Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening. 

Last week, I addressed a thousand people at the Opioid Response Summit in Augusta, Maine. I talked to them about how last year, we saw our largest decrease in drug overdose deaths since 2018. And from January to June of this year, fatal overdoses have decreased by more than 21% here in Maine. And that's welcome news. 

But as I told them, we can't get complacent. 

Every overdose is a tragic and preventable loss of a valued life. So, my administration is doing what we can, in a responsible manner, to stop deadly drugs from reaching Maine in the first place, and to prevent substance use disorder, and to treat it when we can't prevent it, and to set people on a lifelong path to recovery. 

Above all else, we're simply working to save lives. 

Last year, the state distributed more than 155,000 doses of the life-saving medication naloxone. Since I've taken office, 11,393 potentially fatal overdoses in Maine have been reversed with naloxone. But simply reversing an overdose is not enough to get someone back on their feet. It's also important to create more places where people can get help to stop using, to stay productive, and to reach their full potential. 

In 2022, we established the Cumberland County Crisis Receiving Center -- walk-in services for anyone suffering a mental health or substance use crisis. Since that receiving center opened, more than 2,500 people have gotten services there. Next, we'll be establishing two other centers in Androscoggin and Penobscot counties. 

We've added 61 residential treatment beds since I've taken office, and we've invested heavily in recovery community centers and residences, and recovery coaches. And we're exploring other innovative approaches to treatment. DHHS, for instance, has created treatmentconnection.com, where people can search for health care providers near them, and check on their availability, and submit treatment questions. My administration is also creating stable housing for those with chronic substance use disorder with wraparound services to help them become productive citizens once again. 

In addition to housing, my administration is expanding access to good paying jobs for people in recovery, acknowledging those businesses who understand the unique experiences and skills of people in recovery. And that's important. That's why we've created the Recovery Friendly Workplaces certification, used by 73 businesses across the state, employing more than 11,500 people. 

My administration is committed to supporting people as they start, stumble, or resume their recovery and to responding to new waves of the opioid epidemic, including the dangerous use of methamphetamines and xylazine, for which there is no overdose medication. 

I want to do everything we can to keep people from starting down the path of addiction in the first place -- but fundamentally, what we need is leadership. Leadership in every community across the state. Leadership from every young person who's offered a pill to cure pain, a drug to fix anxiety, a drug to get high, a drug they believe will make them popular or more accepted. The leadership and the character to say, I am better than that, and my life is more valuable than that. And the leadership from all of us to tell that person that they are loved and that their lives are indeed far better than that, and we value them. 

That's how we build a better future with strong communities and a state with endless opportunity. 

This is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.

WHEREAS, wild blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium) emerged on the rocky, acidic soils of the barrens of Maine following the retreat of the glaciers more than 10,000 years ago; and

WHEREAS, wild blueberries, which are not planted but grow naturally, were first managed and harvested by the Wabanaki and are now grown by 512 Maine farms on 46,370 acres, within Cumberland, Franklin, Hancock, Lincoln, Kennebec, Knox, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Waldo, and Washington counties; and

WHEREAS, on June 27, 1950, in response to the communist threat to South Koreans and their democracy, President Harry S. Truman committed the first United States forces to combat in South Korea, beginning the Korean War; and

WHEREAS, nearly 1.8 million members of the United States Armed Forces served alongside the forces of the Republic of Korea and 20 other Allied nations under the United Nations Command to defend freedom and democracy on the Korean Peninsula; and

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills, and thank you for listening.

Well, last week, the president signed into law a mega bill that will have devastating consequences for our hospitals, our rural communities, our economy, our energy costs, and our balanced state budget. I support the desire for sensible policies that would lower taxes for hardworking people, that would foster economic growth, and exercise fiscal restraint -- but slashing essential services like this federal law does will do the opposite.

While the president called it a, "Big, Beautiful Bill", really, there's nothing beautiful about it in my view. To finance a tax cut for the very wealthy, this new law shifts enormous costs from the federal government to the states. Costs that we simply cannot absorb.

This federal law will effectively deny food to hungry children, and prevent people from seeing a doctor, and prevent doctors from being paid. Nearly 400,000 Maine people have health insurance through Medicaid, which we call MaineCare, including tens of thousands of children and people dealing with cancer, diabetes and heart care. People who need preventative care too, to avoid thousands in costs later on in life.

In some rural parts of our state, like Aroostook County, Washington County, Somerset, and Piscataquis counties, about 40% of the population rely on MaineCare for health insurance. Tens of thousands of Maine people also rely on health insurance through our state marketplace called CoverME.gov, and that's funded by the federal Affordable Care Act.

The vast majority of those people who receive the health coverage through MaineCare or in the marketplace are working to support themselves and their families. And many people were shifted off of MaineCare last year to go on to the marketplace. Now that coverage is at risk as well. By creating new barriers to enrolling in or staying enrolled in health care coverage, and by cutting billions of dollars in Medicaid funds over the next decade, the president's new mega law makes it likely that tens of thousands of people in our state will lose their health insurance. That will put their health care and their lives needlessly at risk.

And as more people are without affordable insurance, the premiums and out-of-pocket costs for everyone else who has insurance will go up, either through their employer or through the marketplace. Hospitals across Maine, then, will have to bear more of the cost of providing health care for people without insurance. Many hospitals, especially those in rural areas where MaineCare enrollment is highest, may curtail services or even close, leaving folks without access to care, and leaving communities without some of their largest employers.

This new law doesn't just impact health care in Maine. It also denies food to hungry children by cutting federal funding for food assistance programs like SNAP to the tune of millions of dollars a year. On top of cutting federal funding for SNAP in Maine, this new law also requires Maine to pay millions more a year to administer the program, a double hit that the State of Maine budget can't afford. So food for hundreds of thousands of Maine people, including tens of thousands of kids, is at risk.

The new law also hurts families by ending clean energy and energy efficiency tax credits and funding, which will increase energy costs and will slow down our clean energy sector, which has been creating thousands of good paying jobs and helping us wean ourselves off of big oil for home heat. We're the most heating oil dependent state in the nation, and we have one of the nation's oldest housing stocks, so we absolutely need to diversify our energy supply if we can ever hope to bring down the cost of home heat and energy costs generally. The loss of federal clean energy initiatives in the president's mega bill is a major setback to those efforts.

At the same time, the new mega law creates trillions of dollars in increases in the federal deficit, creating long term costs for all Americans -- this partisan mega bill, rushed to enactment to meet the president's artificial deadline, and enacted by a one vote margin in the US Senate.

Over the coming weeks, we'll be reviewing the final language of this law to determine the full scope of the damage that it will cause, including its impact on our otherwise balanced state budget, and what actions we might take to protect the health and safety of Maine people, protect our state's financial future, and the stability of Maine's economy.

This is Governor Janet Mills, and thank you for listening.

WHEREAS, the State of Maine has long been shaped by the proud and enduring traditions of our working waterfronts, where generations have built their lives and livelihoods on the sea; and

WHEREAS, commercial fishing remains one of Maine’s most iconic and economically vital industries, supporting thousands of hardworking men and women and contributing significantly to coastal communities and the state’s heritage, economy, and way of life; and

WHEREAS, Maine has provided inspiration for much of the body of work produced by the Wyeth family starting in 1930, when N.C. Wyeth purchased a summer home in Port Clyde and he built a small studio; and

WHEREAS, while N.C. Wyeth was best known for his illustrations, many of which were derived from his Maine-based knowledge of coastal and maritime life, he was also an acclaimed painter; and

WHEREAS, Acadian culture holds great significance in the Saint John Valley and throughout the State of Maine; and

WHEREAS, in 1604, French settlers established the first European settlement in Maine on St. Croix Island; and

WHEREAS, these settlers were adaptable and resilient, turning hardy wilderness into fertile farmland using nutrients from the sea; and

This is Governor Janet Mills, and thank you for listening and Happy Holidays to all.

The Declaration of Independence, President John F. Kennedy once reflected, was, "Above all else, a document not of rhetoric, but of bold decision." An "irrevocable" decision, he said, that every signer made to "assert the independence of free states in place of colonies, and to commit to that goal, their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor."

President Kennedy delivered those remarks from the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4th, 1962, to a gathering of the nation's governors, echoing the trumpet call for freedom, which had reverberated from that hall throughout American history.

The men who declared our self-governance by signing the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia nearly 250 years ago were not infallible. As Benjamin Franklin later remarked with his typical frankness at the close of the Constitutional Convention in In 1787, "When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their self-views. From such an assembly, can a perfect production be expected?" he asked.

But he was astonished to find, as he put it, "this system approaching so near to perfection as it does."

Well, our democracy, designed to balance the power of a mighty government with the rights of individuals and the people, has never been, and will never be perfect. But since the Declaration of Independence was passed down to us on July 4th, 1776, generations of Americans have committed "their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor," so that our country may live up to its ideals. The unshakable belief that such a country is possible to create for ourselves sets America apart.

That hope, that "sweetest bird" that "never stops at all," as the poet Emily Dickinson called it, can be hard to hear over the gale of national events these days. Democracy is not always easy to fight for, and it's not always easy to see the end of that fight, but our democracy is not lost to us. Let us remember on this holiday, those diverse assemblies of men and women who voted, and organized, and marched to make real the dream of a country where peaceful dissent is patriotic, and where expressing love for our nation means always striving to make it better.

Let us remember the dream of a country where people from Machias, Maine, to Detroit, Michigan to Memphis, Tennessee have the same chance to build a life for their children that is better than the life they had for themselves. The dream of a country that believes who you are in your heart and soul matters much more than where you came from.

When President Kennedy stood on the steps of Independence Hall, he noted that then-President-elect Lincoln had spoken from the same "birthplace of America" 101 years before. And when Lincoln said, "I've often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the motherland," he said, "but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence, which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but I hope," Lincoln said, "to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men."

This July Fourth, as we reflect on the birth of our nation, we remember the spirit that keeps us together, the sentiment sustained by the hope that we can create a better future. And we recommit to protecting the freedom of all who call America home.

So I wish you and your loved ones, your friends and neighbors and family, a safe and Happy Fourth of July.

This is Governor Janet Mills, and thank you for listening.

WHEREAS, Cooper Flagg, a Maine native, has demonstrated extraordinary talent and dedication to the sport of basketball, earning national recognition as one of the most promising players of his generation, and serving as a source of pride and inspiration for youth and all people of Maine; and

The 132d Legislature of the State of Maine   State House   Augusta, Maine

Dear Honorable Members of the 132d Legislature:

By the Authority conferred by Article IV, Part Third, Section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Maine, I am hereby vetoing L.D. 1802, An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services to Clarify When an Indigent Criminal Defendant Is Entitled to Counsel at State Expense.