Committee rejects efforts to stymie development of Sears Island wind port
Sears Island in Searsport, the potential home of the new offshore wind port. (AnnMarie Hilton/Maine Morning Star)
The Legislature's Environment and Natural Resources Committee voted down two bills that would have put up roadblocks to the state's effort to develop an offshore wind port on Sears Island.
Outside of the debate around developing offshore wind, a bipartisan majority of the committee feared the bills would squash the potential for any future economic development on the island.
Last year, the state made clear that Sears Island is its preferred location for a new port to support a budding offshore wind industry. Rep. Reagan Paul (R-Winterport) brought these bills forward after a reelection campaign that emphasized her desire to save the currently undeveloped island in her district.
In 2009, the state placed two-thirds of Sears Island, about 600 acres, into a permanent easement. The state plans to leave that portion untouched by the port, which will be built on roughly 100 acres outside of the protected area.
LD 226 proposed extending that conservation easement to cover more of Sears Island, including a portion that has been reserved for port development by the Maine Department of Transportation. The committee voted against this bill 10-2, with one member absent.
The state-owned land on the island is protected under the Natural Resources Protection Act, which prohibits new or expanded structures on coastal sand dunes. A bill last year sought to authorize the Department of Environmental Protection to grant an exception for the site, so long as all other applicable permitting and licensing criteria are met. The proposal drew strong pushback from local conservation and Indigenous groups and initially divided lawmakers, but eventually prevailed and was ultimately included in the supplemental budget passed last session.
Reagan's other bill, LD 735, would roll back those efforts from last session and impose limits on who could propose similar legislation in the future. The committee voted against that bill 9-3, with one member absent.
In addition to concerns raised by the committee's legislative analyst that aspects of the legislation could conflict with the state constitution, committee co-chair Sen. Denise Tepler (D-Sagadahoc) said she opposed the bill because she was informed that Wabanaki leaders weren't consulted, despite the proposal including the establishment of an Indigenous lands protection committee.
Despite the overwhelming vote recommending against passage of the bills, they still advance to the full Legislature, beginning with the House of Representatives.
The state is in the preapplication phase for developing a wind port on the island, said Matthew Burns, deputy director of the Office of Freight and Business Logistics for the Department of Transportation. Design work is a little over halfway complete, but Burns said the state doesn't anticipate submitting permit applications until there is more clarity about how the project would be funded.
After conversation digressed into details about what dredging would be necessary for port construction, Tepler reminded the committee that LD 226 is not actually about a port.
'This bill is about voiding the ability of the Department of Transportation to use a small piece of Sears Island — or a third of the island that they own — for any possible future development,' Tepler said.
Given that, she asked the committee to refrain from further conversation about building a potential wind port when discussing that bill.
Rep. William Bridgeo (D-Augusta) said it is 'vitally important' to preserve the island's potential for economic development given that the other major ports in the state are either built out or logistically challenging.
'It would not be prudent for the state to relinquish its ability…to utilize that piece of land for open-ended purposes,' he said.
While she appreciates conservation concerns, Sen. Stacy Brenner (D-Cumberland) agreed that the land should be left open for economic development opportunities in the future. Shutting that off would 'close a lot of doors,' she added.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Iranian-American, Haitian Democratic lawmakers denounce Trump's travel ban
Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani and Democratic Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith speaking at a press conference in the Capitol on March. 19, 2025 (Photo credit: Mitch Perry / Florida Phoenix) Florida Democrats from countries in President Donald Trump's travel ban list denounced the policy that they say punishes families and hurts the economy during a virtual press conference Friday morning. Orlando Democrat Anna Eskamani, who's Iranian-American, said she worries she won't be able to see her aging grandmother before she passes. 'It is a very difficult reality for many of us, where we are navigating conflict in these homelands that are dictorial in nature, that make it difficult already to survive, and for folks who are fleeing that to achieve the American dream, it is heartbreaking and unAmerican that they cannot do that,' Eskamani said. Trump issued a proclamation late Wednesday barring the entry of people from a dozen countries, including Iran, and partially restricting entry of nationals from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. Florida is home to the largest population of Cubans, Venezuelans, and Haitians in the country. The travel ban proclamation, which cited national security concerns, goes into effect on Monday. The Democrats, who are in the superminority at the state Legislature, said Congress needed to be held accountable, particularly Florida's Republican delegation. 'At least within the Haitian community, ever since on the campaign trail, this administration has been targeting Haitians, and it's turned its back on Cubans as well,' said North Miami Democratic Rep. Dottie Joseph, of Haiti. Seminole Republican Rep. Berny Jacques, who is from Haiti, supports the Trump administration's policy. 'It is essential for our nation's sovereignty and security,' he wrote to Florida Phoenix. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
The Intercept
2 hours ago
- The Intercept
Trump Could Use Sacred Native Land for a Monument to… Columbus
A provision buried deep in the House budget bill allocates $40 million toward President Donald Trump's plan for a vast garden of larger-than-life statues — and it could get built on sacred Native land. The House version of the budget reconciliation bill passed last month contains funding for Trump's proposed National Garden of American Heroes, which would lionize figures ranging from Andrew Jackson to Harriet Tubman. While the garden does not have an official location yet, one candidate is minutes from Mount Rushmore National Memorial, the iconic carvings of presidential faces in South Dakota's Black Hills. Trump first announced his plan for a national statue garden during a July 4, 2020, address at Mount Rushmore in response to the racial justice protesters toppling Confederate statues. 'I'm quite sure that Harriet Tubman would not be pleased.' The potential statue garden site near Mount Rushmore belongs to an influential South Dakotan mining family that has offered to donate the land, an offer that has support from the state's governor. The Black Hills, however, are sacred land to the region's Indigenous peoples, and its ownership following a U.S. treaty violation is contested. One Native activist decried the idea of building another monument in the mountain range. 'I'm quite sure,' said Taylor Gunhammer, an organizer with the NDN Collective and citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation, 'that Harriet Tubman would not be pleased that people trying to build the statue of her on stolen Lakota land have apparently learned nothing from her.' Trump's vision has had a rocky road to realization. Trump's announcement was meant to offer his own competing vision to the activists who sought to remove statues — by force or by politics — of figures like Andrew Jackson or Confederate generals. In one of the final acts of his first term, he issued a list of potential figures that alternately baffled, delighted or outraged observers. They included divisive — but inarguably historic — figures such as Jackson, who signed the Indian Removal Act that began the Trail of Tears. Also listed, however, were unexpected choices such as Canadian-born 'Jeopardy' host Alex Trebek, who was naturalized in 1998. Some of the names never got American citizenship at all — including Christopher Columbus. Joe Biden canceled the idea after taking the presidency, but Trump quickly revived it after his second inauguration. The National Endowment for the Humanities was placed in charge of commissioning artists, who are required to craft 'classical' statues in marble, granite, bronze, copper, or brass and barred from abstract or modernist styles. The statue-making process has drawn its own skeptics about whether Trump can fulfill a vision of having the garden ready by July 4, 2026, the nation's 250th birthday. The process of selecting a site and building Trump's vision of a 'vast outdoor park' in time could be just as daunting, however. The Interior Department declined to comment on the site selection process, with a spokesperson saying that the garden was still in the 'planning and discussion phase.' 'We are judiciously implementing the President's Executive Order and will provide additional information as it becomes available,' spokesperson J. Elizabeth Peace said. One of the few publicly known site candidates emerged in March, when Republican South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden issued a press release flagging the Black Hills as a potential location. In his announcement, he noted that the Lien family of Rapid City, South Dakota, had already offered land it owns near Mount Rushmore. The Lien family, which has major interests in South Dakota mining projects, is also developing a theme park resort in Rapid City and a lodge nearby in the Black Hills. The family owns dozens of acres near the historic Doane Robinson tunnel, which offers motorists a framed view of Mount Rushmore. The vision of another monument in the Black Hills, however, would place South Dakota politicians on a collision course with some Native tribal members who have long lamented the creation of Mount Rushmore. The Lakota Sioux called the mountain the Six Grandfathers and ventured to it for prayer and devotion, according to National Geographic. The entire Black Hills were sacred ground for the Lakota and other tribes. The Black Hills were promised to the Oceti Sakowin peoples as part of a Great Sioux Reservation in an 1868 treaty, but the U.S. government broke its promise when gold was discovered there. 'The fact that it was built in the Black Hills was not an accident or happenstance.' The Oceti Sakowin Oyate, commonly known as the Sioux Nation, won a 1980 Supreme Court case finding that they had been wrongfully deprived of the land. They rejected the court's finding that they should receive monetary compensation and continued to seek return of the land. (Several tribes involved in the case did not respond to requests for comment about the proposed statue garden.) Some Indigenous people in South Dakota see the carved faces on Mount Rushmore as a defacement of land that rightfully belongs to them. 'The fact that it was built in the Black Hills was not an accident or happenstance,' Gunhammer said. 'It is representative of the exact colonial presence that the settler colonial project has always been trying to have in the Black Hills.' Mount Rushmore is a point of pride for other South Dakotans, as well as an economic boon. Sam Brannan, a Lien family member who supports the project, said she was hopeful that the White House would take them up on their offer to build another patriotic attraction nearby. 'We're just honored and hopeful that they will consider our site,' she said. 'The people they have selected are amazing. I hope everybody goes through those 250 names. They are very representative of the United States.' The statue garden proposal comes at the same time as a family-owned company, Pete Lien and Sons, seeks to conduct exploratory drilling for graphite in the Black Hills near Pe' Sla, another sacred ceremonial site for the Lakota. Gunhammer has been active in organizing tribal members against the proposed mining activity, which would happen on U.S. Forest Service land. 'The same company trying to build this national hero garden in order to preserve history is currently trying to undertake a project that destroys history for everyone,' he said. 'The same company trying to build this national hero garden in order to preserve history is currently trying to undertake a project that destroys history for everyone.' Brannan referred questions about the mining project to Pete Lien and Sons, which did not respond to a request for comment sent through its website. With regards to the national garden, Brannan said that Native tribes have not been consulted on the family's offer yet. 'Why would we? It's been privately held for 60 years,' she said. Still, Brannan said the tribes could be consulted if the project advances. She said no one organization can claim to speak for all the Lakota people, and that her family maintains warm relations with Native leaders. 'We have been in mining for 80 years in the Black Hills, so we have been great neighbors to the Lakotans here,' she said, referring to one of the subgroups that makes up the Oceti Sakowin people. In a statement, Josie Harms, the press secretary for the South Dakota governor, noted that the potential list of figures to be honored includes Native leaders such as Sitting Bull, the Lakota leader who defeated George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. 'The tract of land in question is private property owned by Chuck Lien and his family,' said Harms, referring to the family patriarch who died in 2018. 'As a result, it will cause no disruption to either state or tribal land. As a federal project, the state will be a partner with the federal government as it seeks to comply with its regulations or consultation, as needed.' The Trump administration has yet to detail how it will select the site for the statue garden, although numerous states and counties pitched the Interior Department five years ago. Brannan said it was her understanding that more than 20 sites are being considered. Her family has not had direct contact with the Trump administration, she said. One factor in the Black Hills site's favor is that the garden is gaining momentum at a high-water mark for the political influence of the twin Great Plains states of North and South Dakota. Former South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who first championed the idea, is serving as Trump's Homeland Security secretary. South Dakota Sen. John Thune is the upper chamber's majority leader. Former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is serving as the secretary of the Interior Department, the executive tapped with finding the location for the garden. South Dakota's lone U.S. representative, Dusty Johnson — like Noem, Thune, and Burgum, a Republican — told The Intercept that the Black Hills have a strong shot. He has been pushing the idea with the Trump administration. 'I don't want to speak for the administration, other than I would tell you every conversation I have had with them, they understand the value of this particular parcel, and that they are going to give the Black Hills of South Dakota a full and complete look,' he said. 'We're going to have a real chance to win.' The House's plan to spend tens of millions of dollars on the garden is laid out in the same reconciliation bill that would kick 11 million people off health insurance, according to a recent Congressional Budget Office estimate. To make it into law, the spending provision would have to win Senate approval. Thune's office didn't respond to a request for comment. The House bill does not specify whether the money should be spent on the site or the statues. Money from hundreds of National Endowment for the Humanities grants that the Trump administration canceled could be redirected to pay for the statues, the New York Times reported in April. The National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts have jointly committed $34 million for the project, including $30 million from this year's budget for the statues. Some of the National Endowment for the Humanities grants that were canceled would have supported Native cultural projects in South Dakota. The roster of grants killed includes $60,000 for an anthology of Lakota and Dakota literature in translation and $205,000 for an Oglala language archiving project, according to a list maintained by the Association for Computers and the Humanities.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Carney to Fast-Track ‘Nation-Building' Projects Through Bill
(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Mark Carney announced legislation on Friday to fast-track 'nation-building' projects in Canada and remove internal barriers to trade in an effort to shore up the country's economy from the US tariff barrage. Next Stop: Rancho Cucamonga! ICE Moves to DNA-Test Families Targeted for Deportation with New Contract Where Public Transit Systems Are Bouncing Back Around the World US Housing Agency Vulnerable to Fraud After DOGE Cuts, Documents Warn Trump Said He Fired the National Portrait Gallery Director. She's Still There. The bill that aims to build 'one Canadian economy' targets projects that may include ports, railways, highways, critical-mineral mines, oil pipelines and electricity transmission systems. The government's overall goal is to speed up approvals to two years. The legislation would allow the government to identify projects in the national interest in consultation with provinces, territories and Indigenous partners. Federal reviews would then ask not whether to build the proposals, but how best to advance them. Carney won an election in April on an ambitious pledge to win the trade war with the US and make Canada's economy the strongest in the Group of Seven. A major step will be to accelerate Canada's sluggish regulatory processes, which have made it challenging to bring the country's resources to tidewater for shipping to overseas markets. A key goal of the legislation is to signal to investors that Canada is committed to successfully executing these projects, a government official told reporters in a background briefing on condition of anonymity. In considering whether a project is in the national interest, the government will examine five factors: whether it strengthens Canada's autonomy, resilience, and security; whether it provides economic or other benefits to Canada; whether it has a high likelihood of successful completion; whether it advances the interests of Indigenous peoples; and whether it contributes to clean growth and Canada's climate-change objectives. The government stressed that Indigenous groups, provinces and territories would be consulted on whether a project is in the national interest, and these groups can also bring forward proposals. The Assembly of First Nations has already raised concerns about the legislation infringing upon Indigenous rights and title. Carney met with the provincial and territorial premiers earlier this week to discuss the projects they'd like to see fast-tracked. After the meeting, he said there's potential for another oil pipeline being built in Canada if it's tied to billions of green investments to reduce the industry's environmental footprint. The bill also aims to remove barriers to trade between provinces, which have dragged down Canada's economic growth. The legislation would mean that when both a federal and provincial rule apply to a good or service involved in interprovincial trade, the federal rule will apply. But in practice, Carney's government will recognize items that comply with provincial rules as complying with federal ones, an official said. The bill also addresses labor mobility by recognizing provincial work authorizations, meaning that a worker can begin a federal job with only an Ontario license in hand, for example. The government will also eliminate all federal exemptions to the Canadian Free Trade Agreement by July 1. --With assistance from Brian Platt. Cavs Owner Dan Gilbert Wants to Donate His Billions—and Walk Again What America's Pizza Economy Is Telling Us About the Real One YouTube Is Swallowing TV Whole, and It's Coming for the Sitcom The SEC Pinned Its Hack on a Few Hapless Day Traders. The Full Story Is Far More Troubling Is Elon Musk's Political Capital Spent? ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Sign in to access your portfolio
