The Bangor Daily News reported in today’s Daily Brief that more details will be released today on the multi-state scheme, called the Transportation and Climate Initiative or TCI, to raise fuel costs and funnel that money into public transportation, electric vehicles and efforts to get you to drive less.

TCI would raise the cost of everything: driving, growing food, transporting goods. It’s designed to rake in billions of dollars a year. And it can be implemented by Governor Mills and her Administration without a vote by the people or the Legislature.

According to the BDN’s report, Governor Mills won’t say publicly where she stands on TCI and its hidden tax on gasoline and diesel fuels:

“But it is unknown where the Democratic governor is on it since has commented little on the subject beyond saying she would be ‘cautious’ of how such an initiative would affect Maine, where public transit is scarce, people often commute long distances and transportation makes up 50 percent of emissions. Her office did not respond to a Friday request for comment.”

Although Governor Mills hasn’t spoken, many members of her Climate Council have. They want TCI, not only because you would drive less, but the extra money you pay at the pump would fund many of the projects in Governor Mills’ plan to address climate change in Maine.

Because that final, written plan did not wholeheartedly endorse Maine joining the TCI, BDN wrote, “the omission of the agreement from her climate council’s plan could indicate an unwillingness to get involved.”

But the BDN has clearly not read the plan and hasn’t been watching the Climate Council meetings, as MPBP has been doing.

On page 10, the Governor’s Climate Action Plan expressly supports a transportation emissions-reduction strategy that echoes the policy goals of TCI without mentioning it by name:

“By 2022, create policies, incentives, and pilot programs to encourage the adoption of electric, hybrid, and alternative-fuel medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, public transportation, school buses, and ferries.”

Then, on page 105, the plan specifically mentions the TCI, although in that language, Governor Mills claims to only want to “monitor” the program.

It turns out that this language was carefully crafted to appease the many TCI supporters on the Climate Council and the few members who are concerned about its effects on regular Mainers—so the Council could produce a “unified” report.

How do we know this? The leaders of the Climate Council said so in their November 12, 2020, meeting.

About an hour in, a Climate Council member called for the council to support TCI in order to raise revenue. He acknowledged “the third rail politics around that particular discussion.” In other words, they know it’s unpopular to raise the cost of gas but they want to go ahead anyway.

Hannah Pingree, co-chair of the Council and Governor Mills’ Director of the Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, assured him it was in the report “under Carbon Markets”—that reference on page 105.

Then the moderator followed up, revealing that the references to supporting TCI were deliberately downplayed in the final wording of Governor Mills’ Climate Action Plan:

“And the language there reflects the language that was, uh, painfully but artfully created in the Transportation Working Group. So that’s the language in this document.”

In other words, they got a final report. Now that it’s out, the Mills Administration can use the language in the plan to support whatever it wants to do.

And Governor Mills continues to keep Maine part of the TCI coalition.