said in a statement.
Reviving the mill and the region is not going to be an easy task, Michaud cautioned.
"It's going to be a long haul - there's a lot of work - but the congressional delegation is united in trying to make sure the mill gets up and running," he said.
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
