In a debate over ballot-box fraud, or what some refer to as voter suppression, "Portland Press Herald" columnist Bill Nemitz takes a stand on bill 1376, "An Act To Preserve the Integrity of the Voter Registration and Election Process." Nemitz argues that same-day voter registration, in place for 38 years, has attracted about 68,000 voters to register the same day they voted over the past two elections.
Voter fraud is a chief concern, Republicans say. Some believe that Democrats intentionally "steal" elections by encouraging the busing of college students and political activists to critical precincts.
The U.S. lumber industry is at odds with British Columbia's stumpage pricing scheme. Individuals and firms are required to pay stumpage fees to the government when they harvest Crown timber in British Columbia, and are priced by the mill yard for log and tree grades of different tree species, for example, white pine, red pine or hemlock. U.S. Representative Mike Michaud of Maine says that British Columbia has illegally set stumpage fees for lumber harvested on public lands in Canada artificially low. Worse, he says, the tribunal for determining the outcome is set for March 2012 and could take five years to resolve. This scheme is hurting Maine's economy, Michaud says, because sawmills in Maine's rural towns cannot compete on a level playing field with the low prices.
British Columbia, on the other hand, says that prices reflect degraded lumber damaged by the pine beetle.
Homeowners on the island of Vinalhaven in Maine's Penobscot Bay have filed a formal complaint with the Maine Public Utilities Commission over noise generated by wind turbines. Since 2009, homeowners say that the wind machines, owned by Fox Island Wind, are in violation of state noise ordinances. The "Huffington Post" reports that the complaint states that residents' concerns have been not only been ignored, but also the utility has threatened to raise rates 5 percent to offset legal fees associated with the complaints.
This has not set well with the island residents who are not within earshot of the turbines.
Videos in the Post article show the noise and "flicker" effects on those residents living closest to the turbines, while another linking video compares the noise to noise at a traffic intersection.
Rockweed harvesting made national news in 2008 when disputes between landowners and harvesters increased at the same pace that the commercial value of rockweed increased, according to columnist Beth Quimby at the "Kennebec Journal." Rockweed, also known as Norwegian kelp, is member of the brown algae family and forms underwater forests along Maine's intertidal zone.
Commercially, rockweed is used as organic fertilizer, food additive, packaging for bait and lobster, in cosmetics and sold as a nutritional supplement for animals and people. Tension peaked in 2008 due to the crowd of mechanical harvesting boats entering Cobscook Bay. Residents became concerned about the ecological impact. Pressure from the Passamaquoddy tribe, the Quoddy Regional Land Trust and the Rockweed Coalition resulted in the Maine Legislature's passing of the state's first management plan to remove no more than 17 percent of the rockweed biomass in the bay.