Hi. We are from the State Legislature and we are here to Poison you.

Welcome to the world of the Maine State Legislature --where any activity in support of the latest environmental fad is immediately deemed “good”, at least for a few months.

You remember Car Test, right? That was a super plan where the State of Maine decided we needed to be the leaders in the nation in vehicle emissions inspections. Here is how the New York Times described it back in 1994:

The nation's first experience with a tough new program of automobile emissions testing that the Federal Government will soon require in urban areas around the country has gone so badly that Maine, the program's bellwether state, has had to suspend it.

And then there was MTBE also known as methyl tertiary butyl ether. MTBE is an additive put in gasoline that essentially helps fuel burn more efficiently. You know the talking points here: helps clean the air, decreases our reliance on foreign oil, blah blah blah. Anyway, Maine’s southern counties switched to gas with MTBE and voila – cleaner air, better fuel efficiency and polluted ground water.

Yep. Cleaner air. Dirtier water. The Kennebec Journal summed up the final chapter of MTBE nicely in 2004 when addressing the Legislature’s proposal to BAN MTBE:

Federal data show that MTBE has been detected in hundreds of public water supplies in at least 28 states, including many in Maine. Water from countless wells is no longer drinkable because it contains the additive.

The obvious answer for Maine is to stop MTBE from coming into the state

And now we have the light bulb. The CFL (Compact fluorescent light). Here in Maine we are spending a lot of time and money encouraging Maine businesses and Maine households to stock up on CFL’s. In fact, the good Senator from Portland, Senator Strimling wants to ban the old light bulbs (incandescent) by 2010 --which, by the way, is already Federal Law –effective 2012.

Anyway, it seems these CFL’s are poisonous. Well, maybe not poisonous exactly. But in the Portland Press Herald, Deborah Rice, a toxicologist with the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said,

"How much of a risk is posed by breaking one bulb, I think, is really unclear," Rice said. "We don't really know. The only thing we can advise is, clean up as well as you can and recognize when you vacuum a month later, you'll stir up mercury again."

What exactly does “you’ll stir up mercury again” mean? I think we all know where this one is headed. It's a pretty simple formula:

Step 1. The politicians get to feel really great about themselves and show how much they care.

Step 2. Maine people get to spend millions of dollars to help politicians feel really great.

Step 3. Uh oh.....Environmental Disaster.

Step 4. The politicians get to come back and save the day, spend money (our money) to fix the problem and feel really great about themselves.

Step 5. Repeat.

The most environmentally friendly thing this Legislature can do is to end the session as soon as possible.