Maine legislature's ENR committee gives OTP to conflict of interest limits on Board of Environmental Protection members re air pollution applications

On May 2, 2019, Maine legislature's  Environmental and Natural Resources Committee held a public hearing and a work session   approving committee passage of  LD 1644  "An Act To Clarify Conflict of Interest Requirements for the Board of Environmental Protection"

The bill adds to reviewers of air pollution permit  applications  the same  restrictions that  deciders of water pollution permits  already have, about  conflicts of interest  ** Link to DEP Air Bureau

 * Listen to the Full hearing & work session 10min 30sec    

* Listen to a key portion  of the hearing: 3min 30sec  DEP  Air Bureau Director Jeff Crawford  Bureau Air Quality  explaining the bill - which adds to reviewers of air pollution permit  applications  the same  restrictions that  deciders of water pollution permits  already have about  conflicts of interest 

* Written public testimony submitted:  DEP's Jeffrey Crawford Dir Air Quality in support of LD1644  The same as his oral testimony

Maine DEP acting chief recommends against citizen board review of Nordic Aquafarms plan.

Salmon tankfarm opponents are rightfully livid over Maine DEP's acting chief Melanie Loyzim's actions on the controversial salmon tank farm plans by Nordic Aquaculture proposed to discharge into Belfast Bay
Loyzim denied out of hand petitions from Maine Lobstering Union and Upstream Watch requesting (1) a public hearing and (2) intervenor status. She also declared there was little public interest or controversy, recommending against MLU's request that BEP assume jurisdiction of the review of the project its proposed outfall's proposed contents and its baywater intake.
Read MLU's and Upstream Watch petitions here
Loyzim used indefensible assertio.ns that there was no possible significance to the effluvia of up to 20 million fish per year in the proposed CAFO tanks - largest ever in the United States - discharging out a single pipeline into the bay 24/7. What could go wrong?

Raising and slaughtering up to 20 million fish per year at Nordic and Whole Oceans - one at each end of Penobscot Bay's estuary - is nothing special, Loyzim asserted in her letter to conservation attorney Kim Tucker. Just like any little existing fishfarm, Loyzim smirked, enjoying her brief moment of ecological vandalism at the helm of the disfunctional-under-Lepage agency.
One remembers the good old days of Late McKernan Early Angus King , early baldacci,  when the Board of Environmental Protection performed its duty and routinely heard  citizen appeals - I actually won a special condition added to MBNA's Ducktrap Mtn guest cottage rush job tht was sprawling into an important deer wintering area   No more cottages, BEP announced. How MBNA's VP Shane Flynn howled! 

Maine's Enviro--chief thumbs her nose at citizens.

Below, read how  Maine Environmental Commissioner Patty Aho's long career as a petroleum industry lobbyist is guiding her approach to citizen unhappiness with rampaging mega gas company DCP Midstream Partners.

BACKSTORY Hundreds of Mainers have asked her and her minions to hold a public hearing on the Denver based gas giant's enormous proposal that would savage half the remaining forest of the upper bay's Long Cove, while protruding a permanent eyesore into upper Penobscot Bay's hitherto tourist-attracting $cenic $kyline, not to mention .  But no reason there to hold a hearing, Aho found.  Citing a technicality or two, Maine's head of "Environmental Protection" for the state has seen to it that the megaproject's impacts to the environmental will not be examined closely, as a public hearing  not a single public hearing.

Maine laws protecting environment face bills today to weaken them. Interested party redefined; plus more site law exemptions & redef of "adverse environmental impact"

Friends, what the heck are they thinking with these bills? Being heard today! Click for hearings links!  By replaced interested party with "aggrieved person" does it limit the ability of citizens to be involved?   Get rid of concept of "interested party? Please let me know what you think.  See also the two bills listen below this one...

LD 1647 An Act To Define "Person Aggrieved" in Proceedings before the Department of Environmental Protection and the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:

Sec. 1. 12 MRSA §682, sub-§6-A is enacted to read:

6-A. Person aggrieved. "Person aggrieved" means a person that the commission determines has suffered or may suffer an actual or imminent injury as a result of a licensing or other decision of the commission. For the purposes of this subsection, "injury" means a decision of the commission that adversely and directly affects or will adversely and directly affect an aggrieved person's property, pecuniary or personal rights.

Sec. 2. 38 MRSA §341-D, sub-§4, ¶A, as enacted by PL 1989, c. 890, Pt. A, §13 and affected by §40, is amended to read:

A. Final license or permit decisions made by the commissioner when a person aggrieved by a decision of the commissioner appeals that decision to the board within 30 days of the filing of the decision with the board staff. The board staff shall give written notice to persons that have asked to be notified of the decision. The board may allow the record to be supplemented when it finds that the evidence offered is relevant and material and that:

(1) An interested party A person aggrieved seeking to supplement the record has shown due diligence in bringing the evidence to the licensing process at the earliest possible time; or

(2) The evidence is newly discovered and could not, by the exercise of diligence, have been discovered in time to be presented earlier in the licensing process.

The board is not bound by the commissioner's findings of fact or conclusions of law but may adopt, modify or reverse findings of fact or conclusions of law established by the commissioner. Any changes made by the board under this paragraph must be based upon the board's review of the record, any supplemental evidence admitted by the board and any hearing held by the board;

Sec. 3. 38 MRSA §361-A, sub-§3-D is enacted to read:

3-D. Person aggrieved. "Person aggrieved" means a person that the department determines has suffered or may suffer an actual or imminent injury as a result of a licensing or other decision of the department. For the purposes of this subsection, "injury" means a decision of the department that adversely and directly affects or will adversely and directly affect an aggrieved person's property, pecuniary or personal rights.

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OTHER BILLS TODAY

Environment and Natural Resources Committee Feb 14, 2012 1pm
LD 1648	An Act To Clarify the Site Location of Development Laws Regarding Exemptions for Previously Developed Sites	Feb 14, 2012, 1:00p	Room 214 Cross Building
LD 1793	Resolve, Regarding Legislative Review of Portions of Chapter 375: No Adverse Environmental Effect Standard of the Site Location Law, a Major Substantive Rule o...