Senator Collins has turned her back on public lands
By: Adam Kolton, Executive Director
I’ve long believed that we have a responsibility to cultivate and support those who stand up for America’s public lands and waters, irrespective of political party. Senator Susan Collins, Maine’s senior Senator, was once in that category, speaking out and standing up for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge among other cherished landscapes. But in 2017 Senator Collins flip-flopped, casting one of the swing and decisive votes in favor of the GOP Tax Act that mandated oil leasing in the Arctic Refuge. Those in Maine who long valued what they believed to be principled leadership in her votes to protect this national treasure felt betrayed and are now speaking out in a new ad from Alaska Wilderness League Action.
How traumatic a reversal was Senator Collins’ vote for Arctic drilling in 2017? A complete 180-degree turn from previous statements in 2002 and again in 2008.
Indeed, in the early days of the President George W. Bush administration, Senator Collins was one of eight Republicans who helped successfully thwart Arctic Refuge drilling, even speaking at a news conference alongside Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and actor and director Robert Redford.
But when President Donald Trump was elected, he and the Senate GOP leadership set their sights on drilling the Arctic Refuge as part of an “energy dominance” agenda. The plan: circumvent a full, fair and open debate on the issue by jamming a drilling provision into a massive tax bill and pushing it through the congressional reconciliation process, where it would need only a simple majority to pass. Maine conservation leaders implored Senator Collins to help, urging her to signal an unwillingness to support the tax bill unless the Arctic Refuge leasing mandate was removed.
Senator Collins not only declined to help, but instead traded her Tax Act vote for something that never materialized: a pledge from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to hold votes on proposals to mitigate damage from health care rollbacks also contained in the bill.
Astoundingly, Senator Collins also went on national TV to claim the $1.5 trillion Tax Act would pay for itself — ignoring the fact that the only projected offset in the bill was the Arctic Refuge leasing mandate, which the Congressional Budget Office projected might produce $1 billion in federal revenues. That math didn’t make sense at the time, and looks like sheer lunacy today as the deficit explodes and the paltry projected oil lease sale revenue could be less than $14 million.
But the story of Senator Collins’ vote isn’t just about numbers. It’s about real Mainers who long counted on her to keep her promise. It’s about Mainers who care about our climate future and don’t want to extend our reliance on fossil fuels by drilling in one of the most remote, wild and wildlife-rich landscapes left on the planet.
Senator Collins has failed to hold the Trump administration accountable for its rushed lease sale process, for repeatedly sidelining and silencing its own scientists, for refusing to conduct recommended new studies, and for burying expert concerns about impacts to hundreds of thousands of calving caribou, denning polar bears, and millions of nesting and staging migratory birds. These actions not only threaten the Arctic Refuge but undermines the entire National Wildlife Refuge System — Maine is home to 11 national wildlife refuges, including Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge and Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. And in voting in 2017 to make oil and gas a purpose of a national wildlife refuge for the very first time in history, Senator Collins established a dangerous precedent for reversing public land protections in Maine and around the country
Here’s a snap shot of the what Mainers have to say about Senator Collins’ vote for Arctic Refuge drilling in the Tax Act — a small sample of the 2/3 of Mainers who oppose drilling in this national treasure.