Bangor Daily News editorial In its first year of existence, the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument drew nearly 30,000 visitors. Nearly half came in the summer, via the monument’s roads, and another 15,000 people visited the monument on snowmobiles during the winter. Considering that Gov. Paul LePage has forbidden the Maine Department of Transportation Read More
Federal Issues
Our advocates, members, supporters, and partners work to defend our hard-earned environmental safeguards and to ensure Maine’s elected officials in Washington, DC, stand up for Maine’s environment. Decisions made there have lasting effects on Maine’s clean water, fresh air, healthy forests, thriving wildlife, and on the health of Maine people, our economy, and our way of life.
The Natural Resources Council of Maine identifies and addresses the issues at play in our nation’s capital that have the largest impacts here at home.
Find out the latest on federal issues affecting our state's land, air, water, and wildlife.
Easing Pollution Regulations Won’t Save Coal. Nothing Will.
Bangor Daily News editorial Coal miners listen to speakers during an Environmental Protection Agency public hearing, Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017, at the state Capitol in Charleston, West Virginia. While political attention has been focused on a Republican tax cut plan that needlessly cuts taxes for the wealthy and big corporations that will balloon the deficit, Read More
Maine Needs to Be Heard on Clean Power Plan
Public News Service news story AUGUSTA, Maine – Environmentalists in Maine are calling the Environmental Protection Agency’s single public hearing on the proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan a sham. The two-day hearing began Tuesday in West Virginia, the largest coal-producing state east of the Mississippi. That will be followed by a public comment Read More
Trump Administration to Hold Sham EPA Hearing to Repeal Clean Power Plan
Stark Contrast with Extensive Public Input to Establish the Plan Statement of Lisa Pohlmann, CEO, Natural Resources Council of Maine “We are deeply disturbed by the Trump Administration’s misguided plan to push through the repeal of the Clean Power Plan, which set the nation’s first limits on carbon pollution from power plants, despite overwhelming public support. Read More
Katahdin Woods and Waters: “Renewed Hope for Maine”
by Mary Kuhlman Public News Service news story AUGUSTA, Maine – From Maine to California, hundreds of small businesses are speaking up on behalf of some of the country’s most treasured places. Nearly 600 businesses and chambers of commerce on Thursday sent a letter asking the head of the National Economic Council to encourage the Read More
Clean Water Act has Transformed Androscoggin River Over Past 45 Years
by Steve Collins, Staff Writer Sun Journal news story Watch the Androscoggin River today as it flows down from the Great Falls at Lewiston-Auburn and it seems scarcely believable it was once little more than an open sewer, full of toxic chemicals, a channel for every throwaway thing that could be swept to the sea. Read More
Advocates Urge Environmental Protections On Anniversary of Clean Water Act’s Passage
By Susan Sharon Maine Public news story Wednesday marks the 45th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, the landmark law authored by U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, who was inspired by the Androscoggin and other rivers that were being treated as open sewers. Along the Androscoggin there were more than half a dozen paper Read More
Mainers Celebrate 45th Anniversary of Clean Water Act
Describe Enormous Progress and Serious Threats to Clean Water in Maine NRCM news release Lewiston, ME — Today on the banks of the Androscoggin, once labeled the most polluted river in America, a diverse group of Mainers described the importance of the Clean Water Act. The Act became law on October 18, 1972, when Congress Read More
Gutting the Clean Power Plan Puts Off the Steps Needed to Avert Climate Disasters
Bangor Daily News editorial The Trump administration can’t simply wipe the need to reduce the U.S.’s greenhouse gas emissions off the books. So, last week’s announcement from Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt that the agency is repealing the Clean Power Plan is less an edict and more of a reiteration of the Trump administration’s Read More
