PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 26, 2023
Business groups want lawmakers to roll back key provisions of the state’s first-in-the-nation ban on products containing harmful forever chemicals, claiming the new law is well-intentioned but too broad, too aggressive and too costly for them to follow. They have recruited some key Democratic allies: Senate President Troy Jackson of Allagash, who represents farmers and logging companies, and Sen. Joe Baldacci of Bangor, who represents an airplane repair shop owner who said he can’t afford to comply with the law. Defenders of the current law noted the efforts by the tobacco, oil and chemical industries to hide the harmful health and environmental impacts of cigarette smoking, oil drilling, and PCBs, mercury and dioxins through public misinformation campaigns.