In a Jan. 31 editorial, the paper claims there is no “clear public benefit to the action” of lifting strict environmental regulations that affect businesses in the state of Maine.

You are forgetting the No. 1 objective of a business: benefit the public! Hundreds of entrepreneurs and businesses compete daily to make our lives better. Although it is not clear that a hotel will hire more people if the ban on developing on sand dunes is lifted, the easing of the rules will create a climate that will foster more job growth. The long-term effects will create jobs and make life better for Maine citizens.

You are correct about one thing: Being pro-business (or more accurately pro-free market) and being pro-environment are not mutually exclusive. Another benefit to the free market is that consumers benefit from a clean environment and will not support a business that destroys it. In today’s wealthy society, it is not a death struggle between the environment and people’s well-being. We can have both without having harmful, arbitrary regulations.

It is clear what the public benefit is to having businesses catering to consumers without navigating environmental red tape.

We should, instead, be asking: What are the benefits of these environmental policies that harm some businesses, but favor others, all at the expense of the Maine citizen?

Kyle Pomerleau

Gorham

There have been many recently proposed rollbacks to Maine’s core environmental and public health safeguards. But it’s also worth noting some alarming developments in Washington that have serious implications for Maine.

Recently, Reps. Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Ed Whitfield, R-Wyo., and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., unveiled a draft bill in Congress to let the nation’s air and water polluters, like coal-fired power plants, continue to contaminate our environment and threaten our health like never before.

Thankfully here in Maine, Rep. Chellie Pingree issued a public statement immediately condemning the Upton-Whitfield-Inhofe proposal and stressed the importance of protecting public health.

Maine is the end of the country’s tailpipe. The plume of foul air from the Rust Belt comes directly east and then takes a sharp left-hand turn and heads into Maine. At its height in midsummer, the air quality on top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor is near the poorest in the country.

Is it any wonder why Maine leads the nation in the incidence of childhood and adult asthma, as well as being among the highest in chronic lung disease?

Maine needs more stringent clean air and water standards, not less. Protecting our health and environment is a priority for Rep. Pingree, and she should be applauded for speaking out against this latest attempt to block or delay standards that would ensure a clean and safe environment for all Maine citizens. It is about the people.

Dr. Robert E. McAfee

Portland

If more jobs are needed, take over the oil industry

If the government wants to create jobs, why can’t it take the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, which it closed down, and build an oil refinery, employ locals, and give people in the Northeast a chance at staying warm at a reasonable price?

The administration took over the auto industry; let them work on the oil industry. We are in a war — the president can freeze prices of our natural resources like oil and gas and keep them here.

Let us work our way out of this recession. Buy American. Put people to work. All companies sending jobs overseas should have to pay more taxes to support the people who have lost jobs that were sent overseas.

George Dunlap

Gray

Republicans are lying about plans for tax money

I believe Republican leaders to be liars about what they want to do with our tax money.

When they start to complain or preach about the evils of “big government” butting into our business, what they really mean is do not butt into our thieving dealings with your tax money — as well as definitely do not give anything back to the poor people, who are poor only because Republicans keep voting down a fair minimum wage, which is always shockingly far below any kind of living wage even the most frugal person could live on. All anyone needs to do is check their records of all the programs for us that they vote down.

We are having community necessities cut and getting “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” responses from them repeatedly. What bootstraps? They stole our boots long ago.

In addition, what are they doing to programs for us from President Obama? They are doing everything in their power to dismantle as many programs meant for us as soon as possible. What do they want to do with our tax money? This is a good question.

We sure do not see any of our tax money being sent back to us, but we sure do see them voting for ever- increasing money and benefit increases for themselves. They are wholesale lying crooks in my opinion.

(Signed) a very unhappy and poor working citizen.

Ann J. Dillon

Portland

Oil is plentiful, but we continue to refuse to get it

I read the Jan. 26 letter to the editor by Chris Uraneck, on the threat posed by higher gas prices, with great interest. I am retired from a major oil/chemical company and would like to respond. The main reason for high prices for gasoline, kerosene, heating oil, plastic resins, etc., is old-fashioned supply and demand.

I realize that not many people want to hear Sarah Palin say “Drill, baby, drill,” but she is right. We have plenty of oil reserves in our own backyard, off the coasts of Florida and Alaska, and in the Gulf of Mexico.

We need to use our collective political muscle to access these reserves. President Obama has issued a series of executive orders prohibiting drilling in these areas. Congress has the legal authority to overturn these orders, and such congressional action is not subject to a presidential veto.

I suggest that everyone who reads this to contact your congressperson and senators to demand this action. In case you haven’t figured this out, Obama simply doesn’t care if the price of gasoline goes to $10 a gallon.

He will declare another “crisis” and take executive action to seize the oil companies. Then we will have gas lines in addition to high prices, a la the age of Jimmy Carter.

If you can’t see a dictatorship around the corner, go back and read “1984” again. I just did.

Ed Zink

Yarmouth

 

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