Let’s root out the red tape
and let Maine business thrive
By Rep. Alex Willett
(R-Mapleton)
Shortly after Gov. LePage took office, I joined my colleague Sen. Garrett Mason in delivering to the new governor a gift-a framed strip of red tape we obtained from the state archives.
The tape is at least 130 years old and from the days when our court, military and legislative documents were bound in red tape, presumably to hold them together. It was a symbolic gesture for a governor who had campaigned to reduce the over-bearing and unnecessary government regulations our state government had imposed on Maine business in recent years. Gov. LePage has lived up to his promise and his political opposition is none too pleased.
Over the summer and early fall months, we have seen the national environmental lobby and its local counterparts begin an apparent effort to overturn public opinion on a law that I supported and which passed last spring. The bill was LD 1129, a law to tame down the outrageous portions of the regulations imposed in the 2008 Kids Safe Product Act. The 2008 legislation had given unprecedented power to the Environmental Protection Agency to potentially eliminate more than 1,000 chemicals used in everyday products in Maine. Once fully implemented, this legislation would have destroyed the manufacturing business in Maine and created a trickle down through the economy that would have shuttered Maine’s small business industry and eliminated an uncountable number of jobs. We in the legislature balanced the needs of our business community and the health of our citizens by passing LD 1129 and reducing the destructive power EPA would have had over Maine businesses. We eliminated a lot of red tape.
Now, the very people that worked to negotiate the LD 1129 legislation are complaining that the LePage administration and Maine businesses aren’t doing enough to implement the regulations imposed upon them in a timely enough manner. These opponents of the law are claiming the Administration is deliberately foot dragging to delay implementation of regulations. This is ridiculous and the rhetoric must stop. If you want to overturn LD 1129, write a bill and bring it to the legislature. We’ll vote on it. Even my colleague, democrat Rep. Bob Duchesne of Hudson, noted in a recent newspaper that, “In fairness to the LePage administration, it is my opinion that the delays and missed deadlines were reasonable under the circumstances faced by DEP at the time. I am not persuaded that the administration is intentionally foot-dragging.”
It is clear to me that the tactics coming from organizations such as Environmental Health Strategy Center — which is largely funded by out-of-state interests — are coming from out of the national environmental lobby play book. EHSC’s own website touts its interest in Maine setting “the pace nationally.” We in Maine are not here to be test sites for national special interests. We are people who value our families, their safety and their ability to work and thrive. To accomplish all these goals, we must reduce the red tape that has hindered economic growth in Maine and across the country. LD 1129 was a start down that path and the efforts to discredit the legislation by criticizing those implementing it are both unfounded and unhelpful.
LD 1129 protects Maine’s children while helping our struggling economic environment. Let’s tone down the rhetoric, and help get Mainers back to work.
