Year 2, Month 2, Day 7: (facepalm)

Paul LePage, the new governor of Maine, is an asshole of the first order:

“I believe in real, strong environmental laws,” Gov. Paul LePage announced to a room full of environmentally-minded Mainers a little more than a week ago. “I would never challenge a strong environmental law that’s based in science.”

Four days later, LePage launched a broadside against Maine’s environmental protections, targeting for elimination virtually every state environmental law and regulation in existence, regardless of their scientific merit, importance to Maine’s economy and citizen health, or even their bipartisan support.

The changes he proposed to the regulatory reform committee would rezone 3 million acres of wilderness for development, allow toxic chemicals back into children’s toys and baby bottles, lower air and water pollution standards, reduce fines for polluters, eliminate the Board of Environmental Protection and shift the burden for recycling electronic waste away from manufacturers and onto the people of Maine.

Actually that’s probably an insult to assholes everywhere. My letter to the Sentinel:

Paul LePage’s proposed changes in Maine environmental protections are examples of the kind of nihilism that should have no place in politics. The Tea-Party governor apparently feels beholden only to his ideological allies, rather than to the long-term good of the state. Furthermore, the anti-government zealots who voted for him are themselves being manipulated by cynical and destructive big-business forces whose best interests are nowhere aligned with Maine’s. Unfortunately, ruined natural resources cannot be instantly remedied in the next election cycle; LePage is proposing to spend the state’s environmental capital for the benefit of his corporate sponsors rather than steward it wisely. One suspects that some part of the governor’s anti-nature crusade is simply gleeful “hippie-punching” — political maneuvers taken for no other reason than to offend people who actually give a damn about some of the most beautiful places in the country and the world.

Warren Senders