Latest news with #JoanFerrini-Mundy
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Maine Sea Grant funding restored
May 2—Federal funding for Maine Sea Grant has been restored. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration informed the University of Maine on Monday that it was reinstating all $4.5 million in federal funding it had previously cut from Maine Sea Grant. The 20-person program provides technical and research support to the state's fisheries and coastal economies. "The groundswell of support for Maine Sea Grant and the stories that have surfaced about its incredible impact on our state's working waterfronts have been extraordinary and effective," UMaine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy said in a prepared statement Friday. Begun in 1971, Maine Sea Grant conducts coastal workforce and business development, marine science education and outreach, fisheries management research, and provides technical assistance to help working waterfronts prepare for storms, sea level rise and climate change. In 2023, Maine Sea Grant estimated its programs helped generate $23.5 million for the state economy. NOAA did not respond Friday to emails or phone calls asking why it had reversed its earlier decision. NOAA's decision to terminate funding for Maine Sea Grant drew criticism from Maine's elected leaders and the fishermen that rely on the program. Maine's program was the only one of the 34 sea grant programs nationwide to be affected. In its termination letter, a NOAA grants supervisor said Maine Sea Grant was "no longer relevant to the focus of the administration's priorities and program objectives." It was the first of many cost-cutting orders implemented at NOAA, including deep cuts to the National Weather Service. But the termination also came about a week after President Donald Trump threatened to cut all federal funding to Maine after after clashing with Gov. Janet Mills over an executive order banning transgender student athletes from participating in women's sports. After facing intense criticism for the cut, NOAA announced in early March that it would release unspent funds from the first year of the original four-year award and renegotiate the remaining three years of funding. The renegotiated award announced this week mirrors the original four-year agreement. Although the total funding remains the same, it is unclear if Maine Sea Grant will have to change its work or its focus to fall in line with the Trump administration's priorities. NOAA staff have been told to search existing grants for terms like "climate science" when evaluating which programs should be cut. Ferrini-Mundy thanked Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, for her "relentless advocacy" for Maine Sea Grant. "I am thrilled that Maine Sea Grant has received its full funding so that the important work they do to conduct research, support a robust pipeline of skilled labor, and enrich our coastal economies can continue unimpeded," Collins said in a prepared statement. All four members of Maine's congressional delegation have rallied to support the program's work. Sen. Angus King, an independent, and Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, also criticized the Trump administration for targeting a university program that has nothing to do with transgender student athletes. Program supporters like the Maine Lobstermen's Association expressed relief about the funding reversal. "Maine Sea Grant has long been an important partner in supporting our coastal communities and sustainable fisheries," said MLA executive director Patrice McCarron. "Continued funding will support initiatives that benefit not only the lobstering community but all of Maine's coastal economy." Maine Sea Grant has been supporting Ready Seafood since it started as a small lobster company on Hobson's Pier in Portland in 2004, said Curt Brown, a Cape Elizabeth lobsterman and biologist for Ready Seafood. Now Ready is the largest lobster processing company in the world. "This vital funding for Maine Sea Grant is not a cost," Brown said. "It is an investment in the future of Maine's coastal industries and communities, an investment that has paid dividends for decades." Copy the Story Link
Yahoo
16-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
EDITORIAL: 'Whiplash and worry' continues to plague Maine
Mar. 16—When University of Maine Chancellor Dannel Malloy and President Joan Ferrini-Mundy greeted the news last week that $56 million in previously suspended federal funding had been restored to their organization, they said in a statement that they were "eager to put the whiplash and worry of recent weeks behind us." The statement referred to the United States Department of Agriculture's plan to halt funds — and its subsequent U-turn, however welcome — as "an unnecessary distraction from our essential activities that benefit Maine and well beyond." Amen. This is just the latest worrying, distracting and discombobulating move by a federal government whose babyish motives are not — as we noted in last week's editorial about the same style of about-face recently suffered by the Maine Sea Grant and its many and varied beneficiaries — sufficiently explained to the public. Rather, we're all left to connect these scattershot dots ourselves. Rep. Chellie Pingree did this (again) last week, concluding that the USDA's plan to conduct a "compliance review" into the University of Maine System was "vindictive" and "a total sham in the first place." The interest that the new Trump administration has taken in telling Maine and the nation who's boss, in gratuitous scaremongering and time-wasting, is causing pain and hardship to the people and entities that work to sustain our communities. That this is an exceptionally shoddy way to govern should be undeniable, whatever your politics. On top of that, it's hypocritical for such a meddling approach to be taken by a team of people who profess themselves to be devoted to the elimination of "waste." A knee-jerk reversal of a knee-jerk decision offers no comfort at all. Would that we could feel secure in some knowledge that the federal government won't, in the end, keep its word. We can't. And so the cycle of panic and the anxious calculator work seems doomed to continue. We can't, under these conditions, stop bracing for exactly what we're told is going to happen. The response we might prefer to take, to ignore the announcements and persevere as if they won't be pursued, isn't available to us. It's oppressive to be messed around in this way. Which is why it's very important that Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey joined with the attorneys general of more than 20 other states last week in a lawsuit against the administration (President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon), seeking an injunction against the alarming decision to strip the DOE of about half its workforce, and an order that would bar future orders made with the aim of dismantling the department. It's why we can't afford to take the news that broke Thursday, regarding sweeping, damaging cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Local Foods for Schools and Local Food Purchase Assistance programs, lying down. "Sunsetting" was one of the jargon terms selected for use in official communication last week. With Maine farmers, veterans, food banks and school-going children in the line of fire? Indeed. It's dark out there. Copy the Story Link
