CONTACT:
TED O’MEARA
ted@cutler2010.com
207.699.4401
or
MONICA CASTELLANOS
monica@cutler2010.com
207.699.4401
Independent candidate offers additional proposals to re-structure state government.
PORTLAND, Maine — A new office to repeal or change regulations that are standing in the way of job growth is a key piece to an overall government restructuring plan announced today by Independent candidate for Governor Eliot Cutler. Cutler said that he would create an Office of Regulatory Review and Repeal within the Governor’s Office.
“We’re going look at every rule and regulation that’s on the books, and we’re going to ask Maine businesses to tell us about the unnecessary, unfair, unintelligible rules that are keeping them from growing and investing,” Cutler told members of the Brunswick Rotary Club. “Then we are going to change or repeal them. It’s time for some house cleaning.”
Cutler said the Office also will look at every new law and rule that is proposed by state agencies and determine its impact on the state’s economy before it goes into effect, not after it’s too late. “We’re going to make sure that each regulation is necessary and that the rule’s objective is being accomplished in a sensible, fair and cost-effective way,” he said.
Cutler also said that as part of his re-structuring, he would propose to the legislature that Maine abolish the Board of Environmental Protection (BEP). He noted that someone who wants to make a major investment in Maine today can spend millions of dollars and several years trying to get a project approved by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), only to have the project appealed to the Board of Environmental Protection, where the entire process goes right back to square one.
“I care deeply about protecting our natural environment, but we don’t need both a professional department and a citizen board anymore,” Cutler said. “The Board is redundant, costly, confusing, and one of the reasons why people just don’t want to invest here in Maine anymore.”
Cutler said that in the Board’s place, he would create a three-judge Court of Appellate Review that will review decisions on the record made by the DEP Commissioner and other state rule makers.
Cutler also proposes taking permitting and licensing out of the Land Use Regulation Commission and giving those responsibilities to the DEP.
‘It makes no sense to have the same agency handle both planning and permitting, to be both the jury and the judge,” Cutler said. “The Plum Creek process – though we may have ended up with the right result – was a train wreck that shouldn’t have happened. It took five years and $25 million of process, and I don’t want to see it happen again.”
Cutler intends to replace the Department of Economic and Community Development with a more vigorous and better armed Department of Commerce.
“At a time when we need to be highly strategic in our approach to business development and focused on developing and investing in Maine’s competitive advantages, our current efforts are the very opposite of strategic; they are fragmented, unfocused, and inconsistent,” he said.
In addition to a much stronger and better funded Office of Tourism, Cutler wants to bring into a Department of Commerce the non-regulatory activities of the State Planning Office, the Maine Technology Institute, the Maine International Trade Center, Maine and Company, the Finance Authority of Maine, the Small Enterprise Growth Fund, and the Maine Rural Development Authority.
The Department of Commerce also would include a Small Business Advocate – a watchdog for the interests of Maine’s thousands of small businesses – and a Grants Assistance Team to help towns and cities, small businesses and entrepreneurs seek and secure financial assistance from sources ranging from the federal government to private foundations.
“Putting all of these programs under one roof with a strong and experienced leader from the private sector at the helm will be an important first step in bringing a more focused and cost-effective approach to our state’s business development efforts,” Cutler added.
Cutler also is proposing a new Office of Financial Management, which would consolidate the State Controller, Budget Office and Purchasing Division under one roof.
“At a time of extraordinary financial stress, we need to make sure that all of the state’s resources are being optimally managed and utilized, throughout the state’s entire financial cycle,” he said. “We need to be capable of implementing zero-based budgeting across the entire state government, preparing a comprehensive capital budget and managing our cash wisely and well.”
In addition to the restructuring proposals announced today, Cutler previously has made specific proposals about merging Maine’s two systems of higher education, creating an Energy Finance Authority to begin lowering the price of electricity, and reforming health care in Maine to make it more affordable for businesses and individuals.
Cutler said that later in the campaign he would propose additional changes to the Workers Compensation Board, the Department of Health and Human Services, and elsewhere in the executive branch and legislature.