Maine Public

Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine’s 1st District questioned Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue Wednesday about proposed cuts in the agency’s budget that could affect organic farmers.

The House Appropriations Committee is holding hearings on the Agriculture Department budget, and Pingree serves on the subcommittee that oversees agriculture. She told Perdue the agency should not decrease funding for programs that have helped organic farmers.

Independent U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine is urging top Navy officials to find more ships to help interdict drugs coming into the country.

King says there are only enough ships to prevent 25 percent of the known drug shipments coming into the country, and called it a matter of national defense. At a budget hearing Tuesday, he urged Navy officials to divert some warships from current missions to help stop the flow of drugs that are killing Americans every day.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the nine-state carbon-pricing program known as RGGI, has continued to bolster Northeast economies even as its environmental goals grew more ambitious, according to the latest three-year report on RGGI by the Analysis Group.

The report was commissioned by a group of charities and environmental foundations that wants to show whether the nearly decade-old program is working. Co-author Sue Tierney says RGGI has now put $4 billion back into its nine participating states’ economies.

Some low-income parents in Maine could soon get help paying for higher education costs. 

The $2.1 million bill became law Tuesday after receiving broad bipartisan support, although it went unsigned by Gov. Paul LePage.

As a result, parents in households earning 185 percent or less of the federal poverty level - or $46,000 a year for a family of four - could receive funds to pay for post-secondary education programs in specific fields, such as health care, technology and engineering.

After months of debate, the legislature's education committee approved a bill Friday evening that would remove a mandate requiring Maine schools to implement "proficiency-based" diplomas. 

The law mandating the diplomas was originally passed in 2012. It says that current Maine freshmen need to reach proficiency in a number of subject areas, such as math, science and English, in order to graduate.