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When is the juice worth the squeeze?
That is one of the hard questions in politics. If there were simple, easy answers, everyone would probably agree on them. But there aren’t.
Making those value judgments is an inherently fraught position. That is doubly true when new information forces you to reconsider previously held beliefs.
We’ve seen a few old battlegrounds receive new information in the past couple weeks. One dealt with the ongoing lobster fishery debate surrounding right whales, while another arose from longstanding efforts to develop heavy infrastructure in Searsport.
The lobster fight made significant headlines over the past couple years. Federal regulators proposed major new constraints on Maine’s lobster fishery to help save North Atlantic right whales. Lobsterman and Augusta fired back, noting that there was no evidence that Maine’s fishery was causing the problems sought to solve.
Congress reacted, enshrining a reprieve in law. Federal courts struck down regulations based on a determination that the federal government was putting its finger on the scale in favor of a favored outcome.
Now we have new information. A dead right whale was found with fishing gear “consistent” with that used in Maine wrapped around its tail. We are waiting for more information about the cause of death from the necropsy.
However, with only an estimated 360 right whales believed to remain for their entire species, this confirmed entanglement presents an opportunity to reconsider earlier decisions. Should we revisit the regulations previously pushed by the feds? Or, as Rep. Jared Golden asked more provocatively, are tradeoffs restricting the lobster industry really worth it to help save whales?
That’s a hard question.
Similarly, there has been talk of development in Searsport since before I was born. Power plants were proposed on Sears Island in the 1970s. Then-Gov. Angus King tried to bring a cargo port to life in the 1990s but was thwarted by the federal government.
The Baldacci administration wanted to put a liquified natural gas depot there. All of these efforts were battled by neighbors in the area. Nothing has been built thus far.
Now, Gov. Janet Mills has announced Sears Island is the chosen location for an offshore energy depot. Conservative GOP state legislators have made common cause with environmental advocacy groups and are speaking out against it.
It will probably wind up in court.
In a peculiar way, Rep. Golden’s provocative question is also applicable to the Sears Island project. Gov. Mills decided that any onshore environmental impacts from development are more than offset by the value – both economic and ecological – of developing offshore wind.
A decision was made that the juice is worth the squeeze.
None of this stuff is simple. I have yet to meet a lobsterman that wants to see dead whales. And finding ways to conserve our environment for the future is supported by just about everyone.
Yet, to riff on several left-leaning economists, in the long run we’re all dead. Which raises the question implied in Golden’s press release: How much negative impact should people alive today shoulder for the sake of tomorrow?
I’m not entirely sure where I fall when it comes to questions of lobstering regulations or Sears Island. These are incredibly complex challenges and it is far too easy — and wrong — to attempt to solve them with a simple quip.
This is why we have a representative government. Most of us have day jobs; we can’t take the time to dive into the nitty-gritty of all the details underlying the available choices about offshore wind, fishing gear, or port development. We elect others to do that for us.
They’ve got to decide if the juice is worth the squeeze. And, equipped with that new information, we then get to decide if they got it right.
