“I see the handwriting on the wall”  (The Staples Singers, 1978.)

Incumbency proved popular among Maine voters in November. Our plain-spoken governor was returned to office with significantly more votes than when first elected four years ago.  At the same time, southern Maine’s member of Congress, a stalwart member of the Progressive Caucus, easily withstood the tide that swept a Republican into the previously Democrat-held open Congressional seat in northern Maine. 

Gov. Paul LePage’s re-election campaign had placed considerable emphasis on reducing our state’s high energy costs, which he cites as a major barrier to bringing manufacturing jobs to our rural state. Our growing pellet industry will continue to count on the Governor’s support for biomass heat produced from Maine’s forests.

The most resounding, and most expected, election victory was achieved by U.S. Senator Susan Collins, who received almost 70 percent of the vote in our decidedly “purple” state. With endorsements ranging from the trade unions at Bath Iron Works shipyard  to that of fellow Sen. Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, Collins carried virtually every one of Maine’s nearly 500 municipalities.

First elected to the Senate in 1996, Collins has never missed a recorded roll call vote and is respected as a workhorse. This work has always included attentiveness to Maine’s important forest products industry. A strong supporter of the Clean Air Act authored by Maine’s Sen. Ed Muskie four decades ago, and one of the few members of her party endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters this past year, Collins has also at times intervened with EPA to seek revision of proposed air quality rules. One such instance has involved EPA’s rules for industrial boilers like those employed in Maine’s paper industry. Another has been her letter, co-authored with King last March, expressing concern about EPA’s proposed Source Performance standards for wood and pellet stoves. Note that all Jotul wood stoves sold in North America are now manufactured in Gorham, Maine.

Most important to our pellet boiler industry has been Collins’ successful dialogue with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to have wood pellet boilers classified as “an acceptable primary heating source for the purpose of federal housing administration (FHA) financing.” This nationally important change in FHA rules was accomplished when Collins was the ranking minority member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee overseeing HUD expenditures. She will now chair the Subcommittee.

Other support provided by Collins, whose family has for many decades managed a lumber business in northern Maine, has included her early co-sponsorship of King's BTU Act. The measure, if enacted, will make homeowner expenditures for biomass heating eligible for the same federal tax credits as solar and other renewable energy systems. Our industry’s Biomass Thermal Energy Council in Washington will be working to have this legislation reintroduced early in this session of Congress.

Addressing a gathering of heating industry members in Strong, Maine, home of Geneva Woods Fuels’ pellet manufacturing facility, Collins called upon the attendees to “unleash the power of the pellet”. Our Maine industry now looks forward to the increased “Power of Collins.”

Meanwhile, back at the Maine legislature, conventional wisdom is that the Republican takeover of the Maine senate will benefit the business community, including our sector. It’s never that simple, of course. The current director of the governor’s energy office, whose advocacy on behalf of reducing Mainers’ heating costs has advanced our industry, is rumored to be in line for appointment to our Public Utilities Commission, where bright minds have been known to disappear in regulatory detail. A legislative proposal to streamline requirements for installation of pellet heating systems could get bogged down with objections from fuel oil licensees.

More telling is a recent announcement by Tim Heutz, vice president of our Maine Pellet Fuels Association. Heutz, manager of the well-established Heutz Oil Co. in Lewiston, Maine, and also of Heutz Pellet Systems, tells us that Heutz Oil is being sold. He’s now “all in”, in his words, with pellet heating. Handwriting on the wall, indeed.   

Author: Bill Bell
Executive Director, Maine Pellet Fuels Association
feedalliance@gwi.net
www.mainepelletheat.com