Opponents stare down Maine’s utility takeover referendum
Maine voters on Nov. 7 will decide if they want to buy out the state’s two investor-owned utilities, Central Maine Power (CMP) and Versant Power, which together currently service more than 96 percent of the Pine Tree State’s electricity demand.
The decision on Question 3 could create the new Pine Tree Power Co., a nonprofit, customer-owned utility. Critics contend that if the ballot item passes, the issue then would be tangled up in the courts for years and Pine Tree Power ratepayers would have to foot the legal bills.
“Two of the issues I hear most often from voters who oppose Question 3 are costs and the fact that Pine Tree Power would put politicians in charge of the grid,” Willy Ritch, executive director at the Maine Affordable Energy Coalition, which opposes Question 3. “The cost is overwhelming — an estimated $13.5 billion to seize CMP and Versant. The interest alone on that would be over half a billion dollars a year — a cost that would be borne by ratepayers.”
Ritch also told Daily Energy Insider that Question 3 proposes creating a board of elected officials who would be directly in charge of the grid in Maine. “And I don’t find many voters who think that’s a good idea,” he said.
Meanwhile, supporters say the buyout would save Maine consumers money over 30 years and improve reliability.
Specifically, Question 3 on the ballot will read: Do you want to create a new power company governed by an elected board to acquire and operate existing for-profit electricity transmission and distribution facilities in Maine?
According to a poll released Sept. 20 by Maine Energy Progress, voters are widely opposed to Question 3. The poll, conducted by Moore Information Group, was designed to capture an impartial perspective of the current electoral landscape, as well as data on Mainers’ views of several other questions that will appear at the ballot box in November.
“It is abundantly clear that Mainers are rapidly educating themselves about these critical issues and becoming more solidified in their positions,” said BJ McCollister, campaign manager for Maine Energy Progress. “The results regarding Question 3 confirm what we are hearing across the state — Mainers understand that Pine Tree Power would be a risky $13.5 billion scheme and doesn’t even require them to have an operations plan for how it will deliver our electricity. It’s a risk our state can’t afford to take.”
Of the 600 likely Maine voters surveyed by Moore Information Group from Sept. 11-14, 54 percent of them opposed the proposal to replace the state’s electric utilities and plan to vote NO on Question 3. Likewise, 31 percent of these potential voters said they support the proposal while 15 percent were undecided, the poll said.
Ritch at Maine Affordable Energy noted that more than 12,000 individual Mainers have signed up to join the coalition, along with a wide range of businesses and organizations ranging from the AFL-CIO to the Maine Chamber of Commerce.
“Our team has been all over the states, knocking on tens of thousands of doors, going to fairs, festivals and events and talking to voters everywhere,” said Ritch. “And it’s working — the more voters learn about Pine Tree Power, the less they like it.”
The Maine AFL-CIO and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), which collectively represent over 40,000 workers, also object to creating Pine Tree Power, saying the proposal would alter the status of union workers from private to public, meaning they could lose the right to strike.
Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Sept. 20 also called on voters to reject Question 3.
“In its simplest terms, Question 3 would force CMP and Versant to sell their assets to a new public power authority, called Pine Tree Power, through eminent domain,” Gov. Mills said. “What we are really talking about here is adding a layer of bureaucracy and politics and partisanship over the existing structure of CMP and Versant and I just don’t see how this improves anything.”
At the same time, the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) pointed out that if experience tells people anything, it’s that government entities don’t excel at customer service.
“This is nothing but downside and risk for Maine and voters should resoundingly reject it,” Marc Brown, CEA’s vice president of state affairs, told Daily Energy Insider earlier this week. “CEA believes that the risk of increased costs to consumers for what is essentially a government takeover of the investor-owned utilities in Maine far outweighs any potential — and highly speculative — benefit.”
Brown also said that billions of dollars in acquisition costs and the untold millions of dollars in legal fees are solid reasons to vote NO to Question 3.
“An independent analysis concluded that Mainers will see hundreds of millions of dollars in increased electricity costs annually should this pass and that could have a devastating impact on low- and fixed-income Mainers,” said Brown.
“Is putting Maine’s consumers at risk of billions of dollars in increased electricity costs from a government takeover of utilities which have delivered some of the lowest electricity rates in all of New England over the past decade worth some fantastical, speculative benefit?” Brown asked. “There certainly will not be lower electricity costs, nor a guarantee of increased reliability.”
Supporters like the Maine State Nurses Association — the only labor union supporting Question 3 — have also said that voting YES to Question 3 would end the monopoly status of CMP and Versant Power, opening up the market for a new entity that would offer lower-cost power and be more responsive to consumers.
But such advocacy is falling short, according to Ritch at the Maine Affordable Energy Coalition.
“Most Mainers are against this proposal,” Ritch said. “But even those who were on the fence are seeing that the Pine Tree Power proponents don’t have a real plan on how they would lower costs or increase reliability, let alone how they would even go about operating a statewide electric grid.”
