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Bill to halt natural gas expansion in Maine prompts energy and climate debate

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Bill to halt natural gas expansion in Maine prompts energy and climate debate


A bill that seeks to slow down expansion of natural gas infrastructure in Maine has sparked a robust debate over the energy and climate policy within the State House.

While environmentalists insist the bill is a critical step toward a cleaner future that would not affect existing natural gas customers. But in the latest example of partisan divides over energy policy, Republicans dismiss the measure as government overreach that will only harm Maine residents and businesses.

“This bill is about limiting choice,” Sen. Matt Harrington, R-Sanford, said during a press conference before Tuesday’s committee hearing. “This bill seeks to limit the cheapest form of heat, according to the Governor’s Energy Office. And it’s deplorable to me that Democrats in this state would seek to do that.”

For years, natural gas was touted as a cleaner and oftentimes cheaper alternative to oil when it came to generating electricity, heating homes and even powering public transit buses. The process of fracking, which involves fracturing underground bedrock to enable the extraction of natural gas, opened up vast domestic sources. And a handful of natural gas companies responded by building new pipelines in southern and central Maine.

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But natural gas is still a fossil fuel that pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when burned.

Bill Harwood, who heads Maine’s Office of the Public Advocate, told members of the Legislature’s Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee that it’s time to start looking beyond natural gas as Maine tries meet ambitious targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

“If we’re serious about meeting our climate goals, we must begin the discussion of phasing out our reliance on all fossil fuels, including natural gas,” Harwood said. “This bill basically proposes a pause in the expansion of natural gas while we study the future of it.”

Harwood is the lead proponent of a bill that would prohibit natural gas utilities from expanding into new communities starting next year. The measure, known as LD 2077, would also prohibit gas companies from offering promotions to entice new customers. And it would direct the state to study the potential health impacts of natural gas combustion and leakage indoors.

Harwood and other supporters said the measure would not prevent Maine’s roughly 50,000 gas customers from continuing to use gas. Gas companies have laid pipelines to several major businesses and offered residential customers along their routes to connect.

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The Governor’s Energy Office currently ranks natural gas as the cheapest heating fuel source in Maine followed by firewood and heat pumps. But global natural gas prices have fluctuated wildly in recent years because of the war in Ukraine and other international factors. Harwood’s office fought a proposed 200% rate increase sought by Summit Natural Gas of Maine in 2022.

“I think we all agree that natural gas has a role in play in getting us where we want to be,” Harwood said. “The question is how short is that bridge. I think you will here a lot of testimony today conceding that gas in not a permanent solution to our energy needs.”

The proposal has strong backing from environmental groups such as the Conservation Law Foundation, whose attorney, Emily Green, picked up on Harwood’s description of natural gas as a bridge between dirtier fossil fuels like coal and oil and renewable energy.

“The bridge — if ever there were a bridge — can only be more and more condensed and clearly the alternative that is rising to the top is electrification in terms of costs and emissions,” said Emily Green, senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation.

Jeff Shapiro with Natural Resources Council of Mainepointed to the severe storms that caused massive flooding and damage to coastal and riverside towns in Maine over the past month as evidence for the need for prompt, decisive action on climate.

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“While oil heating is the big kahuna in terms of reducing emissions, we need to make sure we are not growing a different problem as we are trying to solve another,” Shapiro said. “Time is short and we just saw last week record tides as we’ve seen these storms over the past few weeks.”

But the bill has encountered strong pushback from the gas industry, some town officials and Republican lawmakers. More than a dozen Republicans attended Tuesday’s press conference opposing the bill.

“There’s nothing better than diversifying your energy resources,” said Sen. James Libby, R-Standish. “And we know that natural gas burns more cleanly and has been effective deterrent to building CO2 across the world, not just the United States or Maine.”

Some Democrats are also opposed, as was clear Tuesday when Senate President Troy Jackson of Allagash told committees that the bill feels anti-Northern Maine because it would shut the region off from natural gas.

“The idea that we would take away any heating source in a state like Maine, where people have real, real concerns about heating their homes, concerns me greatly,” Jackson said.

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Kurt Adams with Summit Utilities, which owns one of Maine’s major natural gas companies, warned that the bill would stop investments in climate technology. Adams said his company has invested $25 million into a renewable fuel digester at a Maine dairy farm in Clinton that produces the equivalent of 45 percent of the gas that Summit Natural Gas provides to residential customers. And Adams disputed suggestions that Summit is responsible to gas leaks that add to climate change.

“This bill reflects a national conversation that people are trying to import to Maine’s problems,” Adams said. “And when you do that, you miss the facts on the ground.”

The committee has not yet scheduled a work session on the bill.





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This Classic New England-Style Cottage in Maine Has 200 Feet of Atlantic Ocean Frontage

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This Classic New England-Style Cottage in Maine Has 200 Feet of Atlantic Ocean Frontage


A waterfront home with open ocean views on the coast of Maine came to market Tuesday asking $4 million. 

Built in 1978, the three-bedroom cottage is at the southern point of Cape Elizabeth, less than 10 miles from downtown Portland. The 1.1-acre property on Sunny Bank Road features 200 feet of south-facing water frontage on the wide open Atlantic. 

It is bordered by a rocky sea wall that’s about 28 feet high, according to listing agent Sam Michaud Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty

“The views are like a Monet painting,” he said via email. “The water sparkles and the waves are endless.”

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MORE: Laid-Back Costa Rica Is Getting a $7 Million Mega-Penthouse

The 3,364-square-foot home was built in classic New England style, with shingle siding, a single sloped roofline and large windows—complemented by white-washed walls, exposed-beam ceilings and wide-plank flooring on the interiors. 

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The main common area features cathedral ceilings with a step-down between the living and dining room, and a partial wall divides the dining room from the kitchen. There is also a wood-paneled family room off the kitchen, a gym and a covered porch. 

The sellers purchased the property in 2010 for $1.562 million, according to property records accessed through PropertyShark. They could not immediately be reached for comment. 

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“I have received quite a few inquiries since hitting the market two days ago,” Michaud said. “Buyers understand that this is a golden opportunity to own over an acre with 200 feet of bold oceanfront in Cape Elizabeth.”

MORE: Iranian Strikes on Dubai Put the City’s Roaring Real Estate Market to the Test

There are currently just seven three-bedroom homes available for sale in Cape Elizabeth and fewer than five waterfront properties, according to Sotheby’s and Zillow data. It is also the most expensive listing in the town, with another waterfront property on a tiny lot just south of Portland coming in a close second, according to Zillow. 

Michaud sold the former Cape Elizabeth home of Bette Davis this past summer for $13.4 million, the priciest sale on the cape in at least a decade—and even those views can’t compare. They’re “just magical,” he said. 



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NECEC conservation plan will not protect Maine’s mature forests | Opinion

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NECEC conservation plan will not protect Maine’s mature forests | Opinion


Robert Bryan is a licensed forester from Harpswell and author or co-author of numerous publications on managing forests for wildlife. Paul Larrivee is a licensed forester from New Gloucester who manages both private and public lands, and a former Maine Forest Service forester.

In November 2025, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) approved a conservation plan and forest management plan as mitigation for impacts from the NECEC transmission corridor that runs from the Quebec border 53 miles to central Maine.

As professional foresters, we were astonished by the lack of scientific credibility in the definition of “mature forest habitat” that was approved by DEP, and the business-as-usual commercial forestry proposed for over 80% of the conservation area.

The DEP’s approval requires NECEC to establish and protect 50,000 acres to be managed for mature-forest wildlife species and wildlife travel corridors along riparian areas and between mature forest habitats. The conservation plan will establish an area adjacent to the new transmission corridor to be protected under a conservation easement held by the state. Under this plan, 50% of the area will be managed as mature forest habitat.

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Under the forest management plan, a typical even-aged stand will qualify as “mature forest habitat” once 50 feet tall, which is only about 50 years old. These stands will lack large trees that provide wildlife denning and nesting sites, multiple vegetation layers that mature-forest birds use for nesting and feeding habitats and large decaying trees and downed logs that provide habitat for insects, fungi and small mammals, which in turn benefit larger predators.

Another major concern is that contrary to the earlier DEP order, the final approval allows standard sustainable forestry operations on the 84% of the forest located outside the stream buffers and special habitats. These stands may be harvested as soon as they achieve the “mature forest habitat” definition, as long as 50% of the conserved land is maintained as “mature.”

After the mature forest goal is reached, clearcutting or other heavy harvesting could occur on thousands of acres every 10 years. Because the landowner — Weyerhaeuser — owns several hundred thousand acres in the vicinity, any reductions in harvesting within the conservation area can simply be offset by cutting more heavily nearby. As a result, the net
mature-forest benefit of the conservation area will be close to zero.

Third, because some mature stands will be cut before the 50% mature forest goal is reached, it will take 40 years — longer than necessary — to reach the goal.

In the near future the Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) will consider an appeal from environmental organizations of the plan approval. To ensure that ecologically mature forest develops in a manner that meets the intent of the DEP/BEP orders, several things need to change.

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First and most important, to ensure that characteristics of mature forest habitat have time to develop it is critical that the definition include clear requirements for the minimum number of large-diameter (hence more mature) trees, adjusted by forest type. At least half the stocking of an area of mature forest habitat should be in trees at least 10 inches in diameter, and at least 20% of stands beyond the riparian buffers should have half the stocking in trees greater than or equal to 16 inches in diameter.

Current research as well as guidelines for defining ecologically mature forests, such as those in Maine Audubon’s Forestry for Maine Birds, should be followed.

Second, limits should be placed on the size and distribution of clearcut or “shelterwood” harvest patches so that even-aged harvests are similar in size to those created by typical natural forest disturbance patterns. These changes will help ensure that the mature-forest block and connectivity requirements of the orders are met.

Third, because the forest impacts have already occurred, no cutting should be allowed in the few stands that meet or exceed the DEP-approved definition — which needs to be revised as described above — until the 50% or greater mature-forest goal is reached.

If allowed to stand, the definitions and management described in the forest management plan would set a terrible precedent for conserving mature forests in Maine. The BEP should uphold the appeal and establish standards for truly mature forest habitat.

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Rage Room in Portland, Maine, Developing ‘Scream Room’ Addition

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Rage Room in Portland, Maine, Developing ‘Scream Room’ Addition


For a lot of people throughout Maine, there’s some built up frustration that they’ve just been keeping inside.

That frustration can come in a lot of different forms. From finances to relationships to the world around you.

So it makes plenty of sense that a rage room opened in Portland, Maine, where people can let some of that frustration out.

It’s called Mayhem and people have been piling in to smash, crush and do dastardly things to inanimate objects that had no idea what was coming.

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But Mayhem has realized not everyone is down with swinging a sledgehammer. So they’ve decided to cook up something new.

Mayhem Creating ‘Scream Room’ at Their Space in Portland, Maine

Perhaps the thought of swinging a baseball bat and destroying a glass vase brings you joy. The thought of how sore your body will be after that moment makes you less excited.

Mayhem Portland has heard you loud and clear and is developing a new way to get the rage out. By just screaming.

Mayhem is working on opening their very first scream room. It’s exactly what you think it is, a safe place to spend some time just screaming all of the frustration out.

There isn’t an official opening date set yet but it’s coming soon along with pricing.

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Mayhem in Portland, Maine, Will Still Offer Rage Rooms and Paint Splatter

While a scream room is on the way, you can still experience a good time at Mayhem with one of their rage rooms or a paint splatter room.

Both can be experienced in either 20-minute or 30-minute sessions.

All the details including some age and attire requirements can be found here.

TripAdvisor’s Top 10 Things to do in Portland, Maine

Looking for fun things to do in Portland, ME? Here is what the reviewers on TripAdvisor say are the 10 best attractions.

This list was updated in March of 2026

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Gallery Credit: Chris Sedenka

Top 15 of The Most Powerful People in Maine

Ever wonder who the most powerful players are in Maine? I’ve got a list!

Gallery Credit: Getty Images





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