Governor's energy relief plan suffers setback
A plan by Gov. Janet Mills to deliver $474 million in emergency energy relief to Mainers this winter was passed in the House on Wednesday but defeated in the Senate amid Republican opposition on procedural grounds.
After passing the House on a 125-16 vote with overwhelming bipartisan support, the bill was defeated y the Senate by a vote of 21-8, falling three votes short of the 24 needed to pass an emergency measure with immediate effect.
The relief package included $450 payments to an estimated 880,000 eligible Mainers, about $900 for the average family.
“Tonight, the people's representatives stood on the floor of the people's house and debated the people's business. Counter to the arguments of Senate Republicans, the voices of the people are being heard," Mills said in a statement Thursday. "Unfortunately, it is the people's interests that were not served by tonight’s vote."
She also urged Senate Republicans "to join their other Republican and Democratic colleagues in the Legislature to give this plan the support needed to enact it as an emergency measure, so that we can get this relief into the hands of Maine people without delay.”
Republicans who voted against the measure said a public hearing should have been held before the vote on LD1, but a bipartisan vote in the Senate to send LD1 to a still to be formed Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee was voted down.
Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, said his caucus is still open to discussing a major problem facing Maine residents this winter, Maine Public reported.
"We stand ready to pass a hopefully bipartisan bill that will deliver relief to Maine families with speed, transparency and accountability,” Stewart said. “This is not a big ask. But it is what we have asked."
In addition to the $450 relief payments, the plan included:
- $40 million to supplement the Home Energy Assistance Program to help HEAP recipients receive a financial benefit equal to last year’s
- $10 million to Maine Community Action Partnerships to help them deliver emergency fuel assistance to prevent people and families from running out of heating fuel and experiencing a heating crisis
- $21 million to bolster the Emergency Housing Relief Fund created by Mills and the Legislature earlier this year that supports emergency housing and emergency shelters to prevent people from experiencing homelessness this winter.
The plan also calls for reestablishing a state law process by which the Department of Environmental Protection can waive fuel sulfur limitations if necessary to protect public health, safety or welfare.
While lawmakers are not scheduled to meet again until next month, the Legislature could be called back by Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, or Rachel Talbot Ross, who became Maine's first Black House speaker on Wednesday. She succeeds Ryan Fecteau.
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The 2023 heating season has already been budgeted and paid for. There was no urgency to vote on this bill the same day lawmakers were sworn in and doing so would have been unprecedented. If the bill could be voted on so quickly, a public hearing could have been scheduled within a matter of days so the legislation could have been subjected to some thoughtful deliberation. Half a billion dollars of taxpayer money is a lot to be spent without proper legislative oversight.
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