Against the backdrop of an ongoing economic recession, state and local candidates are more focused than ever on the importance of growing jobs and improving Maine's business climate. For some Republicans, a common refrain is that the state's environmental regulations are too burdensome. GOP gubernatorial candidate Paul LePage goes a step further: He thinks environmental groups have too much power he wants to take some of it back.

Under a LePage administration, Maine's Department of Environmental Protection and every other state agency would be friendlier and more supportive of the businesses they regulate.

At a recent gathering of Republicans in Yarmouth, this is how LePage described his vision of how state agencies should work: "Instead of having people going around enforcing the regulations, I would rather have customer-friendly state employees going out and helping you abide by the regulations. I don't mind tough regulations. I just dislike an adversarial attitude by our state," he said.

The state Republican Party platform includes language to "promote energy independence aggressively by removing the obstacles created by government to allow private development of our resources; natural gas, oil, coal, and nuclear power."

LePage has said that he favors drilling for oil in the Gulf of Maine. And he says the permitting process at the Department of Environmental Protection and the Land Use Regulation Commission has been taken over. "I think it's gone completely one-sided. It's the environmental groups run the state and there's not a collaboration between paid professionals, environmental groups and business. It's all one sided," he says.

"When I first started getting active in the environment 50 years ago, we didn't even have any regulatory agencies and industry and business were just running roughshod over us," says Bill Townsend, an environmental attorney who is often described as "the Dean" of Maine's conservation community for his longtime efforts to restore Atlantic salmon and expand land conservation.

"Our rivers stank. Pollution was rampant. People built dams where they damn pleased; people cut down forests where they damn pleased; people bulldozed the streams where they damn pleased," he says. "And we've come a long way to get away to get away from that and I'm not willing to make a step one inch in the direction of going back to that."

Townsend calls the idea of making environmental regulations more business friendly "utter nonsense." But LePage says it's time something was done. "For 40 years I have watched the DEP put companies out of business. I've watched the state of Maine put companies out of business," he says.

Susan Sharon: "Can you just give some examples of the DEP putting companies out of business?"

Paul LePage: "Downeast Peat. The peat fire-powered plant."

Back in the 1980s, Downeast Peat in Deblois was North America's first peat-powered power plant. Several peat bogs in the region were explored as possible sources of fuel. Because of water quality and other concerns, environmental assessments were required. When the original owner ran into financial problems, LePage says he was hired by the bank to manage the project.

"And the state of Maine made me do a three-month buffalo study," LePage says. "Did you hear what I said? Buffalo study. The next spring, they decided that they still didn't want this project to be built so they had us go out and count black flies. two months counting black flies. That tells me that the attitude of the regulatory agency was very adversarial to that project."

LePage says the regulatory agency responsible was the Maine DEP. He says one buffalo was counted, and it was located at the Acadia Zoo. But DEP spokeswoman Donna Gormley says there's just one problem with LePage's version of what happened.

"We went back through our files on Downeast Peat -- you know, we're talking 20 years ago. DEP did not require Downeast Peat, nor anyone else, to conduct a buffalo study or a black fly study as part of a permit requirement," she says. "We didn't do it 20 years ago and we don't do it now."

Invertebrate and other studies were required by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But biologist Norm Famous, who was hired by Downeast Peat for some of the work, says he has no knowledge of what LePage refers to as a "buffalo study."

"We did large mammal track counts in all the surrounding bogs," he says. "We also did a detailed study with coyotes around Downeast Peat."

Businessman Morrill Worcester, who bought the power plant and peat bog from the bank, says he's heard all kinds of stories about the buffalo and black fly counts. But he says all the environmental studies took place before his time.

And he maintains that there is another reason for the company's ultimate demise. "Why it didn't work is that they just couldn't get enough peat off the bog to fire the power plant totally, so it failed." Worcester describes himself as a LePage supporter who shares the candidate's view that common sense is needed in any regulations.

For it's part, the DEP stands by its permitting record. Spokesperson Donna Gormley says over the past ten years, the department has permitted $6 billion in capital investments in the state of Maine. "We're talking energy projects, industrial, commercial, municipal, large residential developments." During the same time period, Gormley says DEP denied 57 projects.

For the record, LePage says he has not ruled out eliminating the Land Use Regulation Commission, the equivalent of the state's zoning board in the unorganized territories. And if he's elected governor, LePage says he'll appoint commissioners of state agencies based on recommendations he gets from trade groups and others affected by state regulations.