The ongoing threat of a Federal takeover of Downeast Maine -- most recently through the Endangered Species Act -- is commonplace today. Everyone knows what the environmentalists and the Federal government are trying to do to Washington County. But twelve years ago when the environmentalists first publicly promoted a massive takeover of private property, most people -- the intended victims, that is -- didn't take it seriously. There were known instances of abuse of private property rights by state bureaucracies, but the idea of a Federal takeover was perceived as implausible as a takeover by Martians.
Twelve years ago, environmentalists were entrenched in the media where their propaganda -- in the form of omnipresent semi-poetic rhapsodies -- was unquestioned. Almost no one understood the danger of this politically powerful ideological movement. Environmentalists could do no wrong. Their critics were dismissed out of hand. Even disingenuous Federal environmentalist bureaucrats were believed without question.
If opposition to the constant barrage of environmentalist abuses over the past twelve years has not yet made Downeast Maine a safe place to live, own property and earn a living, it has at least alerted the populace to the reality of the environmentalist threat to Constitutional and civil rights.
This outline of the Federal environmenalist history of abuse in Downeast Maine over the last twelve years was originally prepared as a set of informal notes for a property rights conference in June of 1998 and has since been updated. It includes major local events stemming from the national environmentalist agenda -- i.e., from Federal agencies and national lobbyists -- but excludes numerous instances of abuse by state and local environmentalists.
March 1988 -- Massive Federal takeover plans for private property in
Maine by the National Park Service are first publicly promoted in a
coordinated campaign in the Boston Globe, the Maine Sunday Telegram
(Portland), the Bangor Daily News and the Maine Times without the
prior knowledge of property owners or elected officials in rural
Maine.
The campaign is backed by the Washington, DC based National Parks and
Conservation Association (NPCA) and the Natural Resources Council of
Maine. Maine public spokesmen fronting the campaign are Jerry Bley
and Brownie Carson of the Natural Resource Council of Maine. Maine
Audubon also supports the campaign.
Their plan for Maine targets most of Washington County, another
expansion of Acadia National Park, a Federal expansion of Baxter State
Park, the St. John's River corridor, and the Western Mountains to the
Connecticut River in NH and Vermont. The takeover campaign is part of
coordinated national plan by the national viro lobby and the Federal
government for a massive expansion of the National Park system
nationwide, intended to begin after Reagan leaves office in the
"environmentalist presidency" of Bush. The 1988 nationwide new park
takeover campaign includes plans for Federal legislation to guarantee
$1 billion a year in Federal funding for property acquisition in a new
off-budget perpetual entitlement for viros called the "Trust
Fund".
The planned Washington County park is one of the top priorities of
national environmentalists. Federal legislation is expected within
the year, anticipating no effective opposition from what is seen as a naive,
powerless and minimal rural population. The plan targets most of
Washington County from the coast, through the lakes region, and
covering the entire Machias River watershed into Penobscot and
Aroostook Counties -- about 3,000 square miles.
Research shows the National Park Service had quietly begun massive
nationwide plans for new and expanded National Parks in the 1970's
during the Carter Administration. During the Reagan administration
the agency moves the planning operation to its private lobby, the
NPCA, but the National Park Service remains quietly involved. One
element of the National Park Service planning uses the National
Natural Landmarks Program to identify "gaps" on private land they want
to take over. A 1986 National Park Service memo also reveals the
Federal government working with national viro organizations to establish
Greenline Parks, modeled on the Columbia Gorge National Scenice Area,
to be copied throughout northern New England.
Further research shows that the National Park Service, the
Rockefeller-backed Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT), and visiting
English greenline planners had secretly surveyed the Washington County
coast in 1987. MCHT wrote a report for the NPS promoting expansion of
Campobello International Park across the border in Canada into
Washington County by the National Park Service, new National Natural
Landmarks targeting private property, an all-encompassing Biosphere
Reserve, and Greenline prohibitions against homes not in "approved"
areas.
Anticipating a government takeover, the Maine Coast Heritage Trust
collaborates with activists in the Natural Resource Council of Maine
and state regulators to prevent a Cutler resident from building 11
homes on 256 acreas at Western Head in Cutler. The owner is
financially strangled by the time-consuming strategy of delay, and
after his bankruptcy is forced to sell at a bargain rate to MCHT.
Western Head had been targeted as the starting point of a National
Natural Landmark and the planned new National Park.
The local Washington County Alliance is formed in May 1988 and asks
Charles Cushman of the National Inholders Association for help. A
public information meeting on the impending viro takeover is held in
Lubec May, 1988. Local environmentalist Nancy Nielson tries to stop
people from attenting, claiming "nothing is happening", while a MCHT
representative quietly approaches Chuck Cushman in an attempt to
prevent him from coming, claiming environmentalists "are doing good
things."
The Maine Sunday Telegram, Maine Times, NRCM, and NPCA continue to
campaign for a park takeover despite the public protest against the
takeover. MCHT claimed it had known nothing about the agenda despite
its collaboration in planning.
The national Trust Fund for perpetual, guaranteed off-budget funding of environmentalist property acquisition fails in Congress by the 1990's. Due to public controversy, the National Park takeover in Wasington County stalls officially, but other viro campaigns continue to target the same area. One such campaign is run by the radical Massachusetts viro group RESTORE, which picks up on the NPCA new park planning for a massive new 3 million acre National Park in Maine. Maine Audubon opposes the plan because it doesn't cover the whole state, claiming it would lead to an "out of the park mentality".
Spring 1988 -- Following the National Park takeover promotions in Maine,
Washington County property owners discover that several imminent National
Natural Landmarks have been secretly planned for private property in Maine:
They include the Cutler-Trescott-Lubec Coast (20 miles along the coast),
Great Wass Island at Beales, plus others throughout the state.
Environmentalists publicly dismiss concerns, claiming the Federal
designations have no effect on private ownership; MCHT says it hopes
that opponents of the National Park won't oppose other Federal
programs. Research
quickly shows, however, that Federal designation as a National
Landmark decrees the property as "nationally significant" for
government planning purposes. In particular, the National Natural
Landmark Program is a National Park Service feeder program to target
private property for new National Parks and other mechanisms used to
tie up land while waiting for government acquisition. There is no
Congressional authorization for the program, which was established in
collaboration with The Nature Conservancy. NPS wrote its own
regulations for the program, for its own purposes, with no legislative
guidelines.
Further research shows that the planned Maine National Landmarks were
coordinated mostly between the Maine State Planning Office, the
National Park Service, the Nature Conservancy, and the Maine Coast
Heritage Trust. The State Planning Office activities are run by
career viro Hank Tyler, former head of the Nature Conservancy in
Maine. The National Park Service uses environmentalist activists to
write official reports justifying the Federal designations,
deliberately not notifying the landowners as required by the National
Park Service's own regulations.
The Cutler coast National Landmark report by Hank Tyler is found to be
under contract with the National Park Service with Maine Coast
Heritage Trust involvement. Tyler and the Park Serice claim they
weren't notified because they didn't know who the owners were,
however, a preliminary report is found to include a list of
landowners. Despite Tyler's Federal contract, the State Planning
Office claims it isn't responsible to property owners because the
National Natural Landmark Program is a Federal Program. The Park
Service simultaneously claims it didn't have to notify anyone because
the state is examining the property and writing the report. Hardy
Pierce of the National Park Service routinely lies to the press,
claiming the Landmark Program has nothing to do with new park planning
and that Landmarks are "voluntary". The Park Service repeatedly
violated Federal law, blocking Freedom of Information requests, to
hide what they had been doing with the program. Neither the Park
Service nor Tyler will stop, and internal telephone calls and memos
eventually leaked out or surrendered under the Freedom of Information
Act show that they fully intend to ram it through regardless of
landowner objections. Sidney Bahrt of Washington County, repesenting
Maine Audubon, is also found to have secretly promoted the National
Landmark designations in an attempt to circumvent property owner
objections.
The planned Great Wass National Landmark planning report is found to
have been written for the Park Serice by the Nature Conservancy. The
Nature Conservancy has a preserve on the island, but recommends that
the Landmark include other landowners, with ultimate plans for the
entire archipelago, including the town of Beals. Neither the Nature
Conservancy nor the National Park Service told town officials or
landowners about the plans. When the Washington County Alliance
publicly releases the information based on its own research, the Nature
Conservancy and the Park Service lie about the purpose of the Landmark
Program to gain control over property. The Nature Conservancy claims
it didn't tell anyone about the plans because it was supposed to be a
surprise "honor". The Park Service admits under questioning by the
Downeast Coastal Press that it is already planning on expanding the
NNL beyond the initial scope proposed by the Nature Conservancy.
After seeing internal Park Service and state memos first hand, the
Selectmen of the town of Beals call a town meeting which unanimously
votes against any involvement with the Landmark Program, and tells the
Nature Conservancy to stop promoting it. As a result, the Nature
Conservancy backs down and tells the Park Service to stop the
designation. The Park Service haults the official designation but
keeps the Nature Conservancy report for future planning. The Nature
Conservancy embarks on a campaign to smear the Washington County
Alliance, misleading TNC members in its newsletter about what had
happened and why.
Governor McKernan refuses to tell the State Planning Office to stop
the Landmark "studies", but after four years of property owners
fighting the government, intervention by Senators Mitchell and Cohen
and a Federal Inspector General's Report exposing program abuses on a
national level leads to a national moratorium on the Landmark Program.
The Park Service tries to issue new regulations legalizing its
procedures to secretly plan for private land, with notification only
required for official designation, not for secret surveilance and
planning. The proposal is supported by environmentalists, but opposed
by property owners in national public hearings. The Park Service puts
the regulations on hold until Senators Cohen and Mitchell are both out
of office. Hardy Pierce and other government agents affiliated with
the Landmark Program are quietly given raises and promotions by the
National Park Service.
With Senators Mitchell and Cohen out of office, the Clinton-Gore
administration reactivates the Landmark Program in 1999, ignoring the
Senators' guidelines for new regulations.
Spring 1988 -- In response to public concern over property rights
threatened by the proposed new National Parks in Maine,
environmentalists claim that Acadia National Park has not harmed
property owners. Research quickly shows otherwise. The Rockefellers
and other wealthy "rusticators" started Acadia NP with a land trust
early in the century. Faced with resistance to key acquisitions, the
trust used its connections with state legislators to obtain
condemnation authority. To bypass unpopularity because of the the
trust's behavior, trust officials went to Washington where they
arranged for Acadia to become first a National Monument and then a
National Park, eventually leading to direct Federal abuse.
Originally there are no limits on Acadia's size, but the trust
fails to obtain government acquisition authority and expansion is only
through donations from the wealthy individuals and trusts. Controversy over
the park festers for decades; the local towns want limits on the
park gobbling up land, while the Park Service and the viros want
further expansion through traditional government condemnation
authority. After decades of controversy, new legislation authorizes
an expansion of park-owned land in 1982 for Isle Au Haute and in 1986
for the rest. Local people had been told there would not be
condemnation authority in the new legislation, but last minute deals
in Washington included it both in 1982 and 1986. New boundaries on
park expansion included new private landowners subject to Federal
condemnation for the first time.
The National Park Service does not use its condemnation authority at
Isle Au Haut until after it secures the controversial 1986
legislation. In 1988 it threatens the 86 year old father of the Bowen
family with condemnation for his 1/4 acre on Isle Au Haute. The
Bowens are descendents of the original settlers on Isle Au Haut and
have owned the land for generations. The Park Service had lied to the
Senate Committee in 1982 claiming that everyone in the 1982 Isle Au
Haute boundary was a willing seller. The Bowens contacted the
National Inholders Association for help when they saw articles about
the protests in Washington County. Sen. Cohen's office eventually
stopped the condemnation, but the Park Service never tells them what
it is doing -- it just stops sending threatening letters, which could
start again at any time.
The Park Service condemns about 25 acres on Bar Island from the
Rullison family under the 1986 law. The government had prohibited
them from building (6 homes not visible from the rest of the park) but
wouldn't pay for the land either. The Rullisons had to pay to begin
excavation to force the NPS to buy them out, and had to go to court to
prevent underpayment. They were still were underpaid because they
settled to avoid more litigation costs in the condemnation.
Another homeowner subsequently loses his home to the the Park because
he wasn't allowed to expand it for his growing family. The Park
Service can only condemn land or when there is new construction,
except for the Bowens on Isle Au Haut, and uses this conditional
condemnation authority to control property owners.
Property owners at Round Pond on the edge of Acadia find themselves
threatened: Prior to the 1986 legislation they had been told they
wouldn't be bothered by the Park Service; now the agency threatens
condemnation if they try to build on their land. The Park Service
re-surveyes the land to include them in the park after the 1986
legislation, whose boundaries were ambiguous. Senator Snowe refused
to help, despite a vote favoring the property owners by the local
Citizen Advisory Committee for the Park. Environmentalists, including
the Friends of Acadia, threaten to open up legislation to another
expansion if Congress tries to correct the Round Pond abuse.
On the western side of the state along the Appalachian Trail, the Park
Service threatens the Breen family with condemnation at their
Saddleback Ski Area, showing further the consequences of
environmentalist pressure groups and Federal intervention in Maine:
Environmentalists and the Park Service aren't satisfied with the trail
and are demanding massive land acquisitions in the "viewshed" to block
new ski trails required for the economic viability of the Ski Area and
the local economy. Research shows the Park Service has condemned
thousands of acres of private property along the entire length of the
trail for decades.
In the late 1980's the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), state
viro organizations (including land trusts), and career viros in state
agencies quietly plan a Federal Refuge expansion around Cobscook Bay
without telling the property owners or local officials. Unlike the
National Park plan, the USFWS moves ahead with the plans with no need
for Congressional approval for expansion. The agency moves on its
expansion plan when the National Park plan for Washington County
stalls.
Research shows that Moosehorn originally started in the 1930's when
destitute landowners had to sell during the Depression. The town of
Edmunds subsequently had to de-organize because there weren't enough
people left to support a local town government.
Before the 1989 expansion was announced or approved, Refuge Manager
Douglas Mullen, the Nature Conservancy, the Natural Resources Council
of Maine, and the local Quoddy Land Trust collaborate to deny a small
business its right to build on private property on the Cobscook shore
(Bellier Cove) outside the Refuge but inside the secret anticipated
expansion target. 12 homes on about 60 acres with conservation
easements on the shore had already been approved in principle by LURC,
but the company is told to sell to the Nature Conservancy or else.
When TNC won't pay the market value price after the threat, the
business refuses. The viro coalition then obstructs and delays its
permits until the company is financially strangled and goes bankrupt.
In an obvious conflict of interest, Federal Refuge Manager Mullen
testifies against the permit at a (taped) LURC hearing. The company
sells to TNC at a bargain price and TNC later sells to the Federal
Refuge as originally planned. Public scrutiny stemming from the
controversy at least prevents TNC from making its usual large
profits.
The Moosehorn expansion is subsequently formally announced in a
preliminary Environmental Assessment (EA). Landowners had not been
told of the plans before this. Two local hearing are held in which
Federal officials lie to the property owners: Agency officials say
that the plan is just an "opportunity" to sell and that there will be
no condemnations or restrictions on land use; and promise that any
landowners who want out of the expansion boundary will be taken out of
the plans (all on video tape). A few days later the comment period is
closed, but 8 landowners covering most of the targeted shore-line in
Pembroke have tried to opt out. The agency refuses to extend the
comment period after the meeting and refuses to do a full
Environmental Impact Statement with a required assessment of
socio-economic affects and justification for the acquisitions.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service releases its final EA with more
expansive boundaries than the original and with all the landowners
still in it who had been promised to be excluded. The agency refuses
to let them out and repeatedly lies in public, denying that it had
promised (as recorded on video tape) to let dissenting landowners out
of the plans. The final EA has no restrictions on using condemnation,
only that it "prefers" not to.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service next refuses to produce a Land
Protection Plan (LPP) claiming that it doesn't have to, despite the
fact that Land Protection Plans are required by law to justify all
acquisition plans and justify the use of fee vs. easement acquisition.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service is eventually forced to do obey the
law and produce the LPP, but writes it as a formality, leaving out
justification for acquisitions and fee vs. easements. Full fee
acquisition is arbitrarily decreed for most of the expansion. The
agency publicly denies it had originally refused to produce a LPP at
all. Environmentalist reporters Clancy and French whitewash the
agency in the Ellsworth American and the Quoddy Tides, presenting
dishonest agency spin as fact while ignoring written documentation and
video recordings of broken agency promises.
Olympia Snowe refuses to help property owners, claiming the Federal
acquisition is necessary because of "biological significance" and
denies any threat of condemnation. Snowe continues to obtain millions
in Congressional funding for acquisitions, rewarding the agency for
its abuse.
In a tape-recorded meeting with property owners top officials in the
US Fish and Wildlife Service subsequently threaten property owners
with condemnation if any land is subdivided, even if left to heirs in
an estate. The Bangor Daily News suppresses the condemnation
threat despite the presence of its reporter at the meeting.
One land owner on Cobscook Bay sells to the Federal Refuge because of
what happened to his neighbor at Bellier Cover, realizing the agency
and the viros will not allow him ever sell to someone else.
Another landowner is underpaid by tens of thousands of dollars when
the agency discovers he had more acres than he had realized and
deliberately does not tell him (the appraisal was based on acreage).
When he finds out from a leak, the agency refuses to pay the
difference. The agency denies what it did, but leaked internal memos
from the Regional office in Mass. prove it is lying. The property
owner gives up because no one in the government will help.
Federal Refuge Manager Mullen holds press conferences advertising
Federal payments in lieu of property taxes on land at the Refuge,
waving large checks before photographers in the public promotion.
Direct comparisons of tax rates published in the Downeast Coastal
Press subsequently show the agency is paying at a much smaller mil
rate than private owners pay property taxes.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service tries to expand onto the
Cutler-Trescott-Lubec coast, claiming people's homes are a threat. In
Cutler, Patrick Noonan's (ex-TNC) Conservation Fund (headquarters in
Virginia), collaborate with the Maine Coast Heritage Trust and buys
about 12,000 acres from Hearst's Pejebscot paper company, who believed
they were a private buyer who would not resell to the government.
Noonan resells part of the land to the state and secretly moves to
transfer 3 miles of coastline to the US Fish and Wildlife Service
despite lack of Federal approval or justification for the new Federal
ownership and liability, and in spite of Cutler Town Meeting
resolutions against more Federal acquisition. USFWS thinks it has a
done deal, but is reigned in at the last minute; Noonan finally gives
the land to the state.
MCHT tries to seize ownership of the Beuter family's land in Lubec using
a fraudulent boundary re-survey. After lengthy unrelenting pressure,
it backs off when publicly exposed in the Downeast Coastal Press,
waiting for the owner to die to try again to get the property.
The state, MCHT, and USFWS now have over half the
Cutler-Trescott-Lubec coast originally targeted by the NPCA and the
NPS NLLP, etc. Most of Cutler is now owned by the state, the Feds or
land trusts. The people of Cutler had passed several resolutions
against any further preservationist encroachment taking over their
town, which are ignored by the environmentalists and government
agencies.
Spring of 1988 -- The Maine Times promotes a plan being worked out
between viros and Congressional offices for new Federal greenline
legislation to supersede state government and provide Federal funding
for land acquisition and controls across Maine, NH, VT, and NY. This
leads to the Federally authorized Northern Forests Lands Study (NFLS)
controlled by the US Forest Service through Federal agent Stephen
Harper, with representatives of the four states on an advisory
commission.
A Greenline advocacy report is written for the NFLS by viros under
contract with the USFS at the Univ. of Mass. The National Park
Service had been quietly working with the viro lobby to impose
Greenline controls over northern New England for several years before
this. The U Mass report is headed by Kathy Sferra, who had been a
leader in the NPCA planning for new National Parks targeting Maine and
released in 1988. Harper's final report promotes Greenlining. Drafts
prior to the public release show Harper is promoting the NPCA National
Park plans.
Harper participates in a viro leadership meeting at Tufts Univ. in
Mass. in 1990 devoted to promoting a Federal takeover of 26 million
acres in northern New England. Audubon lobbyist Brock Evans also
gives his "be unreasonable take it all" speech. The meeting also
includes lawyer Michael Kellet representing the Wilderness Society and
who is now head of RESTORE.
Viro Senator Leahy (D-VT) sponsors Federal Greenline legislation in
Congress. The threat leads to packed hearings in Maine (and Vermont)
where Sens. Mitchell and Cohen are publicly repudiated for going along
with the viro plan. Watered down legislation establishes the Northern
Forests Lands Council (NFLS), which spends millions of dollars redoing
the NFLS over several years. The "study" leads to an ambiguous final
"consensus" report that satisfies no one on either side of the issue.
It also funds several viro-authored official reports, not part of the
final report, alleging to justify forced preservationism for a radical
"biodiversity" agenda.
Sen. Leahy and other viros continue using the NFLC to justify new
Greenline legislation, even though the ambiguous NFLC report did not
recommend their agenda. The Northern Forest Alliance, a coalition of
about 3 dozen viro activist groups, tries and fails to pass a state
Greenline bill that would have prohibited almost any development in
most of rural Maine.
The Northern Forest Alliance (NFA) continues promoting new parks,
wilderness and greenlining, adopting a campaign strategy claiming that
this would "help the economy". The lobbyists are heavily funded to the
tune of millions coordinated through the national Environmental
Grantmakers Association (EGA), and adopts the original NPCA targets as
the "special areas" they claim to have come up with through their own
"studies". Sandra Neally of Maine Audubon becomes a paid state
lobbyist for the NFA funded through the EGA. Maine Audubon, the
Natural Resource Council of Maine, and other viro lobbyistsare funded
by the national EGA foundation money explicitly to promote Greenlining.
Federal Greenline legislation for acquisition and control in northern
New England fails to pass Congress several times through 1998, even
though Sen. Leahy repeatedly tries to slip it through as a rider
amendment to other legislation, bypassing normal Congressional
committee procedures. Leahy's tactics succeed in authorizing more
funding for Federal "studies" building on previous viro "reports".
In 1998 and 1999 the Wilderness Society targets rural Maine as one of
its top 15 national targets, claiming that land in Maine is
"endangered" because it is privately owned.
In 1999 the national viro lobby works out a deal with Republican
Congressional leaders to revive the 1988 Trust Fund scheme for
guaranteed perpetual off-budget funding of massive annual
environmentalist acquisition of private property. The national viro
lobby and Clinton Administration officials make it clear that taking
over private property in Maine is a top priority. The Clinton
Administration tries to bypass Congressional objections by making the
perpetual funding a requirement in the Appropriations deal, but fails
at the last minute. The legislation remains active for 2000.
The national viro organization American Rivers has for years promoted
the Penobscot River as one of America's most "endangered rivers" in
order to turn it into a Federal Wild and Scenic River -- a Federal
Park along its land corridor. Recently an attempt to include it as a
Federal Heritage River is stopped by local citizens. The original
National Park Service 1988 takeover plan for Washington County had also
included turning the entire Machias River watershed into a Federal
Wild and Scenic River.
Viros continue to try to block most public access to the Allagash
River, a state-run Wild and Scenic River (from decades ago), so
designated to keep it out of the hands of the Federal government.
Viros are intervening to destroy hydropower dams in Maine Rivers. The
Appalachian Mountain Club, Conservation Law Foundation, Maine Audubon
and others intervened in the Bowater dam relicensing application,
forcing Bowater to give up conservation easements in exchange for
license renewal. They are still challenging the license and have cost
the company millions of dollars, helping to force a sale of its lands
and mills. During the proceedings, the NPS and EPA advocated that the
land along the rivers be assessed for a National Park as an
alternative to current use. Viros, with Gov. King's complicity, shut
down the Edwards dam, over the owner's objections, on the Kennebec
River.
Viros (with complicity by the Governor) are imposing unnecessarily
restrictive prohibitions on dioxin discharges in rivers for the sake
of arbitrarily "pure" water. This further adds to the deliberately
punitive costs imposed on industry in Maine as the national
environmentalist campaign seeks to destabilize the Maine forestry
industry and force it to sell its lands to the government.
The national Sierra Club sued and harassed the state in a nationally
directed campaign against state plans for a deepwater port at Sears
Island in the mid-coast. The state eventually gave up because of the
expense imposed by the viros. Millions of dollars of taxpayer funds
were wasted over several years in the initial development and
litigation. Governor King was livid over this, but has since
collaborated with other viro campaigns.
Right Whales - viros sued the National Marine and Fisheries Service
(NMFS) to designate the Right whale as "endangered"; the agency tried
to adopt rules that would have ended the lobster industry in the
northeast by imposing impossible regulations. Sen. Snowe, who
supports the Marine Mammal Protection Act in general, helped to get
the agency to back off from its immediate regulatory proposal.
Current lobster regulations are still contingent on the whale
population, even though lobstering has little to do with it. The ES
listing remains a political threat to lobstermen. Rep. Baldacci
attacked Snowe for being too hard on the Federal agency.
Wolves -- In addition to promoting a 3 million acre National Park
taken out of the center of Maine, RESTORE (the Mass. wilderness
restoration group) is promoting the re-introduction of wolves into
rural Maine so the landscape can be controlled as endangered wolf
habitat. The Canadian lynx and other species are increasingly being
promoted for ESA listing.
Atlantic Salmon - viros sued the USFWS and the NMFS to list the
Atlantic Salmon as "endangered" on rivers throughout New England. The
government decided to restrict consideration to 7 rivers (since
increased to 8) in downeast Maine. Aside from the affect on the
economy and the civil and Constitutional rights of Maine people, the
biological debate centers on ambiguous gene pools (salmon in general
are not "threatened") and the fact that salmon do not return to the
rivers because of foreign fishing in the North Atlantic. The Governor
threatened to sue the Federal government, and a state plan has been
adopted instead. Viros saw the state plan as a strategic surrogate
for Federal control, and when they didn't get that they sued for full
Federal "protection". The Clinton-Gore Administration recently
reneged on its agreement to allow the state plan in place of a Federal
listing and is moving ahead with the listing. Gov. King and Senators
Collins and Snowe have publicly expressed their opposition to this, as
well as their moral outrage at the broken agreement and blatant
Federal power grab -- while Congress continues to fund agency
enforcement of the Act and endorse it in principle. The state has
been panicked into further invigorating the "state plan", including
funding for land acquisition, hoping the Federal government will back
off.