Good morning from Augusta. As Hanukkah begins this evening, Chag Sameach to those who celebrate. QUOTE OF THE DAY: “We’re obviously concerned,” said Rolf Olsen, vice president of Friends of Sears Island, on the shredded plastic from Northern Ireland that washed up on a half-mile of the island’s shores. “Twice a year we get a group of volunteers together and do a beach cleanup day. This is obviously beyond the scope of that.” Here’s your soundtrack. What we’re watching today Maine is using a chunk of funding from a March stimulus to provide relief to unemployed workers while Congress squabbles over another relief bill. Gov. Janet Mills and the Maine Department of Labor announced yesterday that the state would provide one-time $600 checks to individuals receiving unemployment before the end of the year. They expect the program to benefit about 42,000 workers. Meanwhile, negotiations in Washington over another coronavirus-related relief bill are expected to drag on until next week. The House passed a resolution yesterday to fund the government for one more week while talks continue. Finer details of a bipartisan plan put forward by a group that included Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King of Maine were released yesterday. Their proposal would extend two federal unemployment programs that are currently supporting a combined more than 30,000 Maine workers, and provide an additional $300 per week to all unemployment recipients. Those changes would be retroactive to Dec. 1 and run through the end of March. The proposal also calls for another round of the Paycheck Protection Program, though only for businesses with fewer than 300 workers that could show a revenue loss of at least 30 percent in any quarter of 2020, as well as $160 billion in funding for state and local governments, the terms of which still need to be negotiated. It also left open negotiations on controversial liability protections. It is not clear right now to what extent the proposal backed by King and Collins is under consideration. Democratic congressional leaders backed it, but rejected a revised version suggested by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky,that dropped state and local aid as well as the liability protections. They also rejected a White House proposal that would have dropped the extended unemployment benefits in exchange for a one-time $600 stimulus check similar to Maine’s new program. The Maine politics top 3 — “A Maine Legislature changed by the pandemic could challenge lobbyists in 2021,” Caitlin Andrews, Bangor Daily News: “The pandemic could level the playing field as electronic access opens the political process to those who might not have the time to travel to Augusta. But it could also be harder to convene and affect negotiations that could become more complicated as those wanting to meet with lawmakers may need to set up phone or video meetings.” Details of how the session will work have not been released yet, but it appears that lobbyists will be separated from lawmakers. It will be a culture change in Augusta as much of the Legislature’s business will take place at the Augusta Civic Center this January. Lawmakers and lobbyists typically inhabit the same space at the State House, which is now closed to everyone but policymakers, key workers and reporters. If that holds, lobbyists will also be deemed non-essential at the Civic Center and even if not, communications with lawmakers who may often work remotely will be difficult. — “How we investigated wrongdoing at sheriff’s offices in Maine,” Erin Rhoda, Josh Keefe and Callie Ferguson, BDN: “Unraveling the stories of other officers and community members in Oxford County was also important. But the BDN wanted to look beyond western Maine, too, to try to answer some of the questions [former Oxford County sheriff Wayne] Gallant’s story raised about whether the state has effective oversight of county law enforcement. The resulting series, Lawmen Off Limits, which detailed specific ways county law enforcement officers escape accountability, was published between Nov. 30 and today.” — “Drought and pandemic pushed Maine’s 2020 wildfire total to highest level in 35 years,” Bill Trotter, BDN: “The number of wildfires in the state this year, 1,150, has been aggravated by drought and by more people spending time outside as a way of coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, said Bill Hamilton, Maine’s chief forest ranger. The number of reported wildfires in Maine in 2020 is the highest annual total since 1985.” 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. To reach us, do not reply directly to this newsletter, but contact the political team at [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected]. | 