Strolling out of One Canal Plaza into Portland’s bustling downtown, I felt a stirring of power, as if I truly fit in with the harried businessmen and women sweating it out in their jackets and heels, hurrying to attend to something assuredly pressing. My friends and fellow young environmental activists, Max and Isabella, chatted spiritedly about the meeting we had just exited.
My reason for feeling accomplished was that I felt I had finally done something effective on a large scale for environmental policy. This stemmed from a meeting that I arranged for Max, Isabella, and myself in my role as the Sierra Club’s Maine Chapter intern, with Kate Simson Norfleet, Senator Susan Collins’ State Office Representative in Portland. Walking into Kate’s office, we were warmly welcomed and lauded for coming in to share our opinions and concerns. She assured us that by being involved in environmental activism and meeting with her, we showed how much we care about this particular issue, and that we were securing our right to complain by actively attempting to do something about that which we wanted to change.
Senator Collins has, of course, shown that she is one of very few Republicans in Congress who recognizes climate change as an extant problem. By voting against Scott Pruitt’s nomination to the EPA, and voting against the congressional review act to kill the Obama rule aimed at reducing methane emissions for oil and gas drilling on BLM lands, Senator Collins has shown that she is willing to vote in favor of environmental protection.
The purpose of this meeting was to represent the significant concerns of Maine young adults regarding climate change, and our expectation that Senator Collins stand up against Trump’s dangerous anti-environmental policies and support environmentally positive legislation. When I brought up Trump’s intent to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords, Kate referred to the Senator’s public comment that the decision to withdraw was premature. In regards to Trump’s proposed EPA budget cuts, while discussing the many jobs that could be lost directly, and as a result of lobster population changes, if Trump reduces NOAA funding and thus the Sea Grant program that is so integral to lobster biology research, Kate referenced Pika Energy, the large renewable energy company that Senator Collins has visited and supports. This company has created many jobs, which Kate emphasized is the most important thing to express under this administration. Kate also expressed approval for the Brownfields remediation program, referencing the large economic value of the former Brownfields site which is now Thompson’s Point. This program could also lose funding due to Trump’s EPA cuts.
Max and Isabella, both of whom attended the People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C., expressed the hope they felt at seeing such environmental engagement among both young people and Mainers. We ended the meeting by expressing our serious concerns about job availability in the environmental sector in Maine in the future; if there are none available, we probably won’t settle in Maine, and neither will other Maine youth, which has been a huge problem for the state. Kate sympathized with us, and understood the seriousness of this issue. As for Senator Collins becoming our next leader on climate change, that sounds less promising. But if enough people, particularly young people, become politically and environmentally involved, anything could happen.
- Hannah Marr