WERU News Report 1/21/15

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Engineer/Reporter: John Greenman

Interactive news report covering issues with a local connection and taking calls. Today: Marking the 5th anniversary of “Citizens United” by talking with Jan Carpenter of “We The People Maine” and State Representative Ralph Chapman, about the progress of efforts to overturn that Supreme Court decision —which equated money with free speech and corporations with people. And the latest potential threat to Searsport Harbor may come from a company that’s run into a lot of trouble with their operations in New Hampshire. We’ve got Searsport resident Peter Taber with us to talk about that. John Greenman has news from last night’s wind power moratorium vote in Orland. Also a call Oamshri Amarasingham of the ACLU Maine, about the Coalition for Maine Women the Maine Choice Coalition announcement of their legislative priorities at a State House press conference today. AND we’re going to be opening the phone lines for your calls because this is INTERACTIVE news.

WERU News Report 1/14/15

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Engineer/Reporter: John Greenman

Interactive news report covering issues with a local connection and taking calls. Today: Laurie Sproul, Fern Stearns, Glen Koehler and John Newlin of the Citizen’s Climate Lobby talk about that group’s carbon “fee and dividend” proposal, which is geared toward bipartisan appeal.

Also:
-Town officials in Bucksport Saturday held the first of what will be a series of forums for public input on the future direction of the town. There are still many uncertainties with the sale of the mill being challenged in federal court this week on anti-trust grounds. The tone was very positive and optimistic. It wasn’t set up well for recording the event – John Greenman and I both gave it a shot – but here’s a brief clip:
-Members of 350.org, the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups braved single digit temperatures yesterday in Bangor, joining others across the country in a day of rallies in opposition to Keystone XL. We talked to Karen Marysdaughter at the rally:
-The Alliance for Common Good rallied at the Statehouse last week, in what has become an annual event kicking off the legislative session. The Rally of Unity drew people working on a variety of interconnected issues. Meredith DeFrancesco is planning to have full coverage on “RadioActive” tomorrow at 4:30, but here’s a clip, recorded by Eric Tuttle:
-A special vote will be held in Orland next Tuesday on a proposed 6 month moratorium on wind power developments.
-Updates on the current power outages in the Blue Hill area