🐟 Federal regulators say a dam owner's plan will improve fish passage.
◉ The company that owns four controversial dams on the Kennebec River scored a victory on Monday, when the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said fish-passage plans will markedly improve conditions for the endangered Atlantic salmon and other species.
◉ The owner, Brookfield Renewable Partners, has been warring with the Mills administration and environmentalists over plans at the dams. The issue found its way into the 2022 campaign between Mills and LePage.
◉ The NOAA document is only an opinion, and the plan will need to be approved by another federal regulator. But environmentalists are already suing the feds on this issue and said they would fight Monday's action as well.
◉ "It is disturbing that NOAA appears to be disregarding science and blindly trusting Brookfield with the future of Atlantic salmon and other species that depend on a healthy river," the Kennebec Coalition, which includes the Natural Resources Council of Maine and the Conservation Law Foundation, said in a statement.
◉ "The biological opinion is an important milestone in ensuring that these facilities can continue to support Maine’s clean energy future and traditional industries along the lower Kennebec River," David Heidrich, a Brookfield Renewable spokesperson, said in a statement.
💰 A Maine senator's negotiating partner is upset with the president.
◉ Last week, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, who has been leading Social Security reform talks with Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, blew up at Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen over the Biden administration's perceived lack of willingness to deal with him on the issue. Semafor reported Monday that Cassidy has talked with Biden aides, but the president has not met with him.
◉ “Biden calls himself a deal maker; we can’t make a deal without him," Cassidy said in a statement to the news outlet.
◉ The talks between Cassidy and King have been noteworthy since they have included the idea of raising the retirement age, although the pair has said that change would be offset by others that would raise benefits.
◉ On Thursday, the reporter who broke the news of the discussions asked the Maine senator whether protests on a retirement age hike in France gave him pause. King said he didn't want to discuss the issue with him. "Not with me?" the reporter asked.
◉ "Not with you, right," King told Semafor's Joseph Zeballos-Roig. |
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