Last month, Sen. Susan Collins helped pass the Great American Outdoors Act, a significant, although rare, piece of pro-environmental legislation in the Age of Trump. The bill includes permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Act and directs money to address the National Park Service’s maintenance backlog.

Sen. Collins is rightly touting that good vote for the environment, but the past 3½ years show a much more mixed record.

Once a staunch defender of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, Sen. Collins slipped up in 2017. Two crucial votes that year dealt with the refuge’s fate. Collins first voted to protect the Arctic Refuge on an amendment in the federal budget resolution then under consideration. That amendment ultimately failed.

But the defining moment came when she voted for Donald Trump’s notorious Tax Cut and Jobs Act. That legislation not only increased the nation’s deficit by perhaps $1.5 trillion over 10 years – with its lavish tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy – but also undercut protections for our country’s water, air, wildlife and wildlands. One of those pristine wilderness areas was the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

We need a leader in Washington who will consistently stand up to the likes of Trump and the fossil fuel barons.

John Demos
South Berwick


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