A front-page article May 16 headlined “Views clash as DEP readies greenhouse gas rulemaking” reported on the May 15 hearing on the citizen-initiated petition for rulemaking aimed at achieving an 8 percent annual reduction in Maine’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The article presented the hearing as a clash between two groups, but it did not report that 31 people, including nine youths, spoke in favor of the petition and only three spoke against it.
Two of the opponents were lawyer lobbyists representing business clients. The proponents included the operator of an oyster farm in Damariscotta, a farmer, a lobsterman, an economist, an academic, the former head of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, a scientist, a physician and a middle school teacher. This was not a clash between equal contingents. The proponents outnumbered the opponents 10 to 1.
The lobbyists were advancing their clients’ short-term interests, whereas the proponents expressed concern about the next generation, who will have to grapple with a crisis that now threatens two icons central to Maine’s identity: the lobster and the moose.
Our addiction to fossil fuels is robbing our children and grandchildren of their rightful inheritance. We need good old-fashioned American innovation and an all-hands-on-deck effort to re-chart our course.
Tica Douglas
Portland
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