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Good Morning from Augusta,
During January, the first month of the first legislative session, the legislative calendar is usually slower and predominately consists of referencing bills to committees. However, the building was buzzing with rumors and speculation regarding the Governor’s biennial budget and supplemental budget, which was released to the public on Friday, January 10th. Since then, there has been posturing from both sides of the aisle regarding the substance. Republicans have called out the Governor for raising taxes to cover a structural gap and have asked the Governor to cut spending instead. It will be interesting to see where things end up and how the legislative branch and the executive branch reconcile their differences over the coming weeks and months.
Last Friday, the Governor also released the details of her supplemental budget, which makes changes to the current fiscal year. Governor Mills included $2 million from the unappropriated General Fund surplus to address early intervention and management of the Spruce Budworm outbreak in Aroostook County. This is great in terms of mitigating the effects the invasive species has on the spruce population, but unfortunately there is no accountability of the funds that we know of. In addition, there are no mechanisms in place to provide funds to logging contractors to absorb the costs of doing salvage harvests on dead wood. On Tuesday, January 21st, the Appropriations Committee will hear testimony on this request and the PLC will testify neither for nor against the budget request for the aforementioned reasons. The PLC will also request that the logging community be included in stakeholder meetings to make decisions on actions related to budworm moving forward.
PLC Legislative Agenda Update
This week, Ben Grant, Deputy ED, introduced the organization to the Tax Committee and also introduced our truck/trailer sales tax exemption bill that will go before the Tax Committee later in the session.
Also this week, our bill, LD 195, “An Act to Create the Small Business Capital Savings Account Program,” sponsored by Senator Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook) and with bi-partisan co-sponsorship from Representative Billy Bob Faulkingham (R - Winter Harbor), Senator Craig Hickman (D – Kennebec), Senator Rachel Talbot Ross (D – Cumberland), Representative William D. Pluecker (I – Warren), Representative Randall Hall (R – Wilton), Senator Joseph Baldacci (D – Penobscot), Senator Susan Bernard (R – Aroostook), Representative Timothy Guerrette (R – Caribou), and Senator Bruce Bickford (R – Androscoggin), was referenced to the Joint Standing Committee on Housing and Economic Development, where soon it will be scheduled for a public hearing. We have created a small coalition of organizations also in support of the bill, including the Maine Coast Fisherman’s Association and have shared information with the Maine Farm Bureau to hopefully receive their support as well. The public hearing will likely occur sometime in the next month, and it will be important for the membership to show strong support for the bill. If you would like to testify in person or via Zoom in support of the bill, please let us know as soon as possible.
Legislative proceedings will certainly start to accelerate by the end of the month once committees start meeting regularly. As the pace picks up, please do not hesitate to reach out to us with your questions or concerns. You can follow along this session with our most recent bill tracker that can be found here. If there are issues effecting your businesses, big or small, we want to hear about them.
Thank you for all the hard work you do.
Best Regards,
Dana