AUGUSTA, Maine — Last fall, the road looked pretty clear for Maine environmentalists seeking to require electric vehicles to make up 82 percent of new car sales by 2032.
The Natural Resources Council of Maine and other allies had proposed the EV rules found in California and about a dozen other states earlier in 2023 through a state law provision allowing citizens to bypass the Legislature and ask agencies to adopt rules if at least 150 registered voters sign a petition.
But after a positive October straw poll, the EV decision ran into months of delays following a severe December wind and rain storm that caused mass power outages in Maine and forced the board to push its decision to March while also pushing the initial implementation date from model year 2027 to 2028, when EVs would have to make up 51 percent of new sales.
Around 1,700 public comments came in to the board during the delay, on top of more than 1,000 comments submitted earlier in 2023. Rep. Mike Soboleski, R-Phillips, also suddenly received bipartisan approval to introduce a late bill calling for any vehicle emissions rules to receive legislative review before any board decisions.
The road looked less clear as board members settled in for Thursday’s meeting inside a drab Augusta Civic Center meeting room. After hours of discussion, the vote came quickly. It was 4-2 to defeat the EV rule.
A lot of observers were surprised that the final vote didn’t end in a 3-3 tie, said Maria Fuentes, executive director of the Maine Better Transportation Association, which did not weigh in on the cars rule but opposed a similar rule for trucks that the board quashed last year.
“Certainly we heard this was a more complex issue once they had so much information before them,” Fuentes said.
The closely-watched process involving the board and its meetings that often receive much less attention and few attendees put the spotlight on a regulatory body whose members are not lawmakers but make important environmental policy decisions.
While legislators can engage passionately both inside and outside the State House with peers, constituents, reporters and lobbyists who can shape their views on issues, members of the Board of Environmental Protection are directed to base decisions on evidence and comments.
The members, all of whom were either appointed or reappointed by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, are “strongly cautioned against discussing with any person any project, proposal or other matter that could potentially come before the board,” Bill Hinkel, the Board of Environmental Protection’s executive analyst, said.
Amid all the outside noise, delays and State House developments, Thursday’s vote came down to members who openly expressed how they were not outright opposed to the rule but in the end had too many lingering questions while also wanting lawmakers to settle the issue.
Bob Duchesne, a former Democratic lawmaker from Hudson, said he was going “back and forth” before voting against the rule and citing a desire for the Legislature to take up the issue. Duchesne, who writes a birding column for the Bangor Daily News, said he may have voted the other way if the vote had happened five minutes later.
Both the environmental coalition supporting the rules and Republican opponents who joined with car dealership owners in fighting the proposal by arguing the demand and Maine’s infrastructure would not support it felt outside forces swayed the board.
The board had “willingly fallen prey to the fossil fuel industry’s misinformation campaign peddled by Republican leaders,” argued Matt Cannon, Sierra Club Maine’s conservation and energy director. Supporters could try again in the future but called the board’s decision a huge blow to Maine’s climate goals, including reducing emissions 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
Soboleski, whose bill requiring the Legislature to review any similar rules advanced unanimously out of a committee Thursday, said the board “understood the danger in allowing an outside lobbying group to use the petition process to alter emissions law in our state.”
Some members gave stronger hints during Thursday’s meeting at their eventual opposition to the EV rule, while others were tougher to read. Robert Sanford, a University of Southern Maine environmental science and policy professor from Gorham, mentioned a “fair amount of unknowns” on issues such as grid capacity before voting against the rule.
Susan Lessard, the board chair and Bucksport’s town manager, felt there were too many “ifs” with the grid, charging infrastructure and costs, while former State Geologist Robert Marvinney of Readfield still had “a lot of doubts.”
Steven Pelletier, a biologist, forester and scientist from Topsham, asked several probing questions of staff that also indicated skepticism and “perception” concerns. But he voted for the rule along with Barbara Vickery, a conservation biologist from Richmond.
“The reality is this is probably the biggest bite of the apple we can take,” Pelletier said, referring to reducing emissions.
