WHEREAS, Maine is a welcoming and inclusive state that recognizes the value of people of diverse backgrounds to enhance the vibrancy of Maine’s communities, the strength of our workforce, and the growth of our economy;

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.

Earlier this week, I was proud to declare August 5th through 6th the third annual Wild Blueberry Weekend in Maine, to celebrate our wild blueberries and to honor the hardworking people who grow and bring them to markets near and far.

Wild blueberries, you know, were first managed and harvested by the Wabanaki — in fact, The Passamaquoddy Wild Blueberry Company, headquartered in Columbia Falls, has been managing and harvesting wild blueberries on 2,000 acres of barrens since 1981.

Statewide, blueberries are now grown by 485 Maine farms on 42,000 acres, all within Franklin, Hancock, Lincoln, Kennebec, Knox, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Waldo and Washington counties.

Last year alone, Maine farmers harvested 77.5 million pounds of wild blueberries. And we know that these wild blueberries are healthy, they have more antioxidants than cultivated blueberries, and they are tastier than any other kind of blueberry in the world.

So, to honor our wild blueberry growers and businesses and their significant contributions to the Maine economy, I declared our first ever wild blueberry weekend ever in 2021.

At that time, wild blueberry growers opened their doors for free for the first time and made available fresh wild blueberries, jams, and pies, and other products available for guests to purchase.

The Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine reports that, during the first and second annual Wild Blueberry Weekends, there were thousands of dollars in direct farm sales and thousands of visitors who enjoyed touring the places where wild blueberries grow, maybe picking a few of their own. I know that we will build on those numbers this year.

This year, Wild Blueberry Weekend will feature farm tours and other family-friendly activities at 15 different wild blueberry farms in Franklin, Lincoln, Kennebec, Knox, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Waldo, and Washington Counties, as well as the Wild Blueberry Heritage Center and Museum in Columbia Falls, right on Route One.

And the wild blueberry-themed menu items and products will be available throughout the weekend at more than 40 restaurants, ice cream shops, breweries, wineries, and distilleries across the state. To see the full list of participants, visit www.wildblueberryweekend.com – that’s www.wildblueberryweekend.com and the state’s official agriculture website, www.realmaine.com, www.realmaine.com, for year-round ideas on ways you can support Maine’s agricultural community.

I encourage everyone to visit one of the participating wild blueberry farms or to sample Maine-grown wild blueberry products at the many places selling them during Wild Blueberry Weekend, August 5 and 6!

This is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.

WHEREAS, Maine's agriculture sector fuels our economy, contributing more than $3.6 billion in economic impact, employing over 27,000 people, and supporting approximately 1.3 million acres of farmland; and

WHEREAS, Maine's agricultural workers, including farmers and farm workers, are the foundation for a vibrant food system that ensures the availability of high-quality farm products year-round; and

WHEREAS, all those who make their living in the agricultural sector deserve fair wages for their labor; and

WHEREAS, born on July 25, 1750, Henry Knox participated in many of the most significant battles of the Revolutionary War and rose through the ranks to become one of General George Washington’s most trusted friends and reliable soldiers; and

WHEREAS, Knox served as Chief Artillery Officer in the Continental Army, as General in the United States Army, and as the first Secretary of War in President George Washington’s cabinet; and

WHEREAS, wild blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium) emerged on the rocky, acidic soils of the Barrens of Maine following the retreat of the glaciers more than 10,000 years ago; and

WHEREAS, wild blueberries, which are not planted but grow naturally, were first managed and harvested by the Wabanaki and are now grown by 485 Maine farms on 42,000 acres, within Franklin, Hancock, Lincoln, Kennebec, Knox, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Waldo and Washington counties; and

WHEREAS, on June 27, 1950, in response to the communist threat to South Koreans and their democracy, President Harry S. Truman committed the first United States forces to combat in South Korea, beginning the Korean War; and

WHEREAS, nearly 1.8 million members of the United States Armed Forces served alongside the forces of the Republic of Korea and 20 other Allied nations under the United Nations Command to defend freedom and democracy on the Korean Peninsula; and

WHEREAS, Community Health Centers were established in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, a national effort to address poverty and racial inequity in rural and underserved communities; and

WHEREAS, since then, Community Health Centers have played a valuable role in providing high quality, cost-effective, and accessible primary and preventive care including integrated medical, dental, and behavioral health to all individuals regardless of insurance status or ability to pay; and

When I took office, I set a goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps in Maine by 2025 in order to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and to support energy efficiency jobs – the kinds of jobs that attract young families to our state. 

Well, earlier this week, I was pleased to announce that we’ve reached our goal -- a full two years ahead of schedule.

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.

You know, Maine uses more home heating oil per capita than any other state in the nation. Nearly 60 percent of homeowners rely on oil for home heat, and we send over four billion dollars out of state every year to pay for our use of fossil fuels.

Over the last two years especially, Maine people and all kinds of businesses in Maine have been hurt by high and volatile energy costs, a direct consequence of our state being so reliant on global energy markets to heat our homes and power our businesses.

Heat pumps are affordable heating and cooling appliances. They work well in cold climates. They are much more efficient than window air conditioning when used for cooling, and they’re easy to use. 

To meet our goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps by 2025, the Efficiency Maine Trust and Maine Housing organizations drew a combination of state and federal funding to offer rebate incentives to Maine people and businesses to purchase heat pumps, and then our Community College System trained hundreds of heat pump installers to serve those new customers statewide.

I got to meet many of those heat pump installers at Kennebec Community College this week. KVCC alone has trained more than 250 people over the last four years to install heat pumps in every corner of our state. 

I want to thank every one of those individuals for their hard work – we wouldn’t have achieved our goal without them.

To build on this progress, I announced that we are now setting a new goal of installing another 175,000 heat pumps in Maine in the next few years. That will bring the total number of new heat pumps installed during my Administration to 275,000 statewide.

We will reach this new goal by using more than $70 million in federal funds to offer rebates for consumers to weatherize their homes and to install systems such as heat pumps and other efficiency appliances. 

Transitioning to heat pumps is creating good-paying jobs, it’s curbing our carbon emissions, and cutting costs for Maine families, and it’s making people more comfortable in their homes. I am confident that we can reach our new goal, which will make such a significant difference in the lives of Maine people.

I look forward to celebrating the next milestone on the road to our clean energy future here in Maine.

This is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.

When I presented my budget proposal earlier this year, I said if we want to build a stronger, more prosperous state, then we have to invest in our greatest asset: the people of Maine.

Well, I’m pleased to say that I signed the budget this week, and that budget delivers on delivers on that guiding belief.

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.

This budget makes transformative investments in Maine people. With this budget, Maine becomes the 13^th state in the nation to create a paid family and medical leave program that will take effect in the coming years. It’s a program that will make it easier for people to balance work with life’s unexpected challenges, caring for a sick child for instance, or an aging parent, while remaining flexible to accommodate potential hardships for employers. I want to thank the sponsors, Senator Daughtry, Representative Cloutier, and members of the business community who sat with us and negotiated some of these provisions, as well as Labor Commissioner Laura Fortman for all their work on this measure.

This budget will also make it easier for Maine businesses to find workers they need by establishing the Dirigo Business Incentive Program. That’s my proposal to modernize Maine’s business tax incentives and better reflect the needs of our economy. This new program will attract businesses to move or expand here by providing a tax incentive for every worker that business trains in high-value careers and for capital investments those businesses make in our communities. I want to express my thanks to my Commissioner of Economic and Community Development Heather Johnson for her diligent work on this measure.

The budget also makes historic investments in housing – adopting the highly successful housing first model to reduce chronic homelessness; building more housing for Maine people; providing funding for shelters. Housing is such a huge need, and we are addressing it. Thank you to Speaker Talbot Ross for her work on this issue and to Greg Payne, my senior housing advisor.

To improve the health and wellbeing of Maine people, the budget also increases our MaineCare provider rates for behavioral health care and community services for children with health care needs and their families. The budget also includes funding to implement our Child Safety and Family Well-being Plan to keep children safe, keeping families strong. Thank you to Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew for her work on this on this measure.

We also continue to tackle child care challenges. This budget will make it easier for families to access affordable child care by increasing financial support for Maine families and doubling the monthly stipends that we provide child care facilities to recruit and retain qualified staff – all of these are important moves, and I want to thank Senate President Troy Jackson for his important work on this measure.

All of this work builds on our success in maintaining 5 percent revenue sharing for town and cities and 55 percent for the state’s share of the cost of education, in order to try to keep property taxes down, as well as full funding for free school meals to ensure that no child goes hungry in this state.

And importantly, this budget is balanced. It protects our record high Budget Stabilization, or “Rainy Day Fund,” and it uses revenues responsibly to make investments in the well-being of Maine families, communities, and businesses. 

It received overwhelming bipartisan support in the Appropriations Committee, and I want to thank the bipartisan work of that committee – particularly the Republican input which resulted in our including a significant tax reduction for seniors by exempting the first $35,000 of retirement incomes from income taxes, and that income tax exemption will go up in the coming years.

It wouldn’t be possible to do this work without my Commissioner of Administrative and Financial Services, Kirsten Figueroa, and her dedicated team, including Associate Commissioner Jenny Boyden and State Budget Officer Beth Ashcroft. 

So, this is a budget that we can be proud of, and I want to thank lawmakers, especially the members of the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee, for their work to pass this budget. I was proud to sign it into law. 

This is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.

I care for the health, welfare, opportunity, prosperity, and future of the Wabanaki people, just as I care for every Maine person, and that’s why I signed into law several important tribal bills this week.

I signed into law the historic Mi’kmaq Restoration Act to extend to the Mi’kmaq Nation the same rights and benefits enjoyed by other Wabanaki Nations in Maine. I signed into law the Maine Indian Child Welfare Act to preserve the rights of Indian families during custody and child welfare proceedings involving Indian children. And I signed into law An Act Regarding the Maine Indian Tribal State Commission to improve the functioning of the Commission at the request of the Tribes and legislative leadership.

I share the goal of ensuring the Wabanaki Nations can access benefits that are generally available to other Federally recognized Tribes.

Unfortunately, I do not believe that LD 2004, recently enacted by the legislature, will achieve that goal. I fear it would result in years, if not decades, of new, painful, complex litigation that would only further divide the state and our people.

And that is why last week, I vetoed that bill.

Under the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980, negotiated by the Tribes, the State, and the Federal government, the Maine Tribes received more than $80 million in federal funding to acquire up to 300,000 acres of land—about the size of Androscoggin County. Recognizing that that land, when bought, would likely be spread out all across the state, the State of Maine asked that the parcels remain under State law to avoid a confusing patchwork of laws statewide, and the Tribes agreed.

Under the Settlement Act, the Tribes became eligible for all federal benefits and services afforded to other Tribes. The only exception is a very few number of laws that might conflict directly with Maine laws, just a handful.

As a result, Maine’s Tribes receive a lot of Federal money – more than $420 million just since 2019. They also receive State funds – education funding, revenue sharing, general assistance, and money from the Oxford Casino – funds that other Tribes across the nation do not receive.

But instead of specifically addressing the very few Federal laws that do not now apply to the Wabanaki Nations, LD 2004 attempted to upend the 1980 agreement wholesale.

LD 2004 would repeal a broad swath of unnamed, unidentified State laws on Tribal Territory, lands that they now hold or might later acquire anywhere in the State of Maine – laws that could regulate things like fish and game, water quality and land use, fire safety and building standards, education requirements, labor and employment laws. This would create a situation where people would not know what laws are in effect in any particular place in Maine. The only way to solve those questions would be by very contentious and lengthy lawsuits.

By removing any State or Local regulatory authority, this bill would transfer the authority of Tribal lands to the Federal government – putting the Feds in charge.

Well, don’t we think that the turmoil that the federal government just put Maine lobstermen through with its Right Whale regulations is a pretty good example of why we shouldn’t leave the Feds in charge?

But maybe the most alarming part of this situation is that if this bill were to take effect, with all these unintended consequences, the Maine Legislature could not simply come back and fix them in the next session or in later sessions on their own. They’d have to get the agreement of all four Tribes. It’s in effect, a binding contract and in effect, irreversible.

That’s a high stakes proposition for all the 1.3 million citizens of Maine, especially since they didn’t even have a chance to understand the complex bill. After all, the final language was printed the same day it was voted on in both the House and Senate.

You know, like any politician, I could just stick my finger in the air to see which way the wind was blowing and I could sign this bill and make a lot of people happy, but that would not be the responsible thing to do – and not doing my job as Governor.

I vetoed LD 2004 because I know that we can deliver the promise of greater benefits for Tribal communities while avoiding the confusion and litigation that bill would cause. I want to focus on the specific problems and the specific Federal laws the Tribes may not be benefitting from, and work together with them and Maine’s Congressional Delegation, and make those laws apply where we think they make sense.

The State and the Tribes have made historic progress these last four and a half years — more than under any governor in the last forty years — and that’s as a result of deliberate and respectful dialogue, and I am committed to continuing that work in the years to come.

This is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.