My concern continues to be the present trend at state and federal levels to pass cap- and- trade- type legislation to control average overall CO2 and mercury emissions in a region. Cap and Trade creates toxic hot spots, and Wiscasset could become one. State Rep. Bruce MacDonald's bill to cap CO2 emissions in Maine, LR3033, could be trumped by federal cap and trade legislation. It's like me being allowed to smoke cigars in a Wiscasset restaurant, as long as I pay two other people not to smoke them in a Bangor restaurant. The average of the total cigar smoke in both restaurants goes down, which satisfies a cap and trade type environmental emissions reduction law.

A six-state group in New England, including Maine, submitted a plan for a "total mercury emissions" law just last month. It sounds like another cap and trade to me. Remember, the federal Clean Air act, which protects every community in a region, is being pushed aside by the federal Clear Skies act, which specifically allows new power plants to use cap and trade.

Environmentally conscious Mainers need to find a way to make LR3033 immune to being able to be trumped by any federal cap and trade law, and, worse, from becoming a cap and trade law itself! Bruce MacDonald cannot say whether LR3033 can be made to be immune, and has asked the Conservation Law Foundation to look into it. Our biggest danger is that the Wiscasset anti-coal community is grossly underestimating the power, the resources, and the resolve of the Twin Rivers Energy Company.

Please keep these things in mind. Twin Rivers may be able to get another referendum as early as next June.
Stay vigilant!

Jim Simonetti-Wiscasset