Maine environmentalists are sounding pretty happy with the legislative session that ended Thursday, and for good reason.

A coalition of environmental groups say they batted a thousand on the top priorities it identified when the Legislature went to work six months ago. It’s the first time since the coalition was formed three years ago that it went undefeated through an entire session, leaders said.

There were other signs that the environment made for good politics this year. Consider Sen. Dana Dow, a Republican from Waldoboro.

The Maine League of Conservation Voters said Dow’s pro-environment voting rate last year was 36 percent. This year, Dow, who calls himself a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, championed some of the biggest environmental bills, including an historic global warming law.

This green wave in politics doesn’t seem to be just a Maine thing.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said Friday that the U.S. Senate has had its own awakening about the need for energy efficiency and conservation and the need to respond to global warming. As a case in point, Snowe and others had just won Senate approval for raising car and truck fuel efficiency standards after six years of trying.

Here’s a few of the new environmental laws approved by the Maine Legislature.

The state will join the nation’s first regional effort to regulate greenhouse gases and slow global warming, a plan proposed by Gov. John Baldacci. Maine will limit carbon dioxide emission from its six largest power plants, and those plants will be able to buy or sell pollution allowances in a regional market.

A chemical flame retardant – deca BDE – will be phased out of household products such as television casings sold in Maine by 2010 because of evidence it is accumulating in people and wildlife.

Maine voters will get a chance to reinvigorate the popular Land for Maine’s Future program now that lawmakers authorized a $17 million land conservation bond for the November ballot.

The New England cottontail, a once-common rabbit, and the Barrow’s goldeneye, a black and white duck with a small, stubby bill, were among the first 14 animals added to Maine’s endangered and threatened species list since the last update in 1997.

Lawmakers set new standards for withdrawals of water from rivers and streams in an effort to protect fish and other wildlife, while allowing farms, water districts and other users a share of the flows.

Landowners who cut down trees in violation of shorefront protection rules will now have to replace the trees in addition to paying a fine. They already had to pay the fine, but it was often considered a small price to pay for a better view.

Legislators did respond to an angry backlash from coastal landowners by reducing the size of new buffer zones around shorebird feeding areas from 250 feet to 100 feet. Environmental groups say they even consider that a success because it was a compromise that protected the more important 250-foot buffer zone around nesting areas.

Whether you call that one a rollback or compromise, there’s no disputing that the Legislature gave environmentalists a lot to like.

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