We pride ourselves on taking the best research out there and turning it into policies that work. Below, you’ll find reports, policy recommendations and position statements we’ve written, as well as key research by others.
BY TUX TURKEL, Maine Sunday Telegram When heating oil spiked in 2008, roughly 500 Mainers took a state housing authority course to become weatherization technicians. Another 200 became certified energy auditors. Then two unexpected things happened: Oil prices collapsed and the country plunged into a deep recession. The result was that fewer people had the [...]
There’s a serious shortage of environmentally friendly jobs in Maine that match the education schools offer. By ADAM MARQUIS, Portland Press Herald PORTLAND – Forget death and taxes. The two certainties of life in Maine are a lack of good-paying jobs and high and volatile energy costs. On education, as a recent college graduate facing [...]
Maine’s Competitive Skills Scholarship Program by Sandra S. Butler, Luisa S. Deprez, John Dorrer, & Auta M. Main The authors describe how the Competitive Skills Scholarship Program, administered by the Maine Department of Labor, aims both to meet the needs of Maine employers through improved access to a skilled labor force and to improve job [...]
Reported By: Susan Sharon It may be one of the best kept job-retraining secrets in Maine. It offers an attractive benefits package and good pay and the training program itself is free. And it’s being held up as a model for how business, education and labor can help strengthen the new economy. Stacey Timberlake of [...]
By Rob Brown and Don Berry Maine’s intertwined economic and energy challenges have deep roots. We have the nation’s oldest housing and work force, greatest reliance on heating oil, and highest percentage of young people neither working pursuing education. Electricity costs are high, and Maine has the lowest income and education levels in New England. [...]
By Ron Bancroft An expanded sales tax, a lower overall income tax rate and progress on efficiency all merit praise. As I suggested last week, two significant pieces of legislation dominated the latter days of the legislative session in Augusta: tax reform and an omnibus energy bill. Many of us had given up hope that [...]
AUGUSTA – Governor John E. Baldacci today signed into law LD 1485, An Act Regarding Maine’s Energy Future. The emergency measure sets aggressive goals to end Maine’s dangerous dependency on foreign fuels. “Maine is a leader in addressing clean, renewable energy and pursuing green jobs,” said Governor Baldacci. “This law is a significant and bold [...]
By DEIRDRE FULTON “I think we had a major impact on the thinking going on in the Legislature,” says Rob Brown, executive director of Opportunity Maine, the non-profit that previously focused on keeping young, educated Mainers in the state, which submitted its own energy-related bill (through Democratic Bowdoinham representative Seth Berry) to the Legislature; many [...]
By Deirdre Fulton, Portland Phoenix To make the most of huge chunks of incoming federal economic-stimulus cash (and to get their hands on more of it in the first place), the Maine Legislature has to ramp up its energy-efficiency planning — on the double. The task isn’t as sexy as, say, building majestic wind farms, [...]
Bills to fix the tax system and establish a state energy policy deserve support. RON BANCROFT, Portland Press Herald Columnist Stranded once again at Chicago’s O’Hare airport last Friday, I stayed the night at the O’Hare Hilton, the only hotel that is actually within walking distance of the terminals. As I checked out Saturday morning [...]
