Ralph Chapman

Decision Process

Legislators may vote only yea or nay on what may be a very complex issue before them. Since majority-rule voting is the method by which public policy decisions are made, there must be some elements of the process that provide a needed nuance to policy formation. Indeed, the best policies are those in which the legislative process distills opinions from a wide range of stakeholders to achieve policies that work reasonably well for everyone.

In the simpler cases a bill is proposed to solve a specific problem, entities affected by the proposal weigh in with their comments and suggestions, the bill is altered to accommodate various needs expressed, and a solution is reached that wins the approval of almost all of the stakeholders and legislative committee members. Such a bill is often passed by the full legislature without further discussion.

Especially for major policy changes, it is sometimes impossible to accommodate everyone and the contentious bill comes from the committee with a closely divided report, often along party lines. These are then argued extensively, sometimes for hours, before finally being accepted or rejected by close votes. Policy made in this fashion is rarely good policy since the process failed to bring a range of viewpoints together.

Subtleties of process appear between the two examples above. Consider a case in which you are opposed to a proposed policy change and believe that its consequences would be devastating. You have a choice: try to defeat the bill, or try to modify the bill so that it is not so bad. People with similar attitudes about an issue often find themselves on opposite sides of this strategic divide. For those that oppose the bill, the only further activity is to work on convincing other legislators to defeat the measure. For those that try to improve the bill, a variety of negotiations may take place, all with the understood contract of “accept some changes in the bill to win enough approval for it”. Skillful negotiations can produce a significantly changed (and improved) bill. A legislator may have more influence changing a bill than trying to defeat it.

Working hard to negotiate a bill to a better place and then voting against it at the end signifies that the negotiations were performed in bad faith. Though that can work once, it destroys the confidence others may place in you for future negotiations. Although fighting against a bill may seem to be of little value in comparison to negotiating, it actually provides additional influence for those who are negotiating. These types of power struggles depend upon being able to anticipate each side’s voting strength at various stages in the negotiations. Since stakeholders and legislators on all sides are involved in conversations and negotiations, the outcome often appears chaotic.

This sausage-making process may appear to the public as corrupting, thereby discouraging their involvement. Actually, it is the public’s continued involvement that keeps the process focused on producing good results.

–Ralph Chapman 326-0899 chapmanHD37@gmail.com ralphchapman.org

Mining in Maine

The Legislature’s Committee on Environment and Natural Resources has been considering an after-deadline bill (LD 1853) that would restructure Maine’s mining regulations. A specific motivation is to make it easier for a private company to develop an open-pit copper/zinc mine in Aroostook County.

Because of similarities between the mining operation at the Callahan Mine in Brooksville forty years ago and the contemplated mining operation at Bald Mountain, I presented testimony last week to the Committee. Now, near the end of the session when things move very quickly, it is not possible to guess where this bill will be by the time you read this.

The Callahan Mine is an EPA superfund cleanup site in which the first phase of work (removing contaminated soil) is largely completed and the second larger phase (stabilizing the tailings) is beginning. This open-pit copper/zinc mine operated between 1968 and 1972. Five million tons of non-ore-bearing waste rock and 800,000 tons of ore were removed. The clean-up cost is estimated to be $23 million. Two hundred truck loads of contaminated material has been shipped out of state and two hundred truck loads of material is being brought to the site for remediation purposes.

The Kerramerican (formerly Black Hawk) Mine in Blue Hill operated for five years (1972-1977) extracting one million tons of ore from a series of underground mine shafts. After it closed, glacial till and topsoil were graded over the sulphide tailings and reseeded. In the mid 1990s investigations showed erosion of the tailings cover and an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 pounds per year of dissolved zinc from waste rock being released to surface waters. In 2007 and 2008, further work with an estimated $10 million cost was performed to install a geosynthetic tailings cover system and initiate a five year monitoring program that is currently underway.

According to newspaper reports in 1964, the Black Hawk Mining operation was announced with great fanfare and the expectation that it would be able to run for ten to twenty years, employ 200 to 300 workers, and produce many millions of tons of ore. The mine ran for five years, employed 100, and produced only one million tons.

I doubt that the mine operators intended to contaminate the groundwater, contaminate the surface waters, or render large areas unacceptable for recreation or residential use. As far as I know, both operations were fully licensed and permitted and conducted under the regulatory structure of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. And yet, both left not only the scars of resource extraction upon the land, but have left environmental disasters with continuing heavy metal contamination of surface waters, groundwaters, and local biota.

How can we prevent making these mistakes again? Will new rules remain adequate for another forty years? It seems to me that solving this complex problem needs more attention than afforded by a couple weeks at the end of the legislative session. Let us learn from our past mistakes lest we repeat them.

–Ralph Chapman 326-0899 chapmanHD37@gmail.com ralphchapman.org

Committee and Floor

Last week provided examples of both the best and worst of legislative activity. I testified against LD1858, a Governor’s bill that would revamp the teacher evaluation process. At the same time, the Education Committee heard four hours of testimony, much of it from teachers, mostly in opposition to the bill. Suggested amendments were discussed during two days of work sessions. Through concerted efforts by stakeholders and the Department of Education, a compromise solution was achieved such that the Committee gave a favorable vote unanimously.

I also testified in opposition to one of the Governor’s energy bills (LD1864) that would have, among other things, taken funds from the Efficiency Maine Trust to initiate an electric utility run program for installing electric home heating systems. I limited my testimony to problems involving multiple definitions of efficiency and confusion about heat-pumps versus resistance heaters. The Energy Committee worked through this controversial bill for more than three hours to achieve a favorable unanimous vote.

Even the very contentious “LURC bill”, LD1798, managed to receive a unanimous ought-to-pass-as-amended vote in the Agriculture Committee.

These three examples show the power of the legislative process to achieve decent results even when dealing with complex controversial topics.

In contrast, arguments made on the floor of the House, when considering divided reports from committees, rarely achieve anything more than raising frustration levels. The “Tax bill”, LD849 was argued for a couple hours to no avail.

The bill would take a portion of any budget surplus at the end of each year to reduce the income tax rate. Significantly, the tax rate would be reduced permanently whereas the surplus would only pay for the first year of the reduction. Consequently over time, the income tax rate would be cut roughly in half. Arguments in favor recognize that state spending would have to be reduced as revenues are reduced. Arguments against recognize that state supported local costs will be shifted to local property tax payers. There are many other arguments on each side.

One legislator argued that this bill would worsen the regressive nature of our current tax policy in which the lowest twenty percent of income earners pay a higher rate (17%) of tax than the average (12%) and the top one percent pay the lowest rate (10%). Another legislator argued that those figures distorted the reality that the wealthiest paid the most and cited figures that the top ten percent paid 48% of the state income tax revenues. A third observed that the wealthiest would receive a tax break of over $20,000 per year whereas the poorest would receive only one dollar of annual tax reduction.

Missing from the discussion is an understanding of what constitutes a tax burden. Is it the number of dollars paid by individuals? or the number of dollars collected by the revenue service? or the percentage of income owed in taxes by each person? Even with overriding confusion, this is sometimes how policy decisions are made.

–Ralph Chapman 326-0899 chapmanHD37@gmail.com ralphchapman.org

Electioneering

For the 2012 elections, the deadline for getting on the primary ballot has passed and the Legislature has finalized changes to Maine’s Clean Election Act. Candidates intending to run independently of a political party still have until the first of June to file petitions with the Secretary of State to get on the ballot in November. A list of all candidates running as members of political parties in 2012 can be found at

http://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/upcoming.html

Of national interest is the US Senate seat in Maine being vacated by Olympia Snowe. There are ten party candidates (four Democrats and six Republicans) who have submitted petition signatures to the Secretary of State to get on the ballot. The one Democrat and one Republican who win the primaries in June, plus any independent candidates who qualify will be on the ballot for the general election in November.

Of the 186 legislative seats (151 House and 35 Senate), there are at least two (as many as six) party candidates for each of 185 seats. Most of the primary contests are for open seats (32) although there are 13 primary contests challenging an incumbent. Of the total of 45 primary contests, 26 will be decided by registered Democrats and 19 will be decided by registered Republicans on June 12.

Our district is one of four around the state in which a Democratic incumbent has a Democratic challenger. The winner of the primary election will face a Republican opponent in the general election. All three have signed a declaration of intent to run as Clean Election candidates.

Last week, the Legislature passed a bill (LD1774) to change the Maine Clean Election Act. Rather than accept the changes proposed by the Ethics Commission to deal with the Supreme Court decision declaring the trigger mechanism for matching funds to be an unconstitutional burden on the free speech rights of corporations, the Legislature instead removed approximately one million dollars from the clean election fund. All of the Republicans who were present in both the House and Senate voted in favor, all but three of the Democrats voted against. The roll call votes for any bill can be found by entering the Legislative Document (LD) number in the upper right hand corner of the Legislature’s home page (http://www.maine.gov/legis/) and then selecting roll-calls in the left column.

Because the bill was not able to get a two-thirds majority vote which would have allowed it to go into effect immediately upon signing by the Governor, and because there is not time for the ninety day waiting period for a simple majority bill to go into effect, this year’s election will be governed by current law without dispersal of the matching funds.

Without any matching funds for campaigns, and because of the emergence of super-PAC funding mechanisms allowed by the Supreme Court decision, I expect that we will see even greater effects from outside funding on our campaigns this year than we experienced during the last election cycle.

–Ralph Chapman 326-0899 chapmanHD37@gmail.com ralphchapman.org

Bonds – State Borrowing

Maine issues voter-approved bonds to pay for various projects.  Investors buy the bonds in order to receive interest payments in addition to the repayment of the principal.  The state uses the investors’ money to pay for projects that have included construction of facilities at the public Universities, water and sewer projects, and road building and maintenance, along with others.  The state incurs debt when it issues bonds.  How much debt is reasonable is a continuing question with divided opinions.  Part of the analysis depends upon how the economy will perform in the future which is unknowable in the present.

In general, it is considered prudent to use borrowed money for long term investments and not for short term consumables.  Similarly to home finances in which borrowing is considered appropriate for housing (mortgages) but not for weekly expenses (food), state borrowing can gain approval from voters more easily for needed long term investments.

Governor LePage has asked that the Legislature refrain from proposing bonds for voter approval.  Even though the Executive branch does not have responsibility (or authority) for the state’s budget, the Governor does have veto power.  All of the bond proposals from last year were either killed or held over to the current session.

Meanwhile, various sectors of Maine’s economy that depend upon bond funded projects (such as the architectural and construction industries) have been expressing concern.

The Legislature, caught between the interests of the Governor and those of some members of the public, is preparing a bond package to be considered this session.  As the Appropriations Committee is still working on it, we do not yet know what projects may be included.

State expenditures are broken into three pieces: the general budget, the transportation budget, and the voter-approved bonds.  With bonding stopped over the past year, and cutbacks in both the general budget and transportation budget, long term investment spending has been curtailed in favor of shorter term needs.  One of the long term needs is road maintenance.

Maintenance costs are always subject to being put off.  How long a deferral is reasonable, is, again, a continuing question with divided opinions.  The analysis depends upon estimating the future costs of repair.  (How long can I wait before repainting the house without needing to replace rotten boards?)

In the case of road maintenance, we could, at great cost, replace all the roads every few years.  Alternatively, we could wait until they become nearly impassable before fixing them.  A strategy to minimize road maintenance costs is to repair them just prior to when the surface breaks up causing extensive damage.  Unfortunately, the rate of road deterioration is now exceeding the rate of repair.  If this trend were to continue, we would revert to unpaved roads.

The classic conflict between spending more (on borrowed funds) versus reduced government services (deferring road repair) is lessened as we improve the quality of our investments.  Please share with me your ideas for making our public expenditures more effective.

–Ralph Chapman  326-0899 chapmanHD37@gmail.com  ralphchapman.org