Advancing Comprehensive Immigration Reform David will help in addressing our nation’s immigration challenges by supporting efforts to: Pass comprehensive immigration reforms that facilitate legal immigration and aid in resolving our nation’s growing worker shortages .

In the Media Primary Ballot Qualification Announcement Press Release Gun Safety Gaza Statement Climate Action Tribal Statement

About David Growing Up in Old Town David was born in Bangor and raised in Old Town by his mother Gail and maternal grandparents, Alfred and Pauline Pelletier B aillargeon. David’s father John, an Army veteran and AFL-CIO organizer, died in 1968 at the age of thirty-one due to work he had done as a teenager. David is t he grandson of French and Irish American shoe, textile, and railroad workers. And like many in Maine, he was the first in his family to attend a four year college and to earn a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree – having worked his way through the University of Maine, George Washington University, and London School of Economics and Political Science. A Career of Service David has more than twenty-five years of senior-leve l state, local, and federal go vernment experience. Inspired by participating in picket lines as a boy, David became active in politics in his late teens. Leaving college at the age of nineteen, David served on Senator Ted Kennedy’s national field staff in 1980. He subsequently worked on two additional national presidential campaigns and locally on U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and Maine gubernatorial campaigns into the early 1990s. David visiting a village in northeastern Haiti to assess a community water project (1995). David with Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator William Hathaway, and Boston Bruins Wayne Cashman and Johny Bucyk (1980). David served as a top aide to Maine Secretary of State Bill Diamond in the early 1990s, helping to develop and implement elections, campaign finance, and motor vehicle administration and safety reforms. Between 1993 and 2001, David worked prim arily abroad for the U.S. government, responding to political, humanitarian, and economic crises in conflict-torn Cambodia, Haiti, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo. David being sworn in as a Deputy Secretary of State by Maine Secretary of State Bill Diamond (1989). David, Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister, U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia, and local Serbian and Albanian leaders sign community improvement grants in Serbia's conflict-ridden Presevo Valley (2001). David crossing the Mekong River in Cambodia following an election coordination meeting in Kampong Cham (1993). David inspecting a Kosovar Albanian home that had been destroyed by Serbian nationalists in western Kosovo (1998). In the early to middle 2000s, David served as a top aide to the Mayor of Baltimore directing collaborative efforts to improve the City’s schools and address the needs of Baltimore’s at-risk children, youth, and families. Between 2007 and 2011, David worked as a senior aide to the Governor of Maryland, managing state efforts to devise and implement cross-agency plans and programs to achieve ambitious job creation, crime reduction, workforce development, student achievement, substance abuse treatment, environmental protection, clean energy, and sustainable development goals. David, Mayor Martin O'Malley, and public works staff participate in a Baltimore City school improvement project (2004). David and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley discussing agenda items at an economic transition event (2011). David with Delaware Senator Chris Coons and EPA and Delaware officials highlighting upgrades to a sewage treatment plant in Delmar, Delaware/Maryland (2014). From 2011 - 2015, David served as a Deputy and Acting Secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) helping to manage MDE’s 1,000+ employees, various programs, and $380 million annual budget. In addition to his government work, David more recently directed two non-governmental climate action projects in Maryland and served as an interim climate and clean energy program director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM). David participating with senior Maryland officials at a Chesapeake Bay restoration status meeting in Annapolis, Maryland (2010). Family David resides in Brunswick with his wife, children, and beagle Stella.

Maine Voices: Too hot to ignore – much more action is needed to fight climate change. We need to immediately develop and implement an aggressive national, science-based climate plan, including a panel that evaluates and reports on our progress and recommends needed adjustments. BY DAVID COSTELLO SPECIAL TO THE PRESS HERALD August 17, 2023 With this summer’s unprecedented heat, wildfires and extreme storms, more Americans than ever before understand what scientists concluded decades ago: that climate change is real and that for many communities, farms, and businesses, it is a growing existential threat. And if we fail to move quickly enough to reduce global carbon emissions, the impacts of climate change on our environment and many of our planet’s inhabitants are likely to be devastating. According to the World Bank, more than 100 million additional people, for instance, are projected to become impoverished by 2030 because of global warming impacts on agriculture, food prices, income losses, adverse health impacts and population displacement – and up to 3 billion people are projected to experience chronic water scarcity, according to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Costello is a candidate for the 2024 Democratic U.S. Senate nomination. He lives in Brunswick. President Biden, Gov. Mills and many state and federal legislators “get it” and are working diligently to address climate change. The Biden administration’s recent Inflation Reduction Act, bipartisan infrastructure law and enhanced greenhouse-gas emissions regulations, and the Mills administration’s corresponding “Maine Won’t Wait” climate plan and actions are helping families, communities and corporations lower their consumption of increasingly expensive and dirty fossil fuels and aid in accelerating Maine’s and the nation’s transition to a healthier, more prosperous and resilient clean energy-fueled future. However, to adequately tackle climate change, we need to do more – a lot more than we have done to date. Specifically, we need to employ stronger regulations and incentives to ensure that we come very close to zeroing out our greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, and we need to draw down significant amounts of carbon from our atmosphere for many, many years thereafter. Additionally, we need to ensure that our communities, farms and businesses have effectively planned and prepared for the risks and costs associated with extreme weather, flooding, sea-level rise, wildfire and other detrimental impacts of climate change. To accomplish this, we need to immediately develop and implement an aggressive national, science-based climate action plan. This ambitious and comprehensive plan would include, among other elements: initiatives to progressively price and limit greenhouse-gas emissions; substantial carbon sequestration and land conservation targets and actions; expanded clean energy, clean transportation and energy-efficiency goals and incentives; smarter, more sustainable development rules and land use regulations; greener appliance standards and building construction codes; markedly increased funding for extreme weather-resilient infrastructure, and the establishment of an independent Climate Action Commission to regularly evaluate, grade and report on the status of our nation’s climate progress and recommend policy and program adjustments and additions when warranted. We must always bear in mind that actions that are effectively planned and objectively tracked and measured are more apt to succeed, and that politicians and elected legislatures and administration-led agencies are generally incapable of impartially assessing their own work and level of progress. The cumulative results of such a plan and actions are likely to be extraordinary: millions of new, U.S.-based jobs in clean energy, energy efficiency, clean transportation, resilient infrastructure and sustainable agriculture and forestry; markedly cleaner air, land, and water; healthier, more prosperous and livable communities, and lower energy costs. Now is the time to fully heed the advice of nearly all the world’s scientists and economists and redouble our efforts to combat climate change and capture the far-reaching economic, public health and environmental benefits that bolder climate action will surely deliver.

U.S. Senate Candidate David Costello Submits Nomination Petitions to Qualify for Maine’s June 11 Primary Ballot March 12, 2024 Brunswick, ME – Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate David Costello today submitted 195 petitions containing the signatures of 2,500 registered Maine Democrats, the maximum admissible, to qualify for Maine’s June 11 Democratic primary ballot. Costello said that he decided to run for the U.S. Senate because, “like many in Maine,” he’s “very concerned about the health of our democracy and the performance of our government.” Costello contends that “Washington is broken” and that to fix it “we need to do more than simply change who we elect every two to six years. We need to substantially reform our governing practices and institutions, and eliminate the excessive and corrupting influence that money, wealth, and disinformation have over our politics and government.” Costello said that he is "committed to advancing long overdue legislative and constitutional reforms that will not only aid in strengthening our democracy and government, but also help in better protecting our rights and freedoms, including reproductive rights and freedoms, and assist in more actively and effectively addressing such pressing problems as climate change, escalating gun violence, unaffordable housing and health care, economic inequality, shoddy infrastructure, underperforming schools, and insufficient retirement security." Costello added, "What clearly isn’t working in Washington, is doing more of the same. Fighting over a half-dozen or slightly more U.S. House or Senate seats, when substantive systems change, is what is really needed.” Having grown up in a working-class family in Old Town and having worked for more than 25 years in senior level state, local, and federal government positions, including in Maine and abroad, Costello believes that he has the broadest and most germane and hands-on experience of all the candidates competing to represent Maine in the U.S. Senate. With respect to Senator King, Costello said that “while he appreciates the Senator’s service, he believes that Senator King has been too reticent to pursue the kind of reforms needed to truly fix Washington and that he is unlikely to alter his overly cautious approach during what is likely to be his last term.”

Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate David Costello Urges Support for Tribal Sovereignty for Maine’s Four Indigenous Tribes June 26, 2023 Brunswick – Democratic Senate Candidate David Costello today released a statement urging support for tribal sovereignty for Maine’s four indigenous tribes. Costello stated, “unlike the Nation’s other 570 federally recognized tribes, Maine’s Penobscot, Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, and Passamaquoddy tribes are unnecessarily and detrimentally excluded from automatically receiving a range of federal health care, economic development, environmental protection, emergency response assistance and other benefits.” Costello noted that a recent Harvard University study concluded that tribal self-determination and government has contributed to significant economic growth and other benefits for the vast majority of other indigenous tribes in the United States. Additionally, and importantly for many rural towns and villages in Maine, the study also concluded that there were considerable spill-over benefits for neighboring non-tribal communities. Costello added that the study found: “Unique to Maine, the federal Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980 (MICSA) empowers the state government to block the applicability of federal Indian policy in Maine. As a result, the development of the Wabanaki Nations’ economies and governmental capacities have been stunted. Today, all four of the tribes in Maine—Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot—are stark economic underperformers relative to the other tribes in the Lower 48 states. The subjugation of the Wabanaki Nation’s self-governing capacities is blocking economic development to the detriment of both tribal and non-tribal citizens, alike. For the tribal citizens of Maine held down by MICSA’s restrictions, loosening or removing those restrictions offers them little in the way of downside risks and but much in the way of upside payoffs. Importantly, we find in this study that “nowhere to go but up” also applies to the Maine state government and Maine’s non-tribal citizens. From case after case, the pattern that has emerged under federal policies of tribal self-determination through self-government is one in which tribal economic development spills over positively into neighboring non-tribal communities and improves the abilities of state and local governments to serve their citizens.” Costello concluded, “As the study emphasizes, there is ‘nowhere to go but up’ for Maine and Maine communities and thus there is unlikely to be any downside to granting tribal sovereignty to Maine’s four tribes. Moreover, granting sovereignty to Maine's tribes is long overdue and is the right thing to do both morally and ethically.”

Protecting Our Environment David will help in further protecting our environment by supporting efforts to: Enact more stringent air and water quality standards and regulations. Require courts to defer to federal agencies when rules they make are reasonable and enabling laws are ambiguous (codify Chevron deference). Preserve more places of natural beauty and ecological importance. Enact smarter, more sustainable development laws and regulations. Develop and implement a national Zero Waste plan to reduce, reuse, or eliminate hazardous and solid waste in the U.S. Enact stricter land and water conservation laws and regulations.

Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate David Costello Urges Support for Long-Overdue Reforms to End Congressional Dysfunction and Tackle our Nation’s Most Pressing Problems 31 May 2024 BANGOR, Maine – (On Friday, May 31st, at 7 pm. ET) In an address to Maine Democrats, U.S. Senate candidate David Costello urged fellow Democrats to back “long-overdue” legislative and constitutional reforms to better protect personal rights and freedoms and more effectively tackle such pressing problems as climate change, escalating gun violence, economic inequality, unaffordable housing and healthcare, and insufficient retirement security. Costello said “What clearly isn’t working in Washington, is doing more of the same. Fighting over a half-dozen House and Senate seats, when substantive systems reform is what is really needed.” Costello’s speech hit on a lot of points such as: his formative years, his qualifications and experience, and how he would strive to advance sound reforms and policies to end dysfunction in Washington and ensure that all Americans are provided with the security, education, job skills, and other life enriching to thrive. For a copy of his speech, click here

Enhancing Public Safety David will help in enhancing public safety by supporting efforts to: Increase funding for community policing, substance abuse, and mental health services. Focus increased investigative and prosecutorial resources on violent offenses . Enhance police training and accountability. Build on recent common-sense gun safety laws and regulations.

Adequately Addressing Climate Change David will help in adequately addressing climate change by supporting efforts to: D evelop and implement an aggressive national, science-based climate action plan that includes, among other components: strict greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caps; ambitious GHG sequestration and "draw down" goals and actions; expanded clean energy, clean transportation, and energy efficiency initiatives; smarter development and land use regulations; greener appliance and building construction standards; and increased funding to mitigate the growing impacts of climate change.

Strengthening National Security David will help in bolstering national security by supporting efforts to: Maintain military and intelligence gathering superiority over all potential rivals, especially China and Russia. Prioritize nuclear and conventional arms control agreements. Expand military and intelligence gathering alliances. Strengthen trade and foreign policy agencies and agreements. Become more fully, intelligently, and responsibly engaged in world affairs. Boost our nation's overall global economic competitiveness.

Friends: For generations, we Americans have labored to establish a more just, secure, and prosperous nation. One in which everyone is treated fairly, and all are provided with the opportunity to excel. And while we have made considerable progress over the years, we have yet to establish the kind of more perfect union envisioned by our most thoughtful founders and descendants. We have fallen short, in large part, because our governing infrastructure is as outdated as many of our roads, ports, and bridges. Partisan gridlock and government dysfunction abound, and our imperfect democracy is in danger of becoming even more flawed. Strengthening Democracy and Governance To fix this, we need to do more than simply changing whom we elect every two to six years. We need to think bigger and act boldly. More specifically, we need to substantially reform our governing practices and institutions and eliminate the excessive and corrupting influence that money, wealth, and disinformation have over our politics and government. I am running for the United States Senate because I want to help in advancing long overdue legislative and constitutional reforms that will not only aid in strengthening our democracy and economy, but also help in protecting our rights and freedoms, including women's reproductive rights and LGBTQ freedoms, and assist in addressing such pressing problems as climate change, escalating gun violence, economic inequality, inadequate health care, shoddy infrastructure, underperforming schools, and insufficient retirement security. Doing More for Maine I am also running because I want to help in ensuring that all Mainers have access to affordable, quality healthcare and are provided with the education, job skills, and other life enriching opportunities to thrive. Having grown up in Old Town in a working-class family, I can appreciate the challenges confronting many of Maine’s less affluent families. For too long, too many Maine communities have watched the promise of the next generation slip away for lack of good paying jobs and career prospects. As Maine’s Senator, I will fight for more funding for education and worker training programs; transportation, clean energy, and communications infrastructure; and innovative economic and community development initiatives. Ideas Matter - So Too Does Experience. With more than twenty-five years of senior-level government experience - managing complex, multi-million dollar programs and operations including initiatives to combat climate change, revitalize communities, protect public health and the environment, and advance peaceful democratic change in such conflict-torn countries as Cambodia, Haiti, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo - I believe that I have the broadest and most fitting experience of all the candidates competing to represent Maine in the United States Senate and the soundest ideas for tackling our most pressing problems. In closing, I would add that I am the proud son of an Army veteran and AFL-CIO organizer and grandson of French and Irish American shoe, textile, and railroad workers. I know the value of hard work. I understand the importance of a solid education, and I appreciate the constructive role that democratic government is obliged to play. I will work hard for every vote, and I ask for your support. Thank you. David P.S. Please check out my ambitious Reform Agenda and Policy Priorities pages for more detail.