Gas is headed to $5 per gallon. Municipal budgets are stretched; there is a great need to keep costs down. Road networks have expanded dramatically over the past 40 years; population has not. The result is that each of us now pays higher taxes to pave, maintain, stripe, plow, police and provide fire protection to many more miles per person, and have accustomed ourselves to driving many extra miles.

It didn’t have to be that way.

The Informed Growth Act requires a developer of a 75,000-­square-foot (or more) building to pay $40,000 (0.20 percent of the potential cost) for a study for the town to understand the impact of the development and whether it benefits the town. Otherwise, the town can spend taxpayers’ money, or proceed in ignorance.

This law has been challenged by the LePage administration as being anti-business. (I had always regarded efficient towns holding costs in line as pro-business.) It has been suggested that towns be allowed to opt out, so that a neighboring city could present an out-of-state developer a lower cost, and not care if the new development hurt across the river.

We don’t let some towns sell beer to minors, or cigarettes to children. What is the point of having a law designed to be skirted?

To lower municipal taxes and reduce the number of miles people drive, support the Informed Growth Act. It is one of the most positive things we can do to reduce our energy dependency.

Jim Wellehan, Auburn