LePage declines joining Northeast clean air petition
Gov. Paul LePage declined to support a petition from governors of eight Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states that asks the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enact tougher ozone-related pollution restrictions on upwind states in the Midwest and Appalachia.
The Portland Press Herald reported the states joining the petition and those declining were split along party lines. Pennsylvania and New Jersey’s Republican governors also did not support the petition, which argues that prevailing winds carry pollution eastward from coal-fired power plants and other point source polluters in westerly and southerly states.
The paper reported the petition targets Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia for tougher emissions restrictions.
Environmental and public health groups criticized Maine’s exclusion from the petition. Maine Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Jessamine Logan told the Press Herald in an email that Maine did not join because it is targeting mobile sources of air pollution, not stationary sources. According to the National Park Service, mobile sources like cars, buses and planes account for more than half of all air pollution in the country.
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