New Teabagger Governor determined to ruin Maine

[marmar]

from Grist:




It's not just Michele Bachmann. Maine's new Tea Party-backed governor, erstwhile furniture salesman Paul LePage, is also embarrassing his fellow Republicans.

First, he appointed his 22-year-old daughter to be assistant to his chief of staff. This would be an ill-advised move in any administration, especially when your state has high unemployment, but it's particularly unwise if you've never held public office before and could clearly benefit from a staff that knows what it's doing.

Next, his clashing with the NAACP over Martin Luther King Jr. Day ("tell them to kiss my butt") involved his bizarre claim that he should be exempt from criticism because he has a black "son." (The young man in question, though he did live with the LePage family for a few years, was never adopted by LePage and in fact already has a father in Jamaica.)

This week, LePage made the leap from abrasive style to corrosive substance. As the Portland Press Herald reports, LePage proposed a dramatic rollback of state environmental protections He wants to:

* open 10 million acres of northern Maine for development

* weaken a new law that would require manufacturers to take back and recycle old products

* reverse a ruling that the chemical bisphenol A (linked to cancer, obesity, and learning disabilities) should be phased out of children's products

* relaxing air emissions standards

* replace the state Board of Environmental Protection,

* weaken state environmental standards that are stronger than federal standards ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-27-paul-lepage-new-maine-guv-takes-aim-at-the-environment