Gov. Paul LePage has asked the Natural Resources Council of Maine to meet with him to discuss job creation a week after the environmental nonprofit accused his office of asking some of its donors to reconsider their gifts.

The group held a news conference last week alleging that the Republican governor’s office had tracked down a few hundred of its donors and sent them letters late last month encouraging them to rethink their contributions. The letters said the council’s “job-crushing, anti-business policies” keep rural Mainers mired in poverty.

The governor said he wants to meet with Council Executive Director Lisa Pohlmann to see “what kind of permanent career jobs her organization will find acceptable in rural Maine.”

The two sides have for years clashed over issues including mining, solar energy, biomass and hydroelectric power. Pohlmann said she’s prepared to bring clean energy advocates to the meeting, which has not yet been scheduled.

LePage defended the letters in his weekly address. He said a balance between conservation and development can create “good jobs.”

LePage, noting his work in the forest industry, said that doesn’t mean “short-term jobs for workers to install a couple of solar panels on your neighbor’s roof at our expense.”

Pohlmann said LePage attended a council roundtable in 2011 focused on the environment and economy and then released a “radical 63-point environmental rollback agenda” that she said led to proposals that legislators “roundly defeated.”

LePage earlier this year declared “war” on the council and other “special interest groups” that he says lobby against the interest of rural Mainers.

State records show the main lobbyist for the Natural Resources Council of Maine reported more than $20,000 in total compensation for lobbying legislative and executive branch officials and about $3,400 in lobbying expenses this year.

The lobbyist and five associates lobbied on bills concerning biomass, clean water, oil spills, solar and legislation to oppose a national monument in Maine’s North Woods region. They also lobbied on behalf of nominees to state environmental and agricultural boards.

LePage in April vetoed a solar power bill supported by the council, Central Maine Power and Emera Maine.

The governor and Democrats had earlier tried to reach a compromise. But LePage insisted the bill must include a price cap to protect ratepayers. Solar advocates argued a price cap would have killed Maine’s solar industry.

Not getting along

• GOV. PAUL LEPAGE and the Natural Resources Council of Maine have for years clashed over issues including mining, solar energy, biomass and hydroelectric power.