Maine’s Energy Future: Common Sense vs. Proven Failure

Governor LePage continues to discuss his plans to increase the availability of natural gas in most parts of Maine. While the plan has received broad support for the most part, there are certain environmental special interest groups that will oppose any change from the status quo.

A good example is this recent “plan” released by a group called Env... To summarize, they advocate for Maine to continue the insanity of our current energy policy, and tout a projection that energy savings from efficiency upgrades in Maine homes over the course of five years will save $67 million. But, as with most of these special interest groups, they gloss over a number of key facts.

Here are a few of those facts:

• Maine consumes between 200 and 250 million gallons of heating oil per year.Using conservative figures with an average heating fuel price of $3/gallon andconsumption of 225 million gallons per year, we can see that their plan touts savings of just $67 million from an estimated $3.4 billion total expense to Maine residents and businesses. This is a savings of 1.9%. Hardly a rainmaker for the people of Maine.

• While touting projections they claim will put $13 million per year back into the pockets of Maine consumers, they fail to mention that Maine taxpayers are funding programs like Efficiency Maine. In the 2009-2010 state biennial budget, Efficiency Maine listed more than $13 million in revenue taken from Maine taxpayers. They are simply taking revenue from one pocket to put savings in another.
  

• The Environment Maine plan touts weatherization figures of 2500 homes per year. Census figures indicate that there were approximately 700,000 housing units in Maine in 2009. At this rate, it would take 280 years to button up every home in Maine.

• Maine is a small energy consumer in a global marketplace. We consume just a tiny fraction of a fraction of the world’s energy. Environment Maine’s plan keeps us stuck in the same old energy trap while pretending that $13 million in yearly energy savings significantly impacts oil prices in a multi-trillion dollar global industry borders on insanity.

• Maine is in a competitive economy. Because of Maine’s economic structure, industrial and commercial energy consumption is far greater than residential consumption.  Other states are moving to lower their energy costs in order to attract job creators. The time for a transition is now. How many times do they want us to watch good paying jobs pass Maine by before they admit their policies have failed?

The premise that Environment Maine begins with is wrong and the conclusion it reaches is wrong.

• First, they claim that expansion of natural gas could inhibit the ability of Maine homeowners to weatherize their homes. This is a faulty assumption.

• Second, they expect the people of Maine to swallow their statement that a state bureaucracy is the only way to enable people to weatherize their homes. They’re wrong again. By allowing Maine homeowners to avail themselves of a lower cost energy source, they will be further empowered to weatherize their homes because they will have more of their own hard-earned money in their pockets.

• Third, they make a convoluted argument that somehow an expansion of natural gas will cost Maine jobs. It’s unclear whether they think people will stop weatherizing their homes or that taxpayer funding of their pet-projects such as the Maine Green Energy Alliance will dry up. However, they completely miss the fact that job creators all over Maine have been saying for years that the easiest way to lower costs, grow and create jobs in Maine is by lowering our energy costs. Environment Maine either missed this conversation or is intentionally ignoring it.

• Finally, they expect the people of Maine to somehow miss the fact that their plan actually proposes that Maine people stay dependent on foreign oil in order to achieve their exaggerated projections. No single investment would reduce Maine’s dependence on foreign oil faster than making natural gas widely available in Maine.

• What Environment Maine is really trying to do is maintain the status quo. They hope that by throwing out some feel-good statements and figures that sound good without context that the people of Maine will stand back and let special interest groups like themselves control the debate. Their failed policies of the past have driven Maine energy rates sky high. They have driven industry out of Maine, and forced the taxpayers of Maine to subsidize their feel-good government programs ahead of the needs of our residents. You need to weigh in on this conversation.

We encourage you to contact your elected officials in Augusta. Tell them that you support policies that will lower energy prices for Maine people and job creators, not maintenance of broken energy policies that have driven Maine energy prices sky high and damaged our ability to create jobs.

Go here now, find your elected officials and tell them to support lower energy costs in Maine.

Parties should not matter in this discussion. Whether your elected officials are Democrat, Republican, or unenrolled they need to hear from you.

Go here now, find your elected officials and tell them to support lower energy costs in Maine.

Remember – when your elected officials are not being lobbied by you for common sense reforms – they’re still being lobbied by the special interest groups.

Go here now, find your elected officials and tell them to support lower energy costs in Maine.

http://www.mainepeoplebeforepolitics.com/2011/10/maines-energy-futu...

Contact Maine People Before Politics via U.S. Mail at:

Maine People Before Politics
P.O. Box 212
West Enfield, ME 04493

Or by phone at (800) 307-3254

Executive Director: Jason Savage
Strategic Advisor: Brent Littlefield

Or contact via website at:

http://www.mainepeoplebeforepolitics.com/contact-us/