Janet Mills Vetoes Wind Power Bill With Major Carve Outs for Unions

Gov. Janet Mills dealt labor unions a major defeat Tuesday when she vetoed an offshore wind port construction bill that included lucrative carve outs for organized labor.

The bill she vetoed, LD 1847, began as a governor’s bill; however, Sen. Glenn Curry (D-Waldo) and Senate Democrats attached an amendment to it that would have required all work on the project to go to labor unions under a Project Labor Agreement.

That was a problem for Maine’s largest construction companies, which are employee owned and not unionized. It was also a problem for many of the smaller Maine-based subcontractors that could work on the project but for the PLA.

In her veto statement, Mills said the union language, originally included in a separate bill her administration had opposed, was also a problem for her.

“Unfortunately, after passing out of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee with a strong bipartisan vote and after a favorable vote in the Senate, my bill was substantially amended on the Senate floor to add the language from a separate bill my Administration opposed, LD 1818, An Act regarding Port Facilities Relating to Offshore Wind Power Projects, among other things, requiring Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) — not only for the construction of an offshore wind port, but for the construction and fabrication of offshore wind projects, such as the turbines, broadly,” she said.

Mills’ veto means potentially billions of dollars of state and federal spending will not be funneled into labor unions, traditional allies of the Democratic Party.

Jackson Parker, Chairman and CEO of Reed & Reed, a 95-year old Maine construction company that is 100 percent employee-owned, said in his testimony on the proposal that the labor union language would exclude some of Maine’s largest employers from benefiting from the project.

Reed and Reed has built 408 of the 455 wind turbines currently operating in Maine, Parker said.

“The writers of [the wind power proposal] must have thought the idea of offshore wind was such a slam-dunk that it could bear unlimited costs and special preferences,” Parker said. “It is more of a social policy and union labor bill than a serious attempt to develop a cost-effective renewable energy source.”

Parker testified that a union-sponsored PLA for any new wind power project contracts would exclude 90 percent of Maine construction workers from working on the projects, and none of the wind turbines currently in Maine were constructed under a PLA.

He said the union provisions in the bill would mean that the workers hired for the project would primarily be from out-of-state firms.

While the Mills Administration has been supporting an enthusiastic but cautious approach to wind power, proposals from lawmakers — backed by environmental and labor groups — would accelerate the timeline significantly. Although Gov. Mills vetoed one wind power bill, several others have yet to reach her desk.

The BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor unions and environmental activists, has been particularly involved in pushing more rapid and aggressive plans that cater to left-wing interest groups.

LD 1847 also included requirements that wind power companies who use the port hire racial and sexual minorities, as well as veterans.

Any entity that wanted to lease the port to construct turbines would have had to submit a “diversity, equity, and just transition” plan to the Maine Department of Transportation.

That plan would have involved collaboration with unions to “recruit, train and employ residents of the State, including but not limited to minorities, women, veterans, LGBTQ+ persons, persons with disabilities, people from impoverished or rural communities, members of federally recognized or state-acknowledged tribes in the State and individuals who have a criminal record.”

The bill further defined “LGBTQ+” as including but not limited to “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual.”

Putting wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine has been a top priority for the Mills Administration because they believe it will decrease carbon emissions and thereby lower the temperature of the planet.