Maine's Green Independent Party counts the environment as one of its top issues. So it may come as no surprise that a couple of the state's better-known Greens are figuring prominently in a referendum debate with environmental implications. The only thing is, they're on different sides of the issue.

Former gubernatorial candidate Pat LaMarche supports a November ballot measure that would reduce excise taxes on new vehicles and shave off three years of excise taxes on the most fuel-efficient cars...such as hybrids. A Green Independent candidate for governor, Lynne Williams, says losing this revenue would devastate towns.

The two campaigns on opposite sides of Question 2 have seized on the Greens' conflicting positions, and thrust them into the spotlight. Chris Cinquemani , who is campaigning for the excise tax reduction says the conservative Maine Heritage Policy Center, which penned the legislation, contacted Pat LaMarche two years ago

"We reached out to her when we were crafting the legislation, and presented to her what we were working on, what the legislation would do," Cinquemani says.

LaMarche had already run as the vice-presidential candidate for the national Green party, and would go onto lead last year's failed campaign to build a casino in Oxford County.

Cinquemani acknowledged that LaMarche's views don't always mesh with conservatives, but on the issue of excise taxes, their positions aligned.


"Pat obviously has a long record of not only sticking up for the little guy but also promoting responsible reforms that encourage greater energy efficiency and cleaner air," Cinquemani says.

"To me, it doesn't matter that they thought I would agree with this. The fact is, they're right," LaMarche says.

LaMarche says as a volunteer for the campaign she remembers how hard it is to pay excise taxes and still pay the bills.

She also thinks the proposed changes to the excise tax will provide an incentive for mainers to buy fuel-efficient cars in a better way than the federal government's Cash for Clunkers program, which gave rebates for older cars, and then took them off the road.

"This one is not that way," says LaMarche. "The person who buys the more fuel-efficient car will get a tax break as the incentive did for Cash for Clunkers. But their used cars will stay in the car pool so that a person with less opportunity to purchase will still have a car to buy."

LaMarche was featured at a Thursday event at a Westbrook car dealership promoting the More Green Now campaign. In response, the opposing campaign quickly issued a statement from another Green Independent, Lynne Williams.

"We wanted to make sure, and reiterate the fact, and set the record straight that environmentalists are not for this issue," says Lizzy Reinholt, a spokesperson for the NO on 2 campaign. "And Lynne was the perfect person for that."

Reinholt counters that the referendum would cut revenues by $85 million-- money that most towns and cities use to pay for repairs of roads and bridges.

She says that attempts to green the referendum are disingenous, because a hybrid that gets only 20 miles per gallon could still qualify for the tax break.

"I am Green and I try to speak with a green voice," Williams says.

Williams says that the referendum will not improve the environment AS supporters claims, noting that most Mainers do not have the money to go buy new cars.

She adds the referendum goes against one of her party's key values: the decentralization of government.

"It's mandating on a state wide level what individual communities do, what they charge," Williams says.

The Green Independent Party, in the meantime, has not taken a position on Question 2, but plans to, says Anna Trevorrow, chair of the party's steering committee. She doesn't say which way the party is leaning, but says one question members will have is whether promoting new vehicle sales - and the production of new cars -- are in the best interests of the environment.