Republican Measure Would Require Transparency from State Environmental Initiatives: LD 495 Calls for Cost-Benefit Analysis

Maine House Republican Leader Rep. Billy-Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) is championing a bill to require the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to provide estimates on the actual environmental benefits and economic costs of emissions standards.

[RELATED: Mills Administration Hires California-Based Nonprofit to Guide Public Schools Toward Zero Carbon Goals…]

Rep. Mike Soboleski (R-Phillips) presented the bill on behalf of the sponsors, who could not attend the Monday public hearing in the Environment and Natural Resources Committee.

“This bill is a critical step in ensuring that climate policies adopted by the State of Maine are not only effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also transparent and equitable for the consumers who will bear the financial burden for these policies,” Rep. Soboleski explained.

“LD 495 strikes a necessary balance between environmental responsibility, and economic fairness,” he said.

The bill, LD 495, drew support from nine Republican co-sponsors, including Assistant Senate Republican Leader Matt Harrington (R-York) and Rep. Reagan Paul (R-Winterport), who has often spoken against the negative impact of environmental programs such as offshore wind turbines.

[RELATED: Reagan Paul: Sears Island May Be the Next Victim of Maine’s Radical Climate Agenda…]

Soboleski argued that environmental emissions rules can and do have a negative economic impact, particularly on low-income Mainers, and that the bill would ensure that future emissions standards consider the economic needs of the people as well as the climate.

The committee did not question Soboleski about the bill because he was not among the sponsors.

Jeffrey Crawford, director of the Bureau of Air Quality in the Maine DEP, testified neither for nor against the bill on behalf of the environmental agency, and indicated it would be possible to implement if passed. The DEP would be the agency most affected by the bill because it would need to provide the newly required estimates on environmental benefit and economic cost before it adopts any emissions standards.

Crawford stated that the bill’s requirement would not be overly burdensome for the agency as it already has experience forming similar estimates. He did, however, argue that it should not apply to legislatively mandated emissions rules.

“Although the proposal is not unreasonably burdensome, it should not apply when the Department’s rulemaking actions are undertaken in response to a legislative directive following the lawmaking process,” said Crawford.

The bill drew supportive written testimonies from 11 everyday Mainers who did not attend the meeting in person but nevertheless wanted their voices heard. Some of those Mainers appeared to submit identical testimonies using a template.

“This is common sense legislation. As taxpayers, we want to know the benefits and
costs when unelected bureaucrats in the Department of Environmental Protection look
at adopting rules designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In other words,
transparency,” said a number of the supporters in their submitted testimony.

Harris Van Pate submitted written testimony in favor of the bill on behalf of The Maine Policy Institute.

“Like all government interventions, climate-related regulations must be
evaluated for their intended benefits and their economic impact on Maine families,
businesses, and taxpayers. Requiring state agencies to provide cost-benefit estimates
ensures that policymakers and the public have a clearer understanding of the trade-offs
involved in regulatory decisions,” said Van Pate

He argued that overly burdensome emissions standards can lead to economic hardship for Mainers, drive businesses out of the state, cost Maine jobs, and reduce innovation.

A roster of environmental organizations, including the Conservation Law Foundation and the Maine Sierra Club, testified against the new requirements.

“This approach to considering only costs without benefits, and considering the costs of action in isolation instead of by comparison to the costs of inaction, is unbalanced and biased against climate solutions,” said the Conservation Law Foundation.

While the foundation claims that the bill only considers the costs, it actually explicitly requires an analysis of both the economic costs and the adverse environmental effects prevented by the proposed rules.

The same foundation also argued that the bill is unnecessary because the DEP already considers economic costs when issuing emissions standards.

The Sierra Club called the bill “a climate-change-skeptic bill that seeks to distract our agencies from their duties and overburdens them.”

This contradicted the DEP’s own testimony, which explicitly stated that the agency would not be overburdened by the proposed bill.

Mainers are no strangers to burdensome environmental mandates, with net-energy billing driving up energy costs for the sake of “clean” energy and a continued push towards offshore wind turbine development, among others.

[RELATED: Maine BEP Rejects Controversial EV Mandate…]

Just last year, Gov. Janet Mills’ (D-Maine) administration tried to force through an extremely unpopular, California-style electric vehicle mandate in the name of environmental preservation.

That rule ultimately failed, but it would have mandated that 51 percent of all new car sales in Maine be electric vehicles, with the percentage rising to 82 percent by 2032.