AUGUSTA — The joint committee charged with making Maine’s regulatory environment more hospitable to business has released a draft version of a bill that stands in stark contrast to the initiatives originally proposed by Gov. Paul LePage.
Although some of the governor’s initiatives are included in LD 1, many of his more controversial ideas have been significantly scaled back or jettisoned altogether in the 34-page bill.
The resulting bill is being lauded by Republicans, Democrats and business leaders, who described the revamped proposal as a measured approach to changing the state’s business environment.
“I like it,” said Chris Hall, senior vice president of the Portland Regional Chamber. “Regulatory reform is not some grandiose, over-the-top silver bullet that will fix our economic problems. It’s an accumulation of tiny changes that will help our business climate.”
He added, “I don’t see any environmental rollbacks here.”
Pete Didisheim, senior advocacy director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, agreed. He said the Legislature’s Regulatory Fairness and Reform Committee had rejected “the worst” of the governor’s proposals.
Didisheim said he was pleased that the committee focused on process improvements and efficiencies, rather than removing environmental protections.
“It seems as though reality has finally caught up with the governor’s more outlandish proposals,” Didisheim said.
LePage’s initial reforms had riled many.
Following his red tape audit tour of the state, LePage introduced a 64-point plan to better the state’s business environment. The original proposal, described by Didisheim as a “wholesale repeal of one environmental law after another,” elicited strong criticism and drew scrutiny because it was drafted by a lobbyist once hired by the chemical industry.
The governor later unveiled a 48-page amendment to LD 1 that put off some initiatives but retained others, such as eliminating the Board of Environmental Protection and repealing the Informed Growth Act.
The Regulatory Fairness and Reform Committee reassigned many of the governor’s more controversial proposals to other committees. It also decided against LePage’s plan to replace the citizen BEP and replace it with a three-judge panel.
Instead, the committee has proposed reducing the 10-member board to seven members. It’s also added an expertise requirement for three of its future members and has taken away enforcement duties.
Sen. Thomas Saviello, R-Wilton, led the subcommittee that worked the BEP changes. He said the BEP proposal would create efficiencies.
“I’m not going to say what (LePage) proposed was wrong,” Saviello said. “It’s just that we’re not quite there. We need to manage the board differently. We wanted it to be timely and predictable. I think we’ve done that.”
Sen. Seth Goodall, D-Richmond, said the governor’s judicial panel would have created more bureaucracy and slowed permitting. He said retaining the board ensured that citizens would have a voice in large-project permitting.
Goodall and Didisheim said the board’s intervention in large development projects didn’t square with the rhetoric that the board was impeding business.
Since 2006, the BEP has intervened in four development projects, most recently in the Calais LNG development.
Didisheim said the committee appeared to realize the “misconception that the BEP was a bunch of renegades.”
Hall, with the Portland chamber, said he was satisfied with the BEP changes. He highlighted several other initiatives that he believed would help business, including the reuse rules for hazardous materials and incentives for self-auditing.
Hall said the proposal preserved the state’s environmental protections.
“If you break the law, you’re still going to get whacked,” he said.
LD 1 also includes a proposal to eliminate unnecessary state permitting for fire codes and restaurant health inspections if municipalities already have licensed agents to perform those duties.
The LePage administration has lauded the bipartisan work of the committee.
Despite the bill’s significant differences from the governor’s amendment, a spokeswoman for LePage heralded the draft LD 1 as evidence that regulatory reform was on its way.
Adrienne Bennett, in a release sent Thursday, lauded several of the bill’s proposals, including its small business ombudsman. Although the position exists in the Department of Economic and Community Development, LD 1 proposes an expanded role.
“The provisions included in the committee amendment are common sense reforms that can help move Maine forward while still protecting Maine’s citizens and natural treasures,” Bennett said.
Rep. Robert Duchesne, D-Hudson, a Regulatory Fairness and Reform panelist, saw the outcome differently.
“We’ve rejected most of the governor’s package, and that was a major achievement,” Duchesne said.
Didisheim, of the NRCM, said that although some of the governor’s more controversial LD 1 proposals are appearing in other legislation, many of those initiatives are failing.
This week, a LePage-backed proposal to create a statute of limitations on environmental violations was overwhelmingly rejected by the Judiciary Committee. On Friday, the administration itself testified against a bill that would roll back shoreland zoning rules.
A similar proposal was included in the governor’s regulatory reform plan.
Didisheim said lawmakers were “slowly but surely” realizing that job creation doesn’t correlate with environmental rollbacks.
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