For the sake of Maine, we must encourage Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins and Reps. Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud to support the so-called “Carbon Rule,” which enables the Environmental Protection Agency to crack down on the most polluting, carbon-emitting power plants in the U.S.

Maine is the recipient of high quantities of CO2 pollution drifting from power plants in the Midwest, which harms our fresh water and forest resources. This pollution gradually, but surely, elevates average global temperatures which threaten our recreational and tourism-based economy.

It has already made the Gulf of Maine tops among warming bodies of water worldwide, creating upheaval in our already-wobbly fisheries industry. Wild fluctuations in weather, more frequent flooding and inexorable sea level rise will drive up infrastructure costs and wash out our beaches and marshes, the nurseries of our fishery.

While we seek to reduce climate-changing carbon pollution, we need to stay vigilant about energy conservation and efficiency measures and increase our investment nationally, regionally and locally in renewable energy sources – a forward-thinking policy that guarantees more jobs for Maine people and aggressively takes a stand to mitigate the effects of the causes of our warming planet.

Sandy Buck

Cumberland Foreside

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