Maine’s Climate Council is holding seven public forums this fall to discuss their in-progress update to Maine’s climate action plan. Our state’s first Climate Action Plan was produced in 2020 and established multiple environmental goals for Maine, from electric vehicle (EV) sales to renewable energy mandates. The new plan intends to set Maine’s climate goals for the next four years, and focus groups have advised the council to set even more ambitious goals than those adopted in 2020. More concerning is that some private groups, such as the Sierra Club, are saying those environmental goals from years past were not ambitious enough.
The focus group recommendations included a further expansion of offshore wind, significant expansions of EV rebates and charger deployment, and even using state tax policy to incentivize renewable energy. Despite the various environmental demands of the 2020 Climate Action Plan and the new recommendations, the Sierra Club replied that Maine must “set, meet, and surpass bold climate goals.”
The Climate Council should ignore this unwise advice and instead limit Maine’s climate goals from what they were in the 2020 plan, as they have already proven unrealistic and unattainable.
The first reason for this is the insincerity of groups like the Sierra Club calling for greater environmental goals. In 2023, the Sierra Club used an obscure petition law to force the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to consider controversial EV mandates. This process caused a massive public backlash, with around 1,700 largely negative comments from the public. The public’s response to EV mandates was so negative that the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed emergency legislation requiring legislative approval of any future EV mandates, and the department dismissed the Sierra Club’s proposed rules in a 4-2 vote.
Even though the Department can no longer adopt new EV rules on its own due to the new law, the Sierra Club has sued them in Maine state court attempting to force them to do something they legally cannot. The Sierra Club is not behaving honestly regarding Maine’s environmental policies and is willing to use back-door tactics to get their way. If these groups are willing to sue the Department, they could very well sue the Climate Council, too. Entertaining this dishonest behavior in any way will only encourage more of it in the future.
Maine’s Climate Council first released its Climate Action Plan in 2020, establishing general emission reduction goals and various ways to transition energy, improve efficiency and reduce emissions. However, Maine state law requires that they release a new and updated Climate Action Plan every four years, and now that they have heard feedback from their various research groups, they are asking for public feedback.
Maine’s Climate Council should instead consider the recent legislative actions regarding electric vehicles and avoid the subject entirely. Additionally, while the Building Working Group suggests more significant energy efficiency mandates for building and construction, the council should not advance this proposal for several reasons.
One reason is that, in a housing crisis, the upfront cost of housing in Maine would further increase if new building mandates are adopted. Secondly, and more relevantly, this policy directly contradicts the recommendations of the Land Use Cross Working Group, which recommended encouraging increased development along transit corridors. In contrast, rising construction costs would discourage housing development statewide. Thus, one of the Council committees’ recommendations directly conflicts with the more reasonable recommendations of another.
The Council should also be careful when considering the economic impacts of climate change policy. While the original 2020 Climate Action Plan noted that the 25 states which were then members of the United States Climate Agreement (USCA) had faster-growing economies than nonmembers, this was not true as of 2023. According to recent data, non-USCA states have slightly (~0.04%) higher GDP growth than USCA states. While this slight difference is not significant, it is troubling that the economic growth rate in USCA states leveled with non-member states over only three years. Furthermore, this certainly raises the question of the economic cost of climate change policy at the state level.
The public will need to remind the Climate Council of these facts and its stance on environmental mandates in future meetings, which will take place throughout September. If they aren’t opposed, the council might take the Sierra Club’s advice seriously. Further expansion of climate change policy may negatively affect Maine’s economy and competitiveness if Mainers don’t speak out against it.