In central Maine, businesspeople are proud to fight climate change, and proud of Maine’s leadership in cleaning up power plants’ climate pollution.

Climate solutions are smart business. My company, Mattson Development, owns and manages more than a million square feet of commercial property in Maine, restoring old buildings into rejuvenated spaces. But increasingly sporadic winters full of rain, snow and melting put riverfront properties in constant flooding danger, and ice increases maintenance costs on slippery sidewalks and parking lots.

Common-sense climate solutions, like energy efficiency and lower-carbon fuel sources, save both pollution and dollars — savings for my company and for many small businesses, public offices, health care facilities and others.

Maine has led the nation on cleaning up our power plants’ carbon pollution — a top cause of climate instability. Maine has been been part of the Northeast’s market-based Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative for a decade.

Now the national EPA proposes that the rest of the U.S. bring power plants up to our standards. It’s common business sense that the whole country should play by the same rules, but it will take strong support from our senators for the EPA to be able to do its job.

From businesspeople like me to the whole state through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Mainers are proud to be leading on climate solutions. I hope Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King will champion the EPA’s effort to bring the rest of the nation’s power plants up to our standards.

Kevin Mattson, Portland