Staff Report

Senate Republican Leader Trey Stewart interviews Senator Joe Martin, Senate Republican Lead on the Legislature’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee and State and Local Government Committee.

Stewart: Senator Martin, you serve on the Environment and Natural Resources Committee as the ranking Republican there. Lots of moving parts on that committee and a lot of what our colleagues on the left are advocating for and using as justification to make a lot of different policy decisions that have a lot of impact on Maine people and businesses. Let’s talk about some of those. 

Martin: Well, Trey, it’s an uphill battle on the ENR Committee every time we get in there. There’s no working together unless you’re working towards their goals. The goals for the Maine people are pretty much out the window for things that have to do with the green agenda and their climate issues.

Stewart: I think the climate hysteria, which is a term I’ve heard you use quite a bit, is driving and dictating a lot of the decisions that get made down there as it relates to policy for Maine people and, in fact, making it a lot harder for Maine families and businesses to get by. One of those major decisions earlier this year was about the mandate to shift entirely to electric vehicles. That was a big battle that you guys had down there. Tell me a little bit about that, Joe.

Martin: The electric vehicle thing was put together by people that weren’t elected, by a board that was only 15 or 20 people; and they tried to ram through regulation to make every one of you buy an electric car by committee — not using the legislature and taking all of the legislative power right out of the whole thing — and that was stopped.

It’s really amazing to me that they want all these electric cars and Maine has probably the best deposit of lithium in North America. They were vehemently against taking the ore and shipping it out of state to help manufacture these cars.

The people in Andover and Newry, where this deposit is, had six mills at one time. The same people that didn’t want the mills and shipped them away don’t want the mining. Mining would provide good jobs — 50-to-75-thousand-dollar jobs for at least 20 years.

Stewart: There’s a lot of clickbait and misinformation that gets spread by these groups as justification for why they should exist and why people across Maine should give them money. They testify before the legislature and spread misinformation about really important things that have a profound impact on our economy and our potential future here as a state. It’s not unique to the Environment Committee, but I do think that committee has the lion’s share of those NGOs and nonprofits that are engaging in that sort of behavior.

Martin: We definitely do and it doesn’t make any difference if it’s mining or it’s garbage and where we’re going to put our landfills for the next 50 years. We took a tour, as a group, about a month ago up to Old Town and looked at that landfill. It sounds funny, but it was almost like a ballet of equipment. Everything was working spot on; and it was a first class, number one operation.

Now, the environmentalists want to close it down. There’s no need to close that facility down. We need it or people in every town in Maine are going to start paying more and more for getting rid of their garbage. We need to stand up and say enough is enough. We’re taking care of the environment, but the climate change advocates keep taking billions of dollars every year out of our economy. It needs to stop. We need to stop it and we need to stop it now.

Stewart: The difference between Republicans and Democrats in the Legislature right now, from what I’ve seen, is the Democrats kowtow to whatever misinformation the NGOs and the nonprofits that are trying to scare people into giving them more money testify to and share on the internet as gospel. Republicans, on the flip side of that coin, do care about the environment. I consider myself a “small c” conservative and I care about the environment because that’s where the foundation of our economy comes from — the natural resources in it. We need to be smart about how we protect and use these resources, but we also need to trust the experts.

We need to trust the folks who are out there doing things effectively and running businesses well and responsibly. These folks are the model we should be following, not just to protect our environment but also to have an economy that thrives here in Maine, creates jobs and creates a future we can all prosper in.

Martin: Trey, you and I both got poor ratings from the environmental groups. The only thing we went along with that they were trying to pass was addressing the PFAS contamination down in Brunswick. Yeah, it needed to be cleaned up; yeah, they needed money; yeah, they needed help. We went across the aisle and we did that.

For the rest of the legislation we’ve been blasted on, it wasn’t good for Maine, it wasn’t good for the taxpayers and it wasn’t good for your pocket. I will continue to stand up for the people of the State of Maine every time I can.

Stewart: Senator Martin, thanks so much for your leadership on the Environment and Natural Resources Committee. We appreciate all of your hard work. I know it’s not an easy task down there. Thank you for joining us today and painting a different perspective of what it could look like here under Republican leadership and the vision we have for the state going forward.

Martin: Everybody has to understand that we’re here for them.

Senator Harold “Trey” Stewart III represents District 2, which includes communities in Aroostook and Penobscot counties. He is the Senate Republican Leader and a member of the Legislative Council.

Senator Joseph Martin represents the communities of District 19, which includes communities in Franklin and Oxford counties. He is the Senate Republican Lead for the Legislature’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee and the State and Local Government Committee. Prior to serving in the Legislature, Senator Martin had a decades-long career as a miner in the international mineral extraction industry.

Text edited for clarity and brevity.