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SUPPORTING 
POLICY

MCAN is working to advance a transformational climate justice agenda in Maine. Here are some priority policies we have supported to bring equitable, systemic change to our state.

131st LEGISLATIVE SESSION - 2024

Tribal Sovereignty 

Priority legislation: LD 2007 (Tribal Sovereignty)

  • Advocacy toolkit here 

  • Bill status: Awaiting public hearing

 
Additional related legislation:
LD 1349, MCAN testimony here (Lands and Waterways with Significance to the Wabanaki)

Background

For more than 40 years, the state of Maine has used legislation passed in 1980 to deny the Wabanaki Nations’ inherent tribal sovereignty, excluding them from many rights and protections guaranteed by Federal Indian Law. This has resulted in decades of social and economic barriers for the Wabanaki and surrounding communities.

Both chambers of Maine’s legislature passed tribal sovereignty bills in 2023 and in 2022. Despite overwhelming public and overwhelming and bipartisan legislative support, Gov. Janet Mills has vetoed each of these attempts.

Standing with the Wabanaki Nations in support of tribal sovereignty recognition

Housing

Priority legislation: LD 1710 (HOME Act)

  • Advocacy toolkit here

  • Bill status: Tabled after work session on 1/5/24

 

Additional related legislation:

LD 853, MCAN testimony here (Constitutional Right to Housing)

Background

Maine has the oldest average housing stock in the United States. Cold winters, a high energy burden, and the ongoing countrywide housing affordability crisis combine to leave many Mainers underserved. MCAN supports weatherization and efficiency programs, transitioning homes to renewable heating sources, and ensuring new buildings are net-zero. MCAN recognizes we don’t have to choose between affordable and climate friendly housing and is excited to work with housing organizations to combat both problems simultaneously.

Support community wide and legislative efforts to increase affordable and energy efficient housing

Intersectional Climate Justice

 

Related legislation: 

Background

Climate justice examines how a transition away from an extractive, fossil fuel-based economy can be done in a way where no one is left behind. Concepts that may not seem connected at first glance (social and antiracist justice, transportation, education, energy efficiency, food sovereignty, tribal sovereignty, economic justice, and more) are all tied to the climate crisis and intertwined with each other. You can visit MCAN’s Climate Justice Crash Course to learn more.

Recognize that combating climate change must be done in a way that also challenges inequalities and uplifts communities that have been historically left behind.

ONGOING CLIMATE JUSTICE ADVOCACY 

Tribal Sovereignty 

MCAN is continuing our work with the Wabanaki Alliance Coalition to support tribal sovereignty this year (See LD 2007 above).

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MCAN firmly believes that this issue is also our issue. The tribes in the land we call Maine deserve the rights, privileges, powers, duties and immunities similar to those of hundreds of other federally recognized Indian tribes. MCAN understands that this is not an instance of our state granting their rights but rather restoring their rights as well as a measure of their sovereignty that was compromised by the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act.

 

  • MCAN testimony on LD 2094 (2020) An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Task Force on Changes to the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Implementing Act

Transportation

Join with allies to focus on increasing public transportation and reducing transportation emissions by transitioning away from gas-powered vehicles.

 

Nearly half of Maine’s climate emissions come from the transportation sector. MCAN recognizes increasing public transit is a large part of the solution to reducing our emissions as well as bringing community benefits statewide, especially to rural Mainers. MCAN looks forward to working with public transportation advocates to simultaneously help the state curb its transportation emissions and reduce the sense of isolation many Mainers feel across this geographically large state.

 

Just Transition

Offshore Wind

  • Work in coalition to bring the offshore wind and port process and education to Maine stakeholders through educational events and community conversations.   

  • Offshore wind has the power to transition our state away from fossil fuel dependency. Our proximity to the Gulf of Maine provides much potential for the state to construct, maintain, and benefit from floating offshore wind power.

  • In 2023, Maine’s Legislature passed a bill to develop offshore wind and ports with strong environmental and labor standards. This legislation also incentivizes wind developers to build outside Lobster Management Area 1, where most lobstering takes place in the Gulf of Maine.

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Divestment

  • MCAN collaborates as part of the intergenerational team urging the Maine Public Employee Retirement System to divest its holdings from fossil fuels in accordance with signed law (LD99).

  • In 2021, Maine passed legislation that requires its public employee retirement fund (MainePERS) to divest the 1.2 billion of pension funds currently tied up in industries which directly fuel the climate crisis.

  • MainePERS has not listened. They are taking an overly cautious approach to divestment that conflicts with the timeline that science and justice require. To make matters worse, they are using vague language and not explicitly committing to forgoing new fossil fuel investments.

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Pine Tree Amendment 

  • The Pine Tree Amendment (PTA) adds language to the Bill of Rights in the Maine Constitution that will protect the rights of all people in the state, including present and future generations, to a clean and healthy environment and to the preservation of the natural, cultural and healthful qualities of the environment.

  • The PTA serves as a check on government authority and makes clear the government's duty to protect the state’s natural resources.

  • MCAN continues to support this amendment and is looking forward to working with a coalition in the upcoming years to continue our support of this goal.

131st LEGISLATIVE SESSION - 2023

Tribal Sovereignty 

MCAN Testimony on LD 78 (2023), RESOLUTION, Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of Maine to Require All Provisions in the Constitution to Be Included in the Official Printing

 

MCAN testimony on LD 2004 (2023) An Act to Restore Access to Federal Laws Beneficial to the Wabanaki Nations

  • Passed both chambers of the Legislature, but failed after Gov. Mills vetoed and the House did not reach the ⅔ majority threshold needed to override.

"We feel that what is important today is transparency and accountability in state/tribal relations. It is important to Maine Climate Action Now that recognition of the Maine/Wabanaki relationship and history be reflected in making Article X, Section 5 visible. We believe that recognizing the complex history of treaties, negotiations, and power inequalities is important."

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                                  - MCAN Testimony on LD 78 (2023)

Housing

MCAN Testimony on LD 2, An Act to Address Chronic Homelessness by Creating the Housing First Fund

  • LD 2 Passed but did not receive funding.

 

MCAN Testimony on LD 3, An Act to Establish the Winter Energy Relief Payment Program to Aid Residents with High Heating Costs

"As a young person who has experienced being chronically unhoused at a young age and someone who actively works in the field, I know first hand the trauma being unhoused does to a person. We talk about being unhoused as a moral failing or a perceived lack of ethics. But the reality is being unhoused is traumatic in and of itself… Healing from consecutive traumatic events is not a linear process and cannot begin while actively being unhoused… Site-based Housing First programs in Maine will help us to end long-term, chronic homelessness in our state and can be effective in both rural and urban communities to help the most vulnerable Mainers"

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                                   - MCAN Testimony on LD 2 (2023)

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Transportation

MCAN Testimony on LD 1559, An Act to Advance the State's Public Transit Systems by Reinvigorating the Public Transit Advisory Council

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 MCAN Testimony on LD 259 An Act Making Unified Allocations from the Highway Fund … (support for public transit)

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MCAN Testimony on LD 258, An Act Making Unified Appropriations and Allocations from the General Fund (in support of funding rural rental program)

 

"Public transit is part of the solution to reducing our emissions as well as bringing community benefits especially to rural Mainers. Being able to conveniently travel to jobs, health care, or family economically is as important as the transition away from fossil fuels… diversifying Public Transit Advisory Council membership by including labor, immigrant communities, and youth brings the voices of those most likely to benefit from increased public transit services to the decision making table."

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                               - MCAN Testimony on LD 1559 (2023)

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Offshore Wind 

MCAN testimony on LD 1895, An Act Regarding the Procurement of Energy from Offshore

Wind Resources

  • LD 1895 Passed and became law.

"An obligation of energy procurement and development of this size is that no one is left behind, unlike past energy systems… bid requirements [for offshore wind developers] include standards set for a diversity, equity and inclusion plan which includes provisions for workforce, supplier and investor diversity which would mean that, across the board, Mainers would have opportunities to take part in the growth of this new economy."

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                                - MCAN testimony on LD 1895 (2023)

Consumer-Owned Utility

LD 1708 Passed in both the House and the Senate in 2021 but was vetoed by the Governor. MCAN supported Our Power Coalition’s gathering of signatures for a referendum to get this issue on November 2023’s ballot. It failed. We will continue to educate Mainers on the benefits of a COU.

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MCAN Testimony for LD 1611, An Act to Create the Pine Tree Power Company, a Nonprofit, Customer-owned Utility.

  • Did not pass.

"One company that is in charge of our electric grid in Maine, Central Maine Power, is owned by the governments of Spain, Norway, and Qatar. Versant is owned 100% by Calgary Canada. With Pine Tree Power we are bringing decisions about our grid back to the people who use it, Mainers. No other essential service is owned by a foreign company: our electricity should not be either."

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                                - MCAN testimony on LD 1611 (2023)

Divestment 

MCAN Testimony on LD 1562, An Act to Protect the Retirement of State Employees and Teachers by Establishing Standards for Fiduciary Responsibility (would have undermined LD 99 Divestment law - MCAN testified Ought Not to Pass) 

"Maine Climate Action Now strongly opposes LD 1562 as its restrictive definitions of key terms (fiduciary, material, pecuniary, etc.) are meant with the intent to undermine the ability of fiduciaries of the Maine Public Employees Retirement System to consider the context and meaning which come to bear on the full meaning of these terms."

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                                - MCAN testimony on LD 1562 (2023)

PAST LEGISLATIVE SESSIONS 

2021

LD 1659, An Act to Create the Maine Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator

  • Signed into law, 2021.

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LD 99, An Act to Require the State to Divest Itself of Assets in the Fossil Fuel Industry. 

Read Cassie’s 350 Maine + MYCJ testimony here. (Not submitted through MCAN)

  • Signed into law, 2021.

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LD 437, An Act to Establish the Maine Healthy Soils Program

  • Signed into law, 2021.

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