Rep. Gary Friedmann. Dick Atlee,

Carrie Jones

Dec 07, 2025

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Restoring the Pilot Exemption Makes Sense

To the Editor:

On November 21, 2025, the Bar Harbor Story ran an article about the following resolution adopted by the Bar Harbor Town Council: “It is in the economic interest of the Town of Bar Harbor to support the continued operation of the international ferry service by working with the State of Maine and all relevant agencies to restore the traditional 54-year pilot exemption.” Pretty non-controversial. The town council unanimously adopted the resolution.

I am the sponsor of legislation that would restore the historical exemption – LD 1477. The international ferry, the so-called “marine highway,” connecting Maine and Nova Scotia, began operations in 1956. Between 1956 and 2012, a period of 56 years, the highly trained and certified ferry captains were not required to take a pilot on the daily journey in and out of the harbor. During those many decades of daily sailings into Bar Harbor, there was never a safety issue.

Nonetheless, when the Province of Nova Scotia temporarily discontinued the service, Portland Pilots Inc., the owner of the Portland harbor pilot franchise, hired Augusta lobbyists to repeal the longstanding pilot exemption. Because the ferry was not at that time in operation, there was no opposition to the bill. When ferry service resumed, first in Portland and then in Bar Harbor, the 56-year pilot exemption had disappeared.

The ferry between Bar Harbor and Yarmouth is not a commercial enterprise, it is fully funded by the Province of Nova Scotia to provide a critical seasonal transportation link between Nova Scotia and Maine. Bay Ferries is contracted by the Province to deliver and provide this service and is paid a flat management fee to deliver this service.

On average over the past three years, the province has subsidized the service in excess of $20 million annually. Any cost savings go back directly to the province and not the contracted operator. The historically unneeded pilots charge in excess of $300,000 a year which ultimately comes from the taxpayers of Nova Scotia.

Although many of the benefits of this service flow to the citizens of Nova Scotia, the citizens of Bar Harbor and Maine derive significant benefits, which cost the taxpayers of Bar Harbor nothing.

• A minimum of $200,000 a year in rent is used to pay the town’s $3.5 million bond used to purchase the nearly 8-acre harborside site, half of which is leased to the ferry company, and the other half retained by the town for future development.
• A lease agreement requires the ferry to underwrite all maintenance costs for the property.
• An agreement to cooperate with the town in facilitating future development of the property.
• 15 seasonal ferry terminal jobs for local residents.
• A $30 million investment by Nova Scotia to upgrade infrastructure at the site.

The vessel, known as The CAT, is owned by the United States Navy.

• Bay Ferries, the Canadian contract operator, pays a substantial annual fee to the U.S. Navy for the charter. In addition, the U.S. Navy requires the ferry operator to maintain the vessel in accordance with Navy specs.
• Every member of the crew must be a U.S. citizen, and most are residents of Maine.
• The vessel must be compliant with U.S. Navy standards as well as U.S. Coast Guard regulations and safety standards at all times, and in the case of national emergency available to the Navy on 72-hours’ notice.
• All vessel maintenance and repairs must be performed in a U.S. shipyard designated by the U.S. Navy.

My job is to serve the interests of the citizens of House District 14, which includes the Town of Bar Harbor. I believe the international ferry serves the interests of Bar Harbor and its citizens.

Nonetheless, the Pen Bay Pilots released a statement in which they attacked me because my bill does not serve their narrow personal financial interests. Their attack on me is revealing.

I didn’t expect them to truthfully point out the Nova Scotia ferry operated in Frenchmen’s Bay for decades without any safety issues, while the same can’t be said for Portland Pilots Inc., who were aboard two oil tankers in the last 50 years that went off course and spilled thousands of gallons oil, which seriously polluted Casco Bay.

Portland Pilots Inc. is a highly profitable private, family-controlled company that hired lobbyists to oppose resumption of the 56-year pilot exemption for the ferry in Frenchman’s Bay, which is a long way from Portland. The pilot’s statement is just 5 sentences, and not a single one of those sentences is true.

Moreover, each of the five sentences uses the word “foreign” or “Canadian,” obviously employing the current political tool of xenophobia and revealing more about the pilots who authored the statement. One might conclude the pilots have a strong political point of view, and the next to last sentence in their statement seems to confirm this when the pilots state, “the unanimous vote of support by the Bar Harbor Town Council …is a telling illustration of the state of politics in Bar Harbor.”

Finally, the intent of the last sentence in their statement is unmistakable. The pilots characterize the council’s unanimous vote as a “chilling example of the manner in which foreign interests seek to influence Maine’s legislative process …”, and then go on to say that this foreign conspiracy involving the town council was undertaken to provide foreigners with financial gain.

The profit-driven pilots appear to be unaware of, or don’t care, how the public interest is served by the Province’s investments in a marine highway to Canada which costs neither the town of Bar Harbor nor the State of Maine a dime. I will continue to serve the public interest of this district, and not the narrow money interests of the Portland Pilots Inc.

Gary Friedmann

Bar Harbor

Gary Friedmann served on the Bar Harbor Town Council for 12 years and currently represents the towns of Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Lamoine, and the Cranberry Isles in the Maine Legislature.

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Imminent Federal Pre-emption of Local Control Over Cell Towers

On November 2, Southwest Harbor voters approved a “wireless facilities” ordinance governing the placement of cell towers, 5G repeaters, etc. The ordinance did a good job of covering the preservation of historic sites and visual attractiveness, as well as fairness to wireless providers/siters.

The ordinance also promised protection of “health, safety, and welfare,” but actually it can’t, because the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (https://bit.ly/1996telecom; Section 704, p. 96) states:

“No State or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification … on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions.”

Those “environmental effects” include health, safety, and welfare — factors involved in placing “wireless facilities” on or near schools, homes, and public buildings.

However, even the limited protections offered by ordinances of SWH and other towns (e.g., Bar Harbor, Mt. Desert, Tremont, Trenton, Ellsworth) are now about to disappear, and very soon. All vestiges of local control are about to be eliminated — by Congress or the FCC, whichever can accomplish this first.

Congress is pushing through bill HR2289 (https://bit.ly/hr2289), supposedly to speed up getting broadband to underserved areas. Great idea, but . . .

Its actual purpose is “to provide that an eligible [wireless] facilities request … is not subject to requirements to prepare certain environmental or historical preservation reviews.“

This change would enable a telecom company to put a tower or repeater antenna wherever it pleases. A community would have no effective say regarding its location.

The bill has cleared all committees, roughly along party lines, morphing from one page into a hundred pages of dense, repetitive material, and is now before the full House of Representatives.

If you want your town to have any local control at all over “wireless facility” placement, contact Rep. Golden (202-225-3121) to oppose HR2289. Now, before the vote.

I haven’t found a Senate version yet, but it’s coming. Senators King (202-224-5344) and especially Collins (202-224-2523) need to be made aware that you don’t want this threat to Maine’s tradition of local control.

Helpful information on how to comment to the FCC on their parallel effort can be found at https://bit.ly/hr2289fcc.

Dick Atlee

Southwest Harbor