By Michael Shepherd - Feb. 21, 2023
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📷 Rep. Joe Perry, D-Bangor, speaks with reporters in downtown Bangor on July 14, 2020. (BDN photo by Natalie Williams)

Good morning from Augusta. The Legislature is out for school vacation week, but the transportation and budget committees will meet. Here's the agenda.

What we're watching today

A Whole Foods revenge effort puts attention back on a contested tax break. One of the biggest water-cooler measures introduced so far in the new Maine Legislature has been a bill to strip a property tax break from the Whole Foods Market in Portland over the chain's decision to stop selling Maine lobster because it lost third-party sustainability certifications.

This example of economic populism unites the lead sponsor, Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, and his political rival, Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash. But there is a wide coalition against it as well, including the administration of Gov. Janet Mills and laissez-faire conservatives including the Maine Policy Institute's Matthew Gagnon. A top Democrat on the tax committee, Rep. Joe Perry, D-Bangor, said it was not workable.

It could serve to stoke more discussion about the program that Whole Foods has long qualified for, known as the Business Equipment Tax Reimbursement program. BETR is a state-funded program that reimburses businesses for property taxes on equipment, while a 2006 program known under the acronym BETE is a sister program that exempts certain property from taxes.

The goal of these programs was to attract larger businesses, identifying the cost of investment as a major hurdle to investment at the time. But the effect of the programs has been questioned over the years, including in audits during the first decade of the 2000s and reporting in 2012 by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting. Business groups have long defended the program.

That carried through into 2020, when the Legislature's watchdog arm reviewed the two programs and only found "marginal" effects on investment. It showed that 8 percent of BETR-eligible businesses got 75 percent of benefits in the 2018 fiscal year. Hannaford supermarkets lead the pack each year. (The Bangor Daily News' parent company has received breaks in past years.)

Not much has happened as a result of the study. The Maine State Chamber of Commerce fired back by contesting those findings and the programs have effectively maintained their size since then, amounting to an estimated $81 million cost in the 2023 budget year, according to Maine Revenue Services.

Stewart, the bill's sponsor, defended his measure in part by saying while one could question whether equipment exemptions should remain in place, the bill addresses a separate issue. He said states uses their tax codes to "incentivize certain things" and protecting the lobster industry is a valid goal.

However, Perry said he has long questioned why retailers are eligible for a program that was intended to attract businesses that did not need to be in Maine to make their products.

"I think this may raise the bigger question: Should we be providing tax incentives for retailers who need to locate in the state of Maine if they want to do business here?" he said.

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News and notes

📷 Gov. Janet Mills delivers her budget address at the State House in Augusta on Feb. 14, 2023. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty)

🔵 Mills joins a coalition of governors aiming to expand abortion rights.

◉ The governor joined 18 of her Democratic counterparts across the country in announcing the Reproductive Freedom Alliance on Tuesday. The group of governors is "focused on protecting and expanding reproductive freedom" after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights last year.

◉ Mills is leaning hard into abortion-rights expansions in Maine, which already has one of the nation's most liberal sets of access laws. After saying during the 2022 campaign that she did not want changes, she rolled out a set of proposals in January including one allowing abortions after 24 weeks if doctors approve.

◉ Legislative Republicans and their anti-abortion allies have signaled a fight on those measures while submitting some proposed limits of their own.

🇺🇦 In Germany, a Maine senator said to "hurry up" Ukraine aid.

◉ Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and sits on the intelligence panel, joined a bipartisan delegation to the Munich Security Conference over the weekend that was led by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, and Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina.

◉ In an interview with NBC News' Andrea Mitchell, he expressed concern that Russia is winding up for a new offensive in Ukraine and that Leopard and Abrams tanks being supplied by the U.S. and European countries may not get there in time to aid President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

◉ "That's the issue, and I just finished a meeting with the German foreign minister and that was my message: Hurry up," King said.

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What we're reading

📱 King's list of "suspicious" Twitter accounts included Maine critics.

🎄 Versant Power was sued for allegedly cutting down 973 Christmas trees.

⛏️ Local officials are skeptical of a mining company's prosperity promises.

🏠 A sharp drop in listings tops early-2023 housing trends in Maine.

🤑 More than half of the $450 relief checks have been sent, Maine Public reports.

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