Maine Senate

Neal Williams is co-chair of Veterans for Collins:
To learn more about Veterans for Collins, visit SusanCollins.com/Veterans

The Collins for Senator campaign is running our second television ad:

The Collins for Senator campaign will begin running television ads on the evening Wednesday July 23. The first two ads are intended to highlight the fact that Senator Collins has a tremendous record of accomplishment during her twelve years in office. The ads point out that a good senator knows how to get things done – and that includes putting partisan politics aside to work in a manner that is in the best interest of the country, something Susan Collins has done throughout her time in the Senate.
Click play below to view the ads.

On Friday, Olympia and I both spoke at the annual convention of the VFW in Lewiston and then headed north to meet with town officials, union representatives, and the mill manager at Katahdin Paper Company in Millinocket. Despite its great workforce and plentiful customers, the mill is slated to be shut down at the end of July because the high cost of oil makes it unprofitable. Unlike most paper mills in Maine, the Millinocket mill runs on oil.

The news about Ted Kennedy's brain tumor hit all of us hard yesterday. I learned the news during the lunch of the Republican caucus, and we paused and said a prayer for Ted and his family.

I have worked closely with Ted on increasing funding for Pell Grants, which help low-income students afford college, but it is Ted's warmth and sense of humor that I appreciate most. After vigorous debates over policy, he inevitably would walk over to the Republican side and make a joke with whomever he was debating just moments before.

A few weeks ago I met with some bakers from Maine who told me that the prices of wheat flour and eggs had skyrocketed, and that some grains such as rye were becoming unavailable at any price. I started looking into the causes and found that many experts believe that federal ethanol policies are a significant cause along with droughts, high energy and fertilizer costs, and increased global demand. The more I examined the issue, the more I became convinced that federal policies to spur corn-based ethanol are having unintended consequences for food supplies and prices.

The Republican State Convention was a lot of fun as enthusiastic delegates and volunteers gathered at the Augusta Civic Center last weekend. A record number of volunteers signed up to work on the campaign this fall, and hundreds of supporters wore their red Collins for Senator T-shirts and put on the best demonstration I have ever seen!