By Michael Shepherd - March 21, 2022 Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up.
Good morning from Augusta. The Maine Legislature will be in session on Tuesday.
What we're watching today
Two members of Maine's delegation called Russia's president a war criminal after a trip to the Ukraine border. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King and Rep.Chellie Pingree of the 1st District joined bipartisan delegations on a weekend trip taking them within miles of Poland's border with Ukraine. Some 3 million Ukrainian refugees have fled the country, which is under withering Russian attack.
In the third week of the invasion, the conflict seems to be developing into a war of attrition. Russia is hammering cities with long-range missiles but ground troops are largely stalled amid strong Ukrainian resistance. Russian President Vladimir Putin has only escalated the war in the face of Western sanctions that have tanked his country's economy and made it a pariah state.
Maine's congressional delegation has largely been in the Washington mainstream on Ukraine matters. All four members supported a ban on Russian oil imports before Biden imposed one this month. Both Collins and King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, co-sponsored a war-crimes resolution that unanimously passed the Senate last week.
Both Collins and Pingree also called Putin a "war criminal" over the weekend, a notable term that President Joe Bidenbegan using last week after strikes on a maternity hospital and residential buildings. In a video filmed at a refugee camp just a few miles from the border, Collins recounted meeting a mother headed to Wales with her two children while her husband stayed in Ukraine to fight.
"It's an extraordinary moment, a very emotional one, very powerful scenes to see people with their cots on the floors," King said in his own video. "But everybody is coming together here to support these refugees."
Pingree, a Democrat, said on CNN that U.S. officials cannot prescribe the subjects of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, which have made little progress during the shelling, and the American role is to support the government there. She said Putin should pull back and allow for humanitarian aid to get in.
The fourth week of fighting could be a pivotal one for Western aid to Ukraine. Biden is headed to a special NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday on the conflict after signing a spending bill with $13.6 billion in Ukraine aid. He has stopped short of fulfilling some other requests from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, including a no-fly zone, amid consensus in Washington that the U.S. should not escalate the conflict.
There are some pressure points on the topic in Congress, however. Collins has joined other Republicans in pressing Biden to back a plan to send Polish warplanes and other equipment to Ukraine. Items like that could gain momentum as the conflict continues.
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What we're reading
— Gov. Janet Mills boosted relief checks to $850 and added $60 million to Maine's fight against forever chemicals in a third version of her spending proposal that now spends down virtually all of a projected revenue surplus. Read more on how Republicans are reacting from the BDN's Jessica Piper.
— Fry oil and shovel shafts are two examples of overlooked goods driving higher costs for Maine's small businesses. The president of a retail industry group here called inflation "a front-burner issue" for his members.
— The first Maine example of one type of invasive plant has been found in Alamoosook Lake in Orland. Variable watermilfoil can interfere with swimming and boating, cause property values to decline and compete with native plants for survival.
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12 p.m. The appropriations committee will work on Mills' spending proposal. Watch here.
3 p.m. A University of Maine sustainability center will host Jessica Scott, a senior climate adviser in Mills' policy office, for a talk on climate and environmental justice. Watch here.
📷Lead photo: U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King speak with a member of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division from Maine during a weekend trip to Poland. (Photo courtesy of King's office)
