Gov. Janet Mills has vetoed a bill that aimed to streamline the permitting process for a facility to build massive wind turbines.
Mills actually sponsored the bill, LD 1847, as a way to set "visual impact standards" for a port where businesses would manufacture the turbines needed for offshore wind power projects. The state has been eyeing several potential sites – including around Sears Island in Searsport – where the enormous, floating wind power turbines and platforms would be constructed. The administration’s bill sought to create a new type of port development for permitting such facilities, which could require cranes as tall as 700 feet, according to testimony to a legislative committee.
The bill was cruising through the Legislature. But then Democrats changed the measure to add a "project labor agreement" requirement for any port construction jobs and related manufacturing facilities. The PLA would require the state and/or the contractors at the port facilities to engage in collective bargaining agreements with unions to set wages and other employment terms that would govern both unionized and non-unionized contractors. While supporters contend PLAs guarantee “living wages” and strong labor standards, Mills and other opponents said that requiring such agreements in this case could favor out-of-state unions over Maine companies, drive up costs and make the state less competitive in attracting offshore wind jobs.
In a letter to lawmakers last week, Mills warned that she would veto the bill unless the project labor agreement language was removed.
“Regrettably, the Legislature did not recall the bill, leaving my significant concerns unaddressed,” Mills wrote in her veto letter on Monday. “Now, because of my Constitutional obligation to act on a bill within 10 days of its receipt, there is no further time to amend the bill. Therefore, I mist veto it. It is my preference to continue working on this legislation, and I welcome your openness to discussing additional revisions, as indicated in the sponsors’ June 23rd response to my letter, through LD 1895 or other legislation as it progresses through the Legislature.”
It would take two-thirds votes in both the House and Senate to override the governor's veto. Achieving those margins would be difficult, however, because Republican lawmakers opposed the inclusion of the project labor agreement language in the bill. The bill passed the House on a 73-64 vote – well short of the two-thirds needed for a veto override – and the Senate on a 22-11 vote.
Supporters of the PLA language criticized Mills’ veto of the legislation.
“We can’t build the jobs of tomorrow with yesterday’s wages and labor standards,” the bill’s lead legislative sponsor, Democratic Sen. Chip Curry of Belfast, said in a statement released by the Maine Labor Climate Council. “Maine has an opportunity to be a national leader in the development and construction of offshore wind, to protect our fisheries and an opportunity to launch a new industry in the right way. The governor’s veto threatens this new industry, putting good jobs for Maine people and the environmental benefits that go along with offshore wind at risk.”
