By Michael Shepherd - March 30, 2023
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📷 Dairy farmer Fred Stone pauses before forking up a load of hay for one of the few remaining cows on his spread in Arundel on April 15, 2022. He was forced to slaughter most of his herd after finding high levels of PFAS on his land in 2016. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)

Good morning from Augusta. The Legislature assembles for votes on the Democrats' two-year state budget on Thursday. Here are the House and Senate calendars and the committee agenda.

What we're watching today

Maine joins a new legal frontier with major lawsuits against chemical companies. Attorney General Aaron Frey's office handed down long-awaited lawsuits against 3M and DuPont on Wednesday, putting Maine among more than a dozen states that have sued over the public health crisis being discovered around so-called forever chemicals in land, water and food.

Lawsuits over the proliferation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are nothing new. There were 6,400 lawsuits on the topic between 2006 and 2022, according to a Bloomberg News count. But Maine is at the beginning of the legal movement on one account, since only Minnesota and Delaware have won settlements from either one of the chemical giants among states.

They have more direct connections to the industry. Minnesota sued 3M for $5 billion in 2010 over the disposal of PFAS in the Twin Cities area. The lawsuit faced long delays until it was settled for $850 million in 2018. Delaware won $50 million in 2021 from DuPont and spinoff companies that operate there. Maine is more of a legal bystander in its lawsuits against the companies.

Frey's filings, which were prepared by two high-profile national firms, mirror the tactics used by many states in lawsuits over the last year, including those in California and Illinois. It cites historic evidence that the companies knew decades ago that the products were toxic in humans and buried evidence that they were causing health problems and building up in the environment.

The liability for the two companies could be staggering. 3M alone could be on the hook for an estimated $30 billion because it both made the raw chemicals and finished products containing them, Bloomberg reported. A recent disclosure contained 15 pages detailing PFAS-related problems issues for the company.

3M said Wednesday that it has "acted responsibly" on chemicals, while DuPont's parent company cited a complex merger with Dow to say that the current iteration has never manufactured PFAS. The historic company phased them out around the turn of the century, and the state's lawsuit says the merger was an attempt to shield assets from lawsuits like this.

Maine is seeking to recoup the full cost of the response to the public health crisis here, although there is no estimate of that in the lawsuit. The result could be the largest environmental settlement ever here after one conditionally approved last year related to mercury pollution in the Penobscot River. But fighting these chemical companies could be long and complicated.

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News and notes

📷 Rep. Sawin Millett, R-Waterford, listens to proceedings on Aug. 26, 2019, at the State House in Augusta. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)

🎤 Republicans plan a legislative protest against the Democratic budget.

◉ Democrats will push their $9.8 billion budget through the House and Senate on Thursday, but it will come after minority Republicans force votes on the priorities that they tried to inject into budget talks before talks with Democrats broke down last week.

◉ Rep. Sawin Millett, R-Waterford, has filed a floor amendment that would commit to $200 million in tax relief targeted at low- and middle-income Mainers and convene a working group to examine recommendations for state welfare programs. Those items represent the party's two key budget demands.

◉ Two other Republicans — Assistant Senate Minority Leader Lisa Keim of Dixfield and Rep. Rachel Henderson of Rumford — will force votes on stripping $750,000 for abortion coverage under MaineCare from the budget and ending the 2019 law that expanded that coverage under the program.

◉ Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn, has filed an amendment aimed at the tax standoff between the parties that would change the slogan on Maine license plates from "Vacationland" to "Taxationland." Here's your soundtrack.

◉ "If the intent is to change all license plates immediately, the cost could be significant," the Legislature's fiscal office said in a cost estimate of Brakey's gag. "However, if the intent is to phase in the change over time, the cost may not be significant."

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What we're reading

📄 A paper mill pause leads another Maine city to wonder about its future.

🎓 Maine's embattled university system held a pioneering accreditation.

⚡ Aroostook residents told regulators they can't bear an electric rate hike.

🚣 This Maine search and rescue group is shutting down after 54 years.

📺 Maine twins will play in the nation's top high school basketball tournament.

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