Jessica Piper and Caitlin Andrews Jul 16, 2021 09:28 am
Good morning from Augusta.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “In my lifetime, it has happened many times, where we haven’t seen them and then all of a sudden there’s a big blossom of scallops,” said Eric Hansen, the owner of two scallop boats, as the population of the shellfish appears to be declining. “Nature has its own schedule.”
What we’re watching today
As the pandemic wanes, Maine’s COVID-19 numbers are harder to read. Adjustments in how the state reports cases, along with swings associated with smaller numbers, are a good reminder to be careful in interpreting the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s daily virus data that has been a fixture of media and public attention throughout the pandemic.
As case counts remain extremely low, the Maine CDC stopped reporting cases on Sundays and Mondays (which reflects cases recorded over the weekend) earlier this month. From a numerical perspective, that means case reports on Tuesdays are elevated. It also made the seven-day average of new cases temporarily seem lower than it actually was when the change was introduced earlier this month.
The agency also continues to report virus deaths that may have occurred months ago. On Thursday, it reported 10 new virus deaths — all of which had occurred in 2020. Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah would typically explain the delayed reporting during the agency’s weekly briefings, but those came to an end at the end of June.
There are more strange numerical quirks that are likely to occur as case counts get lower. Week-to-week virus levels have often been measured in terms of percentages — if cases are up 30 percent from the previous week, that is concerning; if they drop 25 percent, that is an improvement. But percentages like this become less useful as case numbers drop.
Sagadahoc County, for example, saw only one COVID-19 case reported in the first week of July. In the week after that, it saw three cases. That could be written as a 200 percent increase. But when you look at the raw case counts, few people would be concerned about a surge there. It is a reminder that both absolute and percentage increases are worth considering.
That does not mean there are no COVID-19 trends worth watching for. Despite Maine’s high vaccination rate and low case count, health experts are still concerned about the arrival of the delta variant, saying it poses a risk to the more than 400,000 Mainers who are still unvaccinated. Many other states are seeing genuinely large COVID-19 surges right now. With pandemic restrictions all but gone, Maine still faces risks. They just should not be overstated.
The Maine politics top 3
— “Janet Mills urges bipartisan deal on COVID-19 after Democrats add items opposed by GOP,” Caitlin Andrews, Bangor Daily News: “Mills could line-item veto individual spending items in the package, but it would not make the bill pass any faster. While both sides say talks will continue through the weekend, Democrats and Republicans have drawn lines on some items that sets them up for a collision.”
— “Spending in the political fight over the CMP corridor exceeds $42M,” Jessica Piper, BDN: “Pro-corridor spending continued to far outpace anti-corridor money, but the flow on both sides highlights how the project aiming to bring hydropower from Quebec through western Maine stands to benefit business interests and hurt others. The fight about the corridor has extended for more than 18 months after a ballot question last year was declared unconstitutional.”
A years-long court case over a South Portland air quality ordinance has come to a close. The Portland Pipe Line Corporation dropped its federal challenge to the city’s “Clear Skies” law yesterday after President Joe Biden filed a brief supporting the city last month, Maine Public reported. The end of the suit is a victory for environmentalists, as the ordinance prevents the company from reversing the flow of oil and sending it from Canada to South Portland.
— “Canada planning to allow vaccinated Americans by mid-August,” Alexander MacDougall, Houlton Pioneer Times: “It is unknown what measures Americans may have to take in order to demonstrate proof of vaccination before entering Canada. Currently, dual citizens and Americans with Canadian family members may cross, but must produce a negative COVID-19 test result and download the ArriveCAN app to upload their proof of vaccination.” Here’s your soundtrack.
State employees will no longer be required to wear masks if they are vaccinated. The policy change starting on July 26 will likely herald the return of more workers to government buildings as the state plans to phase workers back in through Labor Day. Those who are not willing to provide proof of vaccination or are not vaccinated will still need to wear face coverings while indoors.
Mills’ campaign ramps up to raise $575K over 6 months
The governor posted a respectable number on the first campaign finance deadline since she began raising money in earnest this year. The early numbers from Gov. Janet Mills are not anything like the eye-popping fundraising numbers we saw during last year’s record-smashing U.S. Senate race. But gubernatorial races rarely attract as much cash as the biggest federal races. The Democratic incumbent has just shy of $377,000 cash on hand, according to her report filed with the Maine Ethics Commission Thursday.
At this point in his reelection campaign in 2013, former Gov. Paul LePage — who is Mills’ opponent this year — had raised $345,000. Elections generally get more expensive every cycle, though. Mills raised just over $3 million in total during her run for governor in 2018. LePage did not have to file a campaign finance report yesterday, since he did not officially begin his campaign until July 1.
Today’s Daily Brief was written by Caitlin Andrews and Jessica Piper and edited by Michael Shepherd. If you’re reading this on the BDN’s website or were forwarded it, you can sign up to have it delivered to your inbox every weekday morning here.
Caitlin Andrews, Jessica Piper and Michael Shepherd Jul 15, 2021 09:49 am
Good morning from Augusta. We are holding a listening session for politics readers two weeks from today on July 29. Register here.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “We’ve always had a woodchuck who eats our produce but this appears to be outright vandalism,” said Bangor community garden volunteer property manager Byron Hale, about the vandalism that has been occurring in the garden. “It’s aggravation and assault on us as gardeners that we’ve made a commitment to amend the soil, plant it and nurture the garden, without getting too wishy washy there.” Here’s your soundtrack.
What we’re watching today
As congressional Democrats face a narrow path to pass a massive budget and a bipartisan infrastructure bill, a Maine senator says the bills remain on separate tracks. Senate Democrats announced earlier this week a $3.5 trillion budget proposal that appears to include a range of liberal priorities, including spending on climate initiatives, adding vision, dental and hearing coverage to Medicare and extending the recently expanded child tax credit.
Democrats will need to keep every one of their senators from Bernie Sanders of Vermont to Joe Manchin of West Virginia in line to advance the budget proposal, using the budget reconciliation process to bypass Republicans. But some have worried that the mere existence of the plan was stalling an earlier bipartisan effort to pass a $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan, which President Joe Biden negotiated with a group of senators including Susan Collins of Maine.
Biden has called for a two-track plan to advance both bills simultaneously, but the process has been tenuous from the start, when the Democratic president had to walk back on comments suggesting he would not sign the bipartisan bill unless the reconciliation bill also passed. The rollout of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion plan has reignited those tensions, as Republicans now have a tangible proposal to criticize.
But Collins, a Republican, said the two shouldn’t be linked. In a statement late Wednesday, she said she thought Democrats’ budget proposal was an “enormous and unsustainable amount of spending” that could worsen inflation, but suggested it should not tank the bipartisan infrastructure deal that would be “particularly beneficial to Maine.”
“The bipartisan infrastructure package and the partisan $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill are entirely separate bills operating on two different tracks,” Collins said.
Collins’ support does not mean the bipartisan bill faces a clean path forward, since it’s not clear how many of her Republican colleagues feel the same way. At least 10 including her will have to stay on board with the $1.2 trillion plan for it to stand a chance of passage.
If the bill fails, Democrats could integrate it with the budget reconciliation bill, which could come up for passage later this summer, though that would push up the price tag.
The Maine politics top 3
— “Maine Democrats advance $983M plan for COVID-19 aid after talks with GOP bog down,” Michael Shepherd, Bangor Daily News: “The budget committee’s vote paved the way for the Democratic proposal to pass the Legislature on Monday, but the lack of a bipartisan deal would prevent any package from going immediately into law after being signed by Gov. Janet Mills, meaning it will take at least three months for the money provided under the latest $1.9 trillion federal stimulus bill to become available.”
— “Maine trial backlog to hinder Legislature’s ramped-up probe of child welfare system,” Caitlin Andrews, BDN: “Deputy Attorney General Lisa Marchese, the state’s top homicide prosecutor, told the Legislature’s watchdog panel on Wednesday that the most recent child death cases may not conclude for up to two years from now. The state could share details with [Casey Family Services], but it could not give them to the panel or its investigators under confidentiality laws.”
— “CMP denies lawmakers’ claim that it can’t meet tree-cutting requirements on corridor project,” Lori Valigra, BDN: “A $1 billion hydropower corridor continues to draw controversy as legislators who visited the first segment of the project in a remote part of Somerset County said Wednesday that the utility in charge of it cannot meet permit requirements, a claim the company denied.”
Central Maine Power customers will see a rate hike next month. Bills are expected to go up by 11.5 percent to offset the costs of a federally mandated transmission tariff, though the Maine Public Utilities Commission voted to defer costs related to last years’ storms, saying the company would have to recoup those costs in upcoming years.
Browntail moths star in GOP’s latest anti-Golden ad
House Republicans’ campaign arm is going after the congressman over the failure of a widely opposed state bill to combat the pernicious insects in 2017. The National Republican Campaign Committee gave us an ad to remember on Thursday, hitting U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine’s 2nd District, in an ad complete with ominous music for the failure of a 2017 bill in the Legislature that would have provided $500,000 to cities and towns dealing with infestations of browntail moths that have overtaken Maine this summer.
As assistant House majority leader at the time, Golden was the No. 4 Democrat in the chamber, but the bill barely registered on the legislative radar at the time. It was sponsored mostly by Democrats and opposed by the administration of then-Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican. All but one member of a legislative committee voted to kill it and it died without roll-call votes in both chambers, so no one lawmaker played a particularly big role in its death.
Today’s Daily Brief was written by Caitlin Andrews, Jessica Piper and Michael Shepherd. If you’re reading this on the BDN’s website or were forwarded it, you can sign up to have it delivered to your inbox every weekday morning here.
