Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

Retalitory Tariffs...The Midwest and Northeast are bracing for higher power bills --25 Percent up?

How is Maine Impacted?

States identified as importing the most electricity from Canada include North Dakota, New Hampshire, Maine, California, Vermont, Nevada and Arizona, according to a 2020 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Retaliatory Tariffs from Canada Sparking Energy Cost Crisis for American Homeowners

The Midwest and Northeast are bracing for higher power bills for nearly 2 million households and businesses reliant on Canadian electricity.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP

PERRY CHIARAMONTEMar. 10, 2025 02:18 PM ET

Power bills are set to increase across the Midwest and Northeast United States as Canadian officials enact a retaliatory 25 percent tariff on energy flowing to its southern neighbor.

Nearly 2 million homes and businesses that receive a significant amount of energy from Canadian generators will see a spike in their energy costs due to tariffs being imposed Monday by Ontario officials in response to tariffs brought by the Trump administration.

“Effective today, the Ontario government has applied a 25 percent surcharge on all electricity exports to the United States as part of the province’s initial suite of retaliatory measures to U.S. tariffs on Canada,” Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, announced in a statement. This surcharge will affect 1.5 million homes and businesses in Michigan, Minnesota and New York, costing up to $400,000 every day the surcharge remains in place.

Mr. Ford told CBS News that the tariffs will stay in place until President Trump abandons his tariffs on Canada. Mr. Ford told CBS that he would cut power to America “with a smile on my face” if Mr. Trump attempted to “annihilate” his province, adding that the president could change his mind immediately, but he does not want to be unprepared.

“Once I touch a stove and I get burned once, I don’t touch that stove again,” Mr. Ford said. “He has to understand that he can’t attack our country economically and expect us to roll over.”

Among the states affected by the new energy tariff from Ontario are Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, multiple states across New England, and New York, where residents are already reeling from skyrocketing delivery fees from utility providers and a pending 12 percent increase slated by Con Edison for January 2026. The rate increases, coupled with the tariffs, could easily exacerbate affordability issues. On average, New Yorkers already pay higher electricity prices than most Americans.

“It’s caused a lot of anxiety,” the executive director for New York’s Public Utility Law Project, Laurie Wheelock, told Bloomberg News. “We’re all waiting to see what happens with the next cycle of bills.”

In 2023, New York imported from the provinces of Ontario and Quebec nearly 4.4 percent of its total electricity consumption, according to data from the New York Independent System Operator.

“If you’re going to increase the price of electricity, it’s going to increase the price that people see on their power bills,” the Alliance for Clean Energy New York’s executive director, Marguerite Wells, said to Bloomberg.

The electricity tariff is just the latest in a growing trade war between America and its neighbors to the north.

Last week, Canada’s outgoing prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said that while the Canadian government has been “actively engaged” in conversations with the Trump administration, it will impose a 25 percent tariff on American imports, totaling over $20 billion.

“[Both sides are] actively engaged in ongoing conversations in trying to make sure these tariffs don’t overly harm,” he said, adding, “We will not be backing down from our response tariffs until such a time as the unjustified American tariffs on Canadian goods are lifted.”

PERRY CHIARAMONTE

Mr. Chiaramonte was an investigative reporter and producer at Fox News, a correspondent for the New York Post, and a news editor for the Messenger.

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Comment by Stephen Littlefield on March 12, 2025 at 9:19am: Premier Ford or is it Fat Bastard from the Mike Myers movies? He plays a childish game, no mention of the incredible tariffs that Canada has had on a number of American products for decades! Like 200+% on dairy similar on poultry and over 100% on liquor! Ford selectively leaves out these factsin his propaganda tirade, if he truly wants a trade war Canadian products represent about 5% of America's GDP, but American products and the Canadian tariffs are around 50-55% of Canada's GDP. So if Canadian government truly wants to play tariff wars instead of working with America on tightening the border and such, America can up the tariff to that of just Canada's liqueur tax and it will end nearly all exports. Which for America isn't but a mere inconvenience, but for Canada it will destroy their economy, and they are silent on China imposing a 100% tariff on Canada, why is that?

Comment by Willem Post on March 10, 2025 at 7:49pm: Russia was almost entirely dependent on on imports of goods and services from EUROPE.

The sanctions were a blessing, because the plentiful and capable STEM professionals quickly produced most of these products and services in Russia.

As a result, Russia became more independent and more sovereign

Comment by Willem Post on March 10, 2025 at 7:44pm: Importing electricity is a devil’s bargain.

The importer is at the mercy of the exporter, always

Comment by Dan McKay on March 10, 2025 at 4:44pm: Oh, Canada, tell me how it's going when all your sawmills, liquor distilleries, food processing plants, auto plants,etc. move to the USA.

BTW, all that Canadian power that was imported into New England went from 20% plus to 0% this week. That is a lot of water over the dam. But, probably your bottled water plants will be USA plants soon, too

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U.S. Sen Angus King

THE UNTOLD STORY OF RECORD HILL WIND

The Untold Story of Record Hill Wind, continued

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

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

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(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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