The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away

By Dana Doran

As I begin writing this article for each edition of the Logger’s Voice, I always like to review what was written just one year ago in addition to what was written for the last edition. History is important, not just so I don’t write about the same topic from year to year, but to review what was relevant or timely in the recent past. I have found that the pace at which things change in this industry seems to be increasing all the time and not only can I learn from our past, but I need to make sure I don’t repeat it!!

In reading last year’s edition, just one year ago, almost to the day, I wrote about the “glorious weather” of June 2022 with, “warm days, cool nights, and low humidity, that brought about incredible logging conditions across the state. It’s crazy to think how much things have changed in only one year not to mention the last three months. Change is inevitable I guess, but it would be nice for that change to be a little more predictable and consistent.

While it’s hard to believe, also just one year ago, pulp markets in this state were a polar opposite as well. In June 2022, markets were wide open, procurement officials were asking what they could do to help and prices were beginning to rise, one year later, it’s a complete 180.

In the last three months, we’ve learned that mills have produced too much product in response to the, “not enough” economy that existed during the pandemic, while at the same time, consumer demand pulled back, which has led to an oversupply that seemed to come out of nowhere this spring. Adding insult to injury, natural gas prices plummeted in early 2023, creating less demand for biomass. Ultimately, this created the tornado of the Old Town shutdown and the other curtailments at the other remaining mills.

Fast forward to today, with an already bleak future looking even bleaker, as a result of overstocked inventory, mills are now taking and planning for extended downtime this summer and fall which is bound to make the markets even softer as we move forward. As a friend who is an engineer at Sappi told me last weekend, we are bullish on the future and are still moving forward with a $415 million upgrade at Somerset, but the next six to nine months are going to be a little rough. As a result, logging contractors are on hard quotas unless they work on a service contract with a landowner that possesses a fiber supply agreement.

As a reminder, from 2020-22, we lost 30% of the harvesting capacity in this state because of lost markets and high inflation. And as a result of the market downturn in 2023, it looks like we might lose another 20-25% before things turn around. I just hope this downward trajectory does turn around sooner rather than later before we cross the point of no return.

Despite the constant ebbs and flows of this industry, with more ebbs than flows, the Lord continues to give in ways we never thought were possible.

Consistent with the resurgence of spring and the giving of new life all around us, the energy of this industry never ceases to amaze me. From March-May, the PLC provided safety training for 170 of our members and more than 1,000 of their employees, setting all-time records for participation that we have never seen before. This happened despite the trials and tribulations all around us and seemed to energize the membership even with a bleak outlook on the future. Personally, it is significant to see so many of you in person each year and the renewed interest in our work to help keep your employees safe especially when safety training can be such a dry topic.

Also this spring, on May 4-5th, 2023, the PLC held its 28th Annual Meeting at the Harborside Hotel in Bar Harbor and set attendance records in a similar fashion. The event’s attendance increased by more than 25% as the membership celebrated and gave thanks to all of their family members for the sacrifices they make every day to make this industry successful. It was a memorable event and a unifying opportunity which always invigorates me.

For the first time, the Annual Meeting spanned two days, with a new event – Log A Load & Lobster –held on May 4 to raise additional funds for Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) Hospitals in Maine. The event was organized and donated by PLC Member and 2nd Vice President Duane Jordan of Elliott Jordan & Son and his family. Attendees traveled by bus from Bar Harbor and toured Downeast renewable energy and blueberry fields owned by the Jordans, visited area landmarks, and finished with a lobster dinner at Elliot Jordan & Son. The proceeds from the day, which surpassed $12,000, all went to support this year’s Log A Load for Maine Kids effort.

The second day was a return to our usual business meeting and presentations for all PLC Member contractors in the morning, with board and officer elections and a major change to the PLC’s bylaws that will be announced in more detail later this fall. A noon luncheon followed with speakers including Congressman Jared Golden; American Loggers Council (ALC) Executive Director Scott Dane; and ALC President Andy Irish of Irish Family Logging. Andy’s term as President concludes in October 2023 and the ALC’s Annual Meeting will be held at Sunday River. I hope that all of you can attend to make this event truly special for Andy and his family.

And the day concluded in the evening with the traditional Log A Load for Maine Kids Auction, which raised more than $127,723, including the $12,000 from the day before, for Log A Load For Maine Kids, and awards presented to businesses, individuals, and legislators from across Maine for their contributions to the logging industry. In typical fashion, the annual meeting epitomized the giving nature of Maine loggers.

But of course, no good deed goes unpunished and as I write this article, the Maine Legislature continues to plod along across the street with no end in sight. This truly epitomizes the saying, when the Lord giveth, only the Lord, or in this case, the Legislature, can taketh away. The session was supposed to wrap up on June 21st and as of the 26th, the end is near, but not near enough.

And while the Legislature hasn’t completely finished its work for the session and we won’t know exactly where things will finish up for at least another month, I thought it would be appropriate to summarize where things stand at this point in time with our friends across the street so those of you that don’t read my weekly legislative update every Saturday morning, have an idea what has transpired this session that could impact your businesses in a very short period of time. The Legislative session in 2023 will undoubtedly go down in the books as the most contentious and the most anti-business in the state’s history. What started off with the passage of a majority budget in late March without one Republican vote has continued and only gotten worse. The second to the last week of the session epitomized the partisan split as votes continued, primarily pushed by the far left of the Democratic party on issues pertaining to abortion, paid family medical leave, guns, agricultural workers and a multitude of other social welfare programs and regulations that would make any business owner cringe. To now say that Governor Mills has become the backstop is not only a true statement, but a reality. Here is a run-down on the final bills of the session that we are still following:

PLC Opposed

LD 827, An Act to Allow Employees to Request Flexible Work Schedules. Enacted in the House and sent by the Senate to the Special Appropriations Table for final deliberation over funding. The amended bill: 1. It allows an employee to request in writing, including by electronic means, a flexible work schedule. 2. It requires an employer to consider an employee's request for a flexible work schedule and whether the request can be granted in a manner that is not inconsistent with employer operations. It defines "inconsistent with employer operations." 3. It specifies that an employer and an employee must mutually agree on the duration of time and terms of a flexible work schedule. 4. It allows an employer to rescind a flexible work schedule with as much notice to an employee as is practicable. 5. It prohibits an employer from retaliating against an employee for exercising rights given under the subchapter enacted by the bill.

LD 949, An Act to Protect Employees from Employer Surveillance. Enacted in the House and sent by the Senate to the Special Appropriations Table for final deliberation over funding. The amended bill specifies that an employer may use employer surveillance if the employer informs the employee before beginning employer surveillance. It prohibits an employer from using audiovisual monitoring in an employee's residence or personal vehicle or on the employee's property and provides that an employee can decline a request by an employer to install data collection or transmission applications on the employee's personal electronic devices for the purposes of employer surveillance. It also requires that an employer notify a prospective employee during the interview process that the employer engages in employer surveillance.

LD 993, An Act to Facilitate Stakeholder Input Regarding Forest Policy in Maine. Enacted in the House and sent by the Senate to the Special Appropriations Table for final deliberation over funding. The bill creates a new oversight committee in the Bureau of Forestry, which is nominated by the Governor. The committee’s membership is not something the PLC supports.

LD 1190, An Act to Ensure a Fair Workweek by Requiring Notice of Work Schedules. Enacted in the House and sent by the Senate to the Special Appropriations Table for final deliberation over funding. This bill states that any employer with more than 10 employees would have to pay their employees for a minimum of two hours if they have to cancel a shift under any circumstance. The bill also includes penalties if employers don’t comply with certain provisions.

LD 1964, An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Commission to Develop a Paid Family and Medical Leave Benefits Program. Enacted in the House and sent by the Senate to the Special Appropriations Table for final deliberation over funding. The bill implements a paid family and medical leave benefits program which could provide up to 12 weeks of family and medical leave to eligible

Doran Continued from Page 11 16 covered individuals. An individual is eligible for leave under the program after working 120 days for a company. The weekly benefit amount is 90% of the covered individual's average weekly wage. The funds for administrative costs and payment of benefits come from payroll contributions of no more than 1% of wages shared by employers and employees, except that employers with fewer than 15 employees are not required to make employer contributions to the program.

PLC Supported

LD 1303, An Act to Exempt Boats and Allterrain Vehicles Purchased for Qualified Commercial Fishing or Commercial Farming from State Sales Tax Enacted in the House and sent by the Senate to the Special Appropriations Table for final deliberation over funding. This bill exempts from sales tax sales of all-terrain vehicles used directly and exclusively in commercial fishing, commercial agricultural production, or commercial timber harvesting to a qualified purchaser.

LD 1408, An Act to Reduce Maine's Dependence on Fossil Fuels and Carbon Footprint for Energy Production Using Waste Wood Fuel. Enacted in the House and Senate and sent to the Governor for signature. This bill will: 1) Expand the definition of net generating capacity to ensure it is clear that capacity sent to adjacent facilities behind the meter should not be considered electric output to the T & D system; 2) Expand the size of net generating capacity for a single participant from 10 MW to 15 MW; 3) Expand the total net generating capacity of all program participants combined from 20 MW to 30 MW to allow for more projects to bid in; 4) Expand the definition of projects that are eligible to negotiate a long term contract with an investor owned facility. This would allow projects that might be built in a consumer owned territory that is adjacent to an investor-owned utility to sell energy directly to the adjacent investor owned utility;

LD 1455, An Act to Establish the Weighing Point Preclearance Program Passed in the House and Senate on 1st and 2nd Votes, awaiting enactment in the House before moving to the Senate. This bill establishes the Weighing Point Preclearance Program, which is operated by the Department of Public Safety, Bureau of State Police and which uses an electronic system that verifies a commercial motor vehicle's size, weight, registration and safety records as the commercial motor vehicle drives on a highway and allows compliant commercial motor vehicles to bypass weighing points. The bill also provides that if the Department of Transportation administers a separate program that uses a preclearance system, the department must determine which weighing points must participate in that program, and all preclearance system providers' devices and platforms must be treated equally and used concurrently at participating weighing points.

Products Enacted in the House and Senate and on the Governor’s desk. The amended bill requires an entity that contracts with a person to harvest wood and place the wood roadside so that the entity is able to have the wood hauled away for use or processing to pay the person within 30 days of the person's fulfilling the contract and placing the wood roadside.

LD 1874,

Act

Support Maine Loggers' and Truckers' Right to Work in Maine by Improving Labor Standards. Enacted in the House and Senate and on the Governor’s desk This bill provides that the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry may obtain certification from a forest certification program for state land only if the program requires labor standards for logging and trucking.

As you can tell, there’s still a lot on the line, a lot to keep track of and a lot that can be taken away, if some of these things become law. And while I know that at the end of the day, markets are the most important thing for all of you now, the last thing you need is to have something else given or something else taken away that will ultimately harm what you love to do.

Please stay safe, be well and I’ll send an update along when I know more.

BAR HARBOR – The Professional Logging Contractors (PLC) of Maine held its 28th Annual Meeting May 4-5, raising $127,723 for Log A Load For Maine Kids and presenting awards to businesses, individuals, and legislators from across Maine for their contributions to the logging industry.

The meeting was held at the Bar Harbor Club in Bar Harbor, ME., with a record 222 adults and 16 children attending. Honored guests at the event included Maine Congressman Jared Golden and retired New England Patriot Pete Brock.

“Once again this special group has come through for the families served by our Children’s Miracle Network hospitals in Bangor and Portland, and we are proud to note that this is the largest attendance for our Annual Meeting yet,” Dana Doran, Executive Director of the PLC, said. “As the logging industry gets tougher this group just gets stronger and continues to exceed expectations in every way, and we are grateful to everyone who made this year another success.”

For the first time, the Annual Meeting spanned two days, with a new event – Log A Load & Lobster –held on May 4 to raise additional funds for Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) Hospitals in Maine. The event was organized and funded by PLC Member Duane Jordan of Elliott Jordan & Son and his family. Attendees traveled