The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.
Emily K. Green is a senior attorney with Conservation Law Foundation in Maine
Maine is a big and mostly rural state. More than 60 percent of Mainers live outside of cities — the highest proportion in the country. We also have scarce public transportation options, so we rely heavily on cars and trucks to get us where we need to go. That’s why nearly half of fossil fuel emissions come from the transportation sector, polluting the air we breathe and harming our climate.
If Maine is going to achieve our ambitious climate goals — slashing emissions 45 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050 — we must overhaul the transportation sector. The good news? Maine has begun that effort by increasing the amount of electric vehicle charging stations by 32 percent between 2021 and 2022 and developing a plan to further build out this network.
But we have more work to do. Maine’s climate action plan calls for 219,000 electric vehicles to hit the road by 2030. But, as of October 2022, there were only 8,594 registered.
So, what more can we do to get more Maine families and businesses behind the wheel of an electric vehicle? While the EPA’s efforts at the federal level are a good start, they don’t go far enough, and the most recent aggressive standards aren’t yet set in stone. We don’t have time to wait around for the federal government to adopt those standards when our health and environment are at stake. Instead, there’s a tool Maine can implement right away: adopting the clean car and truck standards already on the books in several other states.
The standards would bring more clean vehicles to our roads every year, meet consumer demand, and slash climate and air pollution. They would also push manufacturers to give families and businesses more climate-friendly vehicle options for the future.
To be crystal clear: these standards would never require Mainers to buy an electric car. But there are lots of financial perks for those who do decide that electric is right for them. The total cost of ownership for electric vehicles is markedly lower than for gas-powered cars. Among those who drive an electric vehicle, 97 percent say it’s affordable and easy to maintain, 79 percent save $25 or more on gas per month, and 56 percent save $50 or more per month. In fact, research shows that most new electric vehicles are cheaper to own from the get-go on a monthly basis. Our neighbors in states like Massachusetts and Vermont (with Connecticut and Rhode Island hot on their heels) will soon be reaping the benefits of having adopted these standards. Maine should do the same this year to avoid falling behind and to attract the best electric vehicles and clean transportation jobs to the state.
Beyond the financial benefits, cleaning up our cars and trucks will improve our health as well. In Maine, health officials estimate that adopting stricter vehicle emissions standards would help the 126,000 Mainers who have asthma avoid respiratory illnesses caused or aggravated by air pollution.
Reducing our climate footprint will also protect Maine from the effects of climate change. Along our coasts, sea levels have risen 8 inches in the past 100 years and are projected to rise an additional 1.5 feet by 2050. This rise in sea level can cause flooding that damages infrastructure and could also result in a loss of $765 million in tourism revenue by 2100. Fish species that have long been a cornerstone of Maine’s fishing industry, which employs 30,000 people, are fleeing north in search of colder water, and the iconic lobster is affected, too.
Maine has taken major strides toward getting more clean cars on the road, but we must do more if we are to meet the urgency of the moment. That means taking bold action today. The clean car and truck standards aren’t enough on their own to meet all our climate objectives in the transportation sector, so there’s no time to waste in adopting these important policies.
