Gov. Paul LePage used his weekly radio address to go after the state’s largest environmental organization Wednesday for what he says are its “job crushing, anti-business policies.”
But in the same message he also invited the head of the Natural Resources Council of Maine to meet with him to discuss ways they could work together. NRCM Executive Director Lisa Pohlmann says she’ll accept, on one condition.
Relations between the NRCM and the governor have been strained ever since he took office, but they reached a new breaking point last week when Pohlmann held a news conference to announce that LePage was writing letters to her donors, asking them to reconsider their support of the organization.
The letters followed the state GOP convention, where the governor declared war on the NRCM. Now comes his weekly radio address.
“Last week the executive director of the Natural Resource Council of Maine (sic) was outraged by a letter I wrote to their donors. But instead of responding directly to me, she decided to grandstand,” LePage says.
He goes on to accuse the NRCM of protecting the environment at the expense of good-paying jobs for rural Mainers who he says are “desperate for good employment.”
“We cannot let them wallow in poverty with no way out. So I’ve written another letter to Ms. Pohlmann. I invited her to meet with me to discuss how we can work together to conserve our environment while allowing the economic development that will create good jobs for Mainers,” LePage says.
“Of course, I’m prepared to meet with the governor,” Pohlmann says.
But she says she’ll want to bring some people with her.
“I’m thinking somewhere in the vicinity of eight to ten people with me who come from all over Maine, rural Maine, who work in industries and sectors that really need a clean and healthy environment,” Pohlmann says.
At her news conference last week, she described LePage as the most “anti environment governor” in Maine history. She says he is under the mistaken notion that Maine needs to dismantle environmental laws in order to bolster the economy and pursued what she calls “a radical 63-point rollback agenda” to do that back in 2011. The proposal was later defeated by the Legislature.
But Pohlmann says she is encouraged by part of what the governor said in his radio address this week.
“Maine’s scenic beauty, including our pristine lakes, rivers, forest and ocean is the best in the nation,” he says.
Pohlmann says, to her knowledge, the governor has never said that before.
She says she is also pleased by the response she has been getting over the past week. Since LePage sent out his letters, she says more people have joined NRCM for the first time, some have sent in gifts and some have written to the governor on the group’s behalf.
There’s no word yet on whether the governor will agree to Pohlmann’s request to include other people in their meeting.
