Regardless of whether or not voters hand Republicans control of the U.S. Senate in November, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she will keep working across the aisle to form bipartisan coalitions; GOP control would elevate her status on committees important to Maine, she said.

Collins seeks her fourth term in the Senate. Her challenger on the ballot is Democratic nominee Shenna Bellows.

The Caribou-raised incumbent sat for more than an hour in the Boothbay Register newsroom on Oct. 7, fielding questions from the Register, Wiscasset Newspaper and Penbay Pilot staff members.

Collins said a GOP majority would give her chairmanship of the Aging Committee, which deals with issues relevant to Maine as the nation’s eldest state in population. Her priorities would include financial security for the elderly and more biomedical research on Alzheimer’s and other diseases affecting older Americans.

Republican control would also move her from ranking Republican to chairman of the Transportation and Housing Appropriations Subcommittee, giving her a greater role in setting those budgets, Collins said.

Her efforts in transportation have already landed federal dollars to improve Maine’s ports and replace bridges, including the Richmond-Dresden bridge that she found harrowing to cross, she said.

“Holy mackerel. We met a big car coming the other way. I was really worried ... It was awful.”

After that experience, she made a priority of getting funding to replace the bridge, Collins said.

Also during the sit-down, Collins rejected federal legalization of marijuana, praised Midcoast Maine’s efforts to build on its assets, and addressed criticism Bellows has levied over her on the issue of women’s pay.

“I would start with the obvious point, that I am a woman. And the idea that I would be for discrimination against women is ludicrous on its face,” Collins said.

The Paycheck Fairness Act she opposes would burden small businesses with federal reporting and would encourage lawsuits, Collins said. She cited a history of supporting women’s rights in the workplace and around the globe, against atrocities such as an extremist group’s recent kidnapping of schoolgirls in Nigeria.

She led a letter that every woman senator signed, urging President Barack Obama to intervene, Collins said. She criticized the administration’s response to the kidnappings as slow.

She also has been a lead Republican cosponsor of the International Violence Against Women Act, and was a chief co-sponsor of last year’s Violence Against Women Act that called for increased penalties for sex trafficking, she said.

On transportation: Collins cited the new bridge under construction in Dresden as an example of her effectiveness at getting Tiger Grant money to Maine for major transportation projects.

“I am proud to say that due largely to my advocacy and my position fighting for that program as the ranking member of that subcommittee ... Maine has received funding every single round for that program.”

On education funding: The federal government should make good on the 40 percent it promised four decades ago to pay toward special education costs, Collins said. That would help every Maine school district and every Maine community, she said. “Think of the difference that that would make. And it would make a difference across the board.

“We talk at the federal level about creating all of these new education programs, and many of them are important and worthwhile like more ... early education programs, but it would be nice if the federal government kept that promise that it made so many years ago. And that would help every school system.”

On hospital consolidation: When people feel like they can’t live someplace because it doesn’t have full access to medical services, it’s a serious problem, Collins said.

But, as she did in an August 2013 Boothbay Register interview, the senator declined to weigh in on St. Andrews Hospital’s change to an urgent care center and the loss of an emergency room on the Boothbay peninsula.

The distance someone has to travel for care is a legitimate issue, she said. “I want people to be able to access health care where they live.”

But the federal government doesn’t decide hospital consolidations: “It really is a decision that is made at the state level with local input,” Collins said.

Her role at the federal level is to work for the continued existence of home health agencies and programs to designate hospitals as critical access, she said. “Without that (designation), we would not have the rural hospitals that we have in this state.” She said she has been a strong supporter of the designation.

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On energy issues: Collins expressed disappointment that Statoil’s floating wind turbine project did not come to fruition.

“They had money, they had experience, and they could have brought a lot to the table ... Statoil was not interested in exploring alternatives to the technology it had developed ... and I think that was too bad because I think that was a missed opportunity.”

Collins, who serves on the Senate’s Energy Appropriations Subcommittee, declined to predict when the federal government will take Maine Yankee’s spent nuclear fuel out of Wiscasset. She thought it would be long gone by now.

“It’s just not fair, it’s not right for the people of Wiscasset, Lincoln County, state of Maine and all of our ratepayers ... We paid for that disposal ... and yet it’s never happened.”

The federal government’s failure for years to remove the waste is particularly unfair in Maine’s case, because nuclear power is no longer being produced in the state, Collins said.

The subcommittee’s two leaders, Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Lamar Alexander, are committed to moving the waste to temporary sites, she said.

Collins noted she brought up the waste removal issue at two hearings this year, because she felt it was an important one that had not been resolved.

She has visited a French plant where plutonium was being recycled; she said she would need more scientific advice before concluding whether or not recycling is part of the solution for dealing with nuclear waste.

Collins expressed support for moving away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and for Maine being an important part of that move. “Maine has the researchers, the creativity and the natural resources to explore and pursue being a leader in green energy,” she said. She would be very happy if the U.S. did not import another drop of foreign oil, she said.

Offshore wind projects need to go where they will not harm the fishing industry or have unintended environmental impacts; and stakeholders should have a lot of input in the decision-making, Collins said.

On marijuana: Collins said she would oppose a federal bill to legalize marijuana. She cited concerns that police don’t have the resources to police its sale and that, in teens, heavy use may be linked to attention disorders and lower IQ’s.

“We’re a state that already has serious substance abuse problems, and I don’t think legalizing another substance, like marijuana, at the federal level makes sense. If we legalize marijuana at the federal level, we send a message that it’s OK. It’s fine,” she said. "And I don't think it is fine."

On commerce: Local initiatives that focus on a region’s assets and involve a lot of people, as with Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, are the approach to take on economic development, Collins said.

“That is just extraordinary,” she said about the local effort on the Gardens. “I love that ground up, grassroots effort to create a significant cultural and economic asset for the region ... And then sometimes I can assist directly in helping to secure some federal funding that can be a catalyst to help a project get going.” She secured the bulk of the funding for the Gardens’ visitor center, she said.

Collins cited the help she gave Bigelow Laboratory in getting federal funding toward its new facility.

“They are attracting more scientists and more federal grants ... than ever before. I think that’s a really exciting resource in this area, and for my part, I’m going to continue working closely to endorse their grant applications and to help them in every way that I can.” She called Bigelow’s well-paying jobs a real plus for the region.

Collins said she has worked to help East Boothbay’s Hodgdon Yachts and the University of Maine, regarding the composite technology used for fast boats for Navy Seals.

“I love the wedding of traditional Maine craftsmanship with cutting edge technology that was developed at the University of Maine. Those are the kinds of partnerships that are essential for economic growth and job creation in this state.”

On her career in government: Collins does not aspire to higher office. “I am very happy being Maine’s senator and hope to continue in that role,” she said. She said it’s the best job she’s ever had.

The second-best was being the Small Business Administration’s New England administrator when it saved businesses’ credit lines and thousands of jobs. Bank of New England had failed, and the SBA put together a program in which it guaranteed the businesses’ new loans.

“It was an example where government really did good,” she said.