BDN - Inside a lawmaker’s bid for Maine to seize control of its largest electric companies

By Josh Keefe, Maine Focus Reporter
December 23, 2019 6:00 am

On an unusually cold November night, Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, co-chair of the legislative committee charged with regulating the state’s utilities, stood in the auditorium at Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham. Before a crowd of roughly 60 people, he explained his plan to seize control of the Maine electric grid from the state’s two largest electric companies and their foreign shareholders.

Berry introduced a bill earlier this year that would have the state form an independent agency called the Maine Power Delivery Authority. The authority would buy out investor-owned electric distribution companies Emera Maine and Central Maine Power. If the bill becomes law, Berry’s proposal would transform Maine’s energy industry and effectively banish CMP — one of Maine’s most controversial companies and most powerful political players — from the state.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission has hired an independent consultant to study the proposal, with a report due in February. Berry expects a vote on his bill shortly after, and he has been giving talks across much of the state to drum up support. The day before he spoke at Mt. Ararat, he presented his plan to 40 or so rotarians over a lunch of Teriyaki beef and scalloped potatoes in Belfast. The previous week he spoke to more than 100 credit union members in Lewiston.

“I’m trying to have as many conversations as possible,” Berry said. “Some nights I’m on and some not. But I like being on tour,” he said.

While Berry’s exact plan is new, the battle he is fighting is nearly as old as the light bulb. For nearly 140 years, politicians like Berry have been trying to wrest control of power — both the kind that moves electrons and the kind that decides elections — from for-profit electric utilities. It’s a struggle that has long been about the cost and reliability of electricity, but has taken on a new focus and urgency as Maine and the world confront climate change.

Experts say fighting climate change will require trillions of dollars of investment in the U.S. electric grid as large parts of the economy, such as transportation and heating, move away from fossil fuels to clean energy.

“This is not a new issue,” Berry said. “But what is new is that never before has the electrical grid been of more profound importance to our future, to the very survival of our species.”

Berry told the crowd how consumer-owned utilities have cheaper rates, shorter outages and greater accountability to customers, the same sort of arguments public power advocates have been making — with various levels of success — for a century. But he also argued the transition to clean energy needed to avert the worst climate change scenarios requires public power, which frees utilities from paying investors and gives them access to low-interest financing.

To pay for the transition to a decarbonized grid, Maine needs consumer-owned utilities or “it won’t pencil out,” Berry said.

State leaders in California have advocated turning PG&E, currently in bankruptcy proceedings, into a public utility after its equipment started wildfires that killed nearly 100 people. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders has advocated for a national public power program as part of a Green New Deal. 

Despite those other examples, Berry’s takeover proposal is unprecedented, experts said. While some cities and towns across the country have taken ownership of their utilities in recent decades, no state in recent memory has taken over two investor utilities at once. The audacity of the plan would seem to doom it.

But the politics of the moment and CMP’s continued missteps have created a unique situation. Berry’s party controls Augusta. Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, is a co-sponsor of Berry’s bill, along with seven Democrats and two Republicans. And CMP is now the least popular utility in the entire country, according to a recent survey, even less popular than PG&E. CMP is currently under investigation and facing a potential class-action lawsuit related to the $57 million billing system it launched in late 2017.  

Continue reading at:

https://bangordailynews.com/2019/12/23/mainefocus/inside-a-lawmaker...

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Comment by Stephen Littlefield on December 23, 2019 at 9:43pm

So the most underhanded untruthful power hungry politicians wants to take over all the electricity grid of Maine, with out a vote of the people! Seth Berry is a liar and a big government lackey that wants to be part of the total control of the people of Maine. What he is proposing is is tyranny by an incompetent government. Berry is a politician that has been schooled by the most corrupt, he has never run an honest campaign as he always smears his opponent first and continually. He's in it for power and the people of Maine will lose, just like they are with the 'new' oppressive  laws that were passed earlier this year! So how well has the state taken care of the roads? They receive hundreds of millions in fuel taxes a year that are for the roads but spend it on crap not the roads and bridges. What makes anyone think that the electric grid would be any different? Because Seth Berry and Troy Jackson say so? REALLY? How are your taxes? Get back to me on that. This is tyranny and we better stop it!

Comment by Penny Gray on December 23, 2019 at 7:42pm

CMP is less popular than PG&E?  I must be missing something.

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on December 23, 2019 at 11:33am

CO2 goes where it pleases in the atmosphere irrespective of international borders. Decarbonization and carbon taxes are thus a perfect way to seize money from one country and put it in another country's pocket. And surprise, surprise, surprise - the insiders get rich again. Combine that with the push to make everything electric and government seizure of the utilities and we're on our way to becoming Venezuela. Some really sicko dumb people in Augusta.

Comment by Dan McKay on December 23, 2019 at 11:07am

Berry wants complete Government Control of the grid with no firewall protection from the PUC. He is seeking to advance his "New Energy Regime" that will bankrupt every citizen in the State.

 

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CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

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Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

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(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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