Maine pulp and paper summit identifies public policy issues
Courtesy / Maine Pulp & Paper Association
Sappi Fine Paper Co. Somerset Mill in Skowhegan
A summit held Tuesday by the Maine Pulp & Paper Association identified top priorities for preserving Maine’s forest products industry and provided direction to legislative leaders for potential policy changes.
The summit in Bangor, which drew 240 stakeholders from throughout the industries, covered a range of issues, including energy costs, the availability and costs of wood fiber, transportation infrastructure, taxes and other public policy challenges.
The Bangor Daily News reported that a survey of attendees identified energy costs and high property tax valuations as the top priorities for industry.
Donna Cassese, chairwoman of the the Maine Pulp and Paper Association, told the BDN that it’s not yet decided what law or policy changes the group will propose, but she did say a first step will be to identify quick-action steps that might be taken in the next year.
One of the state lawmakers in attendance, Speaker of the House Mark Eves, said the development of new training programs in the logging and forest products industry will help revive the industry, the Morning Sentinel reported.
“What I’ve learned is there is no silver bullet, no simple solution,” the Democratic representative from North Berwick said, “but we have a whole list of recommendations of things we can be doing.”
Although news of mill closures or slowdowns, layoffs and bankruptcies have dominated news about the industry in recent years, bright spots in the industry were highlighted at the summit, including Baileyville-based St. Croix Tissue, which plans to start two new tissue paper machines in the next year, the BDN reported.
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