Charting Maine’s Future

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And we’re always looking for new supporters… if your business or organization might be interested in helping out, you can donate online by using our secure webpages, or call Mary Mayo, our Vice President of Development, at 847-9275 ext. 302.

As the Legislature buckles down to deal with an $800+ million budget shortfall, and as the rest of the state contemplates what our next economy is going to look like, this quotation from Thomas Edison struck me as especially appropriate for these times:

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

-Thomas Edison

Washington’s House of Representatives just passed HB 1, the massive government spending package that’s been prescribed to prime our economy with a big infusion of cash.

The bill’s primary objective is getting money out of the Treasury and into American payrolls. But President Obama has also worked to make the bill a “down payment” on building the next American economy, and the bill includes big expenditures on clean energy, energy efficiency, and innovation in health care.

The Takeaway has been keeping a close eye on the stimulus package’s progress through the Capitol, and their ShovelWatch website is a wealth of information and background stories. ProPublica has also created an interactive map that breaks down the stimulus bill by category, as differently-sized blocks. Tax relief for individuals gets the biggest chunk of funds - $185 billion, or about $600 per person.

There’s also aid to states to help with widespread budget shortfalls: $79 billion for general fiscal relief, plus $87 billion for state medicaid programs. If this money were distributed equitably on a per-capita basis, Maine would receive 347.6 million for fiscal relief, plus $383 million for Medicaid (we got these figure by dividing the total stimulus by 300 million - the population of the country - and then multiplying by 1.32 million). In general, there’s a lot of spending that’s focused on shoring up public finances and programs - unemployment benefits, hunger programs, aid to local school districts, etc.

*Maine’s share is estimated by dividing the national allocation by the population of the USA (three hundred million) then multiplying by Maine’s state population (1,320,000).

It’s still possible that other states might take precedent over Maine’s needs, which would diminish these figures for our state. But this could be a big lifeline for Maine’s $800 million budget shortfall over the next biennium.

But the stimulus package also looks to make big new investments in new technology: $21 billion for school construction and technology (with a focus on making schools more energy-efficient); $20 billion for health care information technology, which will reduce health costs and improve health services significantly over the long term; $6 billion for wireless and broadband infrastructure; $1.1 billion for intercity rail construction and $12 billion for transit systems (which should help fund new buses, ferries, and vanpools in Maine, plus faster service on the Downeaster and expanded service to Freeport and Brunswick).

GrowSmart has focused its advocacy on the stimulus package’s transportation spending, as a member of the nationwide T4America coalition. Maine’s share of the $30 billion allocation for highways and bridges and the $12 billion allocation for transit would amount to $132 million and $52.8 million, respectively (again, assuming that the funds are distributed evenly among states according to their populations).

The Maine DOT’s list of “stimulus-ready” projects across the state includes a whopping $430 million for highways and bridges, plus over $105 million for non-highway transportation (including marine ports, railroad improvements, new ferries, and busses). Clearly the DOT and local transportation planning committees will have to triage projects and focus on projects that deliver the biggest bang for the buck.

The stimulus also includes some big new investments in renewable energy (a $20 billion tax credit, plus $8 billion in loans and $4.4 billion in R&D funding), electric grids ($11 billion), and energy efficiency ($6.2 billion for home weatherization, plus $11.4 billion for general efficiency projects). Maine’s old building stock makes the home weatherization spending particularly valuable to our state, where weatherization projects have a high rate of return and typically pay for themselves in reduced energy bills within five years. If spent immediately, our $27.3 million share of the home weatherization program could save Maine households over five million dollars this year alone.

The cover story in this month’s Mainebiz profiles the movers and shakers in Maine’s offshore wind power research and development industry - primarily Habib Dagher at UMO’s Advanced Composites Lab, and George Hart, of the midcoast-area Ocean Energy Institute.

Maine’s offshore wind resources are phenomenal, and as a potential energy resource, offshore wind power is exciting enough. But building wind turbines in deep water offshore is still untested and economically questionable, with today’s technology. What’s really exciting about the industry is how Maine people are working on the innovating new technologies that will make offshore wind technically and economically feasible. The possibilities for building new enterprises based on offshore wind development, and new wind-power manufacturing and maintenance facilities on Maine’s working waterfronts, are really tremendous (just look at what offshore oil exploration has done for marine industries along the Gulf Coast and in the North Sea).

The Mainebizarticle is the first in a three-part series. Charlie Colgan, a USM economist, recently referred to wind power as “the next bubble we can believe in.” It would be reckless for us to pin all of our economic hopes on renewable energy, but at this point, it’s one of the few bright spots in Maine’s economy.

Yesterday’s Mainebiz Daily newsletter reported that Augusta lawmakers in the Agriculture, Forestry and Conservation Committee are recommending that the state cut $4.8 million from the state’s dairy subsidy program in order to help deal with the state’s massive budget shortfalls.

To put that number in some context: $4.8 million represents about 37% of what the program is expected to cost in the next fiscal year. Assuming the $4.8 million cut is on an annual basis (it might be a two-year cut for the biennial budget; unfortunately, the short item in Mainebiz doesn’t clarify this), the state will still spend $8.2 million on dairy subsidies next year, by my math. And for some big-picture context, the state needs to cut over $800 million for the next biennial (2-year) budget.

GrowSmart Maine isn’t taking any positions on this year’s budget debates. We’ve long criticized the way that budget decisions are made in Augusta - it’s more of a turf war than a serious evaluation of the state’s priorities and long-term aspirations - and we’re instead focusing on making big-picture recommendations and executing an action plan for a more cost-effective government with our upcoming Governing Maine in the 21st Century project.

But at the end of yesterday’s newsletter, Mainebiz editors solicited feedback on the dairy subsidy story, and framed it in an interesting way: “Given the state’s emphasis on protecting Maine’s quality of place, [should] subsidies that help Maine farmers survive — such as the $17.7 million awarded dairy farmers — be on the chopping block?”

The responses were collected here. Most respondents (about 60%) said yes, the dairy subsidies are a good candidate for budget cuts. After all, one commenter asked, why not subsidize other industries related to Maine’s “quality of place,” like toothpicks and paper and sardines? Where do you draw the line? Others pointed out the budget shortfall (which wasn’t referenced in the question) and the economic situation. Arguments in favor of the subsidies pointed out the value of locally-grown food supplies, and how dairies are still important to rural economies.

Economists frequently criticize subsidies as inefficient ways to accomplish public goals. If preserving Maine’s “quality of place” is what we’re after, of if our goal is to encourage more local food production, are dairy subsidies really the best tool at our disposal? Or could we accomplish these goals more effectively, at lower costs, by other means?

For instance (and this is pure speculation, but I think it would be worth investigating), we might be able to help more family farms and save money if, instead of spending $8.2 million a year on a dairy subsidy program, we spent only $5 million a year on purchasing conservation easements on working farms, promoting farmers’ markets, and creating new agricultural training programs to help farmers adapt to new opportunities and business conditions.

During the season, I help out at the market stall of a farm near where I grew up in western Cumberland County. I’ve heard anecdotally that the last few years have actually been pretty good for the small, diversified farms like the ones we see at farmers’ markets, thanks to renewed interest in locally-grown food and the increasing costs of shipping produce from places like New Zealand. The Brookings Institution cited Maine’s organic farms as one of the state’s most promising “business clusters” in our Charting Maine’s Future report two years ago.

But if you’re one of the state’s rising farm entrepreneurs - raising dozens of different produce crops and nursery plants, selling value-added products like cider and sauerkraut, raising seedlings in greenhouses during the winter - dairy subsidies don’t really do you much good. Maybe it’s time for a change.

I just received an e-mail from the president-elect’s transition team to notify me of a neat new “web 2.0″ feature on their web site, the “Citizens’ Briefing Book.”

It’s an online forum where you can share your ideas, and rate or offer comments on the ideas of others.

The best-rated ones will rise to the top, and after the Inauguration, we’ll print them out and gather them into a binder like the ones the President receives every day from experts and advisors. If you participate, your idea could be included in the Citizen’s Briefing Book to be delivered to President Obama.

I find this a pretty fascinating model of participatory government. Here in Maine, we’re fortunate enough to be able to expect a personal response when we call or e-mail our representatives in Augusta or Washington. But how does the president, with 300 million constituents, keep track of their top issues? And when thousands of bored cranks are writing to complain about the prime-time television lineup and other trivia, how does a citizen with a legitimately good idea rise above the noise?

The concept behind this website might be an elegant solution to these problems. Instead of sending hundreds of thousands of letters and ideas to one recipient, this website sends all those ideas to all of the other people inclined to write letters, and lets them decide amongst themselves which ideas are the best ones.

If you have an especially good idea that appeals to lots of other people using this web site, then Obama’s transition staff will get in touch with you, and the newly-inaugurated President will hear about it in a special briefing next week.

But even if you yourself can’t come up with a particularly galvanizing idea, you can still vote on other ideas to boost the ranking of ideas that seem good, and decrease the rankings of ideas that seem silly. Instead of having government staff or lobbyists determine which ideas are crackpot, and which are worthy, this website lets active citizens decide amongst themselves.

It remains to be seen how well it works - it’s possible that specific special-interest groups will try to flood the new site with votes for their individual agendas, for instance. But it’s an interesting experiment - check it out at citizensbriefingbook.change.gov.

Over the holidays, we received a pair of announcements for some promising events. It’s likely that some of GrowSmart’s staff will attend these events, and I thought that some of our blog readers might be interested as well.

First up, in less than two weeks, is a long-planned discussion on Portland’s future from the Urban Land Institute and the Portland Society of Architects:

Please join Portland Society of Architects and The Urban Land Institute at the Portland Museum of Art, 4:30-7:30 pm on Thursday January 15th, at Sustainable Portland 2030 - How Do We Get There?

Many groups are examining the challenges that face Portland. This open forum will be the first in a series of meetings that brings these forces together to envision the City’s future.

Keynote speaker Gary Lawrence heads ARUP’s Urban Strategies practice. As a former Planning Director for Seattle, he developed the first sustainability-focused municipal comprehensive plan in the world. He is an internationally known expert on communities that address human need and environmental limitations. He is also a forceful, provocative and entertaining speaker.

The second event, later this month, will be an Augusta conference focusing on the opportunities of energy efficiency in Maine’s built environment:

The Built Energy Forum, produced by buildgreenmaine.com, a partnership program of the Midcoast Magnet and the Newforest Institute, will be held on January 26th, 2009 from 8 am to 4 pm at the Augusta Civic Center.

Intended for practitioners in building and building energy industries, the Forum seeks to help accelerate the transformation of Maine’s housing stock. The Forum will bring together experts from across Maine and beyond to address the questions of high-performance building certification, the sourcing of local and green building materials, the development of policies that fuel the upgrade of Maine’s buildings, and the training and certification of the green collar workforce.

Conference tickets cost $75 if purchased before January 5th, and $100 thereafter. To register or for more information go to: www.buildgreenmaine.com