Trump's tariffs on Canadian softwood please Maine sawmill owners

In today's Portland Press Herald, I report on how President Trump's imposition of punitive tariffs against imported Canadian softwood lumber are being seen in Maine, a state where two-fifths of the land area is a continuous softwood industrial forest bordering on Canada. It's a complex situation, but Maine sawmill owners are really happy, and its likely to benefit loggers who work for them too

I wrote about this issue back in December in the Maine Sunday Telegram, after the idea first surfaced.

Trump plan on Canada lumber trade could help Maine sawmills

Last month a Trump transition memo obtained by CNN had Canadian media and politicians expressing concerns about the effect on their country's softwood lumber industry, the people who make spruce, fir, and pine dimension lumber of the sort you frame a house with. Trump, the memo suggested, would take an aggressive stance with our neighbor to the north on its softwood lumber imports.

This had me wondering what the effect of new trade restrictions would be for Maine's softwood lumber mills and harvesters. As I report in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram, they would probably benefit, though the devil is in the details.

On Trump transition watch at the Press Herald, I last reported on how his proposal to slash NASA's earth science missions would damage Maine science.

My Washington Post review of Rutkow's "American Canopy"

My review of Eric Rutkow's debut book, American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation, will be in the Washington Post's Outlook Section tomorrow. For those outside the Capital region, it's also available online.

For those looking for additional reading selections, my most recent reviews for the Post were of E.O Wilson's The Social Conquest of Earth and David Hackett Fisher's Fairness and Freedom.

Also thanks to all those who attended yesterday's benefit for Maine author Cynthia Thayer at Portland's Longfellow Books. Was a pleasure meeting you all, and I gather it was a successful event.

[Update, 6/10/12: The Denver Post picked up this review today as well.]

[Update, 6/17/12: Ditto for the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette and Austin American-Statesman.]

LURC, Democracy and Developers in Maine's North Woods

This past session, legislators contemplated eliminating the state agency that regulates development in Maine's unorganized territories, a vast region of commercial forests and undeveloped lakes, streams, rivers, and ponds that encompasses roughly half the surface area of Maine. Proponents of this approach say land use and development policy should be devolved to the counties as a matter of local control. Critics argue that the Land Use Regulation Commission should be reformed, not eliminated, or the future of the largest contiguous forest this side of the Mississippi will be dim indeed.

I explored the issue for my latest piece in Down East, which has been in subscribers' hands for a week or so, but just posted online. As you'll see, the facts generally support those who wish to keep LURC around - as do the county commissioners in that most unorganized of counties, Piscataquis, the longtime head of the Sportsmen's Alliance of Maine, and the Republican legislator who helped create LURC some four decades ago.

Two documents mentioned in the article that may be of interest to Maine's political class: the memo from Haynes and Gardner from which the governor lifted his proposal to rezone 30% of the North Woods for development; and the minutes of the meeting between Sen. Raye, timberland owners, and the commissioners of the eight affected counties where the initiative to eliminate LURC was fleshed out. Enjoy.

Gov. Paul LePage and Republican legislative leaders will be appointing a special commission to look into the issue this summer and fall and report back to the legislature with their findings.

[Update, 7/31/2011: I've reposted the Haynes and Gardner memo with the missing page included.]

The LePage Files, Volume I

Maine Governor Paul LePage's regulatory reform agenda was created by lifting entire passages from memos received by favored lobbyists and industry groups, confidential administration dossiers reveal, suggesting he and his staff made little attempt to shape policies themselves.

The dossiers, obtained via a Freedom of Access Act request, also indicate some of the governor's priorities going forward, including measures targeting striking workers and Maine's participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Who wanted to weaken air quality standards? Who inserted language to reduce all environmental laws to the weaker federal standards? Who wants the same done with civil rights and restaurant tip sharing laws? These answers and many more are in my cover story in this week's Portland Phoenix.

I requested the documents back in March, after the governor's then-communications director, Dan Demeritt, refused to answer questions about the origins of controversial elements of the governor's infamous "Phase I" regulatory reform agenda, much of which was subsequently rejected by the Republican-controlled legislature. They provide a detailed look into how LePage formulates policy and whom he sees himself as representing, issues I've written about in two previous Phoenix stories, "LePage's Secret Bankers" and "LePage's Secret Puppeteers."

Also today, take note of the blistering accusations leveled against LePage by his commissioner for marine resources, who resigned after allegedly being ordered to please discrete interests in the industry. Among the serious charges is that LePage refused to help groundfishermen because they are concentrated in Portland, a city that is "against me," and proposed creating another port somewhere else in the state. (Maine media watchers will not be surprised to learn the Sun Journal's Steve Mistler broke this story as well.)

[Update, 7/21/2011, 1358: Maine's Majority -- seeing a thematic link between these two stories -- has put out this press release charging "LePage must answer" for his cozy relationships at his Dover-Foxcroft "capital for a day" event.]

Maine: LePage takes on another Preti advisor

My story in this week's Portland Phoenix reveals how Maine Gov. Paul LePage has been outsourcing the drafting of his regulatory reform proposals to corporate lobbyists. With the chair of Preti Flaherty's lobbying group, Ann Robinson, simultaneously acting as his advisor and as the registered lobbyist for PhRMA, the Toy Industry of America (TIA), and other interested parties, it's no wonder his reform wish list is packed with measures that help corporations "from away" rather than businesses here in Maine.

Apparently, the governor isn't feeling sheepish about all this. On Friday he announced he had hired a political advisor: Preti attorney Carlisle J.T. McLean, who represented Plum Creek in negotiations with the Land Use Regulatory Commission (which LePage wishes to eliminate) and tried to . keep BPA in baby's bottles and sippy cups on behalf of TIA.

Preti's website boasts of Ms. McLean's expertise in getting client's rezoning applications approved at LURC. Perhaps her skills will come in handy as the governor tries to force LURC to rezone a third of Maine's North Woods for development.