Maine Forest Products Industry to Get Federal Assistance

Press Release

U.S. Senators Angus King and Susan Collins and Representatives Bruce Poliquin and Chellie Pingree received letters today from the U.S. Department of Commerce announcing that it has agreed to establish an integrated, multi-agency Economic Development Assessment Team, known as an EDAT, to assist Maine's forest products industry in the wake of several mill closures. The goal of the EDAT will be to leverage the power of multiple federal government agencies and harness stakeholder input to create economic development strategies that help pave the way for job growth in rural Maine communities in the years to come.

Maine's Congressional delegation was informed of the decision in identical individual letters today from Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. Senators King and Collins originally requested the formation of the EDAT in a March 2016 letter to Secretary Pritzker.

"This announcement is welcome news for Maine," the Maine Congressional Delegation said in a joint statement. "Our forest products industry is a central part of the state's heritage and a vital pillar of the state's economy, and an Economic Development Assessment Team will assist local public and private stakeholders in coordinating strategies so the industry can continue to be a source of good-paying jobs for Mainers for generations to come."

In the letter, Secretary Pritzker announced that Commerce Department intends to deploy an EDAT on the ground in northern Maine for three days in July -- the exact dates are to be determined -- to "participate in a comprehensive set of stakeholder meetings to evaluate new and existing economic strategies for addressing the state's forest-based economic challenges."

"At the conclusion of the EDAT process, regional and local stakeholders will have a bottom-up strategy, developed with input from their Federal partners, designed to foster robust economic growth and recovery," Secretary Pritzker wrote in her letters. "EDATs are not designed to be a silver bullet, but EDA and its Federal partners are committed to working closely with you and the Maine stakeholders to come to help struggling communities statewide work toward building a robust and enduring economy."

Secretary Pritzker also wrote that the EDAT will be modeled off the National Disaster Framework and will be similar to those that the Economic Development Administration has used to address more than 30 prior major incidents and other economic development crises, such as the New England fisheries challenges, Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Joplin's EF-5 tornado, and Colorado wildfires and flooding.

The EDAT will leverage resources from multiple federal agencies including the Economic Development Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Labor, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Treasury, the Small Business Administration, and the Northern Border Regional Commission.

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