Bangor Daily News attended an event at the Bangor Rotary Club today where independent candidate for governor, Eliot Cutler, outlined comprehensive and specific proposals to re-structure and reform Maine state government. Here is an excerpt:
First, he would eliminate the Board of Environmental Protection, which oversees the state Department of Environmental Protection but that also unnecessarily holds up economic development, according to Cutler.
“The board is redundant, costly, confusing and one of the reasons why people don’t want to invest in Maine anymore,” he said.
Second, Cutler said he would take the permitting and licensing functions away from the Land Use Regulation Commission and turn them over to the DEP. He would then create a Court of Appellate Review to oversee decisions made by the DEP.
He referenced the Plum Creek development in Piscataquis County as the perfect example of development being hamstrung by bureaucratic processes.
“It may have ended up with the right result,” he said of Plum Creek. “But it was a train wreck that didn’t need to happen.”
You can read the full article here.