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OSHA Issues Ergonomics Standard Support for Maine's "Forestry Referendum" (Question 2 on the ballot), which would have placed timber harvesting in the state, especially clearcutting, under heavy regulation and created a special board to supervise its regulation, dropped rapidly during the weeks prior to the Election and finally lost by a 70%-30% division statewide. Opposition was closer to 80% in the sparcely populated northern counties which would have been most affected. Green activist Jonathan Carter, complaining that the $200,000 Sierra Club grant he used to buy air time could not compete with the $2.2 million which the Maine Forest Heritage Coalition raised to oppose the Referendum, nonetheless affirmed that his opponents "will face . . . referendum after referendum until the sun goes down." Maine Governor Angus King, who has opposed each of Carter's referenda over the past two years, has proposed placing some institutional restraints on Maine's ballot referendum process. He suggests (1) prohibiting the circulation of petitions at polling stations, (2) requiring minimum numbers of qualifying signatures from each Maine county (rather than allowing proponents to focus on the heavily populated counties), and (3) placing restrictions on out-of-state influences in the referendum process. Return to Public Policy Archive Forest Resources Association
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