A Timeline of Lobbying Behind Maine’s Trash Battle

As the Penobscot Energy Recovery Center fights for its future beyond 2018, the company and its partner, USA Energy Group, have for the last two legislative sessions spent heavily to change the state’s waste management policy.

For those years, lobbyists for PERC and its partner disclosed the most compensation for any single client.

That spending has come as the group of 187 towns sending trash to PERC has leaned in favor of the proposed Fiberight facility in Hampden, which on Friday passed muster with environmental regulators and secured three permits it will need to move ahead.

In the two most recent legislatures, PERC far outspent the 187-member Municipal Revenue Committee, according to a Bangor Daily News analysis of lobbying disclosures for those years.