Maine Policy Review Winter/Spring 2016

Winter/Spring 2016 · Vol. 25, No. 1 · $15

Maine Policy Review

Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center

Maine Policy Review

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PUBLISHER MARGARET CHASE SMITH POLICY CENTER Jonathan Rubin, Director

EDITORIAL STAFF

Maine Policy Review (ISSN 1064-2587) publishes

EDITOR

independent, peer-reviewed analyses of public policy issues relevant to Maine.

Ann Acheson Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center

The journal is published two times per year by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine. The material published within does not necessarily reflect the views of the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center.

MANAGING EDITOR Barbara Harrity Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center

The majority of articles appearing in Maine Policy Review are written by Maine citizens, many of whom are readers of the journal. The journal encourages the submission of manuscripts concerning relevant public policy issues of the day or in response to articles already published in the journal. Prospective authors are urged to contact the journal at the address below for a copy of the guidelines for submission or see the journal’s Website, http://digitalcommons.library .umaine.edu/mpr/.

PRODUCTION Beth Goodnight Goodnight Design

DEVELOPMENT Eva McLaughlin Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center

COVER ILLUSTRATION Robert Shetterly

PRINTING Penmor Lithographics

For permission to quote and/or otherwise reproduce articles, please contact the journal at the address below.

Current and back issues of the journal are available at: digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr/ The editorial staff of Maine Policy Review welcome your views about issues presented in this journal.

Please address your letter to the editor to:

Maine Policy Review

5784 York Complex, Bldg. #4 University of Maine Orono, ME 04469-5784

207-581-1567 • fax: 207-581-1266 http://mcspolicycenter.umaine.edu mpr@maine.edu

The University of Maine does not discriminate on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, including transgender status and gender expression, national origin, citizenship status, age, disability, genetic information or veteran’s status in employment, education, and all other programs and activities. The following person has been designated to handle inquires regarding nondiscrimination policies: Director, Office of Equal Opportunity, 101 North Stevens Hall, 207-581-1226.

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THANKS TO… Major Sponsor

Margaret Chase Smith Foundation Benefactor

Maine Community Foundation

Contributors

John and Carol Gregory Merton G. Henry Samuel A. Ladd III and Nancy E. Ladd

H. Paul McGuire

Peter Mills

Mark R. Shibles And anonymous Contributors

Hon. Peter Bowman David Hart

Elizabeth Ward Saxl and Michael Saxl

David Vail And anonymous Friends

Friends

Volume Twenty-five of Maine Policy Review is funded, in part, by the supporters listed above. Tax-deductible contributions to the journal can be directed to the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at: 5784 York Complex, Bldg. 4, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469-5784.

Donations by credit card may be made through our secure website at digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mpr and clicking on “Donate.”

Information regarding corporate, foundation or individual support is available by contacting the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center.

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Contents

F E AT U R E S Moving up the Waste Hierarchy in Maine: Learning from “Best Practice” State-Level Policy for Waste Reduction and Recovery

by Cindy Isenhour, Travis Blackmer, Travis Wagner, Linda Silka, John Peckenham, David Hart, and Jean MacRae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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COMMENTARY

TO OUR READERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 THE MARGARET CHASE SMITH ESSAY

Creating Sustainable, Cost-Effective, and Equitable Waste-Management Programs in Maine Communities

By Luisa S. Deprez and Ron Deprez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Patterns of Drug-induced Mortality in Maine, 2015 Update

High School Essay Contest 2015 WinnersFirst Place Essay

by Marcella H. Sorg, Margaret Greenwald, and Jamie A. Wren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In the Heart of Immigration Debate—Mercy is Sorely Missed

by Diana Tyutyunnyk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Second Place Essay

The Role of Immigrants, Asylum Seekers, and Refugees in Confronting Maine’s Demographic Challenges

by Robert W. Glover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Reforming the United States Immigration Policy

by Rachel Kocik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Third Place Essay

by Taylor Plourde . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

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The Proposed Park in Maine’s North Woods: Preferences of Out-of-State Visitors

by Ryunosuke Matsuura, Sahan T. M. Dissanayake, and Andrew Meyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Xenophobia and Amnesty

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Impact Investing and Community Development

by Ron Phillips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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COMMENTARY

Climate Policy 2015: Reports from the Congressional Trenches

by Sharon Tisher and Peter Mills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Dear Readers,

inded again of the trite spring day, and I’m rem y nn su l, ue tifu au be a is be.” Articles in this iss As I write this, it e, the way life should ain “M n— ga the slo g be tin is to (but often true) marke ve a ways to go if life ind us that we still ha rem ew vi some of the Re kle y tac lic rs Po of Maine rations. Autho ne ge e ur fut in d an w m. of us, no licymakers to resolve the way it should be for all d suggest ways for po an te nt sta me the ge na ing fac ma s of waste thorniest problem thors take up the topic au co r he d for an r ide ou gu nh a tes as Lead author Cindy Ise actice” from other sta e overview of “best pr siv en reh mp and Luisa Deprez co n a Ro . ide and prov ded) problem en int un (p s” ou ain nt s. s “mou lar on equity concern Maine in addressing thi ic, focusing in particu top e sam the on y tar give us a commen s in the top prize-winning essay ee thr the es tur fea say ith Es s; the topic for 2015 The Margaret Chase Sm for high school senior est nt co al nu an y’s rar tes and Maine.

Margaret Chase Lib in both the United Sta ue iss lt cu diffi er oth an suggests that was immigration, yet tion in his article. He gra mi im th wi ed ern conc kers, and Robert Glover is also immigrants, asylum see for n tio na sti de ng mi re welco making the state a mo phic decline. erse the state’s demogra rev lp refugees might he ren provide an eenwald, and Jamie W Gr t are arg M rg, So a see arcell the state continues to On a somber note, M rns of drug overdoses; tte pa the the in s m nd fro s tre ath of nce of de updated analysis t there is also a resurge bu s, cal uti states ace ee arm thr ph g the top deaths due to opioid tanyl. Maine is amon fen cal uti ace arm t ph ho ner d no s. Anoth illicit drugs heroin an ated to these illicit drug rel s ath de ose erd ov se in e article by in the percentage increa oods national park. Th W rth No a lish ab est a proposal to eyer presents results of topic in Maine is the nayake, and Andrew M ssa Di .

M a T. th n bo ha Sa ing lish Ryunosuke Matsuura, found support for estab t-of-state visitors, which ou of th an overwi ces rs ren de efe rea s pr of ide survey Phillips prov n Ro a. are n tio rea rec tional t both share national park and a na nt entities, noting tha me op vel de ity un mm ing” and co issue concludes with a view of “impact invest ble communities. The ina sta su d an hy alt he ngressional action on the goal of creating d Peter Mills urging Co an er sh Ti n aro Sh by y — stemming bipartisan commentar nity—climate change ma hu ing fac lem ob pr cant resswoman perhaps the most signifi Angus King, and Cong tor na Se s, llin Co san Senator Su from interviews with ated initiatives. their 2015 climate-rel t ou ab e gre Pin ie ell Ch



Best,

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

My Creed . . .

is that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly.

It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honor is to be earned but not bought.

Margaret Chase Smith

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The Margaret Chase Smith Essay First Place Essay

In the Heart of Immigration Debate— Mercy is Sorely Missed

by Diana Tyutyunnyk Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. In this issue, we feature the three prize-winning essays as the Margaret Chase Smith Essay. The 2015 essay prompt asked students to weigh in with their opinions about what current U.S. immigration policy should be in light of the historical backdrop of alternating cycles of welcome and wariness toward foreigners. First place prize winner Diana Tyutyunnyk brings in her personal experiences as an immigrant from the Ukraine, raising the important question of mercy as America deals with the sometimes-divisive issues around immigration.

“Y

our tired, poor, huddled masses… yearning to breathe free...the wretched refuse”—these shrill adjectives describing foreigners landing on the shores of America in the late 1800s sound so damning, almost abhorrent and forbidding, until we hear the ensuing lulling, promising verbs of embrace and welcome from the Mother of Exiles: “Give me…Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, [for them] I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The American immigrant story is still full of the poetry encapsulated in Emma Lazarus’s sonnet: on the one hand, a divorce from native lands that strangle the exiles’ aspirations of peaceful and prosperous lives, and on the other hand, a marriage into a new, grand family in which strangers are welcomed to a feast of hope and opportunity. But the prose of real life often has a different, less-idealistic narrative.

The American immigrant ethos is not complete without the story of the hosts—the Native Americans who MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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embraced and nourished the first European vagrants and who thereafter almost vanished from their ancestral lands under the influx of ever-new arrivals and their industry. We cannot forget the hostages—Africans abducted from their native shores and sold into slavery primarily to work in the cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane fields that laid the economic backbone of the South. The succession of immigrant waves upon American shores continued: the poor and hungry Irish immigrants fleeing the famine, who often found scorn, insult, and more poverty among their new Anglo-Saxon neighbors in Boston and other East Coast port cities. Chinese immigrants who built railroads and worked mines under the most trying conditions in the American West, Polish coal miners of Pennsylvania, Italian stonecutters of New York City, Scandinavian farmers of the Midwest, Mexican and Central American agricultural migrant laborers, and Vietnamese shrimp fishermen—all these, along with millions of

other dreamers, wove their cultural fibers into our country’s rich canvas. Each group sprinkled their ethnic spice over our national chop suey; they contributed their character to our “melting pot.”

As a first-generation American immigrant, I am well aware of the leap of faith associated with the decision to emigrate. Although I was only seven months old when I traveled across the ocean on my mother’s lap, I have witnessed my Ukrainian parents’ affirmations of joy, enthusiasm, and loyalty to our new country on an almost daily basis. It’s the American flags that adorn our house, my dad’s fascination with the Founding Fathers, my mom’s industry and her rewards as the family’s only breadwinner, the Fourth of July barbecues and potlucks with friends and neighbors who welcomed us as their peers. On the other hand, our family’s native roots are bearing fruit that are uniquely Ukrainian: cooking borsch and varennyky—culinary toils of love; wearing Ukrainian embroidered shirts on the Orthodox Easter day—a show of beautiful style; rooting for Dynamo Kiev soccer club—an act of solidarity with the city we all came from; and my grandparents’ dogged fight against Maine’s forbiddingly short growing season and heavy clay soils, yet they find a way to grow the most beautiful tomatoes and eggplants—just like those grown on the Ukrainian lusciously fertile steppes.

Our family’s gratitude to America has taught me citizenship that is based on the knowledge of differences between here and there, between free and fear, between plenty and scarce, between peace and war. I have responded to my deeply held trust in America’s promises through community service, scholastic achievements, and my ever-growing understanding of U.S. history. My participation in the American immigration conversation stems from, and is influenced by, my family’s background.

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American immigration is the story of two paths—both arduous and fraught with multiple potholes, each path offering, to different degrees, a safe haven for dreamers of lives in a prosperous and free country. The legal vs undocumented immigration divide continues to tear at the national conscience in the heart of American soul: human rights vs legal stricture. It pleads for a resolution: are we wholeheartedly a country of immigrants, or are we strict adherents to wavering politics (dependent upon the political party in power at any given moment) and local interpretations of immigration laws? Can we be both?

What is the current immigration quota for legal immigration into the American Dream? The numbers are 226,000 family-based, 140,000 employment-based, and 55,000 diversity-based visas; plus 90,000 refugee, and 10,000 special immigrant visas; with a total limit of up to 675,000 green cards allocated by Congress annually. This number for yearly entry into a total U.S. population of 319 million is just 0.2 percent of the entire population. The huge demand for a piece of American pie vastly outpaces the supply.

The heated debate of how we deal with the current 11 million undocumented immigrants living in America is at a full burn. There is a merciful side to the debate: President Obama’s executive order, presently halted by a challenge in the courts, invites an expanding group of immigrants to apply for a temporary delay of the possibility of deportation (DAPA), thus allowing a temporary halt of the division of families in which some members are citizens and others are undocumented. DAPA is an expansion of an existing two-year-old delayed-action program for young adults as undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children (DACA) and who have no memories of their countries of origin.

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Although they appear scheming to many, most of the 11 million undocumented immigrants who arrived in America without invitation, or who overstayed their visas, did so because of pressing economic desperation or personal safety reasons in their native countries—just like the ancestors of most of the U.S. population living today.

Yes, they broke the rules when they eloped with the country they loved and believed in. Unbearable pressures at home and the prospect of fulfilling America’s unmet demands for low-paying workers enticed many to leap to safety and freedom in a desperate act of legal self-abasement.

Is this the first time America has faced moral and legal dilemmas of inclusion and banishment? Many merciful conductors chose contributing roles in slavery’s Underground Railroad, and during the whole decade of the 1980s, the sanctuary movement, initiated by religious congregations and lawyers all across America, provided sanctuary to Central American refugees, eventually winning legal change that allowed the refugees to apply for permanent residence. Americans are again called to judgment of immigrants already living in our midst.

I believe we dishonor our country’s unique heritage unless we presume and believe that all human beings who want to call America their home are capable of becoming assets, rather than liabilities, by living on the fruits of their labor, rather than on the dole, by sailing for achievement, rather than anchoring (with “anchor babies”) for the mere pittance of someone’s charity. The entire story of America is the story of successive waves of immigrant contributions.

Today, immigrant labor enables middleclass Americans to buy a roasted chicken and prewashed salad at the supermarket or to check a box and have their holiday presents arrive at their door already gift

wrapped. Upper-income Americans live easier and more efficient lives thanks to millions of low-paid immigrant workers they never see and whose names they never know. Immigration even prods less-affluent natives from immigrant-dominated economic niches to find new work that pays better (Isbister 1996). According to the Center for American Progress, legalizing the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States would add a cumulative $1.5 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product—the largest measure of economic growth—over 10 years (https://www.americanprogress.org).

How can America better deal with expanded legalization of immigration?

Beyond these economic benefits of immigrant labor as the backbone of today’s American lifestyle and labor-supported economy, the simple fact that so many employers seek immigrant labor demands that the United States takes a different approach to immigration policies. By giving individual states the power to select immigrants according to local economic demand (similar to what is done in Canada), and having the federal government admit them into the country based on the states’ needs, the burden of supporting an immigrant population is disbursed beyond today’s immigrant pockets. Local communities, Rotary Clubs, and chambers of commerce are best equipped to decide on the needs of their economies.

Employment-based quotas must expand to accommodate economic growth. The federal government will have the last, but lenient, word in the admission process. But the American legal tradition must never forget its roots in the Mosaic Biblical laws—the basis of which is mercy. There is always room for compassion in enacting law.

I have been intently immersed in the U.S. immigration discourse since I was startled to learn, at age 12, that I am 8

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not an American. I am officially an undocumented immigrant of 17 years, and now a DACA recipient. On one fateful autumn night in 2009, my father revealed to me that I couldn’t go on a French class trip to Québec because I was a nelehal (an illegal in Ukrainian). I had always been cognizant of my foreign origins. Since early childhood, I held dear the story of my flight to America over the vast blue Atlantic. My Ukrainian parents’ vivid descriptions of the trip are etched in my conscience as if it was I, at seven months of age, who spotted those “polar bears nodding hello” to our plane as we flew over Greenland or spotted the lighted torch of Lady Liberty as we descended into New York City. Previous to the night I learned the word nelehal, I had always held my American presence at its face value: the poetry of liberty, opportunity, and equality in the face of law.

As an undocumented immigrant, I appreciate my America, loving her as both a native and an outsider. It is the mercy, compassion, and inclusion of my fellow Americans that has made the United States my home, the only one I have ever known. It is the occasional lack of those virtues directed at my brothersand sisters-in-grief that causes me to feel the pain of exclusion. Congressman Steve King, a self-proclaimed conservative, refers to immigrants as “a slow-motion terrorist attack on the United States.”

Mr. King verbally profiled, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the majority of undocumented kids with these words: “For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another hundred out there who weigh a hundred and thirty pounds— and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling seventy-five pounds of marijuana across the desert.” Yes, I am in the top 10 percent of my class, a recipient of a Dream.US Scholarship, and have been admitted to a top private U.S. college MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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that is offering mercy for my circumstances, and providing me hope for eventual full citizenship. But, no! My calves are toned from hours on the soccer field that led to being named the MVP of Eastern Maine’s all-league high school soccer invitational. How should I respond to such merciless slander of my fellow Dreamers?

I’d rather recall Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s bold stance as a freshman senator during another generation’s infamous bigotry and defamation against “un-Americans” who were perceived to be threats during the McCarthy hearings of the early 1950s. Maine’s senator singly and courageously called Americans to a higher justice in her “Declaration of Conscience,” rejecting the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear.”

America is once more called to a new Declaration of Conscience.

Leviticus still urges “the stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you….” America, I personally beg for your mercy, as one worthy representative of 11 million other undocumented residents. Allow me to be at home in the only home I have ever known. -

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First place winner, Diana

Tyutyunnyk of Orono High School, was born in the Ukraine and thus, had some interesting insight into the topic of this essay contest, immigration policy. She has been an active player on the high school soccer, ski, and track teams and her educational interests focus on biology and math. She is attending Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.

REFERENCES Isbister, John. 1996. “Are Immigration Controls Ethical?” Social Justice 23(3): 54–67.

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Second Place Essay

Reforming the United States Immigration Policy

by Rachel Kocik Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. In this issue, we feature the three prize-winning essays as the Margaret Chase Smith Essay. The 2015 essay prompt asked students to weigh in with their opinions about what current U.S. immigration policy should be in light of the historical backdrop of alternating cycles of welcome and wariness toward foreigners. Second place prize winner Rachel Kocik discusses some of the many benefits immigrants bring to the United States, while acknowledging that there are still some knotty legal problems that need to be resolved.

“W

e didn’t raise the Statue of Liberty with her back to the world, we did it with her light shining as a beacon to the world. And whether we were Irish or Italians or Germans crossing the Atlantic, or Japanese or Chinese crossing the Pacific; whether we crossed the Rio Grande or flew here from all over the world—generations of immigrants have made this country into what it is. It’s what makes us special.” President Obama spoke these words at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was speaking about immigration, an issue about which most Americans have strong feelings. Whether one is for or against immigration, there can be no argument—the United States needs immigration reform. In 2012, 40.7 million immigrants made up 13 percent of the U.S. population, with 11.3 million of these considered unauthorized immigrants (CAP 2014). This staggering number of immigrants shows the need for change. To reform immigration in the United States, the stigma surrounding immigrants needs to be eliminated and MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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the process of becoming a legal American citizen needs to be more attainable.

Immigrants, not just unauthorized ones, face stereotyping and prejudice on a daily basis. They are accused of stealing jobs, avoiding taxes, and causing economic strain. They are called derogatory terms, such as “alien,” considered heinous criminals, and discriminated against simply because they are immigrants. Most of these accusations, however, are unsubstantiated and wrong.

Immigrants contribute to the economy and allow it to grow. The U.S. economy is based on growth; if the economy is not growing at the proper rate, then the nation as a whole suffers. Our economy is driven by the circulation of money and goods throughout it, which comes in the form of consumers making money from jobs. Therefore, as our economy continues to grow and jobs are created, our population must also increase.

According to an episode of the PBS television show NOVA (“The Impact of Aging”), Japan and Italy are facing severe

economic peril due to a shrinking, aging population and low birth rates. With fewer people to spend money as consumers and fewer young people to care for the aging population and fill jobs, both countries have begun to see their economies shrink. A shrinking economy is not a healthy economy, and in the future this will likely lead to more severe fiscal problems than have already been seen. Coupling fiscal and economic problems with the inevitable social strife that will result, a shrinking population is certainly not healthy or beneficial for anyone. Immigrants coming into the United States help our economy to maintain its growth. If more Americans were educated and aware of this fact, perhaps their views on immigrants stealing jobs and damaging the economy would be dispelled and the stigma would dissolve.

Unauthorized immigrants are also blamed for evading taxes. Some feel that immigrants do not pay taxes, yet still receive services that taxes provide such as a public education. This is largely untrue.

For example, in 2010 undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $10.6 billion dollars in taxes, including income, property, and sales taxes, while many are denied certain social services (CAP 2014). These facts render the belief that illegal immigrants are hindrances who have come to the United States for food stamps and handouts simply untrue.

Native-born Americans need to be educated on the realities of immigration in the United States. A simple factual analysis would shed light on a largely unknown aspect of the United States and would no doubt reduce the prejudice that immigrants, whether they are legal or not, face on a regular basis.

If discrimination surrounding immigrants were removed and native-born Americans were more accepting of them, then obtaining citizenship could be made easier and more accessible to immigrants.

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authorizes an immigrant to live and work in the United States, is currently very hard. According to a report on ABC News (July 3, 2014), becoming an American citizen can be expensive, as immigration lawyers’ fees typically range from $5,000 to $15,000. The process is lengthy too, with some people waiting several years before they receive an answer.

Immigrants also find that it is difficult to track their citizenship status once they have applied. The uncertainty, in addition to the expense and time, could make it a disheartening process.

A more straightforward immigration process would help encourage lawful immigration, which would also lead to more immigrants. The United States would likely have to raise the current cap of 675,000 legal immigrants per year to a higher number (AIC 2014). Considering the number of illegal immigrants already in the United States, if obtaining citizenship was easier, fewer illegal immigrants and more legal ones would enter the country. By making more citizens legal, we would see a favorable outcome for our economy. Wages would increase overall.

Illegal immigrants, who would no longer hold that status, would be paid at least minimum wage for their work, which would likely bolster wages across the nation (CAP 2014). An increase of wages would lead to more money being circulated through the economy. Increased spending and consumption drives our economy and would be beneficial. More immigrants would also be able to pay taxes and pay for social security and help decrease the deficit (CAP 2014).

Expanding the number of legal immigrants would result in positive economic growth and more government services.

However, this still does not resolve the problems of millions of undocumented immigrants still in the United States, who cannot apply for a green card for fear of being deported. These immigrants will not return to their MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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native countries on their own, and they will not turn themselves in for being in the United States illegally. There are limited ways to resolve this problem; the two most obvious are to make all of the unauthorized immigrants citizens or to find and deport all of the illegal immigrants. I believe that a compromise could be reached. Law-abiding, contributing members of society, even if they are in the country illegally, should be able to secure citizenship. That way they will be able to pay taxes, receive benefits, and live and work in a safe environment.

Criminals, on the other hand, should not be afforded citizenship. People convicted of a serious crime—in the United States or in their own country— should be deported. In this way, legal immigrants would almost exclusively be productive members of society, and crime rates would be lowered.

Despite these favorable results, some argue that allowing more immigrants would simply encourage more undesirable people to legally enter the United States and would let those who illegally entered the United States get off scot-free. However, not only is it unrealistic to think that millions of illegal immigrants could be deported, but most of these men and women have come to the United States with good intentions.

Incarcerating them would be a waste of money and would contribute to the already broken and overcrowded U.S. prison system (OSF 2013). In addition, the enormity of the task of finding these immigrants makes it nearly impossible.

Tens of thousands of hours would need to be devoted to this job, and there are simply better uses of time and money.

Reform needs to come to the current United States immigration policy to remove the stigma and stereotypes surrounding immigrants and to allow a greater number of immigrants to more easily obtain lawful citizenship.

Understanding that immigrants—even

illegal ones—help the United States is the first step to reform. This needs to be followed by an overhaul of the green card and citizenship process to make it cheaper, more efficient, and more attainable; then, the United States would have a successful, positive immigration policy.

It still has a long way to go, but I am confident that with education, compassion, and reform, the United States will afford all immigrants the opportunity to fulfill their own American Dreams. REFERENCES American Immigration Council (AIC).

2014. How the United States Immigration System Works: A Fact Sheet. Immigration Policy Center, AIC, Washington, DC. http://www.immigrationpolicy.org /sites/default/files/docs/how_us _immig_system_works.pdf Center for American Progress Immigration Team (CAP). 2014. The Facts on Immigration Today. CAP, Washington, DC. https://cdn.americanprogress .org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04 /ImmigrationFacts-brief-10.23.pdf Open Society Foundations (OSF). 2013.

Why Does the U.S. Need Immigration Reform?” OSF, New York. http://www.opensocietyfoundations .org/explainers/why-does-us-need -immigration-reform

Rachel Kocik of Hampden Academy was the second place winner. She is attending the University of Pittsburgh where she plans to major in bio-engineering. In high school, she was on the math team, played ice hockey, was a writing tutor, and was instrumental in establishing JCL, Junior Classical League, to encourage interest in the language, literature, and culture of ancient Greece and Rome.

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Third Place Essay

Xenophobia and Amnesty

by Taylor Plourde Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. In this issue, we feature the three prize-winning essays as the Margaret Chase Smith Essay. The 2015 essay prompt asked students to weigh in with their opinions about what current U.S. immigration policy should be in light of the historical backdrop of alternating cycles of welcome and wariness toward foreigners. In the third place prize-winning essay, Taylor Plourde describes the pattern of xenophobia that has often permeated American attitudes about immigrants. She discusses some of the ways forward to dealing with the current situation of immigrants who have come illegally into the country.

T

he streets are lined with the fruits of their labor. The city is built upon foundations that they produced. The nation didn’t want them here. They are immigrants—the Lucas family to be more specific. The Lucases fled their homeland, Ireland, during the Great Potato Famine in the late 1800s and traveled across the Atlantic to America.

Their welcome wasn’t exactly warm: they were treated as pariah. Hardly anyone would associate with them, that is, other than fellow Irish immigrants. The family struggled for a while, traveling farther and farther north in the hope of finding somewhere they were welcomed.

Eventually the family found their niche: Portland, Maine. They opened up their successful brick company there, and truly started their new life. Before the Lucases knew it, their bricks were everywhere and used all over Portland, from the streets to the houses. They were lucky to find a place where they could succeed and escape the dark cloud of hate immigrants are subjected to when migrating MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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to America. Other immigrants haven’t been as lucky as my family was. Others have had to fight tooth-and-nail to get where they wanted to be, and even then sometimes it took generations.

Often America is labeled the “melting pot,” but a closer look reveals that it takes many years, laws, and generations for the melting to take place.

Historically, immigrants were rarely welcomed with open arms, if they were welcomed into the nation at all. Laws were passed in the 1880s and 1920s to prevent immigration, which were the first “major step[s] toward a closed society” (Hirschman 2014: 73) Over the past century, there have been a plethora of illegal immigrants coming to America, mainly Latino, seeking an opportunity for a better life. These new immigrants face some of the same hurdles that immigrants of the past had, the most prominent being the xenophobia that has always engulfed the nation.

In the past, America made an effort to restrict immigration in an attempt to

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ease the public’s fears that new immigrants would take jobs from and lower wages for American citizens. In most cases, however, immigrants take the lower-level jobs, which gives Americans the opportunity to achieve a higher-level occupation and the opportunity for a higher wage (Hirschman 2014).

However, these fears are not at the root of the xenophobia; it is the fear of the unknown that all other xenophobic fears spawn from. American citizens project this fear onto immigrants through discrimination and racial hatred.

There are many Americans, like the man depicted in Figure 1, who lash out against immigrants and politicians who support amnesty because “America [is] for Americans,” as the man’s shirt says. This image is a wake-up call for all Americans who are anti-immigration; it draws a parallel between the picketing nationalists and the Klu Klux Klan. This image overemphasizes the connection between the two groups so the purpose becomes clear: Americans are acting out of fear by opposing immigration as a whole, which metastasizes into racial hatred. This fear lurks in Americans and prevents them from seeing that immigrants actually provide a variety of economic benefits to the nation such as helping “relieve the per-capita fiscal burden of native born for the national debt, national security, and public goods” (Hirschman 2014: 75).

They aren’t a threat.

Even if we were to ignore xenophobia as a variable in Americans’ uneasiness toward immigrants and immigration reform in general, there still is the issue of what to do about the nation’s immigration policy. Recently America’s immigration policy has been brought back into the hot-seat due to President Barack Obama’s controversial executive order in November 2014. The order is a call of amnesty for a large percentage of the current illegal immigrants residing in the United States. President Obama’s order 12

THE MARGARET CHASE SMITH ESSAY

FIGURE 1: Immigration and Racism

Source: John Cole. Immigration and Racism. Daryl Cagle’s Political Cartoons 2007, https://www.politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/95d0ead8-95b1-4038-89b0-2e8d75f58a33.html

has ignited a whirlwind of immigration reform and incited two key topics that the reform must address: what is to be done about all of the illegal immigrants already in the country, and what can we do to prevent future immigrants from arriving illegally?

The first topic has inspired many debates among amnesty supporters and deportation supporters. One potential conclusion always seems to make an appearance: “If we aren’t going to let them stay, then that only leaves us with one other option, make them leave.”

However, from a purely logical perspective, deportation is not really an option for the country. If the government deported millions of immigrants, some of citizens would support of the action, but others would oppose displacing thousands of families and community members, which would hurt the reelection chances of politicians who supported the deportation. Even if the action to MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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deport all illegal immigrants over a designated period of time was approved and supported by the public, “it would take more than 30 years to deport all 11.3 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States” at a rate of nearly 400,000 immigrants a year (Washington Post, November 20, 2014). Not only is it illogical to deport all the illegal immigrants, but it’s also impractical. Instead of wasting time, money, and resources on sending people back, we should grant amnesty to the majority of the illegal immigrants.

However, I’m not saying that we should just hand out amnesty to those who went out of their way to break federal law; amnesty should be contingent on a few requirements.

Amnesty is a touchy subject in America. Some Americans agree with Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, when he argues that amnesty “rewards

liars and scofflaws,” and “mocks those who obeyed the law” (Krikorian 2014: 31). I and many other Americans find validity in Krikorian’s statements, but still support amnesty. Krikorian does make a good point though: giving those who broke the law what they wanted is only rewarding bad behavior, which is why I believe that we need requirements for those seeking amnesty. Amnesty seekers must meet at least two requirements: they have resided in America for a determined time period and show evidence of an established life.

As a nation established on the principle that all people have an unalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” it is our duty to grant immigrants who are able to prove they have established lives for themselves in America amnesty and remove the constant fear of deportation. President Obama’s 2014 executive order grants a legal reprieve to parents of American citizens and parents of “permanent residents who’ve resided in the country for at least five years,” (Washington Post, November 20, 2014), which offers a reasonable time period of residency: five years. To prove an established life, undocumented immigrants would need to provide evidence of a place of residence, a stable occupation, and a plan for the future. By meeting these requirements, they would prove to the nation that they have the drive and desire to build a better life, one that would benefit the nation’s economy and culture.

Illegal immigration is like a cracked wall, however, and we need to develop a patch to fix the crack. To establish such lenient restrictions on amnesty, we would need to develop a “zero-tolerance strategy along the entire border” (Krikorian 2014: 30), which would be our patch for the crack. Zero tolerance means that it is a criminal offense to cross the border without legal documentation or to overstay a visa (Krikorian 13

THE MARGARET CHASE SMITH ESSAY

2014). Additionally, by preventing illegal immigration, we are thereby lowering the level of immigration in general, which, according to Krikorian (2014: 32), will “ease pressure on welfare and the health and education systems and promote assimilation.”

This system of cleanup and prevention would reduce the amount of illegal immigrants in the future, while not uprooting the lives of those who have found their homes here in America.

However, this system can’t and won’t be put in place until Americans come to terms with the source of their xenophobia: fear of the unknown. It won’t be easy for Americans to break away from what has been reinforced over and over throughout the nation’s history, but it is the only way to move toward an effective reform on immigration: one that is fair and just. REFERENCES Hirschman, Charles. 2014. “Immigration to the United States: Recent Trends and Future Prospects.” Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies 51(1): 69–85.

Krikorian, Mark. 2014. “Enforcement, Then Amnesty.” National Review 66(2): 29–32.

Taylor Plourde of Lisbon High School won the third place prize.

She is attending Roberts Wesleyan College in New York, majoring in communications with a focus on journalism. While at Lisbon High, she was on the yearbook committee, played softball, and helped create the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. She is also involved as a volunteer in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program.

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MOVING UP THE WASTE HIERARCHY IN MAINE

Moving up the Waste Hierarchy in Maine: Learning from “Best Practice” State-Level Policy for Waste Reduction and Recovery

by Cindy Isenhour, Travis Blackmer, Travis Wagner, Linda Silka, John Peckenham, David Hart, and Jean MacRae Americans throw away huge amounts of trash each year, and despite efforts to recover more materials from the waste stream, U.S. recycling rates have stagnated and total waste generation continues to grow. This article builds upon a stakeholder engagement process that was designed to explore the waste-management challenges Maine faces. The authors review the policies enacted in other states and point out unfulfilled potential to take more significant steps toward Maine’s long-term materials-management goals.

INTRODUCTION

A

mericans threw away 251 million tons of trash in 2012, three million more than the year before. And despite efforts to recover more materials from the waste stream, recycling rates in the United States have stagnated, and total waste generation continues to grow (U.S. EPA 2015a). Meanwhile, valuable materials are burned and buried, placing a burden on our economy, the environment, and future generations. Each year in the United States, for example, we invest significant resources (e.g., water, land, fuel, nutrients, labor) in the production of food, but the average American household throws away more than a quarter of the food it purchases each year, resulting in a collective loss of $125 billion annually.

As a society, we spend another $733 million each year to landfill this wasted food (Buzby and Hyman 2012) and once buried, food waste produces leachate and the powerful greenhouse gas methane, both of which pose significant long-term economic and environmental costs.

This linear system of production-consumption-disposal is increasingly recognized as highly inefficient and unsustainable, leading many to adopt an alternative philosophy centered on materials, rather than waste management. Materials management focuses attention on reducing waste throughout the production-consumption system rather than continuing, without much success, to address the symptoms of a systemic problem

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with a limited focus on waste handling and disposal at the end of the product life cycle.

In Maine, the materials-management perspective was adopted in 1989 when the state instituted a waste-management hierarchy that prioritizes source reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting above disposal. This framework legislation along with relatively low per capita waste-generation rates and progressive product stewardship legislation helped Maine to gain a reputation as a national leader in materials management (Blackmer et al. 2015).

Yet despite past achievements, Maine is facing several significant challenges and is slipping behind other states that continue to make improvements toward waste-reduction and -recovery goals. Maine’s goal to recycle or compost 50 percent of municipal solid waste tonnage by 2014 went unfulfilled. Similarly our goal to reduce total waste generation by 5 percent every two years starting in 2009 has also gone unmet. To make matters worse, there is significant uncertainty surrounding the future of materials management due to the dismantling of the State Planning Office, which provided data and coordinated planning, and due to the upcoming expiration of favorable energy rates for waste to energy.

This article builds upon an extensive stakeholder engagement process organized by the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions at the University of Maine. The process was designed to

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Figure 1:

Materials Recovery at EcoMaine

Photo: Travis Blackmer

collaboratively explore these challenges, visions for the future, and strategies to achieve the state’s waste-reduction and -recovery goals. Nearly 200 stakeholders including representatives from private waste-management companies, local governments and state agencies have participated in this process, which included one statewide meeting, five regional planning meetings, an electronic survey, and the formation of four ongoing working groups. The results of these meetings (Isenhour and Blackmer 2015) and surveys (Blackmer and Isenhour unpublished) reflect a strong and nearly unanimous consensus that we should be moving toward a future with less waste and greater rates of recovery.

Movement toward that vision, stakeholders agreed, would require many needs and barriers to be addressed.

Several stakeholders, including state legislators serving on the Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) Committee, identified an immediate need for information about “best practice” policies for waste reduction and recovery in other states.

The report, originally submitted to the ENR Committee in November of 2015, is an attempt to respond to stakeholder-identified needs by providing a review of waste-reduction and -recovery policies enacted in other states. Several policies outlined in the report and discussed in this article were considered by the committee as they designed and debated LD1578—An Act to Update Maine’s Solid Waste Management Laws.

If successful, that legislation would create a new product stewardship program for small batteries; establish a food-waste hierarchy; extend the timeline for the achievement of recovery goals; shift waste-reduction goals to per capita measures; establish funding for recovery grant programs; provide authority for the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to impose municipal fees for solid waste disposal; and direct the DEP to implement pilot projects for composting food scraps. These programs would most certainly contribute to improved waste reduction and recovery in Maine, but this review also suggests there is unfulfilled potential to take more significant steps toward Maine’s long-term materials-management goals.

In focusing “up the hierarchy,” this review of best-practice state-level policies for waste reduction and recovery by no means suggests that waste-handling technologies, processing methods, and disposal practices are unimportant parts of the materials-management puzzle.

They are certainly essential, but they are not our focus here. We also recognize that the term best practice is

highly subjective and could be defined in a many different ways. All the policy options included here involve a series of complex tradeoffs. Some are popular and politically viable, but have limited potential for waste reduction and recovery. Others are extremely effective for waste diversion, but require significant investments of political capital, technological expertise, planning, and capital. Table 1 draws upon our reading of the existing empirical research and the results of an electronic survey completed by 175 key stakeholders in the fall of 2015. The table includes only a handful of the criteria that might be used to weigh policy options, including cost, political acceptability, and waste-reduction/diversion potential. Other important criteria not included range from potential for greenhouse gas mitigation to dimensions of social equity.

The organization of this article follows the logic of the waste hierarchy, beginning with comprehensive policy and then proceeding with reduction, reuse, and recovery. It thus defines best practice in terms of waste reduction, diversion, and recovery potential. Within each section, policy options are listed in order of waste reduction and recovery potential and include supplyside, demand-side, and regulatory efforts designed to address both. Again, we emphasize that there are multiple criteria to consider when implementing any of these policies. Reduction and recovery potential are important, but often must be balanced with cost and social acceptability. This study of policy in other states suggests that there is no magic formula for reducing waste and improving recovery.

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MOVING UP THE WASTE HIERARCHY IN MAINE Table 1:

Multiple Criteria for Evaluating State-Level Waste-Reduction and -Recovery Policy Acceptability

Effectiveness

Cost in Time

Cost in $

Responsibility

State Time

State $

Top priority

High

High

High

State

High

High

High

Mixed

Low

Low

State

Low

Low

Top need

High

High

Low

State, towns

High

Varies

Consumer education

Top priority

Low

High

Varies

State, towns, NGOs

High

Varies

Consumer dis/incentives (e.g. PAYT, EOW)

Mixed

High

Low

Altered

Citizens

Low

None

Environmentally preferred purchasing (e.g., buying cooperatives, tax deductions)

Uncertain

Mixed

High

Low

State

High

Low

Alternative business models (e.g., industrial symbiosis)

Uncertain

Mixed

Low

High

Towns, regions, business

Low

Low

Product stewardship and extended producer responsibility

Uncertain

High

High

Varies

State, producers

High

Varies

Low

High

Low

High

Citizens, producers

Low

Revenue

Top priority

Low

High

Varies

State, towns, NGOs

High

Varies

Facilitate and support alternative exchange models (materials exchange)

High

Mixed

High

Low

State, regions

High

Low

Incentives for reuse

High

Unknown

Low

High

State, regions, towns

Low

Varies

Low

None

General Policies Comprehensive planning Reduction and recovery goals Data-based decision making and full accounting Reduction Policies

Product fees and sales bans Reuse Policies Consumer education

Mandatory reuse (e.g., CA green building code)

Low

High

Low

High

Citizens, state, businesses

Top priority

Low

High

High

State, NGOs

High

Varies

Improved convenience/ coverage of collection

High

High

Low

High

Towns, businesses

Low

None

Support regional cooperation/market development

High

Mixed

High

High

State, regions

High

High

Incentives (e.g., container deposit laws, unit-based pricing, surcharges)

Mixed

High

High

High

State, citizens, businesses, towns

High

High

Mandatory source separation/collection

Low

Mixed

Low

High

Citizens, towns, businesses

Low

None

Landfill bans

Low

High

Low

High

Citizens, towns, businesses

Low

None

Recovery Policies Education

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MOVING UP THE WASTE HIERARCHY IN MAINE

COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING AND DATA-DRIVEN DECISION SUPPORT

P

erhaps the single most important finding to emerge from this review of materials-management policies and outcomes is the importance of comprehensive planning. Effective legislative framing and comprehensive long-term planning typically include a wide variety of policy tools (bans, incentives, and voluntary programs) enacted on multiple scales (national, regional, and local), and aimed at multiple sectors (residential, commercial, and institutional) and waste categories (toxics, beverage containers, organics) (Cox et al. 2010).

Here in the United States, several states including Oregon and Vermont have embarked on comprehensive planning for framework legislation. Oregon is one of the most successful examples. In 1991, the state set a goal of a 50 percent recovery rate by 2009 and established requirements for an annual survey to track progress. The legislature also set two interim goals. The first aimed to stabilize per capita waste generation by 2005, with no annual increases in per capita waste generation after that year. The second target aimed to stabilize total waste generation, with no annual increase after 2009.

The most recent data suggest that Oregon’s comprehensive planning has resulted in significant progress toward achieving its goals. In 2013, the state recovered nearly 54 percent of municipal postconsumer waste generated in the state, marking the fourth straight year the state exceeded its 50 percent recovery goal. The state calculates that recovery efforts saved 30.6 trillion BTUs of energy during 2013 alone.

This is equivalent to roughly 3.4 percent of the total energy used in the state that year and translates into avoided greenhouse gas emissions of 3 million megatons of CO2 equivalent. Oregon has also made considerable progress on its reduction goals. In 2013, total waste was 16 percent lower (almost 1 million tons less waste) than it was at its peak in 2006, and per capita waste generation was down by more than 20 percent (Oregon DEQ 2014).

While many states have set similar goals, Oregon attributes its success, in part, to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s use of advanced metrics and life-cycle analyses to explore the tradeoffs between multiple options and to track progress. Policy evaluations are all too often based on economic costs alone and even then are often limited to short-term waste-handling

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and operations costs. Yet communities that contract for groundwater and methane-emissions testing, for example, routinely pay up to $40,000 annually, a cost that will continue long after landfill closure—a minimum of 30 years (Nowakowski 2010). Making the best decisions for sustainable materials management requires carefully weighing these various costs and benefits over the whole product life cycle. Good data and full cost accounting provide (1) insight into the most costand resource-efficient strategies, allowing for targeted plans with the greatest potential to deliver high return on investment; (2) a means to ensure that prices internalize environmental and long-term costs; and (3) an important means to track progress toward comprehensive goals.

If the necessary resources are not in place to implement full cost accounting and comprehensive planning and legislation for waste and materials management, waste-management hierarchies suggest that policy should focus first on waste reduction.

REDUCE: WASTE PREVENTION

O

ver the last decade, states across the country have expanded their recovery efforts, investing in infrastructure and processing more recyclables each year.

Despite such efforts, recovery rates have failed to keep pace with growth in waste generation, resulting in a net increase in total waste (U.S. EPA 2015a). These trends draw attention to the need to focus on waste reduction.

Whether measuring materials and energy use, handling costs, or the production of carcinogens and greenhouse gas emissions—the life cycle benefits of source reduction far outweigh other management options.

For example, while composting uses the nutrients and energy in food waste much more effectively than incineration or landfilling, the benefits still do not compare to the upstream advantages of avoiding waste through programs to encourage residential and commercial consumers to purchase only the food they can use before spoilage (reduce) or programs that redistribute surplus food to those in need (reuse).

We begin with voluntary, soft policy options that are, in most cases, easy to implement (low cost, high social acceptance), but have lower waste-reduction potential. We then describe stronger policy options that are typically more costly to implement (political capital, legislative and regulatory planning), but tend to hold more potential for waste reduction.

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MOVING UP THE WASTE HIERARCHY IN MAINE

Consumer Education for Reduction

One long-standing strategy in waste management is centered on consumer education and awareness campaigns. Posters and mailers in many communities have urged consumers to reduce first. Certainly many citizens are unaware of the true costs of waste and others are concerned, but could benefit from ideas and tools that make it easier to reduce their impact. On a national level, the EPA’s Food Too Good To Waste program is running pilot projects in several states. Consumers are provided with shopping and measurement tools as well as tips for food storage and meal planning. So far, results suggest that the efforts have resulted in a 25 percent reduction in food waste for participating households.

Similar programs could be adopted and implemented at a statewide level in Maine. That said, numerous studies have found that voluntary and passive education campaigns are often limited in their ability to change behaviors, particularly over the long term (Hobson 2006; O’Rourke and Ringer 2015). These limitations suggest that more effective waste reduction and recovery programs combine education campaigns with stronger measures such as incentives or mandates.

Consumer Dis/incentives for Reduction In addition to providing households with good information, many researchers have demonstrated that behaviors can be nudged with the right set of incentives (positive or negative). Tools such as unit-based pricing for waste disposal, often referred to as “pay as you throw” (PAYT) are in place in more than 160 municipalities in Maine, but can also be used on a statewide basis, as in Iowa and Wisconsin. At the local level, methods such as reduced container sizes or less frequent trash pickup can encourage households to reduce total waste generation and become more mindful about the purchase of products with excessive packaging.

Institutional Environmentally Preferred Purchasing (EPP)

Interventions designed to reduce household waste are important, but are not nearly as effective as those that send a stronger market signal to producers upstream, helping communicate demand for products with less associated waste. Purchasing power can be translated into significant market influence. Governments are often the single largest purchaser of goods within a state. Several state and local governments, including Maine, have built on this understanding to encourage environmentally MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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preferred purchasing (EPP) among institutional buyers.

The EPA’s comprehensive procurement guidelines cover 61 different products that can be assessed based on their environmental benefits. Several models for EPP exist, ranging from voluntary programs and incentive-based systems to legislative mandates.

Voluntary programs include buying cooperatives, such as the one set up by the Massachusetts Operational Services Division and Maine’s Division of Purchases.

The cooperative provides an opportunity for municipalities to participate in statewide procurement contracts for products with recycled content. These buying cooperatives significantly increase state buying power and influence on the market, which can help drive demand for less waste- and resource-intensive products.

...voluntary and passive education campaigns are often limited in their ability to change behaviors, particularly over the long term.

Montana uses an incentive system to encourage EPP. The state offers a recycled materials tax deduction to any business that purchases goods made from recycled materials. Participants can deduct 10 percent of the purchase from federal adjusted gross income to calculate Montana adjusted gross income. By encouraging the use of recycled materials, these programs reduce demand for virgin extraction and production (and the associated waste water, emissions, and materials).

In Washington State, all state agencies have been directed, under an executive order and broad legislative and policy mandates, to set a positive example by undertaking aggressive waste-reduction programs and participating in EPP. These directives include a provision that requires agencies to reduce the use of products with persistent bio-accumulative toxic chemicals, to phase out products and packaging with polychlorinated biphenyls, and to purchase printer and copier paper with 100 percent recycled content (http://www.ecy.wa.gov /programs/swfa/epp/laws_directives.html).

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Alternative Business Models and Sustainable Design for Reduction

Governments can also help create incentives for more sustainable design and to support emerging forms of collaboration among businesses. The coordinated benefit business model is based on concepts from industrial ecology that aim to eliminate waste by encouraging cooperation among firms with complimentary processes.

For example, products such as paper scraps or sawdust from one enterprise can become an input for another co-located business, significantly reducing resource use and waste. State governments can facilitate the formation of these industrial symbiosis projects with information and incentives for co-location. Governments can also invest in research and development for sustainable design. Eliminating unnecessary materials in the production, consumption, and disposal phases is important, but designing products for durability and zero waste is the most cost-effective means to reduce inefficiencies in the materials system.

Examples of state-level policies to support alternative business models and sustainable design are still relatively rare in the United States, but have become increasingly popular in the European Union. The United Kingdom, for example, has prioritized the development of resource-efficient business models and supply-chain innovations through significant investments and the establishment of a waste-prevention loan fund to develop more resource-efficient ways of doing business. The U.K. Government’s Technology Strategy Board has also instituted an innovative design challenge (U.K. HM Government 2013).

Product Stewardship (PS) and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

Sustainable design and alternative business models are important, but as they are voluntary, they are often not as effective as policies that can create incentives or require businesses to design for reduced waste. Product stewardship programs take various forms, but add a level of effectiveness because they typically require groups at multiple stages of the product cycle to share responsibility for managing product recovery and disposal (Wagner 2012). Maine became a national leader in PS programs in 2010 when the legislature passed the first PS framework law in the United States. Maine was also the first state in the country to require producers to take partial responsibility for household e-waste (Wagner 2009). Implemented in 2006, the program set up a MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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shared cost system for producers, municipalities, and consumers, resulting in a 221 percent increase in the number of e-waste items collected and recycled by its third year (Wagner 2009) and enabling Maine to achieve some of the highest per capita e-waste-collection rates in the United States (Rubin et al. 2010).

Extended producer responsibility, like product stewardship, also uses the “polluter pays” principle, but places a stronger focus on manufacturers who, depending on the model adopted, are required to assume full organizational and/or financial burdens for end-of-life management. EPR strategies are intended not only to improve recovery rates, but also to focus efforts up the supply chain to create waste-prevention measures. EPR assumes that if forced to take responsibility for end-oflife management costs, rational manufacturers will have a strong incentive to redesign their products and will be most motivated to make changes in design and production when the “feedback loop of waste management costs goes directly to the individual producer” (Van Rossem, Tojo, and Lindhqvist 2006: v).

Several studies suggest that EPR programs can affect design and planning decisions. Tojo (2004), for example, documents product redesign by manufacturers of electronic equipment Hitachi and Sony. In both cases, the companies replaced plastic housings on televisions and laptops with magnesium alloy because of low recovery rates for plastic. Tojo’s interviews with manufacturers also found that Swedish car manufacturers Volvo and Saab were designing to phase out toxic substances and to ensure easy disassembly and recycling (Van Rossem et al. 2006).

Today there are 89 EPR laws in 33 U.S. states (Lombardi and Bailey 2015) and many more internationally, targeting a wide variety of products most notably those with toxic content or unrecoverable materials. They include, for example, used oils, pharmaceuticals, refrigerant fluids, textiles, carpets, mattresses, paints, mercury thermostats, e-waste, batteries, and fluorescent lighting. Maine has long been a national leader in extended producer responsibility with programs for paint, e-waste, mercury auto switches, rechargeable batteries, mercury thermostats, and mercury-added lamps (HID bulbs and fluorescents). That said, there is unfulfilled potential.

An internationally acclaimed packaging ordinance, introduced in Germany in 1991, stipulated that the businesses that produce packaging waste are responsible for the take back of those products (Reichel et al. 2014).

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MOVING UP THE WASTE HIERARCHY IN MAINE

Known as the Green Dot Program, the ordinance requires producers of a given type of packaging to pay into a common fund for reuse and recovery intended to pay for the take back of these materials (McKerlie, Knight, and Thorpe 2006). This highly successful program has been credited with helping Germany to exceed the EU’s 50 percent recycling target more than 10 years early, the near elimination of landfilling, and reduced incineration rates (Fischer 2013). Perhaps even more encouraging, a survey conducted one year after the adoption of the ordinance found that 63 percent of the businesses responding to the survey reported they had discontinued the use of composite materials that were hard or impossible to recover (Broaddus 2015; Nakajima and Vanderburg 2006).

Like Maine, British Columbia instituted a “bottle bill” or container deposit legislation (CDL) in the 1970s that has significantly reduced roadside pollution (its original intent) and set the stage for the province’s 80 percent recovery rate for beverage containers (Encorp 2014). In 2004 (B.C. Reg 449), the province implemented their recycling regulation with a more robust framework for extended producer responsibility that required producers who wish to sell or distribute products in British Columbia to submit a stewardship plan for approval by the Ministry of Environment. The program has since been expanded to include additional product categories including a wide variety of e-waste.

Most recently British Columbia expanded its efforts with the inclusion of packaging and printed paper (PPP) in 2014. The program aims to “make businesses supplying packaging and printed paper responsible for collecting and recycling their products,” and to “shift recycling costs from BC taxpayers to producers, and to give producers more incentive to be environmentally friendly by producing less packaging and waste” (Province of British Columbia 2015).

Product Fees and Sales Bans for Reduction

Sustainable design, new business models, and PS incentives present some of the most promising avenues toward total waste reduction. Product sales bans or fees are even more effective because they mandate or penalize the sale of products with significant disposal costs. British Columbia, for example, places eco-fees on certain paints and aerosol containers and the governments of Ireland and Scotland require fees on all single-use carrier bags. Evidence from Ireland suggests that its 2002 tax reduced use of plastic bags by 75 to 90 MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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percent (Convery, McDonnell, and Ferreira 2007). In Portland, Maine, a single-use bag fee has been implemented, and similar measures are now being considered in other Maine communities.

Other governments have banned the sale of toxic and/or highly resource-inefficient single-use disposable products. Several U.S. cities have banned single-use products such as polystyrene foam food containers (Portland, ME), drinking water in single-serve PET bottles (Concord, MA), and single-use high-density polyethylene bags (Westport, CT). While these bans are highly effective for waste reduction, they are still relatively rare, particularly at the state level. Product sales bans are politically difficult to pass due to strong opposition from industry groups and, in some cases, low levels of citizen support.

Despite these limitations and significant opposition, the state of California recently passed a plastic bag ban (SB270), which requires groceries and convenience stores with more than 10,000 square feet of sales space to stop offering single-use disposable bags to customers after July 2015. These retailers are permitted to sell reusable bags, including sturdy paper bags, for a minimum fee of 10 cents. While industry opponents may have succeeded in forcing the ban to referendum, independent and peer-reviewed life-cycle analyses suggest that bans on the use of plastic bags can deliver significant benefits related to waste reduction, ecosystem toxicity, human health, and climate mitigation (Convery, McDonnell, and Ferreira 2007) as long as the bags are replaced with reusable bags (e.g., nonwoven polypropylene, low-density polyethylene) that minimize upstream impacts and are used more than once (U.K. Environment Agency 2011).

REUSE: EXTENDING PRODUCT LIFETIMES

W

hen it is not possible to reduce waste, it is often possible to extend the lifespan of existing products through reuse. Reuse slows down demand for virgin production, ultimately leading to reduced materials throughput and energy use and waste reduction (U.S. EPA 2015a). Reuse is defined as any operation in which products and/or components are used again for the same purpose they were originally intended. Associated activities such as repair, refurbishing, and remanufacturing are included in the scope of reuse, but recycling is not. While the use of recycled materials is also an important strategy to reduce materials and energy 21

MOVING UP THE WASTE HIERARCHY IN MAINE

throughput, reuse has more significant benefits because it avoids the energy, materials, and expense necessary to recover, transport, process, and remanufacture recycled materials into new products.

Reuse is an important but often overlooked and understudied component of the waste hierarchy. As Lombardi and Bailey (2015: 27) write, Most communities have a fragmented network of independent reuse and resale outlets such as thrift stores, antique shops, building material resale stores, pawn shops, and online exchanges.

There are also repair businesses for products such as computers, clothing and appliances. These facilities are a critical but often undervalued asset to both building a Zero Waste community and supporting a thriving local economy.

A recent study in the United Kingdom backs these claims, finding that current levels of reuse create financial savings to households of around £1 billion each year and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one million tonnes—the same as taking 300,000 cars off the road.

The authors write, “in terms of potential impact, this is clearly just the tip of the iceberg” (WRAP 2011).

Reuse is an important but often overlooked and understudied component of the waste hierarchy.

Education and Awareness for Reuse Several cities in the United States have invested considerable resources in programs designed to educate consumers about the value of reuse. Portland, Oregon, has instituted “Resourceful PDX,” a platform that offers guidance to citizens on reducing their ecological footprint through, in part, reuse. In Austin, Texas, residents can search several websites for local businesses involved in the reuse, repair, and sharing economies. ReMade, ReShare, and RePair logos identify shops in a city-sponsored branding scheme to promote zero waste, and the city has declared a “Reuse Week,” which includes neighborhood swaps and repair cafes. Many state agencies, including the Oregon Department of Environmental MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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Quality and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, are building on these efforts to improve awareness of the benefits of reuse in residential, commercial, and industrial sectors as part as the state’s comprehensive plan for waste reduction.

Facilitate Alternative Exchange Models and Cooperative Reuse

Many communities have gone beyond encouraging reuse to facilitating exchange by, for example, providing online platforms or physical spaces for the exchange of second hand goods, surplus materials, or salvaged goods.

Many of these are product specific and localized including tool libraries in Berkeley, California, and Portland, Maine, or generalized as in transfer station swaps. The state of Maine already has a vibrant private and informal reuse sector with a large network of secondhand shops, salvage operations, flea markets, yard sales, localized online exchanges, and various swap and freecycle groups. These concepts could be scaled at the state level, however, with support for, or investment in, platforms, organizations, or associations that can facilitate reuse in multiple sectors from household goods to commercial and industrial materials.

States might also work to encourage alternative business models such as product service agreements that favor producer rather than consumer ownership. These models can build brand loyalty, reduce the purchase of privately owned but underused products, promote collaborative consumption, provide convenience for consumers, and give producers an incentive to make goods more durable.

Incentives for Reuse There are a wide variety of incentives that might help encourage reuse in multiple sectors. Any measures that increase the relative costs of waste disposal, such as Wisconsin’s statewide, unit-based pricing, create incentives for actions up the hierarchy including reduction and reuse.

Tax credits for the donation of used goods contribute to a healthy system of thrift shops across the country, but other national governments, such as Australia’s, have further examined tax systems to ensure that products that are resold multiple times do not compound taxation and thus create a disincentive for reuse. There are also incentives that might be used in specific economic and product sectors. For example, in California there are several programs designed to encourage “adaptive reuse” 22

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Figure 2:

Beverage Containers Crushed, Bailed and Ready for Sale

Photo: C. Isenhour

of the existing housing stock including tax credits, fasttrack permitting, and fee reductions.

Mandatory Reuse States can set mandatory salvage and reuse targets in exchange for permits in a number of different industries.

Given the relative impact of construction and demolition debris, many states have considered instituting minimum salvaged material requirements for construction permits. Maryland’s Zero Waste Plan, for example, lays out a plan to institute these requirements (Maryland Department of the Environment 2014). California has already instituted standards under their Green Building Code that require permit applicants to salvage at least 50 percent of their construction and demolition debris for reuse and recycling (U.S. EPA 2015b).

RECOVERY FOR RECYCLING

R

ecovery is defined as any process that separates salvageable materials from the waste stream, either at source or in facilities after collection. Recycling is an important element in sustainable materials management, ensuring that used or unwanted materials with residual value (nutrients, metals, plastics) are returned to the economy, maximizing efficiency. According to the EPA, recycling resulted in the avoidance of 183 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2006 alone. Increasing the recycling rate from 32.5 percent to 50 percent that year could have resulted in

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the avoidance of an additional 70 to 80 million metric tons (U.S. EPA 2009).

There are also significant cost savings associated with recycling and composting. Based on traditional accounting methods, the EPA has estimated that the average national savings of composting, compared to landfill disposal, is between $9 to $37 per ton, depending on the technology used (U.S. EPA 1999). Other analyses that include full lifetime costs and benefits have estimated the net benefits of as high as $120 per ton (Lombardi and Bailey 2015).

The United States continues to process more recyclables each year, but recycling rates, as a percentage of the waste stream, have stagnated. Markets have an effect on recycling rates, but most materials-management professionals agree that stronger levels of participation are also necessary. The largest opportunity for measurable improvements is in organics recovery. Discarded food is the single largest and least recovered waste stream in the nation (U.S. EPA 2015a). According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Americans wasted more than a third of all the fruits and vegetables they bought in 2010 (Buzby and Hyman 2012).

Maine food waste makes up nearly 30 percent of the residential waste stream, and compostable papers and yard wastes make up another 12 percent (Criner and Blackmer 2012). These volumes suggest the significant potential for organics management to help the state to make progress toward its diversion and waste-reduction goals. Nationally, organics collection is growing and with it the organics management sector (http://www .wastebusinessjournal.com/overview.htm).

There are a wide variety of strategies that might be employed to improve waste-recycling rates. As in previous sections, we organize them according to their potential for waste diversion while recognizing the complex factors that influence decisions and weigh against diversion potential.

Education and Awareness for Recovery Many state agencies given the task of improving recovery and recycling rates have developed education and outreach programs. Ranging from posters and infographics to interactive websites, these tools are designed to educate waste generators about the importance of recycling as well as the appropriate methods for separation. According to Broaddus (2015), well-designed and -executed education and outreach campaigns have been reported to improve a city’s commercial recycling levels 23

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by as much as 3 percent. Despite these gains, it is generally well accepted that such programs are even more effective when combined with other measures. As one analysis commissioned by the state of Massachusetts found, “stand-alone elements such as education or technical assistance for home composting, for example, are much more effective when combined with economic or policy incentives such as Pay-As-You-Throw pricing” (Tellus Institute 2008: 5).

Convenience and Improved Coverage for Recovery

Convenience is also an important factor for the success of diversion efforts. Many empirical studies confirm that habit and convenience are significant barriers to more sustainable behaviors (Hobson 2006; Isenhour 2010) Collection containers that are large and easy to use, such as roll-out carts, are more convenient and thus more effective than bins that are smaller and harder to transport (Lane and Wagner 2013). Others have also advocated for the convenience of singlestream collection and recycling to ensure greater participation. Analyses of the relative costs and benefits of universal single-stream compared to baseline scenarios and single-stream systems complemented with bottle bills, suggest that single-stream improves recovery relative to “business as usual,” but may result in reduced residual value due to contamination. The highest rates of diversion are achieved with a combination of universal single-stream and bottle bills (Vermont ANR 2013).

States can mandate universal compost and recycling services, but this may prove a challenge to implement in Maine due to “home rule.” Curbside pickup is not always an option due to the high costs of transportation in rural areas, but improved collection can be encouraged with access to convenient drop-off locations. Today it is common practice for both residential and commercial customers to have access to recycling of traditional materials, but organics collection/drop off is still relatively scarce. However, organics collection is increasing; as reported in a 2011 analysis, more than 121 municipalities in the United States and Canada had added organics collection by 2010 (Bush 2011).

Studies in cities such as Seattle, San Francisco, and Hamilton, Massachusetts, suggest that organics collection reduces landfill tipping fees, pressure on landfill capacity, and the frequency of waste pick up. In Hamilton, Massachusetts, for example, less than nine months after residents were offered organics collection, MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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the community’s trash had been reduced by 30 percent (Northeast Recycling Council 2015). States can also require haulers to offer collection and to collect and report data on tonnages of waste, compost, and recyclables in exchange for operating permits.

Support and Facilitate Cooperation Curbside collection of organics and recyclables is not a viable option in many rural areas where transportation costs are prohibitive. Without an adequate or consistent volume of recyclable materials, many rural communities find it difficult to market recovered materials and ensure a fair return. In these cases, there may be a significant financial incentive to dispose of municipal solid waste at a waste-to-energy facility or landfill. Rural states such as Montana, Texas, and New Mexico are thus working to support regional cooperation. In New Mexico, a rural recycling marketing cooperative has helped set up a hub-andspoke system that pools recyclable materials from rural communities for bulk sale. Not only does this cooperative system help with marketing and sales, but it can also reduce transportation costs by ensuring that resources are pooled for the most efficient transportation. Maine has a long history of municipalities working together on waste issues, including the efforts of the Maine Resource Recovery Association.

States with large rural populations can consider investing in and supporting these efforts. In Utah, for example, the state has invested in recycling market development zones, which provide income tax credits for recycling businesses and potential buyers that locate in development zones.

Incentives in Multiple Sectors There are a wide variety of strategies that might be used to encourage the separation and collection of organic and recyclable materials on multiple scales.

Used in conjunction with organics and recycling collection, every other week (EOW) collection of waste has also proven effective for both reducing waste and recovering organics. In Portland, Oregon, municipal solid waste tonnages declined by nearly 40 percent within the first year of the implementation of EOW collection (Broaddus 2015; Northern Tilth 2013).

Pricing mechanisms can also be extremely effective. Container deposit laws (CDLs), for example, give consumers an economic incentive to separate their recyclables. Communities can also require waste 24

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haulers to integrate the costs of collecting recyclables into a single fee so that businesses are not discouraged from participating in recycling programs due to additional costs. Unit-based pricing, or PAYT, systems are also attractive for recovery. By charging per unit of waste, these systems provide an economic incentive for generators to divert organics and recyclables from the trash. In addition, by asking those who generate the waste to pay for its disposal rather than all taxpayers, these programs are seen as more fair. Several states have implemented statewide PAYT programs including Iowa and Oregon (U.S. EPA 2015b) and many communities have reported as much as a 50 percent decline in waste after implementing PAYT (Broaddus 2015). These programs are particularly effective when recycling and composting services are free for waste generators.

At the municipal level, landfill surcharges can create incentives for programs to improve recovery rates. To meet the requirement of their Climate Action Plan to reduce waste by 75 percent by 2020, the Colorado Legislature passed the Recycling Resources Economic Opportunity Act in 2007, which added a 10 cent/ton tipping fee. Such fees have encouraged municipalities to reduce disposal and are intended to fund recycling and composting programs. By 2010, after only a few years of operation, the fund had generated $2.5 million (Nowakowski 2010).

Finally, states can also spur recovery and diversion by requiring or supporting resource management (RM) contracts. Traditional contracts between waste generators (typically municipalities) and waste service providers (e.g., haulers and disposal contractors) have been based on the volume and weight of the waste handled. These traditional contracts place the community’s interest in reducing waste and improving recovery against those of waste contractors whose profits are tied to hauling and disposing of more waste. Resource management contracts change the incentive structure of waste disposal by rewarding waste contractors for achieving waste-reduction goals, thus providing an incentive to reduce rather than increase waste. After successfully instituting a number of pilot projects that proved effective for improving waste reduction and recovery, Minnesota’s Pollution Control Agency has worked to support expanded RM by developing template language for RM contracts and requests for proposals (https://www.pca .state.mn.us/quick-links/resource-management).

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Mandatory Source Separation, Collection, and Landfill Bans

While improved awareness of and access to recycling and composting programs are extremely important, as are economic incentives and convenience-based nudges, they cannot guarantee that waste generators and contractors will participate. Communities committed to ambitious goals for reduction and recovery have worked to ensure participation by mandating source separation and collection and/or banning the disposal of recoverable materials from the waste stream. San Francisco was the first city in the United States to require its citizens—residential and commercial—to compost and recycle.

There was already significant national precedent for preventing certain materials from being disposed of in landfills. According to the Northeast Recycling Council (2011), nearly every state in the country has banned at least one product or material from landfills (at the very least lead acid batteries and tires in Wyoming), and 19 have mandatory recycling for at least one commodity. In Wisconsin #1 and #2 plastics, aluminum cans, glass, and other high-volume recyclables are banned from landfills and incineration. Other states have targeted construction and demolition debris. In Massachusetts, asphalt, brick, and concrete have been banned from landfills since 2006. Maine bans disposal of several products including cathode ray tubes, mercury-added products, and cellular phones.

As states work to improve recovery rates and reduce climate impact, many are also focusing on preventing organic waste from ending up in landfills. More than 25 states have a ban on the disposal of leaves, grass clippings, or brush. According to Lombardi and Bailey (2015), these bans helped jumpstart the early composting industry. Connecticut became the first state to require large-scale generators of food scraps to recycle food wastes in 2011. Since then several of Maine’s neighbors have expanded restrictions on the disposal of organic materials including Vermont and Massachusetts. Today one of the primary barriers to expanding composting and digestion capacity is an insufficient or unreliable source of organic tonnage (Broaddus 2015). Graduated bans of food waste, which start with large producers and gradually incorporate producers of smaller volumes, as in California’s AB 1826, are seen as a key strategy to build an infrastructure for organics processing and to develop local industries. According to an article on the

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website Biocycle.net (December 20, 2013), the executive director of the American Biogas Council has argued that food-waste bans provide “a shot of adrenaline to the growing biogas and compost industries” and “fulfill a fundamental need for biogas and composting project development: a predictable and reliable source of organic feedstocks.”

The ban on commercial food waste in Massachusetts took effect in October 2014, targeting first large producers generating four or more tons of food and vegetative waste per month. Given that organic materials made up approximately 25 percent of the state’s waste stream and nearly half of that was generated by businesses and institutions, the state decided to focus on commercial generators first. If successful, the ban is expected to help the state to meet its goal to reduce total waste by 30 percent before 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. It will also yield other benefits such as increased investment in the composting and digestion industry, infrastructure, renewable energy jobs, improved agriculture, and water conservation (http://www.mass.gov/eea /agencies/massdep/recycle/reduce/).

At their most progressive, bans can move beyond single products or high-volume waste categories to include all recyclables and organics in the residential, commercial, and self-hauled waste streams. Those who violate these mandates can be fined or excluded from collection if contamination exceeds a specifically defined percentage. Vermont has recently instituted one of the most progressive and comprehensive universal recycling laws. Act 148, passed in 2012, created the Universal Recycling Law, which added organics and recyclables (metal, glass, plastic #1 and #2, paper, and cardboard) to an already long list of products that cannot be “knowingly” landfilled in the state. It also requires universal access to recycling and organics collection and processing (2015); mandates that municipalities institute PAYT programs and pricing for households and businesses (2015); imposes a ban on leaf and yard waste in landfills (2016); and requires a phased requirement for separation of food waste starting with large generators (2014) and expanding to the residential sector with a universal ban of food waste in landfills by 2020.

This first-of-its-kind program’s phased and all-in approach allows for advanced planning and the development of capacity to handle mandated collection and processing requirements (https://ilsr.org/initiatives /composting/). To enable capacity building, there are

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significant exemptions for large generators of food waste who are not within 20 miles of a certified compost facility with adequate capacity. As the ban applies to smaller-scale producers of food waste, these exemptions expire for larger producers. By 2020, the geographical exemption will expire in all cases under the assumption that capacity for organics management should be well developed. While it is too early to gather data on outcomes, the program is projected to reduce the state’s carbon emissions by 38 percent, increase recycling rates to 60 percent, and reduce pressure on landfills in Vermont and surrounding states (Vermont ANR 2013).

CONCLUSIONS: POLITICAL WILL, DATA, AND LEGITIMACY

W

e hope this article makes it clear that there is no single policy that works in all situations to reduce waste and improve rates of recovery. All of the strategies mentioned here, while organized according to their potential for diversion, involve a series of complex tradeoffs that must be considered in relation to policy priorities, public support, financial costs, and environmental benefits for municipalities, businesses, institutions, and residents. What is clear is that political will and clear policy objectives are an essential prerequisite. -

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors express their gratitude to the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions at the University of Maine for their investment in the Materials Management Research Project. We are also indebted to several colleagues at the Maine Resource Recovery Association and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection as well as two anonymous reviewers for their input on earlier drafts of this article. We also extend our sincere thanks to Ann Acheson, editor of Maine Policy Review, for her highly competent and kind assistance preparing the manuscript for publication. Finally we would like to extend our warmest thanks to all the stakeholders who have worked collaboratively with us in the process of imagining a more sustainable materials-management system in Maine. You know who you are—thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us.

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REFERENCES Blackmer, Travis, George Criner, David Hart, Cynthia Isenhour, John Peckenham, Chet Rock, and Linda Silka. 2015. Solid Waste Management in Maine: Past, Present and Future. Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, University of Maine, Orono. http://umaine.edu/mitchellcenter/files/2015/02 /FINALSolid-Waste-Whitepaper-2.pdf Blackmer, Travis, and Cindy Isenhour. unpublished.

“Emerging Consensus and Striking Contrasts: Measuring Key Constituent Perspectives on State-Level Waste Reduction and Recovery Policy in Maine.” Under preparation for submission to Waste Management.

Broaddus, Nathan. 2015. Tools of the Trade: A Zero Waste Toolbox for Portland Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Collection Strategies. University of Southern Maine, Portland.

Bush, Emily M. 2011. The Recycling of Organics: Opportunities for Municipal Programs and a Case Study for Philadelphia. Master’s thesis, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. http://repository.upenn .edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042andcontext =mes_capstones [Accessed March 30, 2016] Buzby, Jean C., and Jeffrey Hyman. 2012. “Total and per Capita Value of Food Loss in the United States.”

Food Policy 37(5): 561–570.

Convery, Frank, Simon McDonnell, and Susana Ferreira.

2007. “The Most Popular Tax in Europe: Lessons from the Irish Plastic Bag Levy.” Environmental Resource Economics 38(1): 1–11.

Cox, Jayne, Sara Giorgi, Veronic Sharp, Kit Strange, David C. Wilson, and Nick Blakey. 2010. “Household Waste Prevention—A Review of Evidence.” Waste Management and Research 28: 193–219.

Criner, George, and Travis Blackmer. 2012. “Municipal Solid Waste Maine.” Waste 360. http://waste360.com /research-and-statistics/msw-maine Encorp. 2014. The Changing Landscape of Recycling: 2013.

Annual Report. Encorp, British Columbia.

Fischer, Christian. 2013. Municipal Waste Management in Germany. European Environment Agency.

Hobson, Kersty. 2006. “Bins, Bulbs, and Shower Timers: On the ‘Techno-Ethics’of Sustainable Living.” Ethics, Place and Environment 9(3): 317–336.

Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). 2015. “Waste to Wealth Composting” ILSR. Retrieved from https://ilsr .org/initiatives/composting/ [Accessed March 30, 2016] Isenhour, Cindy. 2010. “On Conflicted Swedish Consumers, the Effort to Stop Shopping and Neoliberal Environmental Governance.” Journal of Consumer Behavior 9(6): 454–496.

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Isenhour, Cindy, and Travis Blackmer. 2015. The Future of Materials Management in Maine. Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, University of Maine, Orono. http://umaine.edu/mitchellcenter /files/2015/08/The-Future-of-Materials-Mgt-in-Maine _Expanded-Report_8-5-15.pdf Lane, Gordon W.S., and Travis P. Wagner. 2013. “Examining Recycling Container Attributes and Household Recycling Practices.” Resource Conservation and Recycling 75:32–40.

Lombardi, Eric, and Kate Bailey. 2015. The Community Zero Waste Roadmap. Eco-Cycle, Boulder, CO. http://ecocyclesolutionshub.org/how-to-get-there /community-zero-waste-roadmap/ [Accessed March 30, 2016] Maryland Department of the Environment. 2014. Zero Waste Maryland: Maryland’s Plan to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle Nearly All Waste Generated in Maryland by 2040. Baltimore, MD. http://www.mde.state.md.us /programs/Marylander/Documents/Zero_Waste_Plan _Draft_12.15.14.pdf McKerlie, Kate, Nancy Knight, and Beverly Thorpe. 2006.

“Advancing Extended Producer Responsibility in Canada.” Journal of Cleaner Production 14:616–628.

Nakajima, Nina, and Willem H. Vanderburg. 2006. “A Description and Analysis of the German Packaging TakeBack System.” Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 26(6): 510–517.

Northeast Recycling Council. 2011. Disposal Bans and Mandatory Recycling in the United States. https:// nerc.org/documents/disposal_bans_mandatory _recycling_united_states.pdf Northeast Recycling Council. 2015. Rural/Small Town Organics Management Case Study: Hamilton and Wenham Massachusetts Curbside Composting Program. https://nerc.org/documents/Organics/Case%20Study _Hamilton%20MA.pdf Northern Tilth. 2013. Organics Recycling Feasibility Study Final Report. EcoMaine, Northern Tilth, Belfast, ME. Nowakowski, Sonja. 2010. The Coke Can from Columbus: An Analysis of Methods for Increasing Recycling and Solid Waste Diversion in Montana. Report to the 62nd Legislature, Montana Environmental Quality Council, Helena. http://leg.mt.gov/content/Publications /Environmental/2010-recycling.pdf Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). 2014.

Oregon Material Recovery and Waste Generation Rates.

Oregon DEQ, Portland. http://www.deq.state.or.us/lq /pubs/docs/sw/2013MRWGRatesReport.pdf O’Rourke, Dara, and Abraham Ringer. 2015. “The Impact of Sustainability Information on Consumer Decision Making.” Journal of Industrial Ecology http:// doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12310

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Province of British Columbia. 2015. Packaging and Printed Paper Recycling Regulation. http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov /content/environment/waste-management/recycling /product-stewardship/packaging-and-printed-paper [Accessed March 30, 2016] Reichel, Almut, Lars Fogh Mortensen, Mike Asquith, and Jasmina Bogdanovic. 2014. Environmental Indicator Report: Environmental Impacts of Production and Consumption Systems in Europe. European Environmental Agency, Luxembourg.

Rubin, Jonathan, Charles Morris, Peggy McKee, Steven Butterfield. 2010. Product Stewardship in Maine.

Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, University of Maine, Orono.

Tellus Institute. 2008. Assessment of Materials Management Options for the Massachusetts Solid Waste Master Plan Review. Mass. Department of Environmental Protection, Boston.

Tojo, Naoko. 2004. Extended Producer Responsibility as a Driver for Design Change—Utopia or Reality? (IIIEE Dissertations). Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

U.K. Environment Agency. 2011. Life Cycle Assesement of Supermarket Carrier Bags: A Review of the Bags Available in 2006. (No. SC030148). Environment Agency, Bristol.

U.K. HM Government. 2013. Prevention Is Better than Cure: The Role of Waste Prevention in Moving to a More Resource Efficient Economy. https://www.gov.uk /government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data /file/265022/pb14091-waste-prevention-20131211.pdf U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 1999. Organic Materials Management Strategies. EPA530-R-99-016.

U.S. EPA, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 2009.

Opportunities to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions through Materials and Land Management Practices. U.S. EPA, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 2015a.

Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: 2013 Fact Sheet. U.S. EPA, Washington, DC. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 2015b.

Managing and Transforming Waste Streams— A Tool for Communities. http://www2.epa.gov /managing-and-transforming-waste-streams-tool -communities [Accessed March 30, 2016]

Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (ANR). 2013.

Systems Analysis of the Impact of Act 148 on Solid Waste Management in Vermont. Vermont ANR, Montpelier.

Wagner, Travis. 2009. “Shared Responsibility for Managing E-Waste: A Case Study from Maine, USA.” Waste Management 29(12): 3014–3021.

Wagner, Travis. 2013. “Examining the Concept of Convenient Collection: An Application to Extended Producer Responsibility and Product Stewardship Frameworks.” Waste Management 33(3): 499–507.

Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP). 2011.

Re-use—New Research Shows So-Fa So Good, but So Many More Opportunities. WRAP, Banbury, UK. http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/re-use-new-research -shows-so-fa-so-good-so-many-more-opportunities

Cindy Isenhour is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Maine and a cooperating faculty member in the School of Economics, the Climate Change Institute, and the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions.

She coedited Sustainability in the Global City: Myth and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Travis Blackmer is a lecturer in the University of Maine’s School of Economics and a research associate in the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions. He has conducted several studies on materials management, an article in MPR on the impacts of programs on waste and recycling, and a survey of citizens’ attitudes and behaviors in response to various solid waste programs.

Van Rossem, Chris, Naoko Tojo, and Thomas Lindhqvist.

2006. Extended Producer Responsibility: An Examination of Its Impact on Innovation and Greening Products. Greenpeace. http://www.greenpeace.org /eu-unit/Global/eu-unit/reports-briefings/2009/3 /extendend-producer-responsibil.pdf

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Travis Wagner is a professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Southern Maine and is an affiliated faculty member at the Muskie School of Public Service. He has over 33 years of professional and academic research experience in the assessment and implementation of sustainable materials management.

Jean MacRae is an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maine. In addition to teaching environmental engineering topics such as wastewater treatment, air pollution, and solid waste management, she does research on biological remediation and the roles of microbes in nutrient and element cycling.

Linda Silka is a social and community psychologist by training, with much of her work focusing on building community-university research partnerships.

Silka was formerly director of the University of Maine’s Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center and is now a senior fellow at the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions.

Before coming to UMaine, she was a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

John Peckenham is the associate director of the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions and co-director of the Maine Water Resources Research Institute at the University of Maine.

Understanding and maintaining water quality in the human-altered landscape constitutes his primary area of research.

David Hart is director of the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions and a professor in the School of Biology and Ecology at the University of Maine.

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SUSTAINABLE, COST-EFFECTIVE, AND EQUITABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT IN MAINE

C O M M E N T A R Y

Creating Sustainable, Cost-Effective, and Equitable Waste-Management Programs in Maine Communities

By Luisa S. Deprez and Ron Deprez

T

he waste-management hierarchy established by Maine statute calls for, in descending order of preference, reducing the amount of waste generated, reusing of items when possible, recycling, organic composting, incinerating materials for energy production, and landfilling (38 M.R.S.A. §2101).

It is our intent in this commentary to present several perspectives on popular municipal solid waste (MSW) policies and programs that can help guide decision making to address the waste hierarchy as well as to extend thinking in regard to MSW. We hope to bring to light the complexity of the issues and to suggest that decisions on MSW have thus far failed to address some fundamental aspects of MSW services in Maine.

There is a broad array of information on policies and programs to address the waste hierarchy. Policies, however, are often labeled as “best practice” with little or no objective criteria or evidence that define what is a best practice. Simply because a policy or program has been enacted and/or implemented in other localities does not mean it is best practice. Information on the results of practices is required, as are distinctions between the types of programs.

From the literature on waste management, it is widely held that the

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single most important finding is that effective approaches to reducing MSW— whether addressing individual or multiple components of the hierarchy— require comprehensive planning, full cost (and benefit) accounting, and the integration of interests among the multiple players involved in components of the hierarchy. This includes comprehensive and sustainable consumer education. There is too often a rush by municipalities to implement a one-sizefits-all approach addressing one component of the hierarchy without understanding the interrelationships between components of the hierarchy.

Case in point: The controversy over the costs and effectiveness of recycling, both financially to citizens and communities and to the environment, which festers nationwide and here in Maine.

John Tierney, New York Times science editor, maintains that we have become “recycling lemmings”—unquestioning in our pursuit of disposing the vast amount of waste we generate through recycling, ignorant of the overall costs and of the damage being done to the environment.

He further states that “despite decades of exhortations and mandates, it’s still typically more expensive for municipalities to recycle household waste than to send it to a landfill. Prices for recyclable materials have plummeted because of

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lower oil prices and reduced demand for them overseas. The slump has forced some recycling companies to shut plants and cancel plans for new technologies” (New York Times, October 3, 2015).

MSW disposal is a public service (public good) in Maine that all municipalities are required, by Maine statute, to provide to residents and businesses (MRSA Title 38 §1304B, §1305).1 It is not the same as electricity or water, which municipalities are not required by the state to provide. A public good is defined technically as a service or good that may be used without reducing the amount available for others and that cannot easily be withheld from those who use it.2 Public goods include services whose consumption is not decided by the individual consumer, but by the society as a whole. Many public goods are provided by government, and these are usually financed by taxation.

As a public good, we argue that programs to reduce MSW need to be equitable and fair to both citizens and businesses. Past and current efforts both across the state and in many parts of the nation, however, have transformed this public service into a private commodity that residents must pay for directly as they would electricity or water. For example, unit pricing programs such as the pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) programs in Maine and elsewhere are aimed at promoting recycling through cost incentives as a way to reduce the amount of MSW that needs disposing. These programs treat the first ounce of waste generated by residents as a private commodity to be disposed of only with consumer-purchased bags.3 The purchase of these often high-priced special bags ($1.50 to $3.45 per 30-gallon bag, depending on the community), often from only one source is, in many communities, the only way to dispose of

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C O M M E N T A R Y one’s trash unless one contracts for it (and pays) privately.

For those with low or fixed incomes, typical of many seniors in Maine, PAYT may be a significant financial burden. In addition, the legal basis of this additional cost to citizens for a legislated public service has not been questioned because reducing MSW is considered good regardless of the social inequities or financial disparities created by such policies. These are two key areas in MSW disposal services that the environmental community has failed to recognize.4

Pay-as-You-Throw (PAYT) Collection Methods There are three main types of PAYT collection methods: carts (bins), bags with identifying stickers/tags, or a hybrid of the two. The cart (bin) method is becoming the predominant method in the Midwest, in part because it is tied to the increased popularity of automation and can be designed so families are allotted a certain amount of trash as part of the property tax and over that pay more, a necessary criterion for an equitable public-good service.

There is little evidence in Maine that unit pricing programs alone, such as bag-based PAYT programs, will increase recycling and save on costs to municipalities for MSW disposal. A study by Nicolas Miller (2008) using a cross section of towns in Maine showed no differences in recycling rates in 2006 between towns with a PAYT program

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and those without one.5 Our own analyses of the first year of the PAYT program in Waterville demonstrated that the cost of the program to the residents of Waterville significantly exceeded any so-called savings from the implementation of the program.

There is an automatic assumption that programs to reduce MSW, such as PAYT, will lead to increased recycling.

The evidence in Maine, however, is more complex than that. Take Woolwich as an example. PAYT was implemented in Woolwich for a limited period of five months in 2015–2016.6 Recycling increased while trash collected by the town decreased, resulting in a savings on tipping fees for the town of approximately $15,500. However average trash plus recycling tonnage between the PAYT period and the same time period for each the previous five years showed a reduction of over 155 tons. Where did this trash go? There are a number of possible explanations for this trash shifting. Certainly reuse and reduction may explain some proportion. However, based on qualitative information, a much larger proportion was due to residents taking trash to business dumpsters like those at Bath Iron Works and to other town collection sites, with a small proportion explained by residents dumping trash on private land or just hoarding it. Public Health Research Institute (PHRI), a Maine-based nonprofit health research firm, is currently conducting a study on effective and equitable policy options study for solid waste management and recycling in Maine. Data from this study supports negative trash-shifting behavior.

In February and March of 2016, the two months following the end of the PAYT program in Woolwich, recycling tonnage actually increased by an estimated 7 percent over the previous (PAYT) month.

Trash disposal, however, increased by 116 percent.

Travis Blackmer and George Criner also write of their 2014 investigation of waste-management programs—curbside trash collection, curbside recyclables collection, single-stream collection,7 and PAYT—for the purpose of assessing and estimating “their impacts on municipal recycling rate” (2014: 53). PAYT, they note, is the most controversial. And, they conclude, “there is no best system for municipalities” (Blackmer and Criner 2014: 57).

The current literature on MSW strongly suggests that there is a need to combine an aggressive education campaign with whatever program or policy is undertaken to reduce trash and improve rates of recycling.8 Good advice?

Sure, but might education on its own be the key to improving recycling with existing policies without the need for privatizing trash disposal for households?

There are many communities in Maine and across the nation that appear to have markedly increased recycling rates as a result of focused education combined with single-stream recycling and curbside collection. Contrast the examples of Portland and Scarborough. Both have curbside and single-stream recycling— considered essential to increased household recycling. With these changes Scarborough increased its recycling rates dramatically without imposing a PAYT program. It is currently at 33 percent.

Scarborough undertook an aggressive education program on what it means to be a sustainable consumer. Portland imposed a PAYT program; yet at 37 percent, the city’s current recycling rate is still only slightly above Scarborough’s rate. Indeed, the most recent report on solid waste generation and disposal in Maine notes that “SSR [single-stream recycling] programs [that] provide large

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SUSTAINABLE, COST-EFFECTIVE, AND EQUITABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT IN MAINE

C O M M E N T A R Y bins to residents for collection of recyclables….[have] greatly increased the amount of material that programs are collecting. However, the education of residents in the programs has not kept up” (Maine DEP 2016: 27).

An important but missing component in many discussions and articles is information about the advanced technologies being developed and implemented in the private sector on MSW reuse and recycling. WastAway, Inc., of Morrison, Tennessee, is a good example (http:// www.wastaway.com/). WastAway, Inc., takes trash, uses a patented process to pull out the metals, and bakes the rest of the trash into a fluff material that is used as a potting-soil product, converted into fuel-source pellets, or used to produce building materials. There is no need to separate household trash from recyclables. Technologies such as these are the new best practices in MSW and should be considered in Maine. In addition, they have the added advantage of producing local jobs, a requisite for communities with sustainable programs that address the waste-management hierarchy.

One of the biggest tools missing from the reduce, reuse, compost, and recycle components of Maine’s MSW hierarchy is mandatory policies by the state or municipalities, for example, mandatory commercial recycling, requirements for recycling food scraps and construction and demolition debris, and mandatory multi-family recycling.

These kinds of policies have been a critical tool in localities across the country in developing MSW disposal policies and programs that work. (See Partnership for Working Families 2013.)

Mandatory policies on the disposal of construction materials, food waste, and hazardous materials are few and far between in Maine, but this is not so in many localities across the country. In

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Maine, it appears easier to simply place the burden on households in the form of a fee through programs such as PAYT, with almost no responsibilities levied on businesses to reduce their volume of waste.

Yet businesses produce a large proportion of the trash that ends up in landfills. According to Isenhour and colleagues (2016: 26), The ban on commercial food waste in Massachusetts took effect in October 2014, targeting first large producers generating four or more tons of food and vegetative waste per month. Given that organic materials made up approximately 25 percent of the state’s waste stream and nearly half of that was generated by businesses and institutions, the state decided to focus on commercial generators first.

Perhaps the tool that would best enable Maine municipalities to develop efficacious and equitable waste-management policies is improved and increased state guidance and assistance in planning and assessing policies on all aspects of the waste hierarchy. Additionally, Maine state government could help create incentives for sustainable designs and to support collaboration among businesses.

Instead, municipalities in Maine, especially smaller ones, are left on their own to address their MSW problems (and state mandates) without the resources or know-how to plan across the hierarchy.

Integrated planning between government, residents, and the companies whose businesses provide services within the hierarchy is a compelling need, particularly whenever a change in any component of the hierarchy is being considered. The legislation governing the state’s MSW plan, for example, requires the state to provide guidance

and direction to municipalities in planning and implementing waste management and recycling programs (38 M.R.S.A. §2122). Planning assistance may include cost and capacity analysis and education and outreach activities (38 M.R.S.A. §2133). Yet our research reveals that towns currently considering policies and programs to reduce trash and improve recycling are not getting planning assistance from the state.

National studies on waste management demonstrate that the best approach to reducing waste, improving recycling, and creating jobs is a comprehensive one, not a one-size-fits-all singular approach.

There is a need for a sustainable public education campaign, a comprehensive plan for residential and commercial waste, strong source-reduction policies (e.g., recycling mandates tied to financial incentives), and programs for commercial and household food waste. These components all need to be part of a fair and comprehensive approach to reducing and managing waste while promoting cost-effective reduction, reuse, and recycling policies that ensure equity among residents and businesses.

Maine communities will be facing some difficult decisions over the next months as they ponder waste-management policies and programs to meet state mandates. Additionally, they are often targets of firms marketing a singular solution for reducing household trash and increasing recycling. There are, however, models available for them to assess and adapt—models that will do justice to their residents and businesses.

Being diligent and cognizant of the questions they must ask about the various options is essential. Analyzing the true costs and benefits of policies is critical for sustainable and equitable programs.

As part of the study mentioned earlier, PHRI is developing a white

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SUSTAINABLE, COST-EFFECTIVE, AND EQUITABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT IN MAINE

C O M M E N T A R Y paper on policy options including unit pricing programs that balance the responsibilities of government, residents, and businesses in solid waste management while recognizing that MSW is a public service required by Maine law for residents and businesses. This white paper, informed by the work of the Partnership for Working Families, authors such as Blackmer and Criner, Miller, and others, will directly benefit Maine communities seeking direction for a fair, equitable, and financially sustainable waste reduction and management program. -

1 MRSA Title 38 §1304B also states that “municipalities shall have the legal authority to control the handling of solid waste generated within their borders.” Most municipalities have ordinances that require businesses and apartment buildings with more than four units to contract privately (and pay) for trash pickup and disposal. The private contractors presumably use the same disposal sites as for household waste in that community.

7 Single-stream is also referred to as “single-sort” or “zero-sort” recycling.

8 See Robert Carr. 2016. Container Group Survey: Recycling Is Popular, but More Education Is Needed. http://waste360.com/business /container-group-survey-recycling -popular-more-education-needed

2 Some classic examples of public goods cited by economists are national defense, clean air (pollution abatement), and lighthouses.

3 This says nothing of the fact that bag fees revenues have become a backdoor regressive tax used by municipalities to fund other services provided to residents. Thus, what is labeled as a user fee is in reality a tax that funds not just MSW disposal, but roads and schools, to say nothing of the profits sent out of state to bag-manufacturing companies that charge 300 to 400 percent and higher for bags that municipalities could purchase directly.

4 One of the most powerful arguments for PAYT according to the environmental community is that it is the most equitable. This logic clearly ignores the fact that MSW services in Maine are not the same as other services such as water

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5 However, Miller found that “if the PAYT towns are divided into those with town ordinances and those without ordinances (as a quick and easy way to separate the towns with greater emphasis on recycling), the differences are stark, with towns that also have an ordinance recycling at rates more than three times higher on average—albeit with much higher incomes, education levels, and numbers of materials accepted” (2008: 11). This reinforces our assertion that PAYT systems alone will not lead to higher recycling rates.

6 The PAYT program in Woolwich stopped at the end of January 2016 as a result of a town referendum.

ENDNOTES

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or power. It also does not distinguish between types of PAYT programs that are equitable (and there are several— not in Maine) and those that are not.

2016

REFERENCES Blackmer, Travis, and George Criner. 2014.

“Impacts of Pay-As-You-Throw and Other Residential Solid Waste Policy Options: Southern Maine 2007–2013.”

Maine Policy Review 23(2): 51–58.

Miller, Nicolas. 2008. Recycling in Maine Municipalities: What Makes it Tick?

Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Augusta. http://www.maine .gov/dep/sustainability/publications /documents/Recycling%20Study% 20final%201.pdf Partnership for Working Families. 2013.

Transforming Trash in Urban America. http://www.forworkingfamilies.org/sites /pwf/files/0313%20Recycling%20Report .final.pdf

Luisa S. Deprez is professor emerita of sociology and women and gender studies at the University of Southern Maine.

Ron Deprez is president of the Public Health Research Institute (Deer Isle, Maine) and an associate research professor at the University of New England.

Isenhour, Cindy, Travis Blackmer, Travis Wagner, Linda Silka, John Peckenham, David Hart, and Jean MacRae. 2016.

“Moving up the Waste Hierarchy in Maine: Learning from ‘Best Practice’ State-Level Policy for Waste Reduction and Recovery.” Maine Policy Review 25(1): 15-29.

Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP). 2016. Maine Solid Waste Generation and Disposal Capacity Report, Calendar Year 2014. MDEP, Augusta. http://www .maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/attach .php?id=667549&an=1

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MAINE DRUG-INDUCED MORTALITY, 2015 UPDATE

Patterns of Drug-induced Mortality in Maine, 2015 Update

by Marcella H. Sorg, Margaret Greenwald, and Jamie A. Wren Drug addiction and drug-induced mortality have received a good deal of attention nationally and in Maine in recent years. The authors review overall trends in the patterns of drug overdoses that have continued for nearly two decades, including those involving opioid pharmaceuticals, and discuss the recent resurgence of the illicit drugs heroin and non-pharmaceutical fentanyl.

S

ubstance abuse and legitimate drug use in Maine exist along a complex series of continua. Use of illegal drugs by socially marginal people is only one extreme of a large, interrelated set of behavior patterns.

Those who die from drug overdose come from all walks of life. They include people of all ages, although they disproportionately affect young and middle age adults.

This marks the nineteenth year for which the authors and Maine’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner have tracked and reported on drug death statistics.1 In this article, we update two previous reports from 2003 and 2010 (Sorg and Greenwald 2003; Sorg et al. 2010).

We will review overall trends in drug overdose patterns that have continued for nearly two decades (see Figure 1), including those involving opioid pharmaceuticals, and discuss the recent resurgence of illicit drugs heroin and non-pharmaceutical fentanyl.

BRIEF HISTORY OF OPIOID ABUSE IN MAINE

D

uring the 1990s, synthetic and long-acting narcotic pain medications were aggressively marketed and more heavily prescribed, with a resulting increase in patients who developed addictions. Originally marketed with the erroneous belief that patients taking synthetic opioids for pain would not become addicted, these drugs became much more accessible, initially through legitimate prescriptions. They subsequently became more generally available for diversion and misuse by a rapidly expanding number of people.

A small minority of unethical prescribers took advantage of the opportunity to supply drugs to opioid-addicted persons, which exacerbated the problem.

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By the early 2000s, it became apparent in Maine and elsewhere that addiction to pharmaceutical pain medication was becoming a serious problem that had to be addressed by society and by medical professions. An expansion of medication-assisted treatment using methadone helped many, but also complicated the picture.

As these clinics expanded, so did opportunities for diversion. At the same time, because methadone could also be used as an inexpensive drug for long-term pain relief, many providers began to prescribe it for pain. Oxocodone and methadone, both synthetic forms of opium, emerged as prominent addictive substances. The state began to experience the multiple consequences of the rising tide of substance-use disorders, including an increase in drug-induced deaths.

MAINE’S POLICY RESPONSES

P

ublic policy interventions required attention by medical prescribers and the systems supporting them, as well as resources for an unprecedented number of citizens who had become addicted to opioids and who were at increased risk of overdose. Initially the number of treatment slots for drug addiction was expanded, including both traditional inpatient and outpatient treatment, as well as medication-assisted (methadone) outpatient treatment clinics. The Drug Enforcement Agency and the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency began to investigate and prosecute illegal prescribing practices. In 2004, Maine instituted one of the earliest prescription monitoring programs (PMP) in the nation, requiring dispensers to report “Schedule II” prescriptions, including any opioid drug, tranquilizers, and 34

MAINE DRUG-INDUCED MORTALITY, 2015 UPDATE

FIGURE 1: Number of Drug Deaths Occurring in Maine by Manner of Death, 1997–2015 300 Total

Accident

Suicide

Other

272

250

242

208

Number of Deaths

200 176 165 153

162

150 131

124

100 66

34

29

19

0

155

154 138

135 122

117

128

176

167

164 134

163

178

137

128 109

115

90

54 50

179 167

25 14 1 0

34 32 0

64

60 50

37 26

10 0

0

26 10

4

25 5

28 13

23 4

27 9

36 9

36 8

31 8

32 14

38 10

30 9

24

28

6

2

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

certain stimulants. Prescribers could now monitor the prescriptions of their patients to forestall “doctor shopping.” In 2011, the Office of Chief Medical Examiner was given access to the PMP to investigate decedent prescriptions.

During the later 2000s, the opioid buprenorphine became available as an alternative medication-assisted treatment. Along with the help buprenorphine provided to many patients has come increased diversion of this drug also. This drug, however, contains naloxone, which limits its recreational use and reduces its mortality risks.

There have been multiple professional and policy efforts to limit or refine practices for prescribing opioid analgesics. The Maine Medical Association and the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine have promoted use of the PMP, a single medical home for patients, patient contracts, and enhanced evaluation of pain to document need for prescriptions. Maine has developed similar rules for MaineCare (Medicaid), including limits on how much opioid medication a patient may receive and the length of time they receive such medication without additional approvals. Doctors in the state of

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Maine who prescribe opioids are required to take an online course on good practices for prescribing opioids in order to renew or obtain a medical license. Finally, prescribers as well as dispensers are now required to participate in the PMP, and the program has become much more efficient and timely. In addition, interstate compacts are being developed to share prescription data across state lines.

First responders in Maine have struggled to address the exploding overdose rate, and law enforcement agencies have likewise struggled to address the increase in heroin trafficking. For every fatal overdose, there are many nonfatal overdoses that require emergency services and medical treatment, increasing both public and private costs. Funding for the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency has been increased. New policy task forces have been formed at both the community and state levels, and funding for outpatient treatment has been increased.

Naloxone, an emergency treatment to reverse opioid overdoses, has been made more widely available for first responders, including law enforcement officers. As this article is going to press, the Maine Legislature has just

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MAINE DRUG-INDUCED MORTALITY, 2015 UPDATE

overturned a veto by the governor to pass a law allowing Naloxone to be sold over the counter.

OVERDOSE DEATH INVESTIGATION IN MAINE

drugs, including analgesics, anticonvulsants, antihistamines, antidepressants, hypnotics, narcotics, sedatives, stimulants, and tranquilizers in very small amounts.

(See sidebar for list of common drugs and their classes.)

The toxicology report includes a list of all drugs in the victim’s system at the time of death, but their presence does not necessarily mean they were a causal or contributing factor. For example, if a cardiac patient also on methadone maintenance had taken over-thecounter drugs for a cold and then died of an accidental overdose of digoxin (a cardiac drug), the toxicology report would include methadone, digoxin, and perhaps drugs taken for a cold such as an antihistamine. However, only the digoxin toxicity would be listed as a cause of death on the death certificate. In some cases, use of a drug must be inferred from the presence of a metabolized form identified by the toxicology test. Some drugs metabolize quickly, even after death. Breakdown of

All suspected overdose deaths are referred to Maine’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME). The OCME has statutory authority to investigate all suspicious, accidental, and unintended deaths to certify their cause and manner. Prior to 2008, their investigation usually included a scene visit whenever practicable. An autopsy and full toxicology screen were routine in suspected drug deaths. With the dramatic statewide increase in these cases, the number of autopsies has been reduced, although full toxicology is still done on all suspected cases. The medical examiner has the legal authority to obtain hospital or other medical records upon request. The Maine OCME has two full-time forensic pathologists and two full-time death investigators headquartered in Augusta, as well as a small number of Common Name and Drug Class for Frequently Occurring Drugs local medical examiner physicians who can investigate cases not brought in for autopsy. In the face of the large recent Common/ Drug Brand Name Drug Class increase in overdose cases, personnel resources have not been adequate to Amitriptyline Elavil Antidepressant send an OCME representative to the Alprazolam Xanax Anti-anxiety agent scenes when someone dies outside the Suboxone hospital. They do send an investigator (Buprenorphine to do an external examination at the Buprenorphine Narcotic & Naloxone), funeral home and take a toxicology Subutex sample. Law enforcement personnel, Diazepam Valium Anti-anxiety agent often the primary investigators at such scenes, use a standard protocol develDiphenhydramine Benadryl Antihistamine oped jointly by the OCME and Office Ethanol Alcohol Depressant of Attorney General to collect medical Fentanyl Duragesic Narcotic analgesic evidence and information from family or other witnesses.

Fluoxetine Prozac Antidepressant Toxicology Testing

The investigation of potential drug deaths in Maine routinely includes full toxicology testing. Two types of tests are done: screening to detect the presence or absence of drugs; and confirmatory testing to measure the level of drugs that are present. The comprehensive toxicology screen is designed to detect a wide range of MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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Hydrocodone

Vicodin

Narcotic analgesic

Methadone

Methadone

Narcotic analgesic

Morphine

Morphine, MS Contin, Avinza

Narcotic analgesic

Nortriptyline

Aventyl

Antidepressant

Oxycodone

OxyContin, Roxicodone

Narcotic analgesic

Propoxyphene

Darvon

Narcotic analgesic

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MAINE DRUG-INDUCED MORTALITY, 2015 UPDATE

chemicals may be more extensive if there is a delay in discovering the death.

The relationship between drug levels provided in the toxicology report and the cause of death is not always straightforward. Toxic drug levels sometimes overlap with therapeutic levels. Further, there may be a large range of individual variation in tolerance for a given drug; doses needed in a person with high tolerance may be lethal for a person with low tolerance. This is especially common with opioids. Drugs may also interact with one another in dangerous ways. It is possible for an otherwise benign drug taken at therapeutic levels to be toxic in combination with other drugs.

The toxicology report is an essential component of any drug death investigation, but the interpretation requires knowledge, experience, care, and caution. For this reason, our analysis gives more weight to the medical examiner’s determination of cause of death than to the raw data in the toxicology report.

Determining Manner of Death The manner of death is clasified as natural, accidental, suicide, or homicide. A small number of deaths classified as natural do involve drugs. These include deaths resulting from known effects of accepted medical treatment, such as digitalis toxicity from treatment of congestive heart failure. It is important to note that when death is due to a consequence of chronic (longterm) substance abuse—such as withdrawal seizures from chronic alcoholism or cardiac inflammation (endocarditis) due to chronic intravenous drug use—the manner is also ruled natural (Hanzlick, Hunsacker, and Davis 2002).

Deaths may be classified as suicide in Maine only if there is a “preponderance of evidence” that the victim intended to cause his own death. Such evidence might include a suicide note or history of previous attempts.

Although drug abuse in and of itself carries with it an inherent risk of overdose and death, engaging in risky or reckless behavior is not generally considered sufficient evidence of suicidal intent. Medical examiners are bound by these legal guidelines.

Maine’s strict guidelines for what can be judged suicide means that medical examiners classify as accidents all drug deaths directly due to the unintended or unexpected, acute (sudden or short-term) toxic effects of a drug or poison.2 Accidental deaths thus constitute something of a composite category; deaths under this rubric may be the result of a range of heterogeneous MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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drug uses. In a few cases, the medical examiner may not be able to determine if a case is suicidal or accidental and may classify the case as an undetermined manner of death.

The Certificate of Death For each death investigated, a medical examiner is responsible for completion of a certificate of death, which includes information about the death event (time, place, how the injury or activity leading to death occurred), the manner of death (natural, accident, suicide, homicide, or undetermined), and the medical cause of death (up to four levels of causation may be specified, as well as significant conditions that contributed to the death). The death certificate information goes electronically from the OCME to the Maine Department of Health, Office of Data, Research and Vital Statistics. State-level mortality information is then forwarded to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, where the cause of death is coded. Both the state and the federal government use the standardized codes from death certificate data to generate statistics about population mortality.

DEFINING “DRUG DEATHS”

I

n our studies, drug deaths, sometimes labeled “overdose deaths” or “poisoning deaths,” include all medical examiner cases in which a drug was determined to be either a cause (primary cause or one of the three underlying causes) of death or a significant contributing factor.

The deaths reported in this article are for the period from 2009 through 2015. These are occurrent deaths, that is, deaths that occurred within the state of Maine.

Deaths of Maine residents who may have died in other states are not included here.

Deaths caused directly or indirectly by drugs may involve illicit substances (such as heroin or cocaine) or pharmaceutical drugs. Deaths caused by chronic alcohol abuse, in which no other drugs were implicated, were excluded; however, deaths in which both alcohol and drugs were causal or contributing factors have been included.

Drug deaths do not include deaths due to trauma, such as with a motor vehicle fatality, even if the decedent had drugs in her system and may have been impaired. Although there is a legal impairment standard for alcohol impairment and a legal requirement for the 37

MAINE DRUG-INDUCED MORTALITY, 2015 UPDATE

has remained within the range of 25 to 38 each year; that type 300 of variation is likely 272 Total Pharm Opioid Illicit random change due 250 to the small number.

During the same 208 period, the number of 200 accidental deaths rose 179 176 167 164 sharply from 64 to 163 155 124 between 2001 and 150 2002, with another 124 122 113 111 sharp increase from 108 105 101 2012 to 2015, going 100 76 from 115 to 272.

Since our last 47 39 50 report in 2010 (Sorg 18 17 17 et al. 2010), Maine has seen the number 0 of deaths due to phar2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 maceutical opioids *Illicit drugs include heroin, non-pharmaceutical fentanyl, and cocaine. Drug categories are stabilize, with a combined in some deaths. dramatic increase in illicit drug trafficking and abuse. As shown OCME to measure alcohol levels in the blood for motor in Figure 2, in 2009 there were 18 deaths due to heroin, vehicle fatalities, there is no legal standard for impairnon-pharmaceutical fentanyl, and cocaine, a number ment from drugs. that remained about level through 2011. But, beginEven when drugs are not the primary cause of ning in 2012, the number of deaths due to these illicit death, they may be an important component of the drugs began to increase sharply, doubling by 2012, overall causal sequence. For example, a medical examdoubling again by 2014, and again by 2015, an increase iner may determine that lack of oxygen to the brain overall of 890 percent. In 2015, the number of illicit (brain anoxia) was the immediate cause of death, but drug deaths surpassed the number caused by pharmathat brain anoxia was due to heroin toxicity. In that case, ceutical opioids (Figure 2). heroin toxicity would be listed as an underlying In the last few years the rate of drug-induced (secondary) cause on the certificate of death. deaths, particularly those attributable to pharmaceutical and illicit opioids, has risen drastically across the MORTALITY RATES United States. According to a recent analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Maine was he total annual number of drug-induced deaths one of 14 states nationwide that saw a statistically occurring in Maine increased dramatically from 34 significant percentage increase in drug-induced deaths in 1997 to 272 in 2015, with large increases in 2002 from 2013 to 2014, with a 27.3 percent climb (Rudd and further increases during the last four years, 2012– et al., 2016). Among other New England states, both 2015. As we show, the recent increase is due predomiNew Hampshire and Massachusetts also experienced nantly to accidental rather than suicidal overdoses and statistically significant increases in drug-induced deaths is largely the result of heroin and non-pharmaceutical during this same time period, with Massachusetts fentanyl. Figure 1 shows the total number of suicidal witnessing an increase of 18.8 percent, and New and accidental deaths by year. Beginning in 2001, the Hampshire, an increase of 73.5 percent. Among those number of drug-induced suicides has fluctuated, but 14 states with statistically significant percentage Figure 2:

Number of Deaths Due to Pharmaceutical Opioids or Illicit Drugs, 2009–2015*

Number of Deaths

T

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38

MAINE DRUG-INDUCED MORTALITY, 2015 UPDATE

Table 1: Total Number and Percentage of Drug Deaths by increases, Maine, New Hampshire, and

County, 2009–2015* Massachusetts ranked third, second, and seventh, respectively.

Maine’s drug deaths are spread Percentage Percentage Number of Total of 2010 Percentage throughout the state and thus are not a of Drug Drug Maine Deviation strictly urban phenomenon. In Table 1, we Deaths Deaths Census from summarize the total number and County 2009–2015 2009–2015 Population Census percentage of drug deaths by county, Androscoggin 129 9.8 8.1 1.7 compared to each county’s proportion of Aroostook 47 3.6 5.4 -1.8 the 2010 Maine population. Although the Cumberland 338 25.6 21.2 4.4 proportion of drug deaths is similar to the Franklin 22 1.7 2.3 -0.6 population in most counties, Cumberland County has 4.4 percent more deaths than Hancock 44 3.3 4.1 -0.8 would be predicted based on its population, Kennebec 141 10.7 9.2 1.5 and Oxford County has 2.0 percent less.

Knox 33 2.5 3.0 -0.5 We calculated the rate per 100,000 for Lincoln 31 2.3 2.6 -0.3 deaths occurring in each county (see Table 2). Mortality rates in larger counties are Oxford 31 2.3 4.3 -2.0 similar to each other and also more stable Penobscot 150 11.4 11.6 -0.2 over time, largely because they have larger Piscataquis 20 1.5 1.3 0.2 populations (e.g., for 2013–2015, Sagadahoc 15 1.1 2.7 -1.6 Androscoggin is 21.0; Cumberland is 20.8, and Kennebec is 21.6). In Table 2, we have Somerset 50 3.8 3.9 -0.1 used three-year rolling averages to smooth Waldo 36 2.7 2.9 -0.2 out some of the year-to-year random flucWashington 38 2.9 2.5 0.4 tuations that occur in counties with small York 195 14.8 14.8 0.0 populations, but this small-number problem persists. Thus, some rate changes Total 1,320 100 100 — over time in the smaller counties are likely *Compared to county population (U.S. 2010 Census). due to random fluctuations rather than changes in drug use. Nevertheless, several non-urban counties have experienced the lowest drug mortality rates per 100,000 population (e.g., being (like most Mainers) overwhelmingly Caucasian, for 2013–2015, Aroostook is 10.2, Franklin is 9.8, the population of those who die of drug-related causes Oxford is 8.1, and Sagadahoc is 7.6). Most counties in is surprisingly diverse.

Maine, however, have seen an increase over time in the Both men and women are included among overrate of drug deaths. The map (Figure 3) shows the doses, but their distribution does not mirror the general average ratio of drug deaths per 100,000 population in population. Table 3 compares the age and sex structure Maine’s counties in the 2009 to 2015 period. of Maine drug deaths from 2009 to 2015 to that of the U.S. 2010 census for Maine. The drug death population DECEDENT CHARACTERISTICS is clustered in the age categories from 25 to 54. Males disproportionately occupy younger, and females older, ome victims of drug-induced overdose in Maine age categories, whereas the Maine general population is are people most Mainers would characterize as more evenly distributed among age and sex categories. marginal: without a stable place to live or a stable Men outnumber women approximately two to one work history, perhaps with histories of mental illness or among accidents (703 men vs 341 women), and women serious substance abuse problems. Others, however, are outnumber men by about 50 percent among suicides well-educated homeowners, employed at responsible (130 women vs 90 men). During the 2009–2015 period, jobs in a variety of skilled occupations. Aside from there were 1,320 deaths; decedent ages range from 17 to

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Maine; suicidal overdose victims are even less likely (43 percent) to have been born in the state. Racial make-up is similar across categories.

2009– 2010– 2011– 2012– 2013– County 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 As is true for many middle-aged Mainers, these drug death victims had Androscoggin 13.6 13.6 13.3 18.0 21.0 chronic medical problems, including Aroostook 9.3 9.3 11.6 9.7 10.2 heart, lung, and liver diseases, as well as Cumberland 13.4 13.8 14.7 16.4 20.8 obesity. Conditions such as these can Franklin 11.9 11.9 9.8 7.6 9.8 play a role in drug-related deaths by Hancock 12.9 8.0 6.1 8.6 11.6 reducing physical capacity. For instance, liver diseases such as hepatitis or Kennebec 13.6 14.5 15.3 15.8 21.6 cirrhosis can reduce the ability of the Knox 10.1 10.9 10.9 12.6 15.1 liver to detoxify blood. This reduced Lincoln 9.7 9.7 12.6 13.5 16.4 ability helps keep blood drug levels Oxford 8.1 5.2 6.3 5.8 8.1 dangerously high. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) reduces Penobscot 14.1 12.6 13.0 12.8 14.5 lung capacity, which can enhance the Piscataquis 24.7 20.9 5.7 5.7 13.3 respiratory depression produced by Sagadahoc 3.8 5.7 6.6 8.5 7.6 high levels of opiates. Obesity can Somerset 12.1 12.8 13.4 14.7 14.0 obstruct the airway, particularly in some body positions, thus potentially Waldo 13.8 14.6 15.5 13.8 12.0 increasing the risk from respiratory Washington 14.2 18.3 19.3 19.3 18.3 depression caused by opiates.

York 12.7 11.0 10.5 13.9 16.6 Cardiovascular disease further increases Statewide 12.6 12.2 12.4 13.7 16.5 risks from respiratory depression by reducing the capacity of the heart and *This occurrent ratio excludes deaths of Maine residents that occurred in other states. lungs to process oxygen. Witnesses to the circumstances of overdose deaths 92, with the exception of two children age 2 and one age often describe the victim as “sleeping” and “snoring” 7. The average age of all decedents for the period from heavily just before death, an unrecognized sign of respi2009 to 2015 is 43. More than half (53 percent) of these ratory distress. decedents were aged 35 to 55. Accident victims are on Decedents may have been taking medications average slightly younger (average age 41with sexes prescribed legitimately for conditions such as pain, combined, males 40, females 43) than those who depression, or anxiety. These medications sometimes commit suicide (average age 51 with sexes combined, have dangerous side effects if taken incorrectly or males 49, females 52), and twice as likely to be male. combined with other drugs. They may interact dangerCompared to averages for Maine’s population as a ously with other drugs of abuse. Alcohol, as well as some whole, overdose victims are less educated and less likely medications prescribed for anxiety or depression, if to have been born in Maine. Table 4 compares the 2015 taken in conjunction with opioids, can boost the blood drug deaths by manner of death to the Maine 2010 levels—hence the toxic effects (Davis et al. 2012; Sorg et census population. The 2015 accidental death victims al. n.d.). are about twice as likely (16 percent) as the general population (9 percent) to have less than a high school KEY DRUGS INVOLVED education and approximately one-third as likely (8 percent) as the general population (28 percent) to have f the pharmaceutical drugs specifically listed a bachelor’s degree or higher. Accidental overdose on death certificates as either cause or contribvictims are less likely (57 percent) than members of the uting factor, three classes predominate: opioid analgeneral population (66 percent) to have been born in gesics (including for example methadone, oxycodone Table 2:

Rate of Drug Deaths per 100,000 Population by County, Three-year Rolling Averages, 2009–2015*

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Figure 3:

Average Rate of Drug Deaths per 100,000 Population by County, 2009–2015*

Aroostook 9.3

Piscataquis 16.3 Somerset 13.7

Penobscot 13.9 Washington 16.5

Franklin 10.2 Hancock 11.6 Oxford 7.7

Kennebec 16.5

Waldo 13.3

Androscoggin Lincoln Knox 11.9 17.1 12.9 Sagadahoc 6.1 Cumberland 17.1

is a non-pharmaceutical opioid, has emerged as one of the most frequent causes, along with non-pharmaceutical fentanyl (and acetyl-fentanyl). Heroin, cocaine, and non-pharmaceutical fentanyl are the most prominent of the illicit drugs in Maine deaths.

Of all overdoses between 2009 and 2015, 67 percent had at least one pharmaceutical drug mentioned as a cause of death (82 percent for accidents and 98 percent for suicides). This is much greater than the 63 percent for accidents and about the same as the 94 percent for suicides noted in our 2003 article (Sorg and Greenwald 2003). However, it is important to note a change in how medical examiners certify deaths with multiple drugs; they are much more likely to mention all potential co-intoxicants on the death certificate.

An overwhelming majority of pharmaceutical opioids and benzodiazepines implicated as causing or contributing to overdose deaths since 2009 lack any evidence of a prescription. For example, of the 96 cases in 2015 in which a pharmaceutical opioid was implicated as a cause of death (35 percent of cases overall), only 7 percent had a prescription.

Most drug-induced fatalities involve more than one drug. In our 2003 article, for about a quarter of the deaths that occurred in the 1997–2002 period, the toxicology was so complex that the cause of death was listed simply as “polydrug” or “mixed drug.” Practice guidelines for medical examiners have changed since then, however (see Davis et al. 2012), and it is now more

Table 3:

York 14.1

Age and Sex Distribution for Drug Deaths from

2009 to 2015 Compared with Maine 2010 Census Population

6 – 9.9 10 – 12.9 13 – 14.9 15 – 16.9 17 and above

Age Categories

State Rate – 14.2

*This occurrent ratio excludes deaths of Maine residents that occurred in other states.

and hydrocodone), antidepressants (most frequently SSRIs [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors] such as fluoxetine or tricyclic antidepressants such as amitriptyline), and benzodiazepines (especially anti-anxiety agents such as diazepam and alprazolam).

Alcohol (a depressant) and cocaine (a stimulant) are also frequently listed. Heroin, which MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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2010 Maine Population Male

Female

Both Sexes

2009–2015 Deaths Male

% <18

22

20

Female

Both Sexes

% 21

0

1

1

18-24

9

8

9

7

6

6

25-34

11

11

11

27

15

22

35-44

13

13

13

24

24

24

45-54

16

16

16

27

33

29

55-64

14

14

14

12

16

13

65+

14

17

16

3

6

4

Total

100

100

100

100

100

100

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MAINE DRUG-INDUCED MORTALITY, 2015 UPDATE

common to list any potentially interacting or synergistic substances on the death certificate.

Table 4:

Oxycodone and Methadone

Demographic Characteristics of Decedents in 2015 by Manner of Death, Compared with Maine 2010 Census Population Maine 2010

Number of Deaths

2015 Deaths, All Deaths Accidents Suicides Population Oxycodone is a synthetic opioid Category % often prescribed for pain. Since 1995, it has been marketed in the longRace lasting form OxyContin, but is also Caucasian 95 97 100 95 prescribed in lower dose, shortEducation (ages 25+) er-acting products. Once metaboLess than high school 14 16 4 9 lized, however, OxyContin and other commercial forms of oxycodone are High School 85 84 96 91 indistinguishable. Oxycodone has Bachelors or Higher 9 8 19 28 been one of the key intoxicants found Nativity in Maine decedent toxicology since Born in Maine 56 57 43 66 the late 1990s and is often the most commonly identified opioid across all overdose decedents in Maine.

Figure 4: Number of Deaths Caused by Methadone, Oxycodone, Methadone is a synthetic opioid

and/or Heroin, Alone or in Combination with Other with two distinct primary uses.

Drugs, 2009–2015 Because it is long-acting, without the same euphoric high as heroin, it has 300 272 long been used in the treatment of Total Methadone Oxycodone Heroin opioid addiction, prescribed in liquid, 250 powder, or wafer form. Methadone is also frequently used in pill form for 208 chronic pain. Toxicology screenings 200 cannot discriminate between these 179 176 167 163 various forms. Methadone pharma155 cology is particularly complex.

150 Tolerances vary widely from one individual to another. The range of 107 100 blood levels seen with therapeutic doses may overlap with the toxic 57 range. As with other opioids, people 50 48 41 50 42 28 37 38 can die of fairly low, theoretically safe, 20 48 50 37 doses, often when alcohol or other 34 13 34 30 7 7 32 16 drugs are present or if the individual 0 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 has low tolerance. An individual’s tolerance can also change with circumstance. Tolerance is reduced for regular users who, for one reason or another, stop common adverse effect of all opioids and the one most receiving regular doses, e.g., those who are in jail. When likely to prove fatal. they resume taking dosages to which they had been Figure 4 illustrates the trends in the frequencies of accustomed, they are at greater risk for fatal overdose. deaths due to key opioids methadone and oxycodone, The slow onset of methadone’s effects may prompt some contrasted with heroin trends. The rates of oxycodone users to take more methadone, with fatal effect. This can and methadone have been similar during the 2009– increase the risk of respiratory depression, the most 2015 study period, temporarily dropping during 2012,

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but stablizing since 2013. These drugs are sometimes found together.

Heroin and Non-pharmaceutical Fentanyl

analogues were unevenly distributed around the state.

The southernmost counties of Cumberland and York have had a disproportionate share of the heroin/ fentanyl deaths. Cumberland County has 21percent of Maine’s 2010 population, but has had 34 percent of the heroin/fentanyl deaths, 13 percent more than expected.

York, with 15 percent of the population, had 19 percent of the heroin/fentanyl deaths. Many other counties have had fewer than expected heroin/fentanyl deaths through 2015, based on their poulations; for example, Penobscot, with 12 percent of Maine’s population, had 9 percent of the heroin/fentanyl deaths, 3 percent less than would be expected. The map (Figure 6) displays the average rate of deaths per 100,000 due to heroin and non-pharmaceutical fentanyl by county over the 2009–2015 period. The four most southern, contiguous counties along the Interstate-95 corridor, along with Washington County, have experienced the highest rates overall during this period.

Those who died due to pharmaceutical opioids are much older on average (males 43; females 46) than those who died due to heroin and/or non-pharmaceutical fentanyl (males 38; females 36). But the distribution is skewed, as shown in Figure 7. For heroin and non-pharmaceutical fentanyl deaths, males far outnumber females, and they cluster largely in the 25- to

Number of Deaths

Heroin is an illicit opioid associated with intravenous drug use. Heroin is sometimes difficult to identify in toxicology. Because it metabolizes quickly in the body to morphine, the toxicology reports morphine, not heroin. Morphine could be pharmaceutical morphine sulfate, an opioid analgesic, or metabolized heroin. If they lack clear evidence of heroin from the scene investigation, medical examiners are likely to name the drug causing death as “morphine” on the death certificate, even though many of these cases are in fact due to heroin. To avoid undercounting heroin, our method has been to cast a wider net. We examine the scene investigation data to rule out that the death is due to morphine sulfate pills and rule out that the decedent has a prescription for pharmaceutical morphine; we then count any remaining cases of morphine toxicity as heroin.

Fentanyl is likewise a substance found in toxicology that may be pharmaceutical or, since 2011, non-pharmaceutical. This substance is being manufactured in Asia and has been widely distributed as both powder and pills by drug traffickers in the United States.

Maine began seeing non-pharmaceutical fentanyl deaths in 2012. Similar to our approach with heroin, we rule out the Figure 5: Number of Maine Drug Deaths in Which Heroin or presence of known pharmaceutical

Fentanyl (and Its Analogues) Were Listed as the fentanyl products such as fentanyl

Cause of Death, Alone or in Combination, 2009–2015 patches or known prescriptions for the 180 decedent; we then count any remaining cases of fentanyl toxicity as non-pharHeroin Only 160 maceutical fentanyl.

Fentanyl Only Deaths caused by heroin had 140 Heroin and Fentanyl 37 declined during the mid-2000s. They began to rise in 2011, along with 120 non-pharmaceutical fentanyl. Fentanyl and its analogue acetyl-fentanyl are 100 49 sometimes found alone, sometimes in 80 combination with each other, and 11 often combined with heroin in dece27 60 dent toxicology (see Figure 5). Illicit drug dealers often combine these drugs 1 40 and sell the product as heroin. Fentanyl 70 1 is many times more potent than heroin 46 20 33 5 and often fatal.

28 10 3 13 Drug deaths caused by heroin or 7 7 0 non-pharmaceutical fentanyl and its 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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Figure 6:

34-age category (100 male decedents). The age distribution for females is similar to the pattern for pharmaceutical opiods.

Average Drug Deaths Due to Heroin and Non-pharmaceutical Fentanyl per 100,000 Population by County, 2009–2015*

CONCLUSION

S

ubstance abuse is a critical problem that continues to plague Maine state and local governments and the communities they serve. Death is only the most dramatic consequence of a behavior pattern associated with crime, increased accidents, lost time at work, serious health problems, and untold anguish for family and loved ones.

A 2010 analysis of the impact of substance abuse on the state of Maine revealed that the total economic burdern resulting from drug and or alcohol abuse was over $1.4 billion in 2010 dollars, or $1,057 for every Maine resident (Rogers, Sorg, and Wren 2013). The 175 drug-induced deaths in 2010 represent a $168.7 million in loss in potential lifetime earnings for those decedents.

Among individuals in the labor force who had a drug problem in 2010, there was an approximatey $36.1 million loss of productivity. Concerned members of the public often focus on the most exotic elements—illegal drugs such as heroin or cocaine or legal drugs such as methadone that seem to be used primarily by a definable population. Yet the problem is much more complex.

Aroostook 0.6

Piscataquis 3.3 Somerset 1.4

Penobscot 2.9 Washington 4.8

Franklin 2.8 Hancock 2.1 Oxford 1.7

Kennebec 4.1

Waldo 2.2

Androscoggin Lincoln Knox 2.2 4.4 2.1 Sagadahoc 0.8 Cumberland 6.1

Figure 7:

Age-Sex Distribution for Deaths Caused by Heroin and Non-pharmaceutical Fentanyl, 2009–2015

140 York 4.8

under 1.0

Male

120

1.0 – 2

Female

27

2.1 – 3 3.1 – 5

100

Above 5

Number of Deaths

State Rate – 3.7

*This occurrent ratio excludes deaths of Maine residents that occurred in other states.

24

80

60

16 100

40

70 11

51

20 23 0

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1 <18

18–24

5

25–34

35–44

45–54

55–64

1 65+

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MAINE DRUG-INDUCED MORTALITY, 2015 UPDATE

Study of Maine’s medical examiner files indicates that to reduce the risk of drug-related fatalities, policy initiatives must address this complexity of drug use.

Here we make a few points on substance abuse issues coming from our study: • At least one pharmaceutical drug is named as a cause of death (alone or in combination with other drugs) in the overwhelming majority (85 percent) of drug deaths in Maine, 2009–2015.

Most of these drugs have been diverted. A minority are prescribed, but misused.

• Within the past three years, illicit drugs including heroin, non-pharmaceutical fentanyl formulations, and cocaine are involved in over half (51 percent) of Maine drug deaths, frequently combined with pharmaceuticals or alcohol. This emergent pattern is worsening: the proportion of illicit drugs identified in drug death cases has increased from 27 percent in 2013 to 60 percent in 2015.

• Alcohol has been a prominent part of the substances listed on death certificates as either cause of death or contributing factor, named in 20 percent of cases in the 2009–2015 period. Maine’s substance abuse problem is still frequently an alcohol abuse problem.

• Better public education on signs of respiratory distress might save lives. Unwitting witnesses to drug deaths frequently mistake respiratory distress for snoring and fail to summon medical assistance.

Our study of the forensic epidemiology of drug mortality continues. We hope our findings will provide a more nuanced understanding of the circumstances and risks of drug abuse and drug abusers and will prompt improved public policy initiatives that effectively address the full range of Maine’s problems with drug use and abuse. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to acknowledge, with thanks, all those who assisted with various portions of our data collection and analysis, especially the staff of the Maine Office of Chief Medical Examiner and especially research assistant Thomas Mitchell.

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ENDNOTES 1 The first report, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice Byrne Fund, covered the period 1997 to the end of June 2002. Funding from the U.S. Department of Justice allowed us to continue tracking through 2005.

A second comprehensive report in 2010 was funded by the Offices of United States Attorneys. More recent tracking and funding for the current study have been supported by the Maine Office of Attorney General.

2 This designation is consistent with guidelines recently published by the National Association of Medical Examiners (Hanzlick, Hunsacker, and Davis 2002) for determining the manner of death when drugs are involved. Jurisdictions outside Maine may use different criteria.

REFERENCES Davis, Gregory G. 2014. “Complete Republication: National Association of Medical Examiners Position Paper: Recommendations for the Investigation, Diagnosis, and Certification of Deaths Related to Opioid Drugs.”

Journal of Medical Toxicology 10:100–106.

Hanzlick, Randy, John C. Hunsacker III, and Gregory J. Davis. 2002. A Guide for Manner of Death Classiifcation.

National Association of Medical Examiners, Atlanta.

Rogers Ann, Marcella Sorg, and Jamie Wren. 2013. The Cost of Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Maine, 2010. Maine Office of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, Department of Health and Human Services, Augusta.

Rudd, Rose A., Noah Aleshire, Jon E. Zibbell, and R. Matthew Gladden. 2016. “Increase in Drug and Opioid Overdose Deaths—United States, 2000–2014.”

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 64(50): 1378– 1382.

Sorg, Marcella H., and Margaret Greenwald. 2003. “Patterns of Drug-Related Mortality in Maine, 1997–2002.” Maine Policy Review 12(1): 84–96.

Sorg, Marcella H., William Parker, and Sharon Labrie.

2010. Drug-Induced Deaths in Maine 1997–2008, with Estimates for 2009. Maine Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, Department of Health and Human Services, Augusta. https:// www1.maine.gov/dhhs/samhs/osa/pubs/data/2011 /DrugInducedDeathsReport%2097-08%20Final %202%5b1%5d.pdf Sorg, Marcella H., Leann L. Long, Marie Abate, et al. n.d.

“Variability Among Opioids in Apparent Co-Intoxicant Additive Effects in Opioid-Related Deaths.” Academic Forensic Pathology, submitted for review.

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Marcella H. Sorg is a research associate professor of anthropology, public policy, and climate change at the University of Maine.

She has conducted surveillance of drug-induced deaths in Maine since 1997 and is one of 12 sentinel epidemiologists for the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s National Drug Early Warning System.

Margaret Greenwald served for 16 years as Maine’s chief medical examiner before her retirement from that office in 2014.

Jamie A. Wren is a research associate with the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. He assists with research involving violence-related mortality in Maine and Vermont, and also contributes to the surveillance of drug-induced deaths in Maine.

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IMMIGRANTS, ASYLUM SEEKERS, AND REFUGEES

The Role of Immigrants, Asylum Seekers, and Refugees in Confronting Maine’s Demographic Challenges

by Robert W. Glover The author argues that Maine’s future will largely depend on the steps we take to ensure that we reverse the state’s demo­graphic decline—an aging population and young people moving away—that has been unfolding in slow motion for decades. Reckoning with our demographic challenges requires finding ways to make Maine’s population more diverse by making the state a welcome destination for immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.

V

irtually anyone who has spent time in the state of Maine is aware of the state’s demographic situation—an aging population, young people moving away, and the corresponding challenges for the labor force, school systems, municipal and state revenues, and the vitality of our communities.

Many of the key policy challenges that we face as a state grow out of these demographic shifts. If one digs deeply enough into any of the major policy debates we see at the state or local level, such as health care, taxation, economic development, or school budgets, eventually the state’s challenging demographic situation rears its head.

Demographic trends can fundamentally affect every aspect of a community, a state, or a nation. Yet these developments plod along incrementally. A recent article from the Pew Research Center described demographic transformations as “dramas in slow motion” (Taylor 2014). That these developments unfold in slow motion means that the policies designed to counteract them likely cannot be quick fixes and sometimes take decades to yield results. In a policy climate focused on individual legislative sessions with an eye towards the next electoral cycle, it can be hard to tackle policy issues that may entail short-term costs and take a decade or more to yield demonstrable positive benefits.

Yet this is precisely what we need to do in Maine at this moment. Maine’s future will largely depend on the steps we take today to ensure that we reverse the demographic decline that has been unfolding in slow motion for decades. Reckoning with our demographic challenges requires finding ways to make Maine’s population

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more diverse. In short, the future of Maine depends upon the steps we take to make Maine a welcome destination for those from beyond our national borders: immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.

Conflating the immigrant, refugee, and asylum seeker groups can obscure their varied experiences and legal statuses, their reasons for coming here, and their needs and networks of support upon arriving in the country and the state. (See sidebar for definition of these terms.) For my purposes in this article, the emphasis is not so much on which groups we receive or encourage to settle within the state. The larger point is that Maine desperately needs individuals to settle here to shift our demographic trend and that we should be doing more to welcome and support these individuals, no matter the specific circumstances of their origin.

MAINE’S “DEMOGRAPHIC WINTER”

I

n many ways, Maine’s demographic winter is simply a more extreme example of nationwide trends. The state’s population reflects the long-term effects of a postWorld War II baby boom, a period when a growing middle class took to the suburbs, enjoyed economic prosperity, and had unprecedented numbers of children. The baby boomer generation peaked at 78.8 million in 1999, but by mid-century will constitute just 15.5 million individuals as this generation ages and passes away (Fry 2015) Maine has a significantly higher share of baby boomers than any other state, 29.4 percent of the population in 2010 (Rector 2013). As a result, Maine is the 47

IMMIGRANTS, ASYLUM SEEKERS, AND REFUGEES

Defining Terms: Immigrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers One of the most challenging aspects of the public discourse around immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in the United States is definitional. These terms, though often used interchangeably, denote different legal status and personal experiences for the individuals who hold them. Using them haphazardly can obscure the complex policy realities confronting each set of individuals.

The U.S. government uses the inclusive term alien to refer to anyone residing within the country who is not a U.S. citizen. The term immigrant is typically reserved for those who are residing within United States for an extended period of time after entering from another country-of-origin with authorization to work while here.

These individuals are also called lawful permanent residents or LPRs. Such individuals, if possessing the right sets of skills and qualifications, may be able to stay in the country indefinitely (IRS 2016). Nonimmigrant aliens refers to those with authorization to be in the country, but generally for some limited purpose or duration. For instance, this category would include students holding F-1 student visas to authorize their presence in the country while gaining their education (IRS 2016).

In broader usage, immigrant has come to mean one who has entered the country from another country, whether by legal channels or not (by illegally crossing a border or overstaying a visa). This latter category of individuals is referred to as illegal or undocumented immigrants.

Their presence is not authorized; they are not legally eligible to work, and if apprehended, they can be subject to removal proceedings and deportation.

Refugees and asylum seekers inhabit a somewhat different legal universe, in part articulated by the U.N. Convention on the Status of Refugees of 1951 and its 1967 protocol, as well as U.S. national laws and proce-

oldest state in the nation with a median age of 44.2 years, significantly higher than the national figure of 37.7 (U.S. Census Bureau 2015). This older population results in lower birth rates. In 2010, Maine had a birth rate of 10.2 per 100 women, while the national average stood at about 13.5 (Rector 2013).

In fact, in 2015, Maine was one of only seven states that saw population decline, a small drop of 0.1 MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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dures that dictate how these individuals are received.

The Refugee Convention obligates states that are party to the convention to grant protection to those “who have been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or political opinion” (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 2015). Their key difference lies in where and when they seek protection and entry into the United States.

Refugees meet the definition laid out in the formal convention above, but seek their refugee status from outside the country, often through the U.N. High Commission on Refugees (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 2015). Once refugees are granted this status, they are eligible to be admitted to the United States by the U.S. State Department and receive cash assistance, the right to work legally, and other benefits from the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. According to a New York Times article by Somini Sengupta (August 25, 2015), the United States currently accepts about 70,000 refugees annually.

Refugees cannot be returned to their country of origin under international law.

Asylum seekers, on the other hand, are already in the United States, seeking admission at a port of entry (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 2015).

They must meet the same definition as refugees, but declare their intention to seek asylum upon entering the United States. The credibility of their case for asylum is assessed by an asylum officer or immigration judge, and this process typically takes at least six months. During that time, asylum seekers are detained for an average of 65 days as initial investigation into their claim takes place. They also face strict limitations on work eligibility and receive few, if any, transitional benefits from the federal government.

percent, but a harbinger of things to come (U.S. Census Bureau 2016). The state is beginning to experience a phenomenon known as natural population loss, where the annual number of deaths outpaces the number of births. According to an article by Darren Fishell in the Bangor Daily News (January 23, 2015), this happened in 2011, 2013, and 2014. Though Maine has had recent years in which overall state population grew, this 48

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is not occurring via the natural cycle of births and deaths; these periods of growth were a function of migration into the state.

Yet we cannot talk about this demographic picture without also discussing diversity. Maine’s demographic winter is linked to its extremely low levels of ethnic and racial diversity. Since 2010, nearly 93 percent of American population growth has come from ethnic and racial minorities, and current projections estimate that non-Hispanic whites will actually cease to be the majority of the population by the mid-2040s (Johnson 2014). Ethnic and racial minorities are having children at faster rates than non-Hispanic whites, evident in the declining birth rates of a state such as Maine, where the population is 95 percent white (U.S. Census Bureau 2016).

These are the demographic facts that Maine must confront in facing its future. The implications have long been known. Research and policy planning documents have long told of a demographic challenge on the horizon nationally, and particularly in states such as Maine. These demographic trends can have economic impacts, with a smaller labor pool potentially making the state a less attractive destination for businesses.

Older individuals are less likely to buy homes, start businesses, and make the major life decisions and investments that drive the local economy.

These demographic changes also mean a corresponding contraction of the state’s tax base and other streams of revenue needed to run state and local governments. Maine’s K–12 school system and universities have already been struggling to maintain themselves in an environment in which there are fewer and fewer young people within the state to educate. Locally owned businesses in rural communities may find it difficult to remain open in the face of a declining customer base, already a troubling fact of life in many Maine communities.

In many ways, the greatest challenges of demographic decline have thus far been averted by healthier, more active elderly populations who remain in the workforce longer and contribute in essential ways to their communities and workplaces (Kaye 2015). Yet these strategies will not, and cannot, be a permanent solution. Maine must begin planning for the coming decades when increasing numbers of older Mainers will no longer be able to participate in the workforce and more baby boomers begin to die.

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MAINE’S EXISTING IMMIGRANT, REFUGEE, AND ASYLEE COMMUNITIES

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n identifying the trends on the horizon for our state’s population, we must first recognize that significant growth and diversification has already occurred. From 2000 to 2013, Maine’s percentage of foreign-born residents grew by 21.8 percent to 44,687 individuals, now constituting 3.4 percent of the state population (AIC 2015). In fact, in many years this growth has been the only thing preventing the state from experiencing net population decline. Although Maine’s diversity relative to other parts of the country remains quite low, the state’s population has become more diverse.

The impact of such recent population shifts can be seen in Maine’s communities as well. The story of Lewiston and its roughly 5,000 Somali refugees is one of revitalization, new energy, and dynamism, though not without its challenges and obstacles. We could look at the small Downeast town of Milbridge where nearly a quarter of school-age children are now Latino, largely due to hundreds of workers who chose to leave seasonal employment and establish roots in the area over the last decade. From 2006 to 2010, 2,711 individuals born outside the country became business owners in Maine, with incomes of over $120 million, or 3.3 percent of all net business income in the state (AIC 2015).

Maine’s demographic winter is linked to its extremely low levels of ethnic and racial diversity.

Nor does such does such diversification of the state appear to be abating, as new entrants originating from Sudan, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Djibouti have settled in the greater Portland area over the last decade. Many of these individuals came to Maine fleeing persecution, violence, or war in their countries of origin, initially entering the country as asylum seekers. It seems reasonable to say that whatever Maine’s future may hold, it will undoubtedly be more ethnically, racially, and religiously diverse than its recent past.

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Confronting Maine’s demographic challenges will involve a variety of important policy steps. Foremost among these is ensuring that we retain more of our younger population while also working to support our active and engaged older populations. However, any strategy aimed at reversing the trends of population stagnation and decline in the long term must work to make Maine a more welcoming environment for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.

TURNING THE TIDE: WHAT CAN BE DONE?

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s with most policy issues, the good news is that we are not encountering this issue anew. Many states and municipalities facing similar demographic trends have set out to address these problems before us, and we can learn from their efforts. Throughout, we can remain mindful that Maine’s history is one of newcomers (French Canadians, Irish, Italians, Swedes) arriving in the state amidst challenging circumstances, but eventually establishing themselves and thriving.

Thinking constructively about how to make Maine a destination for immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees will, for many, require a shift in mindset. We have seen numerous recent concrete policy debates at state and municipal levels about the impacts of immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, or the merits of providing municipal general assistance for asylum seekers not eligible for federal assistance while the legitimacy of their claim is being investigated.

Unfortunately, these debates have been dominated by concerns about short-term costs or preoccupation with the cultural impact of diverse new groups. Other states and cities that have worked over the past decades to make themselves destinations for new Americans also confronted these challenges.

It is true that those coming to the United States, particularly asylum seekers and refugees, will have unique life circumstances that in the short term, may place strain upon the new communities in which they reside. Individuals fleeing war, conflict, persecution, or poverty may have few resources with which to begin their new lives. These characteristics will manifest themselves initially in a set of needs: access to transportation, affordable housing, legal assistance, availability of language training and translation services in schools and workplaces, access to medical care, and preparation for the culture shock of moving to a new society with what will likely be radically different norms and values. To be

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successful in attracting and retaining new arrivals, we must meet these needs through collaboration between state and local governments with community-based organizations and nonprofit organizations.

Rather than thinking of these short-term costs as a parasitic drain upon states and communities, we must think of them as an investment in the continued viability and vitality of Maine’s communities. In the same way that we would provide tax incentives or other favorable conditions for businesses that invest in the state, we must bear the short-term costs associated with the needs of new populations to avert future demographic disaster. Note that this effort does not depend upon altruism. It does not state that we must bear these costs because it is “the right thing to do” (although many would argue that it is). Rather, this effort would be rooted in pragmatism, our demographic reality, and ensuring the continued viability of Maine and its communities.

In addition, we must not assume that those arriving in our state as immigrants, asylum seekers, or refugees are monolithically poor and uneducated. Many of the individuals arriving in the United States have advanced degrees, entrepreneurial experience, skills, and cultural capital. These are assets that can benefit our state.

However, we must first provide resources to help these individuals to transition to their new society and embrace these new arrivals with enthusiasm and hospitality, rather than suspicion and distrust.

WHAT CAN MAINE LEARN FROM OTHER COMMUNITIES?

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any states and communities that faced challenging demographic futures like Maine’s 10 or 20 years ago have taken such steps. In this sense, Maine is well behind the curve. The past two decades have seen demographic transformations in states such as Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Tennessee. At the forefront of these efforts were systematic attempts to make states and communities attractive destinations for immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. Beyond simply shifting population trends away from demographic decline, many of these communities have seen revitalization efforts that would have been impossible without their new arrivals. In fact, a 2015 report found that from 2000 to 2013, immigrants accounted for 48 percent of the growth in business ownership in the United States (Kallick 2015). However, such transformations did not 50

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occur overnight. The economic benefits associated with these more diverse communities require commitment through and beyond the transition period.

These locations took concrete steps to ensure that those arriving from other countries would have the support they needed to be successful in their transition to a new society and culture. Given Maine’s relative lack of diversity compared to other parts of the country, I highlight steps taken at the outset of strategies to encourage the arrival of more immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.

Strategic Planning Perhaps the most important initial step taken elsewhere involved intentionality and strategic planning.

Whether at the municipal or state level, the starting point for many efforts was careful study, the establishment of measurable benchmarks and goals, and the development of multiyear plans articulating action steps to promote resettlement. As Singer notes, “it can be challenging if not impossible to design service programs without an understanding of who is living in the community and what their needs may be” (2004: 19).

The same holds true of states and municipalities seeking to encourage more immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers to settle in an area. For instance, the “Welcome Dayton” initiative to create a welcoming and supportive environment for immigrants and refugees in Dayton, Ohio, was the product of multiple years of study and an inclusive community dialogue that played out over months (Welcome Dayton 2011).

Careful planning can enable communities to be proactive in meeting the needs of their new members in the early stages of integration into those communities, rather than reactive as needs and gaps emerge. Such planning efforts need to coordinate with diverse stakeholders from state and local government, to education, health care, nonprofits and service providers, and the philanthropic sector. The National League of Cities (2011) provides a guide for how to structure and facilitate these initial planning dialogues. In addition, these localized efforts can tap into national efforts such as the White House Task Force on New Americans (2015), aimed at supporting local and municipal initiatives to attract and retain those from abroad. This effort highlights best practices and provides tangible financial and human resources to create welcoming communities for immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.

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Creating a Hub of Organization and Support

Once the initial planning phase is complete, many communities, municipalities, and states have elected to establish an ongoing institutional hub of organization and support. This often occurs in the form of an “Office of New Americans,” which have been established in cities such as Chicago, Nashville, and Columbus, or at the state level in Michigan and New York. In fact, this idea has been already been proposed in Portland, Maine,

by Mayor Ethan Strimling, as reported in an article by Randy Billings in the Portland Press Herald (March 15, 2016). Such offices work to coordinate the collaboration necessary to help new arrivals from abroad to transition into their new communities in a diverse set of domains: language acquisition, entry into education and the workforce, cultural integration and support, access to basic services, and navigating the path to citizenship.

These transitional supports cut across the public and private sector, various levels of government, and different state and federal agencies, as well as nonprofit organizations. Centralizing this information and facilitating access for those transitioning to a new community and a new country can make this overwhelming process more manageable.

Careful planning can enable communities to be proactive in meeting the needs of their new members…rather than reactive as needs and gaps emerge.

Focusing on the Needs of New Arrivals Though planning and institutional infrastructure can help prepare for the arrival of immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, understanding the needs of new arrivals will require ongoing communication. For instance, a key part of the Welcome Dayton program in Ohio was working with leaders in immigrant communities to identify and address needs as they arose: identifying specific neighborhoods as immigrant entrepreneurship zones or providing municipal

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identification cards for individuals not eligible for any other form of official identification cards, even cultural events such as multicultural soccer tournaments (Welcome Dayton 2011). Such goals were developed and implemented with the stakeholders from immigrant communities directly included in the conversation, enabling both a sense of ownership and ensuring a greater responsiveness to the needs of immigrant communities in Dayton.

In many other locales (San Francisco, St. Louis, Pittsburgh), the office charged with serving as an organizational hub for resources and services has overseen the establishment of communication channels. These communications and dialogues then inform ongoing, local needs-based policy interventions specific to newcomers. However, the effectiveness of such efforts depends crucially upon establishing these channels for dialogue at the initial stages of an effort to bring immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees to a community.

Though it is difficult to anticipate all of the needs that might arise in implementing a larger strategy, creating effective channels for dialogue has enabled cities and communities to be responsive as the needs arise.

Raising Awareness Last, communities and states have made efforts to broadcast that they are welcoming, inclusive environments for immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees through publicity efforts and public communications.

For many of these individuals, the cities and communities where they eventually take up residence may not have been their initial destination, but rather a product of secondary migration. Lots of factors go into making a decision about where to settle, the most significant often being the presence of friends, family members, and a community network into which an individual can seek support.

Yet cities can influence where individuals choose to settle by making it clear that their presence is a valued and that institutional and community resources exist to support them. One of the most striking examples here is St. Paul-Minneapolis, Minnesota. The city has some of the highest numbers of refugees in the country and is a top destination for secondary refugee resettlement (U.S. DHHS 2015). Ali examined the factors driving immigrants and refugees to choose this destination and found that respondents cited “plentiful (skilled and unskilled) jobs, good public schools, an existing community of their ethnic or national origin, and a warm social MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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welcome” (2009: 89). Cities and communities working to attract more individuals must recognize that they are doing so in a competitive environment. This, by necessity, entails working to promote and market what makes their destination uniquely supportive and welcoming.

CONCLUSION: TOWARD A DIVERSE AND VIBRANT FUTURE IN MAINE

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aine’s future, much like its past, will be written by the steps it takes today to engage new arrivals from “away”—whether we are referring to out-of-state arrivals or those coming from beyond the borders of the United States. If we want to stave off the negative effects of the state’s demographic decline, we must strive to keep more young people here and assist seniors in aging in place while remaining in the workforce for as long as they are able. Yet these strategies alone do not constitute a permanent solution. Many, perhaps most, of us have a narrative of our own origins in this country that includes the arrival of our ancestors in the United States having endured struggle and seeking opportunity.

Though the circumstances may be different, and the challenges faced by today’s societies different from those of the past, this same narrative will inform the future of the state of Maine and the nation.

Periods of demographic and cultural transition such as this can be challenging. Such moments may induce fear and the temptation to blame new arrivals for societal and economic challenges they had little hand in creating. Yet the story of the nation is one in which we have faced those challenges and overcome them. Many of us would not be in this country had we not done so. Some of Maine’s most celebrated leaders such as Edmund Muskie and George Mitchell have been first-generation Americans. Maine’s economic, social, and political future will be more diverse than its recent history. Yet if we want to retain the vibrant communities in which we live and work, we must summon the courage and the political will to embrace this challenge. -

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REFERENCES Ali, Ihotu. 2009. “Staying off the Bottom of the Melting Pot: Somali Refugees Respond to a Changing U.S. Immigration Climate.” Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies 9(11): 82–114.

American Immigration Council (AIC). 2015. New Americans in Maine: The Political and Economic Power of Immigrants, Latinos, and Asians in the Pine Tree State.

AIC, Washington, DC. http://www.immigrationpolicy.org /sites/default/files/docs/new_americans_in_maine_2015 .pdf Fry, Richard. 2015. “This Year, Millennials Will Overtake Baby Boomers.” Fact Tank. Pew Research Center. http:// www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/16 /this-year-millennials-will-overtake-baby-boomers/ Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 2016. Immigration-Terms and Definitions Involving Aliens. https://www.irs.gov/ Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Immigration -Terms-and-Definitions-Involving-Aliens Johnson, Kenneth M. 2014. “New Population Projections Reflect Slower Growth and Greater Diversity.” Carsey Research, National Fact Sheet #27 (Winter). University of New Hampshire, Durham.

Kallick, David Dyssegaard. 2015. Bringing Vitality to Main Street: How Immigrant Small Businesses Help Economies Grow. Americas Society/Council of the Americas, New York. http://www.as-coa.org/sites /default/files/ImmigrantBusinessReport.pdf Kaye, Lenard W. 2015. “The Demographic Transition in Maine (and Beyond) Is in Full Swing.” Maine Policy Review 24(2): 10–12.

National League of Cities. 2011. Civic Engagement and Recent Immigrant Communities: A Planning Guide for Local Officials and other Community Leaders.

NLC, Washington, DC. http://www.nlc.org/documents /Find%20City%20Solutions/Research%20Innovation /Governance-Civic/discussion-guide-civic -engagement-immigrants-gid-jun10-pdf.pdf

U.S. Census Bureau. 2016. State and County Quickfacts: Maine. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/23000 .html [Accessed February 7, 2016] U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 2015. Refugees & Asylum. https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian /refugees-asylum U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

2015. ORR Indicators for Refugee Resettlement Stakeholders. Office of Refugee Resettlement, U.S. DHHS, Washington, DC. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites /default/files/orr/508_compliant_fy_2016_orr_indicators _for_refugee_resettlement.pdf Welcome Dayton. 2011. Welcome Dayton Plan: Immigrant Friendly City. http://www.welcomedayton.org /wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Welcome-Dayton -immigrant-friendly-report-final.pdf White House Task Force on New Americans. 2015.

Strengthening Communities by Welcoming all Residents: A Federal Strategic Action Plan on Immigrant & Refugee Integration. Task Force, Washington, DC. https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs /final_tf_newamericans_report_4-14-15_clean.pdf

Robert W. Glover is an assistant professor jointly appointed in the Department of Political Science and the Honors College at the University of Maine, where he is also cooperating faculty with the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. His research focuses generally on community engagement, democratic theory, and immigration policy.

Rector, Amanda. 2013. Maine’s Population Outlook to 2030. Governor’s Office of Policy and Management, Augusta. http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew /attach.php?id=501734&an=1 Singer, Audrey. “The Rise of New American Gateways.”

Brookings Institution: Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, Washington, DC. Taylor, Paul. 2014. The Next America. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewresearch.org/next-america /#Two-Dramas-in-Slow-Motion U.S. Census Bureau. 2015. Millennials Outnumber Baby Boomers and Are Far More Diverse. Release Number: CB15-113. https://www.census.gov/newsroom /press-releases/2015/cb15-113.html

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The Proposed Park in Maine’s North Woods: Preferences of Out-of-State Visitors

by Ryunosuke Matsuura, Sahan T. M. Dissanayake, and Andrew Meyer The proposal to create a new national park and national recreation area in northern Maine has generated support, but also sometimes heated opposition within the state. This article discusses findings from a survey of out-of-state visitors’ preferences and willingness to pay for the proposed park. The results support the proposal to create both a national park and a national recreation area.

BACKGROUND

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he National Park Service (NPS) turns 100 years old on August 25, 2016. The national park system covers more than 84 million acres and includes over 400 sites. In 2014 NPS lands attracted 292 million visitors (Cullinane Thomas, Huber, and Koontz 2015).

The visitors to NPS-managed lands spent $15.7 billion in local gateway regions, which resulted in 277,000 jobs and $29.7 billion in economic output (Cullinane Thomas, Huber, and Koontz 2015). The act creating the NPS emphasized both conservation and recreation, and this emphasis is a core foundation of the NPS today.

National recreation areas were established in the early 1960s in an effort to include more recreational activities in protected areas.

Acadia National Park is currently the only national park in Maine. Over the last few decades, there have been multiple efforts to introduce a second national park in Maine (see Lilieholm 2007 and Vail 2007 for a discussion of these efforts). These efforts started in the 1980s as Maine’s economy started changing with the availability of cheap overseas timber and the decrease in the demand for paper. This resulted in a shift in the ownership of Maine forests from timber/paper corporations to investment firms, specifically timber investment management organizations and real estate investment trusts, and private homes (Bell 2007; Clark and Howell 2007; LeVert, Colgan, and Lawton 2007). With these growing changes, an increasing need to protect the land and create additional economic opportunities beyond the timber industry led to the initial efforts to create a new national park and develop the Maine North Woods

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as a tourist destination that included trails, heritage attractions, and resorts (Lilieholm 2007; Vail 2007).

The current effort focuses on creating both a national park and a national recreation area in the Maine North Woods. (See map, Figure 1.) Elliotsville Plantation, Inc., (EPI), a nonprofit foundation, has offered to donate about 75,000 acres for a national park and about 75,000 acres for a national recreation area.1 According to articles in the Bangor Daily News by Judy Harrison (January 6, 2016) and Nick Sambides (June 2, 2015), EPI has also proposed to create a $40 million endowment to pay for the management and infrastructure of the national park.

National Parks and National Recreation Areas The National Park Service Organic Act, signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, created the National Park Service “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

The system of national recreation areas was created by an executive branch policy signed into law by President John F. Kennedy in 1963. National recreation areas are focused on outdoor recreation and typically allow hunting and off-road vehicle activities. National recreation areas can be maintained by multiple federal agencies.

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Figure 1:

Map of Maine and Proposed Park*

*Boundary shown is approximate. Baxter State Park is not part of the proposed park. These maps were included in the introduction to the survey we conducted of out-of-state residents.

Source: Maps obtained from the Natural Resource Council of Maine (NRCM).

Currently there is a good understanding of local preferences both in support and in opposition to the park.

However, there is no information about preferences of out-of-state visitors for the proposed park. This information is important as out-of-state visitors to the proposed national park may constitute a significant portion of total visitors, and they have the potential to contribute to economic growth in the region and in Maine. We hope to fill this information gap with our study.

In the sections that follow, we briefly discuss the current support and motivation for the proposed park; present our central thesis about the importance of out-ofstate visitors’ preferences; discuss our methods; analyze our results; and finally discuss implications for policy.

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PREFERENCES OF MAINE RESIDENTS Support upporters of the proposed park argue that it would bring a number of tourists into Maine and help boost the stagnating economy of the region. Lucas St. Clair, the president of EPI, said that a park would generate 400 to 1,000 jobs for the local economy;2 promote the diversification of a Katahdin region economy devastated by closure of paper mills; and coexist with traditional industries while preserving the area’s recreational heritage (Headwaters Economics 2012).

As reported by Lisa Pohlmann in the Bangor Daily News (December 1, 2015), a survey conducted in May

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2015 by Moore Information, a nationally respected Republican polling firm, found that a majority of 500 respondents across the second congressional district in Maine are supportive of a national park: 57 percent of Republicans, 77 percent of Democrats, and 68 percent of independents. Overall, 67 percent of respondents surveyed approved the creation of a park, whereas about 25 percent opposed it. The survey also found that among residents who describe themselves as “somewhat” or “very” conservative, slightly less than the majority support the proposal. About 35 percent of all respondents said they were less likely to support the park if the “designated national park would only bring restrictions on access to the nature in the area, which is currently accessible to Mainers.” Similar results were identified in a statewide tracking survey conducted by Critical Insights that documented 3:1 statewide support vs. opposition for the park proposal (NRCM 2016).

The proposal for the park is also receiving growing support from business. Nick Sambides reports in the Bangor Daily News (April 15, 2016) that more than 200 businesses in the region and multiple regional chambers of commerce, the Maine Innkeepers Association, and the Bangor City Council have endorsed the proposal for the park.

If the new park attracts new out-of-state visitors...it will be much more successful in contributing to the local economy.

Opposition There has been steadfast opposition to the park from local activists. In stories in the Bangor Daily News on June 23 and June 29, 2015, Sambides reports that a majority of residents in Medway and East Millinocket voted against a proposed 150,000-acre national park in nonbinding referenda: 252 out of 354 voters in Medway and 320 out of 511 voters in East Millinocket opposed the park.3 In April 2016, residents of Patten voted 121-53 against the park in a nonbinding referendum (Sambides, Bangor Daily News April 20, 2016).

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There has been a recent movement to designate the proposed park area as a national monument, which can be established by a presidential executive order and does not require Congressional authorization as national parks do. Monument status, too, has opposition. Three members of Maine’s Congressional delegation (Senators Angus King and Susan Collins and second district Representative Bruce Poliquin) sent a letter to President Obama expressing “serious reservations and significant concerns” about the national monument designation (Miller, Portland Press Herald, November 23, 2015).

Maine Governor Paul LePage introduced a largely symbolic bill in the legislature in opposition to national monument status for the proposed park area. As reported by Kevin Miller (Portland Press Herald, April 11, 2016), that bill, in revised form, passed narrowly in both the Maine House and Senate in April 2016.

Opponents of a national park claim that it would create only seasonal, lower-paying jobs and hurt traditional industries such as forest product industries. They also believe that a park would bring undesirable federal government authority into Maine. According to these newspaper articles by Miller and Sambides, strong opponents include hunters and snowmobilers, who believe that hunting, snowmobiling, and other activities would be restricted if a national park were to be created.

STATED PREFERENCES OF OUT-OF-STATE VISITORS: THE MISSING INFORMATION

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lthough Maine residents’ preferences for the proposed park are well documented, there has been no attempt to date to understand the preferences of residents of neighboring states. It is important to understand these preferences because out-state tourists contributed more than $5 billion to Maine’s economy and typically make up over 90 percent of overnight and over 65 percent of day visitors to sites in Maine (MOT 2014). Though out-of-state visitors are likely to make up smaller percentage of visitors to locations in northern Maine, these visitors are going to end up deciding if the proposed park will contribute to improving the economy of northern Maine. If the park does not attract new visitors, the economic impact will be low, as visits will come from locals and most possibly as a substitution for other activities in Maine. If the new park attracts new out-of-state visitors to the region and to the park, it will be much more successful in contributing to 56

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the local economy. The results from our study on preferences of out-of-state visitors provide valuable information as Maine’s policymakers and residents discuss and debate the costs and the benefits of a new national park.

METHODS Choice Experiment Survey e used a choice experiment survey to elicit preferences of out-of-state visitors for the proposed park. Choice experiment surveys are an example of stated preference methods used by environmental economists to elicit public preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for specific goods, services, or policies (Adamowicz et al. 1998; Hensher et al. 2005). Choice experiments are often used to value nonmarket resources, such as environmental conservation projects, restoration of natural land, or the impact of pollution (Carlsson 2003; Meyer 2013; Dissanayake and Ando 2014).

Choice experiment surveys are based on Lancaster’s (1966) consumer theory and random utility theory (McFadden 1974). Lancaster asserted that consumers’ utility is derived from properties or characteristics of the goods, rather than goods themselves.

The thought process is that when a consumer purchases a pizza (or a car) what the consumer is actually purchasing is a collection of attributes such as toppings, crust, brand name, delivery time, or price, and the consumer’s utility (or satisfaction) is a based on these characteristics. By asking consumers to repeatedly make choices over pizzas (or cars) with varying characteristics, we can understand how the characteristics of the pizza (or the car) influence choices, and we can calculate the marginal value price of the characteristics (e.g., what is the additional value of a topping or ensuring quicker delivery).

A choice experiment follows this approach and presents respondents with the opportunity to choose from bundles of goods or policies where the levels or values of the characteristics of the bundle change based on a systematic design. Thus, choice experiment surveys allow the researcher to examine the distinct components of the respondents’ preferences. Since choice experiment surveys allow the calculation of the trade-off between the specific characteristics of a composite good, the researcher can understand how respondents weigh each characteristic of the good relative to another.

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Design of the Choice Experiment and Data Collection

At the beginning of the survey, respondents were provided information about the location of the park using maps that clearly identified Portland, Bangor, Acadia National Park, and Baxter State Park in addition to the proposed park and recreation area. (See map, Figure 1.) The survey also included limited information about the proposed park and the environmental amenities to be expected in the park.4 The survey allowed respondents to express their preferences over pairs of hypothetical parks that have the following attributes: types of access (fishing and hunting), types of trails (hiking and ATV/snowmobile), economic impact (expected number of jobs), and entrance fee. These attributes were selected after informal discussions with the public, researchers, and policymakers; conducting multiple formal focus groups; and a trial survey of out-of-state residents. The payment attribute—the entrance fee—presented six levels ranging from $10 to $60. All the nonmonetary attributes have three different levels as shown in Figure 2. We calculated the marginal willingness to pay (WTP) for each attribute by comparing the relative value for the attribute with the relative value for the entrance fee.

Using experiment design techniques, we generated 42 choice questions.5 Each respondent answered six of these questions. Figure 3 illustrates one set of choices presented to respondents.

Besides the choice question sets, the survey included sociodemographic questions that inquired about the respondents’ involvement in hunting and snowmobiling and their beliefs about appropriate and inappropriate government involvement. The answers to those questions were used to analyze and explain the heterogeneity in respondents’ preferences based on their levels of involvement in hunting and/or snowmobiling activities and their belief about government involvement.

The survey was conducted by Qualtrics, a professional survey firm, using an online panel in October 2015. The survey results were collected from 532 randomly selected out-of-state residents from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey, and New York. We purposefully did not specify demographic characteristics for the online panel to ensure a random sample. In summary, the sample is similar to the population of these states on income and educational distribution,

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Figure 2:

Attribute Levels

but is younger and comprises more female participants.6 (Details about the demographic characteristics of the respondents are available from the corresponding author.) In the estimation, we account for all these variables and find that age and gender do not have a significant influence on the preferences. We present the results and policy implications next.

RESULTS

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he majority of respondents expressed interest in travelling to the proposed park in Maine: 68 percent of respondents said that they would be likely to visit the park.7 Only 22 percent of respondents had visited Acadia National Park in the last five years and less than 7 percent of respondents had visited Baxter State Park in the last five years. The results do show that a large number of residents from neighboring states might

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be interested in visiting the proposed park and that the park would attract new visitors to Maine. It is important to note that since the survey asked “Are you likely to travel to this park?” actual visits may be lower than the 68 percent reported by our respondents.

We found that visitors would stay for three to five days on average and that 50 percent would combine a visit to the proposed park with a visit to either Acadia National Park or to some other destination on the Maine coast. These figures highlight that out-of-state visitors to the park would also visit other locations in Maine and as such can provide an important boost to the economy in both northern Maine and coastal Maine.

Choice Experiment Results We analyzed the choice experiment results using a conditional logit (CL) model, a mixed multinomial logit (MMNL) model, and MMNL model

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Figure 3:

Sample Choice Question

with interaction terms. The detailed regression results are available from the authors; we synthesize the results in this article. The results indicate that respondents value access to fishing and the creation of jobs for the local economy. Respondents in general dislike the access to hunting and to ATV/snowmobiling in the proposed park. Not surprisingly, however, the respondents who engage in hunting and/or snowmobiling support access to hunting and/or snowmobiling in the proposed park.8 The results also show that respondents with higher income are willing to pay more for entrance to the proposed park. In addition, respondents who believe that the federal government should be more involved in protecting the environment, ensuring access to health care, and reducing poverty are more likely to support a national park.

Table 1 shows the marginal willingness to pay (WTP) of each attribute averaged for the CL and

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MMNL main effects models. We find that respondents are willing to pay on average $83 dollars for admission to the park before taking into consideration the values for the other attributes. The marginal WTP values indicate that respondents value access to fishing and creation of jobs for the local economy, but dislike allowing hunting and ATV/snowmobile use in general.

The results show that respondents would pay approximately $12 more if fishing is allowed in the proposed park. Similarly, respondents would pay approximately $3 more if 100 additional jobs are created, indicating that though job creation is important for out-of-state visitors, recreational amenities are more important.

However, respondents on average would pay approximately $17 less if hunting is allowed. These estimates are highly statistically significant and robust across both the CL and MMNL models.

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Table 1:

Marginal WTP of Each Attribute from CL and MMNL Model Attribute

Marginal WTP1 ($)

Alternative specific constant

83.0***

Fishing is allowed

12.4***

Hunting is allowed

-17.4***

New jobs created (in hundreds)

2.9***

ATV/Snowmobile allowed

-0.3

Observations *p < 0.1,

9,576

**p < 0.05,

***p < 0.01

The results show the average values between the CL and MMNL models. Full results tables including t-statistics can be obtained from the corresponding author.

1

To better understand how the preferences vary across sociodemographic factors, we expanded the analysis to account for respondents’ recreation behavior and income, gender, education, and age. We found that higher-income and more educated respondents are willing to pay more for the proposed park, but age and gender do not have a significant influence on the WTP for the park.

Table 2 shows the marginal WTP for allowing hunting based on engagement in hunting and belief regarding government involvement in policy. We differentiate hunters9 from nonhunters and respondents who believe that the federal government should be more involved in protecting the environment, ensuring access to health care, and reducing the poverty from other respondents.

Table 2:

Marginal WTP for Allowing Hunting Based on Engagement in Hunting and Belief in More or Less/Same Government Involvement* Engage in Hunting

Government Involvement in Policy

Yes

No

More

$64 [$17, $111]

-$32 [-$49, -$14]

Same/Less

$47 [$19, $74]

-$23 [-$32, -$14]

* The results are significant at the 0.01 percent significance level. The 95 percent confidence intervals are provided within the brackets.

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The result indicates that the marginal WTP for allowing hunting is significantly different between hunters and nonhunters while the marginal WTP is not significantly different between respondents who believe in more governmental involvement and other respondents. Therefore, though only 9.8 percent of the sample engaged in hunting, allowing for hunting in part of the proposed park might attract more visitors who are willing to pay an additional amount.

Finally, we calculated the total willingness to pay (TWTP) for the proposed park. As we have discussed, this value would vary based on a number of factors including park characteristics and visitor characteristics.

Therefore, we present values for a park that allows fishing and would lead to the creation of 400 jobs. If the park allows for hunting and snowmobiling (a national recreation area), respondents who engage in these activities would be willing to pay on average $182. For a park that does not allow hunting and snowmobiling (a national park), respondents who do not engage in hunting and snowmobiling would be willing to pay on average $120. As mentioned previously, hunting has a negative marginal WTP for those who do not engage in hunting; therefore, respondents who do not engage in hunting and snowmobiling would only be willing to pay on average $95 for a national recreation area and are thus less likely to visit the national recreation area.

CONCLUSION

O

ur survey of respondents from neighboring states to understand preferences for the proposed Maine park found that 68 percent are likely to visit a new park and would stay on average three to five days. We also found that more than 50 percent of the respondents would combine a visit to the new park with a visit to Acadia National Park or the Maine coast. These findings suggest that a proposed national park and recreation area has the potential to draw new visitors to Maine and to increase tourism to other parts of the state.

We found that the preferences and WTP for the new park are influenced by respondents’ current recreation activities. Those who currently engage in hunting, fishing, and snowmobiling are willing to pay more in entrance fees for a park that allows these activities. We also found that the WTP of respondents who do not engage in hunting decreases if hunting is permitted.

Thus, creating both a national park (without access to 60

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hunting and ATV/snowmobile routes) and a national recreation area (with access to hunting and ATV/snowmobile routes) might attract the most visitors for a given entrance fee, compared to having just a national park. In fact, the current proposal includes 75,000 acres to be designated as a national park and another 75,000 acres to be designated as a national recreation area where the land and cleared trails are open to hunters and snowmobilers. The biggest policy recommendation from our work is that by including both a national park and a national recreation area, the current proposal aligns with the preferences of a broad group of likely visitors from neighboring states. By having both a national park and a national recreation area, the current proposal caters to the preferences of more visitors and could provide a significant boost to the local economy both around the park and in other areas of Maine. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Sahan T.M. Dissanayake, Department of Economics, Colby College, 5230 Mayflower Hill, Waterville, ME 04901-8852.

Email: sdissan2@gmail.com

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Comments and suggestions from three anonymous reviewers and the editor improved the presentation of the material in this article. We acknowledge guidance and comments on the study and the survey from Eliza Donoghue, Esq., North Woods policy advocate & outreach coordinator at the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

Funding for the data collection was provided by the Social Science Division Grant Program and the Goldfarb Center for Public Policy and Civic Engagement at Colby College.

Funding to support Ryu Matsuura was provided by the Summer Research Program at Colby College. This study is not affiliated with Katahdin Woods & Waters or the Elliotsville Plantation, Inc.

local officials have supported the park campaign and did not see the referenda in the two towns as a failure of the campaign.

4 The survey did not include explicit information about nonenvironmental amenities such as hotels or restaurants in the area.

5 The monetary attribute has six levels, and each of the nonmonetary attributes have three different levels.

Since a full factorial design of all possible combinations is computationally unreasonable, we used a fractional factorial design to reduce the full factorial design to 42 choice sets, which were separated into blocks of six choice profiles, giving seven unique survey versions with six questions each.

6 Approximately 39.5 percent of the respondents have bachelor’s degrees, whereas 36 percent of the population in the seven states has a college degree (demographic information on the seven states comes from the U.S. Census [http://www.census.gov/quickfacts]).

The highest number of respondents was in the $50,000 to 74,999 income category and the median income for the population of the seven states in 2014 was $64,071.

Approximately 80 percent of the sample is female while only 51.4 percent of the population for the seven states is female. More than half the respondents are younger than 35 years, whereas the median age for the population of the seven states is 39.

7 We asked the following question, “Are you likely to travel to this new park? If yes, how long will you stay?

Yes, ____ days. No.” 8 Of the respondents, 9.6 percent reported engaging in hunting and 8.6 percent in snowmobiling.

9 Respondents who have been hunting at least once in the last five years.

REFERENCES

ENDNOTES

Adamowicz, Wiktor, Peter Boxall, Michael Williams, and Jordan Louviere. 1998. “Stated Preference Approaches for Measuring Passive Use Values: Choice Experiments and Contingent Valuation. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 80: 64–75.

1 EPI currently owns 87,500 acres of land east of Baxter State Park and is seeking to purchase additional 62,500 acres to create a national park and recreation area.

Bell, Kathleen. 2007. “Houses in the Woods: Lessons from the Plum Creek Concept Plan.” Maine Policy Review 16(2): 44–55.

2 The employment figures are based on a study conducted by Headwaters Economics. The study is available at http://headwaterseconomics.org /economic-development/local-studies/katahdin

Carlsson, Frederik, Peter Frykblom, and Carolina Liljenstolpe.

2003. “Valuing Wetland Attributes: An Application of Choice Experiments. Ecological Economics 47:95–103.

3 However, St. Clair pointed out (Portland Press Herald, November 29, 2015) that chambers of commerce, business groups, newspaper editorial boards, and some

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Clark, Sara A., and Peter Howell. 2007. “From Diamond International to Plum Creek: The Era of Large Landscape Conservation in the Northern Forest.” Maine Policy Review 16(2): 56–65.

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Cullinane Thomas, Catherine, Christopher Huber, and Lynne Koontz. 2015. 2014 National Park Visitor Spending Effects: Economic Contributions to Local Communities, States, and the Nation. Natural Resource Report NPS/ NRSS/EQD/NRR—2015/947. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Fort Collins, CO. Dissanayake, Sahan T.M., and Amy W. Ando. 2014.

“Valuing Grassland Restoration: Proximity to Substitutes and Trade-offs among Conservation Attributes.” Land Economics 90(2): 237–259.

Headwaters Economics. 2013. Summary Report: The Economic Costs and Benefits of a New National Park and Recreation Area for Penobscot and Piscataquis Counties, Maine. http://headwaterseconomics .org/wphw/wp-content/uploads/Maine_Summary _Report.pdf Hensher, David A., John M. Rose, and William H. Greene.

2005. Applied Choice Analysis: A Primer. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Lancaster, Kelvin J. 1966. “A New Approach to Consumer Theory.” Journal of Political Economy 74(2): 132–157.

LeVert, Mike, Charles S. Colgan, and Charles Lawton. 2007 Are the Economics of a Sustainable Maine Forest Sustainable? Maine Policy Review 16(2): 26–36.

Lilieholm, Robert J. 2007 “Forging a Common Vision for Maine’s North Woods.” Maine Policy Review 16(2): 12–25.

Maine Office of Tourism (MOT). 2015. Visitor Tracking Research—2013 Calendar Year Annual Report. MOT, Augusta. http://visitmaine.com/assets/downloads /2013-Annual-Report-04-17-14-Final.pdf McFadden, Daniel. 1974. “Conditional Logit Analysis of Qualitative Choice Behavior.” In Frontiers in Econometrics, edited by P. Zarembka, 105–142.

Academic Press, New York.

Meyer, Andrew. 2013. “Intertemporal Valuation of River Restoration.” Environmental and Resource Economics 54(1): 41–61.

Natural Resource Council of Maine (NRCM). 2016. Maine Opinion Polls Show Strong Support For a New National Park and National Recreation Area. NRCM, Augusta. http://www.nrcm.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03 /LD1600attachments.pdf

Ryunosuke Matsuura is an undergraduate student double majoring in economics and mathematical science at Colby College. For the 2015–16 academic year, he studied abroad at Oxford University. While at Colby, he has engaged in research on understanding preferences for the proposed national park in Maine’s North Woods and for protecting Coral Reefs in Okinawa, Japan. He hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in economics in the future.

Sahan T. M. Dissanayake is an assistant professor of economics and a research fellow at the Goldfarb Center for Public Policy at Colby College. His research centers on ecosystem services and land conservation and uses surveys and optimization models.

He has studied preferences for grasslands in Illinois, riparian shading in Oregon, seafood eco-labeling in New England, coral reefs in Okinawa, and preventing deforestation in Nepal and Ethiopia and worked on land conservation on Department of Defense installations.

Andrew Meyer is an assistant professor of economics at Marquette University. He conducts research in the areas of environmental, behavioral, and education economics. Much of his work focuses on understanding what affects individuals’ pro-environmental behavior and willingness to pay for environmental amenities.

Vail, David. 2007. “Tourism Strategy for the Maine Woods: A Big Push to World Class.” Maine Policy Review 16(2): 104–115.

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IMPACT INVESTING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Impact Investing and Community Development

by Ron Phillips Impact investing is part of the decades-old tradition of corporate social responsibility. The author focuses on community development entities, which are nonprofit charitable organizations with the capacity to manage and deploy capital to provide a “helping hand” through investment for at-risk populations and regions. He notes how the impact investing and community development fields share goals of helping create healthy and sustainable communities.

INTRODUCTION

T

he policy and practice of impact investing burst onto global investing markets following the financial crisis of 2008. Articles and academic treatises on the topic abound. Governments, banks, foundations, and a plethora of private and public advocates and institutions—wealth managers, managers of mutual and pension funds, endowments of religious organizations and universities—have been looking at ways to steer their capital into more socially responsible investments.1 The term impact investing was first coined by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2009 at its gathering of thought leaders in Bellagio, Italy. Impact investing is part of the decades-old tradition of corporate social responsibility that holds domestic and international financial institutions and corporations accountable for harmful employment, community, or environmental impacts. At the Bellagio gathering, investors, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists came together to reflect on the question of how to harness the power of the market for the good of the commons. This seminal gathering led to the catalytic report “Impact Investing: An Emerging Asset Class” and to an early definition of the term: “Impact investments are investments intended to create positive impact beyond financial return” (O’Donohoe, Leijonhufvud, and Saltuk 2010: 5).2 In recent years impact investing has come to the fore among several of Maine’s leading family foundations including the Betterment Fund, Sandy River Charitable, Sewall, and Maine Community Foundation.

Social impact strategies in Maine are taking shape, involving players from multiple sectors including a wide range of community organizations involved with services

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to low-income individuals and families; social investors connected with national and state chapters of “Slow Money,” a network of socially conscious individuals with resources that make small loans to boost Maine’s local food production and distribution; Maine’s banking and credit union sector; and in some cases, local and state government. Most recently the Maine Community Foundation set aside funds to direct resources to sectors that hold promise for Maine’s economic development including sustainable agriculture and fisheries, small town mill development, and affordable housing. Impact investing is also aligning with municipal and government agency grants and loan programs, such as the Small Business Administration or U.S. Department of Agriculture, which annually guarantee loans and deploy millions of dollars in Maine and billions of dollars nationally in projects ranging from small business, to water, sewer, renewable energy, affordable housing, and community facilities.

Nationally and internationally, impact investing involves multiple kinds of organizations, multiple strategies, and multiple sectors ranging from environmental issues and clean energy to health and economic development. The focus in this article is on impact investing and community development entities, which are largely nonprofit charitable organizations with the capacity to manage and deploy capital. I hope to provide greater understanding and insights about the relationships between the impact investing and community development fields, which have shared goals of helping create healthy and sustainable communities. In the flurry of excitement over impact investing, the potential to partner with and invest in community development organizations is a topic that needs further exploration.

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WHAT IS IMPACT INVESTING?

T

here is not full agreement on exactly what impact is investing, let alone how best to participate in community development. Advocates and practitioners of corporate social responsibility argue that impact investing has been around for decades, albeit from a negative perspective, that is, staying away from investments in companies that do harm. In 1972, the ecumenical Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility of the National Council of Churches in New York City was formed to do just that. Since then members have challenged corporations in many areas, from promotion of infant formula as a replacement for breast milk in developing countries, to the impact of fracking on water quality in oil production. Another recent example is the current campaign of 350.org advocating for divestiture in fossil fuel producers. Stanford University raised the bar on the negative nuance to impact investing by announcing a divestiture of securities in the more egregious companies involved in fossil fuel production.

Historically, this strategy was most dramatically evidenced in the international movement against South Africa’s apartheid regime. One can also reach back further in history of examples protesting unjust practices such as slavery. The eighteenth-century sugar merchant and Quaker John Wright wrote: Therefore being impressed (as I have said) with the Sufferings and Wrongs of that deeply injured People and also with an Apprehension, that while I am a Dealer in that Article, which appears to be a principal Support of the Slave-Trade, I am encouraging Slavery. I take this Method of informing my Customers, that I mean to discontinue selling the Article of SUGAR, (when I have disposed of the Stock I have on hand) ‘til I can procure it through Channels less contaminated, more unconnected with Slavery, and less polluted with Human Blood.3 Some might even cite the creation of the Farm Credit System in 1916 to finance agriculture and other rural projects or the Federal Home Loan Bank in 1932, which opened the doors for home ownership, now capitalized on the Wall Street bond market, and a whole series of subsequent government-driven financing products and programs as inspired by impact investing goals.

In recent years investment criteria have favored companies with progressive environmental, social and

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governance practices referred to as ESG.4 Importantly, at the federal level the Securities and Exchange Commission rules governing fiduciary managers and the Department of Labor’s regulations governing public retirement funds have been pressed to advance this evolving world of impact investing with more favorable guidelines that include ESG. Internationally, in 2015 the G8’s Social Investment Task Force issued a catalytic report on social investing that challenges financial institutions, corporations, and their respective nations to take requisite steps to deal with society’s fundamental challenges, whether poverty or climate (G8 Social Impact Investment Task Force. 2014). Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, was appointed chair of the U.S. National Advisory Board on Impact Investing. The 2014 report “Private Capital Public Good: How Smart Federal Policy Can Galvanize Impact Investing and Why It’s Urgent” sets forth a public and private sector regulatory and policy strategies to steer capital for the common good (U.S. National Advisory Board on Impact Investing 2014).

At the state level, many pension funds have implemented economically targeted investment policies to induce greater benefits to communities. Among them, California’s Sacramento-based pension fund, CalPERS, is acclaimed for advancing the welfare of Californians in need of affordable housing, or making venture capital investments in job-creating firms. In short, there has emerged a wide range of public and private interests that are—or potentially can be—engaged in impact investing.

More than just a financial return, then, impact investing is the proactive pursuit of the investor community at diverse individual and institutional levels who seek social and environmental value from wealth managers.5 Investors are looking to fulfill a common definition of impact investing as described by the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), the international advocate spawned by the Rockefeller Foundation’s initiative: Impact investments are investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. Impact investments can be made in both emerging and developed markets, and target a range of returns from below market to market rate, depending upon the circumstances.

The growing impact investment market provides capital to support solutions to the world’s most 64

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pressing challenges in sectors such as sustainable agriculture, affordable housing, affordable and accessible health care, clean technology, and financial services.6 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

I

n the United States, there is a growing 50-year-old industry of several thousand community development corporations (CDCs), community development financial institutions (CDFIs), community development banks, credit unions, and microloan funds that make up an important segment of the impact investing spectrum.

They are a tested and experienced delivery system for raising, managing and deploying funds and benefiting communities and populations in need.

CDCs/CDFIs can be an important segment of the impact investing spectrum. Several exist in Maine including Avesta Housing, Coastal Enterprises, Inc., Community Housing of Maine, Community Concepts, Inc., Four Directions Development Corporation (the About Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI)

CEI’s mission is to help create economically and environmentally healthy communities in which all people, especially those with low incomes, can reach their full potential. CEI was organized in 1977 as a CDC at a time when community development was still in its formative stages, and a CDFI in 1994.

Privately and publicly funded with grants, loans, and investments from diverse sources, including national and community banks, foundations, religious institutions, individuals, state and federal government agencies, CEI has financed over 2,500 enterprises creating livable jobs, affordable housing, and access to social services such as child or health care, for people and places left out of the mainstream. CEI creates economic opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs, business, and social services entities to help create sustainable communities. Active both in Maine and throughout rural America, the impact investment network is a critical part of the organization’s ability to grow and have a greater impact on underserved people and places.

Please visit us in Brunswick or at http://ceimaine.org

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four-tribe Native American CDFI), Penquis Community Action Agency, Genesis Community Loan Fund (originally a faith-based loan fund). Related national and intermediary trade associations that support local development include the Local Initiative Support Corporation in New York City, set up by the Ford Foundation in 1979; NeighborWorks, organized in 1977 in Washington, D.C., and Opportunity Finance Network in Philadelphia, the voice of the CDFI industry. These organizations, representing hundreds of community development groups throughout rural and urban America of varying sizes and capacities, form the web of opportunity in which impact investors can engage.

Today these kinds of community development entities are raising and managing funds drawn from diverse private and public sources; investing in affordable housing and community facilities such as health clinics and small businesses; and helping revitalize neighborhoods and rural regions throughout America. Added to this is the rapidly growing international network of organizations working to invest, create opportunity, and stem poverty and low incomes on every continent. The Calvert Social Investment Foundation, based in Bethesda, Maryland, and established by founders of the Calvert Mutual Fund Group, ranks among the leading U.S. and international community investing organizations. Initially established with funds from the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., Oikocredit in Amersfoort, Netherlands, and Washington, D.C., is perhaps the largest faith-based sustainable development financing organization with $1 billion in capital.7 The unique attribute of CDCs/CDFIs is that they work in underserved urban and rural regions. They target funds to where they are most needed and help low-income individuals, children and families, disadvantaged populations, the elderly, those with disabilities, and particularly traditional minority populations at the margins of economic inclusion. CDCs/CDFIs are the proverbial organization that provide a helping hand through investment for populations and regions at risk to achieve a measure of self-sufficiency.

Historical Roots of Community Development

CDCs/CDFIs are rooted in the civil rights era of the 1960s (Von Hoffman 2013). Michael Harrington in his seminal 1963 book The Other America exposed the poverty in America that capitalism had engendered over the many decades. The social, economic, and political dynamics that gave rise to CDCs are as relevant today as 65

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then. CDCs were formed with federal funding in 1965 under Title VII of the Equal Opportunity Act of 1964 to address rampant poverty and disinvestment in America’s urban and rural communities. The Ford Foundation had initially piloted the CDC concept during the 1950s and early 1960s in an effort to steer investment capital to urban ghettoes. Called the “gray areas program,” various programs evolved from the initial investments focused on creating economic opportunity for youth caught up in gang culture. Many other federal programs were established during the same period, such as Head Start, community action agencies, and model cities, many of which are now combined under the Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program.

The statutory purpose of CDCs [community development corporations] was to ameliorate conditions of poverty by attracting investment in specific neighborhoods and rural regions….

The statutory purpose of CDCs was to ameliorate conditions of poverty by attracting investment in specific neighborhoods and rural regions identified as “Special Impact Areas.” The 1966 Title VII amendment to the Equal Opportunity Act authored by then Senators Jacob Javits and Robert Kennedy of New York provided operating and capital grants to local, mainly nonprofit, CDCs to leverage this capital and invest in minority and economically disenfranchised rural communities and urban neighborhoods. A number of CDCs were formed that were owned and controlled by resident African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, or white residents of Appalachia and in other cities and regions cut off from the economic mainstream. Among the first was the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation in Brooklyn, New York.

The CDFI model was created as a result of the bipartisan Riegle Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act of 1994. More strictly functioning as lending institutions compared to CDCs, MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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which take on both development and ownership of projects, CDFIs are certified by the U.S. Treasury to target resources, primarily capital, to underserved rural and urban regions of the United States where vast populations live beyond the reach of private capital markets.

Maine’s Senator George Mitchell was Senate Majority Leader at that time and helped lead the legislation that has become well-known among community development financing and banking sectors. Still other investment vehicles have been established by local, county, and/or state governments, funded by state and federal resources, such as the Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Community development is by definition placebased. Several thousand entities are active throughout rural and urban America seeking to effect change in the regions where they live. Alexander Von Hoffman (2012: 11–12) reminds us of the important history of community development in the Federal Reserve Banks of San Francisco Low Income Investment Fund publication, Investing in What Works for American Communities: The concept of community development originated in the late nineteenth century when reformers discovered America’s “backward” areas. Socially committed women and men in Settlement Houses and charitable organizations confronted the ills of industrial capitalism: poorly paid immigrant and racial minority wage workers crowded into tenement apartments, cottages, and shacks in seedy neighborhoods near docks, trains, and factories. During the Progressive Era of the early twentieth century, urban reformers connected poverty, overcrowding, crime, youth delinquency, and sundry other social ills to the unsanitary and unsightly slums where the working poor and indigents lived.

How Do CDCs/CDFIs Operate?

As mission-driven organizations, CDCs/CDFIs aggregate both private and public capital. They build capacity at the grass roots with flexible capital, whether financing job-creating small businesses through basic revolving loan funds, advising and counseling entrepreneurs or those buying a home for the first time, leveraging funds with banks and other sources, supporting innovative charter school programs and facilities, developing child care or affordable housing, and in rural 66

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communities, developing local farming, fisheries, and forest economies.

The simplest explanation of the kind of financing CDCs/CDFIs do is they fill the gap to help make a project happen, or often, simply to act as an alternative bank for financing about which a traditional bank may not be sufficiently informed, or otherwise is unwilling to undertake. CDFIs target resources to unbanked populations, to underserved rural and urban regions, to community and economic development projects that the private sector cannot or will not undertake. Often, if not for this kind of capital, the project would not go forward. This also explains why partnerships in project financing, such as with a conventional bank, are important. CDCs/CDFIs often put their capital to work in more flexible ways, with repayment or equity returns that are more compatible with the ability of the business to grow and the ability of entrepreneurs to invest his/her own equity or assemble sufficient collateral.

Money-center banks such as Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs, along with community and regional banks such as Maine’s Bangor Savings, Machias Savings, the First, Camden National, TD Bank, and KeyBank are active as a source of capital and grant funds.

Over the decades the community development industry spans, billions of private and public dollars have been put to work for the benefit of populations at risk.

Whether a CDC/CDFI, or a community development entity with similar investment aims, much of the work has been to raise capital and target benefits to low- to moderate-income (LMI) populations. The LMI definition typically follows a U.S. Census tract calculation that identifies populations and regions that fall within 80 percent of what is called the area median income (AMI).

This figure is calculated on the basis of the cost of living in a particular area of a county, or a state, or the country that sets the minimum or LMI household income.

PROMOTING SUCCESS IN THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT SECTOR

W

hile progress has been made to raise the quality of life for underserved, minority, and low-income groups in our society, much is left to be done that cannot be achieved without involvement from the impact investing field. Realizing this need to connect impact investing to CDFIs, the CDFI Community Investment Initiative (CCII) came together in October

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2010 to collaborate on the research and strategy to better access impact investing funds. A group of a dozen CDCs/CDFIs produced a report, “How to Increase Socially Responsible Investment in CDFIs,” designed to acquaint impact investors with the scale and scope of the community development industry; identify barriers to accessing impact-investment capital; and outline products as asset classes that impact investors could more easily understand. The report has served to move the industry forward, but still not at a pace whereby capital keeps pace with the appetite in the community development field (Cates 2011; Cates and Larson 2010).

Given that community development and impact investing need to be more closely connected, it is important to outline the community development field’s historic challenges and to raise the question of how impact investing capital can be integrated into the effort. Traditionally, the community development sector has been most successful when incorporating four ingredients.

Access to Flexible Capital The first ingredient is access to flexible grant and investment capital to support programs such as counseling or employment training, along with research on products and services, operations and administration, as well as capital for investment. While most CDCs/ CDFIs are nonprofit 501(c)(3)charitable organizations, they do have to manage sound balance sheets with sufficient equity to borrow and deploy funds. Both government and philanthropy play a critical role in providing flexible equity as grants that allow the CDC/CDFI to raise, leverage, and have an impact on the people and markets it is serving.

Mobilizing flexible, patient, and appropriate capital for economic development requires the concerted efforts of many parties in the public and private sectors. The largest share of funds in community development flows from government and the banking community, which is for the most part driven by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 and subsequent regulations and programs to spur investment in underserved markets. A significant share also comes from major national foundations. Under the Tax Reform Act of 1969 foundations have been able to make what are called Program Related Investments (PRIs). The Ford Foundation was a pioneer in use of PRIs with low cost loans to CDCs/CDFIs to advance program aims, whether in job creation among small businesses, child care facility development, or 67

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other socially-driven enterprises. Foundations count PRIs as part of their annual distributions. Notable other foundations that have been a source of PRIs include the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Heron Foundation, Kresge Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and Kellogg Foundation.

For CDCs/CDFIs, government has been an important building block as a source of capital to raise private capital and deploy funds for community and related development projects. Depending on one’s calculation, in 2015 well over $76 billion of federal government discretionary funding was allocated to the housing and community development, and food and agriculture sectors.8 Leveraging of Capital The second element of community development is the leveraging of capital. One of the more difficult, yet important, concepts is the amount that one dollar of an impact investor’s contribution can leverage in additional funds. Similar to a down payment on a home mortgage, the leverage concept is a dynamic one that takes place with others devoting dollars to a specific project or pool of funds. Leveraging a project does more than just increase the dollar amount in a pool of capital; it brings together strategic partners and spreads the risk among a larger group. Common within the leverage concept is the host of governmental incentives such as guarantees that can accompany a leveraged pool.

Policies, through regulations that create incentives for private investment, can induce funders to steer their capital towards social good….

Imperative of Policy The third component to community investing is the imperative of policy. Lending and investing puts capital in the areas needed, but without engagement in policy, the large-scale goals of community development cannot be achieved (Dickstein 2014). Policies, through regulations that create incentives for private investment, can induce funders to steer their capital towards social good, which can ultimately enable community development MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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efforts to reach meaningful scale. Policy is one of the basic activities measured by Aeris, the CDFI field’s answer to a Moody’s-like rating for CDFIs.9 In other words, while one’s rating in financial performance and social impact is essential, so too is the extent to which an organization engages in policy and advocacy to create a much broader impact on society.

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is perhaps the most well known of the policy initiatives that the community development field has advocated for in respect to bank lending. As the story goes, in Chicago and many other parts of urban America, banks would literally “red line” areas where they refused to make a mortgage or any other kind of loan. These were typically communities of minorities who were victims of widespread and historic discrimination. The organizing efforts of community representatives in the Chicago area called attention to this discrimination, leading to the ground-breaking Community Reinvestment Act that held banks accountable for such actions. According to the 600-member National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which was created to serve as a voice to the CRA movement, more than $6 trillion of bank financing has gone into underserved and minority areas since the law’s enactment in 1977—an amount that may not have been extended if not for policy.

Other policy initiatives in the community development field of this magnitude are few and far between, but over time they do contribute to significant resources for community development and people or regions left out of the economic mainstream. Subsequent to the CRA legislation is the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) of 1986, which has produced hundreds of thousands of affordable housing units for low-income elderly and families. Following the LIHTC path of using the tax code for economic opportunity, the Federal Community Renewal Tax Relief Act was passed in 2000, creating the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program of the U.S. Treasury. The NMTC program, using tax credits as incentives of tax credits, has led to $31 billion in private capital being invested in low-income communities, which has generated $118 billion in economic activity and created and sustained some 750,000 jobs.

Unlike LIHTC, the NMTC is geared to help finance a wide range of community development projects including charter schools, businesses, commercial real estate, nonprofit health and child care facilities, and art programs, all of which make up a sustainable community.

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The multibillion NMTC has been a major stimulus for steering capital to low-income rural and urban communities, fueling a mission of economic justice and opportunity. Working with colleagues and in coalitions on policy initiatives of the aforementioned kind is an absolute necessity to induce impact investing in community development.10 Policy is a crucial ingredient in the complex formula of community investing; it creates an environment conducive to capital formation, deployment, and the development of co-lender relationships.

Measuring Impact The fourth component of successful community development is the measurable impact made in the lives of the people and communities these organizations serve.

Impact, here, is notably distinct from output, which is measured in finite terms at the time of an investment, such as the number of jobs created or the number of affordable housing units constructed. Impact, on the other hand, extends beyond this one-time calculation, taking into account the lasting change created in those lives and communities they inhabit. It is true that impact derives from output, but output does not necessarily generate impact. A job may be created at the time of investment, for example, but true impact is only realized in longevity of that position, its sustained wages, and the employees’ work skill development, which has the power to transition them out of poverty and into lives of financial security.

It is the goal of every community development organization to ensure that their outputs are being translated into traceable, positive impact, and it is the distinction between the two that underscores the importance of such a measurement vehicle. Strides have been made by several organizations, such as GIIN or the Low Income Investing Fund with its social impact calculator, (http://www.liifund.org/calculator/) to translate outputs such as affordable housing units and child care slots into monetized social impact.

The importance of metrics for community developers is twofold: to ensure their mission is being achieved and to hold CDCs/CDFIs accountable to their funders, as ESG metrics hold large corporations accountable to their shareholders. With a closer analysis on the long-term change being effected within their community, community development organizations are in a better position to produce more detailed, researched strategies for the future. It is these four components of community development that offers a framework from MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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which the impact investor can engage the community development field, and determine what combinations of investment, flexible terms, and even gifts can be directed in such a way as to participate in the missions of these entities.

Engaging Impact Investing For impact investing to be successful, and in particular to engage substantially in the community development field, the financial attributes of impact investing products need to be woven clearly together with an array of other resources. While impact investing requires a financial return, what undergirds such a return is the critical role government plays, often with sophisticated financing mechanisms such as IRS-monitored housing, real estate or historic tax credits, and other subsidies and programs to ensure returns or small business guarantees. Community development practitioners are skillful at drawing capital from multiple sources to develop enterprises that contribute to sustaining communities and their most marginalized individuals, children and families.

ECONOMY OF JUSTICE: CHALLENGE TO IMPACT INVESTORS

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s I have described, impact investing involves negative screens leading to divestment and/or shareholder protests; positive screens leading to investment in socially responsible companies, as measured by ESG; and the targeting of resource to CDCs/CDFIs and other social enterprises, often described as community investing, that benefit those at the margins of the economy.11 To achieve this elusive goal, each component of what is frequently referred to as the triple bottom line of return on investment—economy, equity, and environment—must be incorporated into development. Working together, these three elements steer the economy on a track towards social justice. No one strategy can be pursued without concomitant action on any of the others. They are interrelated, each an effort to create economic structures that truly distribute value to all individuals, children, and families, especially the poor and disenfranchised.

The proverbial “elephant in the room” question is: What economic systems are sustainable for future generations, as global warming and poverty have fast become essential to the question’s resolution? What political and economic structure of American society—any society— 69

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is viable with respect to production, allocation, and distribution of resources and benefits in an equitable and environmentally sustainable way? What economic system is most just? What political system gives care to all people and the environment?

CDC/CDFI advocates argue that inattention to the vital role of government could undermine the necessity of government resources during a period in the United States and western European countries that has produced the greatest inequality in wealth and income in history.

In describing the relevance of the impact investing field to community development, a report by the Monitor Institute questions its potential: Using profit-seeking investment to generate social and environmental good is moving from a periphery of activist investors to the core of mainstream financial institutions….The pressing question is whether impact investing will remain a small, disorganized, underleveraged niche for years or even decades to come—or whether leaders will come together to fulfill the industry’s clear promise, making this new domain a major complementary force for providing the capital, talent, and creativity needed to address pressing social and environmental challenges (Freilich and Fulton 2009: 4–5).

At a recent Federal Reserve conference entitled “Economic Mobility: Research & Ideas on Strengthening Families, Communities & the Economy,” presenters offered significant research on the growing lack of economic opportunity due to the growing gap in wealth and income. One statistic belies the concept of America as the land of opportunity, suggesting that persons born in the lower-income strata have a one-in-ten chance of escaping the marginal incomes of their parents. In opening remarks at the conference, Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve Board, noted that According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, the gap between rich and poor now ranks as a major concern in the minds of citizens around the world. In advanced economies still feeling the effects of the Great Recession, people worry that children will grow up to be worse off financially than their parents were. In the United States, roughly 80 percent of Americans across the ideological spectrum see inequality as a moderately big or very big problem.

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These are questions that are fundamental to the discussion of impact investing, since more wealth than ever in the history of the world appears to be increasingly concentrated among very few individuals. Impact investing and community development are essential tools to achieve a fairer distribution of wealth.

Historically, nations that allow such amassing of wealth in one direction have had limited longevity, but the addition of environmental degradation into the equation could yield irreversible consequences. As testament to the urgency of this problem, Pope Francis issued a 184-page encyclical letter, “Laudato Si’—On Care for Our Common Home,” calling for radical political, economic, and lifestyle changes to combat the destruction of our environment. He notes that the primary victims of reckless consumerism, capitalistic expansion, and political injustice are the world’s poorest citizens. The Pope’s message is clear: “There is a moral imperative to be better stewards of the planet because the fate of humanity, especially the impoverished billions, hangs in the balance.”

Sustainable community development is a powerful tool to bring about change. The challenge then is for the universe of impact investors to step up and contribute significantly to economic opportunity and help build sustainable communities. ENDNOTES 1 Many wealth management firms have adopted social criteria and value-driven investing. A primer on the practice was issued by the World Economic Forum in December 2014: Impact Investing: A Primer for Family Offices. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEFUSA _FamilyOfficePrimer_Report.pdf 2 A subsequent book on the topic of impact investing is The Power of Impact Investing, by Judith Rosen and Margot Brandenburg, the Rockefeller Foundation, 2014.

3 This quote is taken from James Wright (1739–1811), a Quaker and merchant of Haverhill, Suffolk, who issued this handbill around 1791 informing his customers that he would no longer be selling sugar. http://abolition.e2bn.org/source_33.html 4 Ceres, the Boston-based international advocacy organization successfully argued that the Securities and Exchange Commission include in 10-K annual reports the impact of climate change on operations. The Department of Labor corrected a previously addressed issue relating to economically targeted investments ETIs) in Interpretive Bulletins 94-1 (IB 94-1) and 2008-1 (IB 2008-1). ETIs are compatible with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act’s fiduciary obligations.

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The department concluded that in the seven years since its publication, IB 2008-01 has unduly discouraged fiduciaries from considering ETIs and ESG factors under appropriate circumstances.

G8 Social Impact Investment Task Force. 2014. Impact Investment: The Invisible Heart of Markets. http:// www.socialimpactinvestment.org/reports/Impact %20Investment%20Report%20FINAL%5B3%5D.pdf

5 Veris Wealth Partners is one of many marketing their services for impact as well as returns on investments: http://www.veriswp.com/about-veris/our-values/

Freireich, Jessica, and Katherine Fulton. 2009. Investing for Social & Environmental Impact. Monitor Institute, San Francisco.

6 The Global Impact Investment Network is an international membership organization that specializes in impact investing: https://thegiin.org/impact investing/

O’Donohoe, Nick, Christina Leijonhufvud, and Yasemin Saltuk. 2010. Impact Investing: An Emerging Asset Class. J.P. Morgan Global Research, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Global Impact Investing Network Inc. https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/app/uploads /Impact-Investments-An-Emerging-Asset-Class.pdf

7 For information on its history, initially formed as the Ecumenical Development Cooperative Society, visit its website: http://oikocreditusa.org/home 8 https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics /federal-budget-101/spending/ 9 Aeris Guiding Capital to Good is an independent rating system for CDFIs and other financial entities for investors who support positive change in underserved markets. More information is available at the website http://www.aerisinsight.com/ 10 For a current account of the impact of the NMTC, see the report “A Decade of the New Markets Tax Credit: An Economic Analysis,” by the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition. Washington, DC, December 2014. http:// www.novoco.com/new_markets/resource_files/reports /a_decade_of_the_nmtc_nmtc_coalition_121014.pdf 11 Based in Washington, DC, US SIF is focused on policies to foster socially responsible behavior among financial and corporate institutions. A seminal 2013 report, “Expanding the Market for Community Investing in the United States,” describes the effectiveness of these grassroots, regional and national development organizations. http://www.ussif.org/files/publications /ussif_expanding_markets.pdf

REFERENCES Cates, Rosalie Sheehan. 2011. How to Increase Socially Responsible Investment in CDFIs. CDFI Community Investment Initiative. http://www.rosaliesheehycates .com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/How-to-Increase -Socially-Respnsible-Investment-in-CDFIs.pdf Cates, Rosalie Sheehan, and Chris Larson. 2010. Connecting CDFIs to the Socially Responsible Investor Community.

Sponsored by the Ford Foundation. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. https://www.cdfifund.gov/Documents /Connecting%20CDFIs%20to%20the%20Socially %20Responsible%20Investor%20Commun.pdf

U.S. National Advisory Board on Impact Investing. 2014.

Private Capital Public Good: How Smart Federal Policy Can Galvanize Impact Investing and Why It’s Urgent. http://www.nabimpactinvesting.org/ Von Hoffman, Alexander. 2012. “The Past, Present, and Future of Community Development in the United States.” Investing in What Works for America’s Communities, Essays on People, Place and Purpose.

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Low Income Investment Fund.

Von Hoffman, Alexander. 2013. “The Past, Present, and Future of Community Development: The Changing Face of Achieving Equity in Health, Education, and Housing in the United States.” Shelterforce (July 17). http:// www.shelterforce.org/article/3332/the_past_present _and_future_of_community_development/

Ronald L. Phillips is the principal founder of Coastal Enterprises, Inc., based in Brunswick, Maine.

He has served as its CEO since 1977 and will be retiring July 1, 2016. He has served on many state and national community development boards, trade associations, and small businesses, including a 2014 appointment by President Barack Obama to the CDFI Advisory Board. Previously, he was on the executive staff of the National Council of Churches in New York City where he worked on domestic and international development policy.

Dickstein, Carla. 2014. CEI’s Policy Directions for Maine 2015. CEI, Wiscasset, ME. http://www.ceimaine.org/wp-content/uploads/2015 /03/CEIPolicyGuidelinesforMaine2015FINAL.pdf

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C O M M E N T A R Y

Climate Policy 2015: Reports from the Congressional Trenches

by Sharon Tisher and Peter Mills

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hile candidates for national office interminably and furiously debate what to do about ISIS attacks, immigration abuses, economic inequality, taxes, welfare reform, the national debt, and matters of considerably less gravitas, they fail to responsibly address the most significant challenge of our age: climate change.

We are lifelong members of our respective parties (one a Democrat, the other a Republican) who assert that remedies for climate change should be a dominant topic of political discourse.

This threat should be taken just as seriously in 2016 as the war to dissolve the Union in the election of 1864 or the struggle against Axis powers in the election of 1944.

The year 2015 was alarmingly eventful. It was the globe’s hottest year on record, greatly exceeding the previous six hottest years, five of which occurred in the last decade. The year ended with a remarkable concurrence of extreme weather across the United States. On Christmas Day in Portland, Maine, the temperature peaked at 62 degrees, eight degrees hotter than the previous record from 1994.

At the beginning of 2015, irrefutable evidence of the changing climate led the U.S. Senate to vote 98 to 1 to resolve “that climate change is real and not a hoax,” but the Senate rejected a resolution proposing to find it significantly caused by humans.

Multiparty civil wars in Syria born in severe drought, dislocation, and unemployment have spawned terrorism

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and the worst refugee crisis since World War II. In the encyclical letter “Laudato Si’—On Care for Our Common Home,” Pope Francis issued an imperative call to action on climate: “Obstructionist attitudes…can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. We require a new and universal solidarity.” He brought his message to Congress in an unprecedented address given at the invitation of House Speaker John Boehner.

President Obama finalized his Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants.1 Delegates from 195 countries convened in Paris to seize the “last, best chance” to forge a global plan to reduce greenhouse gases, hailed by some as the world’s greatest diplomatic success (Friedman 2015). But opponents in Congress pledged to scuttle both the Clean Power Plan and the commitments made by our President at the Paris conference to reduce carbon emissions.

This issue strikes close to home. In February 2015, the Climate Change Institute of the University of Maine released its updated assessment of the impacts of climate change on Maine’s weather, our ecosystems, and our resource-based economy (Fernandez et al. 2015). Findings in the report include the following: • “Average annual temperatures across Maine warmed by about 3.0 °F between 1895 and 2014” (Fernandez et al. 2015: 2).

• “The spread of Lyme disease has been linked to temperatures that make habitat more suitable for deer ticks and their hosts. The rate of Lyme disease reached a record high in 2013 at…1,377 cases” (Fernandez et al. 2015: 5).

• “Two-thirds of Maine’s plant and animal species are either highly or moderately vulnerable to climate change” (Fernandez et al. 2015: 5).

• “A significant increase in extreme precipitation events (more frequent and intense storms) has been observed across Maine” (Fernandez et al. 2015: 9).

• “A decade of above-average spring and summer precipitation patterns have fostered an epidemic of white pine needle disease, which is caused by one or more pathogenic fungi” (Fernandez et al. 2015: 11).

• “Snowfall has declined by about 15%” since the late 1800s (Fernandez et al. 2015: 10).

• “Since 1982, the average sea surface temperature [in the Gulf of Maine] increased at a rate of 0.05 °F…per year, slightly faster than the increase experienced by the global ocean….Since 2004, the warming rate has accelerated to 0.41 °F…per year, a rate that…[is] faster than 99% of the world’s oceans” (Fernandez et al.

2015: 13).

• We have more and more flood zones along the Maine coast, resulting in increased costs for flood insurance and the need for essential property renovations (Fernandez et al. 2015:17).

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C O M M E N T A R Y The report states that “human influence on the global climate system is emerging as the defining environmental, economic, and social issue of the twenty-first century” (Fernandez et al. 2015: 1).

Maine citizens agree. According to an article by Mary Pols in the Portland Press Herald (September 20, 2015), a clear majority of them (67 percent) understand the effects of global warming and are deeply concerned about its effects on Maine. As we pointed out in an article in the Bangor Daily News (December 24, 2013), our state has a long tradition of sending strong environmental leaders to Congress, people who have led national efforts to fashion essential legislation such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. How have our current Congressional representatives tackled the climate conundrum in 2015? One of our authors (Tisher) spoke recently with three of them. The results were impressive and in at least one respect surprising.

Senators Collins and King and Congresswoman Pingree all without hesitation endorsed the assessment of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that “it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century” (Plattner 2013). Senator Collins wanted to “make clear that I don’t think human activity is the only factor influencing climate change, but it certainly is a significant factor.”

Senator Collins has observed firsthand the impacts of climate change at both extremities of the planet: I follow this issue closely including taking trips to Antarctica where the University of Maine has graduate students and professors working.…I’ve also been to the northern regions MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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of Alaska, to Barrow, and I’ve seen the changes with the melting of the permafrost and insects going further and further north and changing the fishing cycles and here in Maine the increase in Lyme disease that we’re seeing as a result of the increase in ticks is also attributable to climate change.

Our senators are among the most outspoken in Congress on climate science and the need for effective response. Senator King, a member of the Senate Climate Action Task Force, devoted his debut speech in Congress to the high risks of ignoring climate science, and in 2015 he delivered a floor speech echoing the Pope’s call for environmental stewardship based on fundamental moral precepts: Some of the reaction has been that the Pope should stay away from science and stick to morality and theology….I’m here this morning to say I believe that’s exactly what he is doing.…I have always viewed this issue in fundamentally an ethical and moral context.…I’m convinced that the science is irrefutable—that A) something is happening; B) it’s detrimental to the future of the country—of the world; and C) we people are largely responsible for it. But fundamentally, this is a moral and ethical issue.2 Senator King has created a graphic that he calls “Climate Change in a Nutshell,” showing increases in CO2 in the atmosphere over 800,000 years and the correlation between temperature and CO2 for the same period—all on a little card that “I hand out to my colleagues now and then, who are unbelievers.”

(See Figure 1).

In leading a panel discussion on climate in Portland sponsored by the Maine Conservation Alliance in February 2015, Senator Collins stated with a strong sense of urgency: When we talk about this issue we need to relate it to peoples’ lives and that has been in my view the failure of the discussion of this issue.…When scientists are talking about whether the planet is going to warm by 1.3 degrees or 2 degrees, it really doesn’t mean anything to people. When you hear from Bill [Mook] that the acidification is causing oysters not to be able to produce a shell…that affects jobs in this state…. Whether we invest in alternative energy, directly affects jobs in this state.

When we hear Russell [Black] talk about the impact on maple sugar flows or when he brings in the hay, that again speaks to the heritage of our state….Then it becomes real.

Senator Collins concluded her remarks by saying, “I’ve always believed that it’s a false choice to frame this debate as the environment versus the economy. Here in Maine, the environment is the economy. From tourism and recreation, to our working forests, fishing, and agricultural industries.”3 Senators Collins and King and Congresswoman Pingree voted against the effort to kill the Clean Power Plan through a Congressional override under the rarely used Congressional Review Act (CRA). Senator Collins stood out as one of only three Senate Republicans to vote “nay.” Although the CRA resolutions passed both the House and the Senate, they did not survive the President’s veto.

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C O M M E N T A R Y Figure 1:

Senator King’s “Climate Change in a Nutshell” Card

Senator Collins was one of five Senate Republicans to vote in favor of a resolution submitted in January stating that climate change is not only real, but significantly caused by humans.

Congresswoman Pingree voted in June against the “Ratepayer Protection Act of 2015,” H.R. 2042, that would have substantially derailed the Clean Power Plan by suspending its effectiveness until resolution of certain lawsuits and by exempting states from compli-

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ance whenever a governor certifies to EPA that implementation “would have a significant adverse effect upon: (1) the state’s residential, commercial, or industrial ratepayers.”

Senator King described his support for the Clean Power Plan as multifold: “One, because of what it will do substantively to move the country away from fossil fuel dependence for energy generation. Something like 32 percent of CO2 emitted is from power plants, so it’s a

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logical area to control. The way the Clean Power Plan works is very decentralized, in the sense that it’s not Washington telling Maine or Rhode Island or Texas how to get there, but just that this is where we’re headed and you figure it out. Maine for example is already well on the way; therefore, I see very little impact in Maine in terms of employment and jobs. We don’t have coal plants, we don’t have coal mines, and that’s where the principal impact will be…. In effect, RGGI [the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative] is the model for the Clean Power Plan. It’s worked very well in New England and it’s worked in Maine without any detriment to the economy.”

“Secondly,” King noted, ‘it’s important in terms of international leadership. Of course the climate talks are going on right now. If we go into these talks as one of world’s largest polluters, and say you’ve got to do things in China or India and by the way we’re not doing much, we don’t have any credibility.… Our ability to get China and India to take these steps would be severely compromised if we weren’t doing it ourselves.”

Our representatives are sponsoring laws to broaden understanding of greenhouse gas impacts (Congresswoman Pingree’s Coastal Communities Ocean Acidification Act), promote decentralized and clean electricity generation (Senator King’s Free Market Energy Act), and reduce the health and climate impacts of burning dirty fuels in developing nations (Senator Collins’s Clean Cookstoves and Fuels Support Act).

Senator Collins is a lead Republican cosponsor of the bipartisan Super Pollutants Act, which would establish a task force to develop strategies for controlling three short-lived climate pollutants—methane, black carbon,

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C O M M E N T A R Y and hydrofluorocarbons. Though small in percentage of total greenhouse gases, these chemicals are responsible for as much as 40 percent of the effects of global warming. In one respect, however, Senator Collins departed from climate activists in cosponsoring and voting for the Keystone XL Approval Act. Senator King voted against this Act, which was ultimately vetoed and the override failed.

In the Republican-controlled House, Congresswoman Pingree noted that “I would say virtually everything [related to climate change] is defensive.

I’m sorry to say that’s much of what I’ve been doing in 2015, particularly because I’m on the Appropriations Committee, and the group of Republicans that are climate deniers use the appropriations process as a way to attach riders onto the funding bills so that they can find a way to keep us more dependent on coal, block the Clean Air Act, defund the EPA….We’re about to have another fight in a couple of weeks about funding for the EPA. Basically we’re doing that all year long. Speaking against the riders, voting against the riders.”

All three are cautiously optimistic, however, about a shift away from partisan climate denial. In September, 11 House Republicans signed a resolution to fight climate change. In October, four Republican Senators formed a climate working group (Valentine 2015). Senator Collins: “I believe that more and more Republican members are seeing the impacts in their own state, particularly those who live in coastal states and are becoming increasingly concerned.”

Senator King: “There’s a sense that the edifice of denial is crumbling and that we are finally getting to a place where we can say climate change is happening.”

But forging bipartisanship requires astute leadership at the top. Senator

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Collins called it a “big mistake” when the Obama Administration invited 10 Congressional leaders to the Paris talks— all Democrats. We agree.

If voters should award Senators King and Collins and Congresswoman Pingree an “A” for their recent work on climate policy, a grade for Congressman Poliquin would be “incomplete.” He was unavailable for an interview and has not provided written answers to the questions posed. According to a post by Tiffany Germain on the Moyers & Company website (http://billmoyers .com/2015/02/03/congress-climate -deniers/), a comment in a 2010 campaign has caused him to be labeled a denier, and he has not clearly disavowed that view. He voted to override the Clean Power Plan under the CRA and voted for the Ratepayer Protection Act of 2015. His colleagues, however, characterize him as an enthusiastic participant in efforts to win federal dollars for energy efficiency and renewable power projects. Perhaps Congressman Poliquin is still on a learning curve on the impact of climate change and will soon endorse the need for effective action. It is crucial that he do so for Maine and for the world at large.

All four of our representatives earned an “incomplete” in one important respect: a failure to confer with each other about things that matter. When interviews were conducted in November and December 2015, none of our climate champions in Congress had discussed these issues with their newest colleague, Representative Poliquin.

Senator Collins responded: “While Bruce and I talk quite frequently, he has not sought my advice on that issue, nor have we had any discussions at all.”

Senator King acknowledged that he has not yet given his “Climate Change in a Nutshell” card to Congressman Poliquin.

Three of our representatives recognize the significance of climate change and have become experienced advocates on this issue. Because Congress will have a pivotal role to play in our nation’s response to this crisis, it is not too much to ask for our delegation to sit down, converse, and attempt to forge a “tripartisan” front on this dire threat.

Climate change is the defining issue of our time. The primary effects are already tangible and disturbing, but the future is scary. The secondary effects will include economic collapse, disease, social dislocation, and conflict in many of earth’s societies.

This crisis is also an opportunity.

Prices for wind and solar energy as well as battery-storage capacity are falling more rapidly than people ever expected they would. Any nation that promotes the advancement of these technologies will lead the world in energy transformation.

Congress should act. Not only should they sustain long-range credits for renewable energies, they should put a price on carbon. And why not eliminate carbon fuel incentives that have long outlived their usefulness: the oil and gas depletion allowance; the domestic manufacturing tax deduction for drilling oil; the foreign tax credit for hydrocarbon producers; and the rapid write off for intangible drilling costs?

It is time to cast doubts aside.

When leading scientists and diplomats from all the world’s 195 nations speak with one voice—adding in the Pope’s for good measure—how can they all be wrong? Mainers have special expertise in breaking logjams; let’s take those talents to Congress. -

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C O M M E N T A R Y ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A shorter version of this commentary appeared in the Bangor Daily News: Sharon Tisher, “How Collins, King, Pingree, Poliquin Scored on Climate Change in 2015.” December 22, 2015.

ENDNOTES 1 Information about the Clean Power Plan is available on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s website: https://www.epa.gov /cleanpowerplan/clean-power-plan -existing-power-plants

Plattner, Gian-Kasper. 2013. Highlights of the New IPCC Report.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. http://www.climatechange2013 .org/images/uploads/plattner15paris.pdf Valentine, Katie. 2015. “These 4 Republican Senators Are Forming a Group to Tackle Climate Change,” ClimateProgress (October 20) http://thinkprogress.org/ climate/2015/10/30/3717778/gop -green-working-group/

Sharon Tisher

2 More information is available in a press release on Senator King’s website: “After Pope Releases Climate Encyclical, King Renews Call for Action on Global Climate Change.” (June 18, 2015). http://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom /press-releases/after-pope-releases -climate-encyclical-king-renews-call -for-action-on-global-climate-change3 Senator Collins remarks at the Maine Conservation Alliance panel discussion on Effects of Climate Change on Maine’s Health and Economy (February 20, 2015) are available at the following website: http://www.protectmaine.org /climate-change-roundtable/

REFERENCES Fernandez, I.J., C.V. Schmitt, S.D. Birkel, E. Stancioff, A.J. Pershing, J.T. Kelley, J.A. Runge, G.L. Jacobson, and P.A. Mayewski. 2015. Maine’s Climate Future: 2015 Update. University of Maine, Orono. http://cci.siteturbine.com /uploaded_files/climatechange.umaine .edu/files/MainesClimateFuture_2015 _Update2.pdf

is a lecturer in the School of Economics and the Honors College at the University of Maine, where she teaches courses in the Honors Civilizations sequence and courses on environmental law and climate policy. Before coming to UMaine, she was a partner in the Connecticut law firm of Day, Berry and Howard. She is a member of the Maine chapter of the national Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications.

Peter Mills has served as executive director of the Maine Turnpike Authority since 2011. He is a 16-year veteran of the state legislature, a Harvard graduate, a Navy veteran of Vietnam, and a founding member of two economic development groups in central Maine. Having practiced law in both Portland and Skowhegan, he ran twice for governor in the Republican primaries of 2006 and 2010. He and his wife, Superior Court Justice Nancy Mills, live on a tree farm in Cornville.

Friedman, Lisa. 2015. “Eight Common Questions About Paris Climate Talks Answered,” ClimateWire/Scientific American (November 25). http://www .scientificamerican.com/article/eight -common-questions-about-paris-climate -talks-answered/

MAINE POLICY REVIEW

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Vol. 25, No. 1

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2016

76

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