AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Senate on Monday evening passed a proposal from Gov. Janet Mills to exempt an offshore wind terminal on Sears Island from coastal sand dune protection regulations.
But the 21-13 vote came soon after the Home of Associates delivered the Democratic governor a setback by opposing the bill very last week in an 80-65 vote. Every single chamber will have a prospect to just take up the invoice once again, but the big difference between chambers does not bode well for its odds of passage.
The debate pitted various Democrats and Republicans against get together colleagues, with Sen. Chip Curry, D-Belfast, arguing the monthly bill is required to support a job that will provide a wanted economic increase to his region when Sen. Nicole Grohoski, D-Ellsworth, opposed the invoice by expressing a motivation for far more time to take into consideration the system and possible penalties. Grohoski and Sen. Craig Hickman of Winthrop were being the lone Democrats to vote from the bill, while Republican Sens. Rick Bennett of Oxford, Stacey Guerin of Glenburn and Matt Pouliot of Augusta supported it.
Mills unveiled her monthly bill past month after she announced in February the state would use Sears Island as a staging ground for the state’s 1st offshore wind port that could develop into operational by 2029. The Maine Department of Transportation reported the exemption is needed to have an impact on only a person dune that is not normally happening and that shaped owing to a jetty placement.
Mills famous the deepwater port is important to Maine’s climate goals that include things like employing 100 percent renewable electrical power by 2040. Mills spokesperson Ben Goodman formerly claimed devoid of this invoice or language in a different a person, the state “would drop a after-in-a-generation opportunity” to create careers, make clean power and “protect our natural environment and the overall health of Maine individuals from the ravages of local weather improve.”
An alliance of conservationists, conservatives and tribes argued for employing Mack Issue in its place of Sears Island for the wind port because it is designed and privately owned. Each individual web site had a growth value tag involving $400 million to $500 million, but Mills stated Mack Position would value a lot more due to its personal possession and difficulties with dredging and other challenges.
About two-thirds of Sears Island, which addresses 941 acres and is the premier undeveloped island in Penobscot Bay, is conserved, though the state experienced earlier reserved 330 acres as a “transportation parcel” for potential use as a cargo and container port.