Bills revive debate over Sears Island port plan
Maine Public | By Peter McGuire
Published March 12, 2025 at 4:09 PM EDT
Lawmakers heard more than five hours of testimony Wednesday from both sides of a debate over preserving Sears Island in the Town of Searsport.
A pair of bills from state representative Reagan Paul would extend a conservation easement across the island and restore sand dune protections in a 330-acre parcel set aside for development.
The Winterport Republican said it's time to end decades of controversial port proposals for the island in the town of Searsport. The latest plan is a floating offshore wind port by the Maine Department of Transportation that has so far failed to attract federal funding.
"And yet MDOT refuses to face reality, doubling down on failure and proving this is not about offshore wind, it is about pushing industrial development at any cost," Paul told members of the legislature's Environment and Natural Resources Committee.
Local conservationists support the proposal and said the highest and best use of the island is as a wild area. Any commercial development, including the wind port, can be done at nearby Mack Point, a fuel and materials terminal.
But opponents including state agencies, environmental groups and labor unions, argue it would be a mistake to give up the commercial parcel on Sears Island. The Maine DOT still considers the property the best location for a port to develop offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine, a cornerstone of the state's clean energy and economic development aspirations.
Continue reading at https://www.mainepublic.org/climate/2025-03-12/bills-revive-debate-...
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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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