by Matt Harrington

February 16, 2023

An elderly woman whom I met during the campaign season recognized me as I stood at her door. Before I could even begin my introduction, tears welled up in her eyes. At over 70 years old, she told me she had to ask for heating assistance.

For the first time in her life, she said she could not provide for herself. It obviously shattered her as someone who prided herself as an independent woman, and the stress of just paying for basic necessities was enough to bring her to tears.

I wish I could tell you this is the only story like that from a constituent in my district. Sadly, it's not, and it shows just how energy costs are crushing Maine families and small businesses in my district and across Maine.

For far too long, the party in power has catered to special interest groups and pursued an energy policy that has proven to be an abject failure. And despite their rhetoric, the war in Ukraine is not solely responsible for the skyrocketing energy costs facing Maine families. Several years of irresponsible energy policy from the White House to the Blaine House have contributed to these burdensome costs.

My appointment to the Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee is a first for me, and I have a lot to learn, but one thing I know is that Maine's people deserve better. I will approach every energy bill with the same question: Does it lower the cost of energy for Maine families?

I sat in on an Energy Committee meeting a few weeks ago and listened to a presentation from the Governor's Energy Office. I was disappointed at the complete lack of emphasis on reducing the cost of electricity for Maine families and small businesses. It was all about renewables.

I agree and believe that we need to focus on incorporating renewable energy into our portfolio - but only when it makes sense. As lawmakers, we must strike a balance between investing in renewable energy and lowering costs for Maine people. Right now, the pendulum has swung too far and lowering costs must be the priority; too many Maine families are struggling to put food on the table, heat their homes and put gas in their vehicles.

Maine Senate Republicans are focused on three priorities that will bring relief to Maine families and job creators.

First, we must prioritize ratepayers. We want to look at any reform of the Public Utilities Commission that will bring transparency to the contracts and the rates they set for Mainers.

Second, we must reform or repeal net-energy billing. I agree with the words of our Public Advocate, who told the Bangor Daily News last month "the program disproportionately hurts low-income people who aren't participating in community solar."

What he's saying is people who are struggling to get by should not be subsidizing solar panels on million-dollar mansions along Maine's coastline. Net-energy billing is driving up costs and it will only accelerate as more projects come online. Instead, we must reform this program to lower costs or eliminate it.

And third, we must stop picking winners and losers when it comes to energy policy. Every technology needs to be on the table, so we should remove the 100-megawatt cap on hydropower, which artificially increases rates through the renewable portfolio standards. We must also harness our robust forest products industry and encourage technologies like geothermal when it makes sense.

We cannot continue to push technologies that drive up costs. Maine people cannot afford it. Maine businesses cannot afford it.

Please continue reading at:

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/02/16/commentary-right-now-reducin...

Contact information for Maine State Senator Matt Harrington

STATE SENATOR – DISTRICT 33
(R – York)
Contact:
Office: (207) 287-1505
Cell: (207) 831-6746
P.O. Box 457, Sanford, ME 04073
Towns
YORK county:
Alfred; Lebanon; Sanford; and Waterboro
Current Committee Assignments
Criminal Justice and Public Safety
Energy, Utilities and Technology

https://mesenategop.com/your-senators/senator-matt-harrington/

https://twitter.com/MattAHarrington

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-harrington-9b593999

https://www.facebook.com/MatthewAHarrington/

matthew.harrington@legislature.maine.gov

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What can we, as individuals, do to help save the planet?

By Nancy Hasenfus

February 16, 2023

Electrify, electrify, electrify! That is what we need to do to save the planet. As we see the damage that the climate crisis is causing in nature around us, we need to move quickly to end our use of fossil fuels.

To move away from fossil fuels, we need to electrify almost everything. There are two benefits to electrification: The first is that it allows us to use renewables and the second is that power lines transport energy in the form of electricity without creating carbon, unlike that fuel truck that just delivered your oil or propane. By using fossil fuels we are digging ourselves into a hole, and, as climate and energy expert Jesse Jenkins told Ezra Klein on Klein's Sept. 20 podcast, the first rule of being in a deep hole is to stop digging! Despite great technological advances, we are still dependent on fossil fuels for 80% of our energy worldwide. We need to move quickly to renewables and non-fossil fuel energy sources.

At this point only 22% of the electricity used in the U.S. comes from renewables (hydropower, wind and solar), according to the federal Energy Information Administration, but this will change in the coming decades. We need to double or possibly triple our electric grid capacity over the next three decades to distribute all this clean power. Since the 1970s, we have been coasting along on the infrastructure built by our parents and grandparents, but now we need to get busy and build new electric infrastructure. America can rise to this challenge - we have risen to challenges of similar size in the past. We will need permitting reform soon so that we can update the grid quickly and not take years to approve interstate projects, as now needed because of the widely varying state laws.

Many experts feel that we will need power from many sources to create electricity and save the planet. We have spent decades refining solar and wind technologies so that the price of installing solar is one-tenth what it was a decade ago and the cost of wind turbine installation is one-third its earlier cost, Ezra Klein's podcast guest Jesse Jenkins has noted. We need to continue the development of other clean sources so that they get more affordable, such as geothermal energy, which is relatively early in its trajectory, as well as nuclear power. Bill Gates advocates a different style of small nuclear reactors.

There are other, less-developed sources of energy that we may be able to use in the future, such as hydrogen, but we should move forward with what we have as we try to perfect the newer sources. There has been huge pushback about this from the fossil fuel industry for decades. As billions pour into the fossil fuel industry's coffers, they will not easily give up lobbying and greenwashing, but more and more of the people around the United States and worldwide realize what they are doing.

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/02/16/maine-voices-what-can-we-as-...

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