Environmental groups are lining up behind Gov. Janet Mills despite divides on important issues that Republicans are putting at the center of a campaign to replace her with former Gov. Paul LePage this November.
Mills entered office with ambitious climate goals that have won her support from environmental groups. Some of the same ones have squared off against the governor on certain policies, including on lobstering issues that have the state and industry fighting federal rule changes aimed at protecting the endangered right whale.
These alliances with Democratic-aligned groups are relatively straightforward. Barring some disagreements, they say she has been a force for good on their issues and that the former Republican governor’s return would make for an uncertain environmental future.
“You can’t let perfect be the enemy of good,” said Sean Mahoney, executive vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation in Maine. “At the end of the day, it’s a really stark choice between the two candidates.”
The governor’s association with some of these groups is playing a role in her campaign. The Natural Resources Defense Council has opposed the lobster fishery’s sustainability certification because of threats to the right whale while supporting Mills through its political arm.
It led the Maine Republican Party to say last week that Mills was “benefiting from anti-lobster left-wing environmental groups” and that she should disavow their support. The Natural Resources Defense Council declined to provide a spokesperson for comment.
Mills sees environmental groups the same way she sees other advocacy organizations, listening to their input and weighing their views against other factors as she makes decisions, said Mary Erin Casale, a spokesperson for the governor’s campaign.
“If any organization, environmental or otherwise, has a problem with [Gov.] Mills’ unwavering support for the Maine lobster industry, she doesn’t care,” Casale said. “Because she will never give up the fight for this iconic industry or the thousands of hardworking Maine people in it.”
There has been some criticism of Mills from the left as well. Maine Conservation Voters used its legislative scorecard this year to praise her for “a bold new course for protecting Maine’s environment, climate, and democracy.” It also called her administration “the primary obstacle” to a sweeping tribal sovereignty effort set aside in favor of a compromise bill this year.
On Tuesday, it spent $322,000 on digital ads backing Mills, whom Maureen Drouin, the group’s executive director, called one of the strongest fighters against climate change in the nation.
In her first year in office, Mills pledged that Maine would be carbon-neutral by 2045 and signed other clean-energy goals into law. But she has been more wary than other Democrats, smothering a carbon tax proposed by those in her party in 2019 and not joining other states in plans to limit transportation emissions and phase out the sale of gas-powered vehicles.
LePage called a news conference last week to hit Mills for her administration’s alignment with environmental groups on a 2021 step toward removing four dams on the Kennebec River, including one that a Skowhegan paper mill relies on. She has since backed away from that initial fish-passage plan, but the state still has not issued a key dam permit.
“The priorities of her administration are not in the best interests of the Maine people,” he said.
Mahoney said he saw few practical differences between LePage and Mills on both lobsters and the dam issue. Mills has put up a united front with Maine’s congressional delegation in advocating for the fishery. Earlier this month, they issued a scathing letter to a California aquarium that put lobster on a so-called red list of fisheries to avoid.
But Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, feels differently. He criticized Mills for not making Maine the plaintiff in a recent lawsuit against the federal lobster rules. The Maine Lobstermen’s Association is leading the lawsuit, which a federal judge ruled against this month.
While the state is involved in the lawsuit as an intervenor, that “just wasn’t a big enough statement,” Faulkingham said.
Mills directed her administration to continue working on the industry’s appeal of the ruling this week. Casale noted LePage’s past disagreement with the industry when he remained open to oil drilling off the Maine coast in 2018, contrasting the governor’s climate record with his.
“On day one, she started tackling climate change, saying no problem is too large when we put our minds and our ingenuity and resources to work,” Drouin said of Mills. “That’s really been different from past governors.”
