Sen. Susan Collins is irresponsibly out of step with the desires of Mainers regarding climate change policy.
Since Gov. Mills took office our government has made great progress in responding to climate change. She formed the Maine Climate Council that did its job and created the exemplary “Maine Can’t Wait” climate action plan.
In this past legislative session our government passed numerous climate action bills. For example the Maine Clean Energy Accelerator, LD1659, or “green bank,” received strong bipartisan passage in both houses. This law enables the Maine Accelerator to receive large sums of federal seed money and begin making loans for climate change mitigation and adaptation projects, reducing our emissions and protecting communities from accelerating climate change.
That essential seed money is within the large Biden infrastructure plan, the “American Jobs Plan,” that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Collins will not support. The bipartisan bill that she champions is good, but it addresses climate change at a paltry scale compared to the massive need.
Sen. Angus King and Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden support strong climate action, but Collins is out of step; Maine public opinion is strongly in favor, but Collins refuses; our state government is taking aggressive actions, but Collins is unsupportive – on the most critical issue of our time.
We could survive bad roads and bridges, but the daily news confirms that climate change is an existential threat that must be aggressively addressed now.
Collins should start focusing on what our future requires. She is the impediment.
Charles Spanger
Scarborough
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