Solar and offshore wind energy siting will be among the environmental priorities the Maine legislature will address this year, according to Hannah Pingree, director of the state’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future.

“The issues of solar siting and offshore wind have really heated up,” Pingree said during a Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) preview hosted by E2Tech on Tuesday. Electric vehicles also will be a top priority, she said.

Policy considerations for siting solar and OSW will focus on balancing technological expansion and the needs of local industry, such as fishing and farming.

“The significant expansion of solar projects in our state is exciting, but needs to be balanced, especially with ensuring that we preserve our best farmland,” she said.

The Maine Climate Council, which advises the governor and legislature on climate change, will continue its work from last year on an EV Roadmap, she added.

Maine’s climate plan “calls for, by 2030, a couple hundred thousand EVs to be on the road,” Pingree said. “That’s a tall order for our state, so there’s significant work to be done to plan for how to get these cars on the road.”

Pingree said the focus for OSW siting will be on ensuring any new development is planned for more than 20 miles offshore in federal waters. Gov. Janet Mills in late January announced that she will ask the legislature to approve a 10-year moratorium on new OSW projects in Maine-managed waters.

The governor’s administration is also working with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and environmental and fishing groups to identify the best place to site a floating OSW research array proposed for the Gulf of Maine, Pingree said.

Speaking during the committee session preview, ENR committee member and House Rep. Will Tuell (R) said he applauds the moratorium, and he is looking forward to supporting the interests of the fishing industry.

“Fishermen are still rather uneasy about offshore wind, where it’s going to be located and how effective that could be,” he said. “I’m interested in hearing a lot more … but we have to be mindful of the fishermen, and we have to remember that they were fishing the waters first.”

In a letter to fishermen announcing the proposed moratorium, Mills said “new commercial-scale offshore wind projects do not belong in state waters that support the majority of the state’s lobster fishing activity.”

Landfill Bills

State Rep. Ralph Tucker (D), who serves as ENR committee chair, said he anticipates the committee will have to handle about 79 different bills this session.

Among them, he said, “are a number of landfill bills.”

According to Tucker, there will be a “knockdown, drag-out fight” over out-of-state waste that is going to a state-owned landfill in central Maine.

He also said that recycling in the state is “in crisis.” Tucker anticipates a “big fight” over packaging stewardship, with dueling proposals.

One of the proposals, he said, would require packaging producers to contribute to the recycling of materials and reimburse towns. That bill, he added, is backed by the Natural Resources Council of Maine. The packaging stewardship policy approach supported by NRCM, according to its website, is called extended producer responsibility. The policy is designed to force manufacturers to take responsibility for recycling programs, which incentivizes them to design greener, safer packaging.