Source: WVOM

(WVOM player allowed a file download, it starts with a brief ad, sorry!)

MAINE’S MORNING NEWS — COUNTY LINE WIND PROJECT

HOST: Let us start by welcoming back to the program State Representative Tracy Quint, the Republican of Hodgdon. Heard us talking about this project last week, sent us a text. Tracy, welcome back to Maine’s Morning News.

TRACY QUINT: Thank you, Rick. Good morning.

HOST: And you introduced us to Tanya Blanchard, the president of Preserve Rural Maine, out of Thorndike. Tanya, I want to welcome you to Maine’s Morning News. Thanks for giving us some time on the phone to look into this issue.

TANYA BLANCHARD: Thank you very much. Good morning.

HOST: Representative Quint, we’re going to start with you. What is the most important thing that maybe the state of Maine, and maybe the people in Aroostook County, haven’t been told about the Clearway Energy’s County Line Wind Farm? It’s supposed to generate 800 megawatts. What’s missing from the conversation so far?

TRACY QUINT: Truly, there’s a lot missing from the conversation. But I want to back up and just explain a little bit of the background first. So I was reached out to by the community in Haynesville. I am the state representative for that town, but they are looking on the local level at what to do about this project that sort of just was dumped on them.

So I lived in the rural areas for 38 years, and as a teenager I lived in Topsfield, which was recently given [the designation] of being the most rural town in Maine. And what is happening is a narrative is being put out about this area at the very beginning, before the project is up and running. And I find it rather nefarious, because this narrative from a multibillion-dollar international company, you know, their advocates and the climate activists, they’re attempting to diminish the value and the intellect of the people who are actually living in this area that will be most affected.

You know, they try to say that we’re unaware of economics, we don’t really know what this is about. But we’re very aware of this [unclear] in the rural area here, and many of them have been caused by the Augusta Democrats, the policies, their unfunded mandates, and they are unsustainable.

So yes, we do actually want business development in our areas, but not with the destruction of the natural resources that we have. And that has been the main thing that has been addressed, not just by Haynesville but the surrounding communities as well. I represent 47 towns in Aroostook, Penobscot, and Washington counties, and all rural communities.

So I think one of the areas is just: what is this project? Because it’s rather dumped on us. And I think that Tanya would be better able to speak to that, because she worked with the corridor project earlier. And so I would like to bounce it over to her and let her give some background about that.

HOST: Tanya, indeed, give us your background on this, and what are we missing? What are we missing?

TANYA BLANCHARD: So I’ve been doing this for three years. When this project originally was going to be done, a whole 3,500 landowners got letters from a developer saying, “Hey, we’re going to potentially put a transmission line in your backyard or in abutters’, and it’s going to be fed from the King Pine Wind project.”

So we organized, formed Preserve Rural Maine, and we have been incredibly intimately involved with this process since then.

So this iteration of the project, this is the County Line Wind project that’s been awarded the grant, or the bid, by the PUC, and CMP has been awarded the transmission portion of the project. One of the big complaints that we have is that this is all being done behind closed doors. We don’t know a lot about these projects.

I was able to find some information on the County Line Wind project from Clearway that they had submitted in testimony back in 2024. And, you know, you have to dig through legislative documents in order to find this information. It shouldn’t be that way. We should be able to pull up information, see exactly what’s happening, and easily inform ourselves on it.

So this Clearway County Line Wind project, it’s going to be on 50,000 acres. According to their testimony, they said in their testimony that this has the potential for up to 800 megawatts of wind, which the PUC has awarded, said, “Yes, we’ll take 600 here in Maine.” Rhode Island is taking 150. That leaves another 50, you know, left out for bid for the other states.

But in Clearway’s own testimony, they said 400 megawatts is particularly cost-effective. So we’re going to overbuild this project. We’re going to spend more money building a project on 50,000 acres in gorgeous Aroostook County that will send limited amounts of energy to the ISO New England grid.

HOST: Fifty thousand acres. Let me come back to you, State Representative Tracy Quint. As I understand it, it’s 50,000 acres, but it’s on private commercial timberland, not public. So is there an issue with telling someone who’s a private landowner that they can’t sell or give to the project?

TRACY QUINT: So there is not an issue with them being able to sell that land for a project. Where the issue becomes a problem is on the county level, the approval process for a project, and on the local levels in the surrounding towns, with lines going through. The approval and permitting process is there.

And one of the issues that we are having right now is the PUC advocate, who is normally the person that you would turn to for help and information about this, is actually herself a—she’s a climate activist. And so we don’t have the actual help in regards to this project that we would have had in the past. And so that has been a concerning issue surrounding this.

You know, I’ve spoken with her directly, and just the way that we have gotten to where we are, with the PUC being the oversight for that. And there were bills that went in. Initially a two-thirds vote was needed by the legislature for these large projects to go through. And a bill was put in by Kessler, and that bill actually gave the authority over to the PUC. So now the PUC can take over that, and once again we have a climate activist in that role, and give permission for this project, even though the people had put in a referendum stating they wanted the legislature to vote on that with a two-thirds vote.

So that’s very concerning that a referendum was turned over by a simple majority vote in the legislature. I have a problem with that. I do have a bill this session already going in to overturn that, because I think when the people of Maine put forward a referendum that needs a two-thirds vote, that the legislature should have to follow through with that.

HOST: Tanya, as president of Preserve Rural Maine, let me ask you: Clearway is making some promises. Five hundred thousand dollars in community benefits every year. They’re promising some tax revenue and then maybe some jobs, at least to get this thing going. Is that enough to appease concerns over what could be lost?

TANYA BLANCHARD: Well, it’s interesting that you bring that up, because they are promising $500,000 in community benefits, but state law requires that they put forward at least $4,000 per wind turbine in community benefits. And so if we do the math, that’s 125 wind turbines, which makes sense for this project. It looks like that’s probably what they’re going to put in place.

So what they’re promising to give to the community is exactly what state law requires them to give to the community, right? They’re not being generous. They’re not doing more than they have to do.

And the problem with these benefits packages is that they sound great at the beginning, but the offset is that it can cost a community more money. So it looks like they’re getting this tax, this revenue, in a community benefits package. But because of the state funding formula, now that community has to put out more of their share in school funding from this corporation. So we’re not going to give you as much of the state tax dollars to help out.

So it’s a really complicated situation that a lot of our rural towns aren’t able to deal with. This is something that they don’t deal with every week or even every year. So they’re signing on to a community benefits package that’s actually going to hurt them.

And, you know, these companies are promising jobs, but these jobs aren’t going to be filled by people who—most of the people who are able to do the work that needs to be done to build these projects are already employed. So these corporations are going to be bringing in their teams from other states and paying them a lot of money to come here to Maine. And then when the job is done, they all leave.

Well, it doesn’t really help our communities in the long run because those jobs are gone. They’re not creating careers. They’re creating a one-off job.

HOST: Tracy, I can imagine meddling with the school [funding formula?] [unclear] are not terribly fond of that.

TRACY QUINT: Absolutely not. That is a big issue, especially in the rural areas, because once again we have all of these mandates coming down from Augusta. They may be funded for a very short time, but then they stop, and then the towns are left picking up the amounts, and they are absolutely unsustainable.

So when you do have companies coming in, it’s not that people are uninformed. They’re just very desperate for any sort of money that could be coming in, and it does make them much more vulnerable.

And when you look at the rural areas, they pay less than what they do in other areas. And this isn’t just about getting the money into the rural areas. This is about just the equity and the fairness between the ways that different communities are treated.

And once again, I’ve had so many conversations with Tanya. She’s been such a gift to catching me up on all of this, because really it was about two and a half months ago Haynesville reached out to me and said, “Hey, we don’t want this, and can you help us?” And so, you know, I stepped right in.

But I’d like Tanya to address just the equity difference between the way that the rural areas are treated and, of course, like downstate, where the people that are really pushing for all of this green energy, the way that they are treated by these companies in comparison to the rural areas. Tanya, I’d love to hear your take on that.

TANYA BLANCHARD: Sure. Well, one of the early examples that we found when we organized is, let’s talk about a substation, right? So Haynesville is going to be getting, according to this project, a brand-new substation, and it’s going to be in, you know, the middle of these beautiful Maine woods.

Well, we can’t find design information. I could find design information for a project from back in 2014. Who knows if that’s what they’re going to do? But when I was driving to Haynesville, and when I drive anywhere, I look at substations now, right? They’re not the prettiest in the world.

You look at the one on Keene Road, the substation, it’s kind of ugly. You look at the one in Orrington, it’s kind of ugly. It’s tucked away behind houses in generally lower-income neighborhoods. That’s where things like infrastructure like this is built.

And then you look at a substation that was built in Bar Harbor ten years ago by Emera, which is -- That substation is gorgeous. The people in Bar Harbor required that that substation be enclosed and look nice. It looks like a carriage house. Gorgeous.

And let’s talk about Bar Harbor, right? Bar Harbor’s high-income, high—you know, they have money. And so they demanded that the infrastructure there look pretty so that they could live with it.

But then we go to these rural areas, and the developers just slap in something that, you know, the people that live there are stuck dealing with, all to benefit the folks that live down south.

And, you know, here’s a really interesting piece of information: the folks in Haynesville are not part of the ISO New England grid. They are not part of CMP. They actually get their power—talking to one of the residents in Haynesville, they’re on the least expensive electric cooperative in the state of Maine.

They’re going to be hosting this substation. They’re going to be hosting this new transmission line. And they get absolutely no benefit whatsoever from it. All the power is going to be shipped down south.

HOST: I’ve got a few minutes left. Tracy, I want to come to you. Troy Jackson may or may not still be one of the most powerful politicians after an election in about 13 days, but he still is backing this. He’s still got some juice. How do people with serious concerns about this project either stop it or at least slow it down for the level of transparency that it deserves?

TRACY QUINT: I think talking about it, and Haynesville has started that conversation. I think organizing, and Tanya is very helpful with that. I will absolutely be advocating on the state level, and in January I have several bills going in surrounding these issues, not just for this project but any large project that’s going in the rural areas.

There needs to be oversight when we’re dealing with the destruction of natural resources, when we’re dealing with the exploitation, the permanent exploitation, of the natural resources in Maine. We should all have a voice in that.

And just because a company owns a certain area does not mean that they should be able to do whatever they want with those natural resources. Yes, they do own it, and like I said, I’m all for business, but there always has to be oversight when the impact is felt everywhere.

This whole so-called green energy is just not about the environment. You know, we are going to be—with this project, we would be footing the bill so that other states and areas in the southern part of the state [unclear] about their climate consciousness.

And this is the problem. It is the fact that this whole project is due to the green energy initiative. It’s not just because they’re saying, “Oh, the people in this specific area need this.” It is about power generation of a certain green energy [unclear] that’s being passed down to the southern part of the state and into the rest of New England.

About two months ago, Falmouth residents began to understand the scale (110 feet tall, 150 wide) of the proposed upgrades, and have put together a very impressive response group called Alliance for Responsible Infrastructure.

Falmouth Town Council had a meeting with a resolution about the topic the evening of October 14, 2026. It has some very, very interesting statements. For people following this topic (undergrounding, major transmission lines added to backyards) this is well worth the watch.

Watch the meeting (the issue starts at 18:48)

I particularly direct you to a point at about one hour, twenty-eight minutes into the recording, where the technical advisor mentions (implies?) that in the confidential part of the docket, CMP revealed that undergrounding would not be 6x the cost (the public statement)—and I interpreted the tech advisor’s statement to mean the confidential information said it was less.

Watch the meeting

Alliance for Responsible Infrastructure (ARI) estimated that the loss in property values in Falmouth alone was $43 million—and this is a conservative estimate. (Remember the study from Chino Hills, CA, where the town saw a 17% property value drop city-wide—not just with abutters! This link is all my property valuation research.)

But amazingly, ARI also looked at the hyper-local property value impacts in Yarmouth next to a transmission line (around 1 hour, 45 minutes in the video above—noticing a 20% decline in home values near the line. WOW.)

As you can imagine, I feel extremely sympathetic to the residents of these towns, and applaud their efforts.

Here’s another witty and homespun comparison to help us all picture what is really going on with electric market clearing rates.

The ISO-NE memo which mentions the $921 million overspend is here.

It is also posted as a PDF below, for your convenience. I’d suggest skimming the document: it’s a great example of how making a market more complicated allows for incentives to get all screwy and not benefit the end consumer.

Often, more middlemen = more costs. Complicated markets that only a handful of people understand do not benefit the ratepayer. In reading this document, it appears that adding wind and solar to the generation mix is the primary cause of this challenge: the generation capacity of natural gas and nuclear are easily predicted day ahead: but it’s still hard to predict the weather precisely enough for generation estimates.

As the PDF below states, “This recommended approach increases market sensitivity to renewable forecast error.”

2026 02 Imm Memo With Daas Recommendations

237KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

The governor of NH, Kelly Ayotte, spoke about this $921 million issue recently, as reported by WMUR. Remember, New Hampshire is studying withdrawing from ISO-NE.

ISO-NE did not exist before 1997, yet New England still had electric power. ISO-NE has ballooned to 855 employees, recently requested $60 million for new offices, and the president was paid over $3 million in 2024. Overspending nearly a billion $ in less than a year is cause for concern, when you are a non-profit whose ostensible goal is to lower and smooth out pricing for the region.

Mentions include:

• LD 2226 “An Act to Amend the Essential Programs and Services School Funding Formula”

• ISO-NE RFP: I posted the analysis produced by Preserve Rural Maine here: Analysis of the ISO New England Longer Term Transmission Planning Proposals.

• Maine PUC Northern Maine Transmission RFP: docket 2026-00033

• NH Study to withdraw from ISO-NE: Read an article here from New Hampshire Bulletin

  • The RFP itself (2024-004)

  • And the list of proposals received, by name, and their rank.

But there is good news, and it is evidence that genuine public participation—from people who would be impacted by these ongoing infringements on their backyards—well, it can work.

LD 2174 defeated.

LD 2174 was voted down in committee with Ought Not to Pass. This was a bill the sponsor was absolutely certain would pass—and told a member of our group so. Moreover, E2Tech hosted a web seminar this past Monday which probably was intended to be a jubilant event for the supporters of LD 2174. But it was full of equivocation and hesitation—likely because the prior week’s public hearing had evidenced such strong resistance.

Eminent Domain Rulemaking—pretty good

Two years ago, Preserve Rural Maine and other community members participated in proposing language that would help to protect rural land owners when it came to eminent domain takings for transmission line installations. This resulted in a PUC docket (2025-00279) to actually make the rules. This week, the results were posted and, in many instances, the PUC agreed with the recommendations of Preserve Rural Maine. The files from the docket are posted below for your convenience.

Chapter 331 (redlined)

174KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

2025 00279 Ch

198KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

In other news, we are brainstorming easy ways to make the Maine legislature (1) more like New Hampshire in terms of public access, and (2) easier for public participation.

Some thoughts include:

• Scarlet letters for lobbyists (in NH lobbyists must wear blaze orange name tag pins)

• Fewer bills every session (NH pushes through less than half the number of Maine, and has the same population)

• Bill title must reflect the bill content accurately

• Appropriate public notice of seven days, and bill text and amendments musts also be published to the public for seven days

• Paid lobbyists testify last

• Lawyers who work for law firms must register as lobbyists and wear the scarlet letter if their firm has clients that are actively (within the past three years) trying to get legislation changed to their benefit. It’s as simple as a conflict check, and law firms know how to run those

• Lobbyists who are paid to attend work sessions must include that time as part of their lobbying accounting
  

Please share your ideas!

Now: as Tanya notes today:

First, an important update to LD 2174 that we learned about after recording the video. The sponsor has agreed to remove the sections of the bill that impact home rule. So that means local ordinances will still stand as they always have. We haven’t seen the new language yet, so I remain cautiously optimistic.

We have been trying to find out who claims responsibility for writing the language that voids home rule. It’s probably unconstitutional. See prior posts for that detail.

Now why would the legislature propose language that is unconstitutional? Well, once it is made law, it requires actual harm and a plaintiff with standing to put forward a lawsuit. That is expensive. Proposing legislation like this, even though possibly improper, is one way to get around the law and strongarm the small towns into submitting.

(Not a lawyer, just reading the situation with a skeptical eye. Why would Maine have twice as much legislation proposed as New Hampshire in any given year, when the population is about the same size? Why would the egregious amendment to LD 2174 still not be on the Maine legislature website, 5 days after the public hearing? )

On Lobbyists:

If you want to look up lobbyists and lobbying in Maine, here’s the link.

These are the current lobbyists reporting that they have worked on this bill.

To reiterate: we are unpaid for this research and reporting, and do it because we love the Maine landscape.

Here’s an example of the sort of issue local ordinances might aim to protect against: This week, in Rochester NY, a solar field installation ruptured an aquifer and is requiring an emergency fix.

Many of those ordinances were written by volunteers, so it is aiming to undo thousands (or tens of thousands) of hours of volunteer efforts. We have heard from an industry insider who estimates that over 60% of towns in Maine have solar ordinances.

These ordinances regulate location as well as safety issues: most tiny towns have limited fire-fighting technology, and need these ordinances to regulate the installation of industrial scale energy infrastructure safely.

If you can provide testimony in person, that is BEST. Feb 25, 2026, Cross Building, Augusta Room 216. 1pm. Expect to stay there for hours—it’s always an unknown timeline.

If not able to go in person, write and submit testimony:

Use this link to submit written testimony online.

Select these options:

• Committee—Environment and Natural Resources

• Date—February 25 2026

• Item—LD 2174

The public hearing is Wednesday, February 25, at 1pm in Cross Building Room 216. (Use your voices!)

The newest amendment, still not available on the Maine website, explicitly infringes Home Rule, by voiding municipal ordinances that are more stringent in their regulation of solar, wind, and energy storage than the state-level statutes. (See end of post for the actual current amendment)

(A solar industry insider tells us that they estimate over 60% of Maine municipalities have a solar ordinance—and that’s just since 2018. So this is a whole lot of infringement. How many volunteer hours went into those ordinances?)

But wait!

We are in second session of the legislature. According to the ACLU, second session can only be used for these sorts of bills:

• budgetary matters,

• the governor's legislation,

• emergency legislation approved by the Legislative Council,

• legislation resulting from authorized studies,

• and legislation initiated by direct initiative petition of the electors.

(Now remember, we are volunteers and not lawyers, so we are just reading the plain language of the text and using basic logic. The ACLU language mirrors what Article IV, Part 3, Section 1 of the Maine Constitution says.)

And, according to the Maine Constitution (2023 version) Emergency Bills cannot be used to infringe home rule (Article IV Part 3 Section 16)

So is this one of the permitted types of second session legislation? Let’s go through the list:

Is it a budgetary matter?

The words “budget”, “$”, “dollar”, “dollars”, or “finance” or “financial” do not appear in the draft.

Is it governor's legislation?

Not in any explicit sense. The word “governor” does not appear in the bill draft.

Is it emergency legislation approved by the Legislative Council?

Well, isn’t this interesting. The original bill, which you can still see here, was Emergency Legislation. The new amendment has the emergency preamble removed.

Is it legislation resulting from authorized studies?

The words “study” or “studies” does not appear in the bill.

Is it legislation initiated by direct initiative petition of the electors?

Reading the bill, I see no evidence of a direct initiative petition, unless you call a law firm calling up a rep and proposing language a “direct initiative petition.” Somehow I don’t think that is what is meant.

To summarize:

This bill was approved by Legislative Council as an Emergency Bill. We’re in second session, which only allows certain types of bills. Emergency bills can’t be used to erode Home Rule. So it looks to me like this is an emergency bill that erodes home rule, which is unconstitutional.

Again, not a lawyer. Just reading the language.

Original Bill- emergency legislation

191KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Ld 2174 Sponsor's Amendment

247KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

For comparison, New Hampshire electric prices only went up by 23% in the same time period. Could that quarter billion yearly in NEB charges be the culprit? hmm.

Home Rule is in the Maine Constitution, mentioned in two sections:

This is what the Maine Law school has to say about Home Rule:

Maine has been considered a strong “home rule” state since November 1969, when an amendment to the state constitution delegated broad “home rule” ordinance powers to cities and towns. Cities and towns have the right to enact laws that are municipal in nature and that do not frustrate or run counter to a state law or a law for which the state has not prohibited it from passing. The concept of home rule is very important to local government because without home rule authority, cities and towns would depend on specific acts of the State Legislature for their governing authority.

source

The Northern Maine Transmission Line RFP (docket 2026-00033) is designed to offset the cost by selling the capacity of the line and generation to four other states through Power Purchase Agreements. These appear to be selling RECs (Renewable Energy Credits.) If these RECs are sold, wouldn’t this installation on the Maine landscape no longer count 100% to fulfilling the Maine energy goals in statute?

Page 5 of the RFP below:

The ISO-NE RFP is tracked on this page. It covers Pittsfield south to the rest of New England.

ISO-NE is an organization that was set up in 1997. Prior to that it did not exist.

ISO-NE provides an interface (administrative layer) between New England states electric utilities.

NMISA (Northern Maine Independent System Administrator) provides an interface for a small part of Northern Maine.

Both are non-profits. Let’s look at their Propublica listings.

ISO-NE has revenues of $265 million. Their CEO earned $2,253,854 in 2024. (Plus another $996k additional compensation?)

NMISA had 2024 revenue of $935k. Their President earned $228k, with $26k additional.

As should be obvious, the coverage area for ISO-NE is millions of people, and NMISA region is around 90k. The scale of the task is dramatically different.

But: we had electricity before 1997.

These are the questions to be asking your reps. The email was addressed to Dan Burgess, who is the acting commissioner of the Maine Department of Energy Resources. The spreadsheet numbers are published at the end of the post.

Also at the end of the post are the service areas of the T&Ds mentioned. Bolds are my emphasis.

Hi Dan,

Thank you for offering the Factors Driving Electricity Costs webinar yesterday. You may recall that I asked the following question:

“Can you please speak to the differences in the T&D costs and supply costs between some of the Maine cooperatives and the investor owned utilities (e.g. Eastern Maine Electric Coop and CMP)?” The Brattle Group answered that they had not looked at the consumer-owned utilities in their analysis but that the consumer-owned utilities and investor-owned utilities would face some of the same issues related to the cost of purchasing new equipment and the supply costs for electricity.

Given that I was asking this question in a chat box, I wasn’t able to quickly ask a follow-on question to clarify why I was asking this question. I recently took a look at what a hypothetical residential ratepayer, using the applicable standard offer rate, in the EMEC territory and CMP territory, would pay assuming each used 550 kWh of electricity in a given month. I selected 550 kWh as it is the current rough average usage of a ratepayer in these two territories. I selected EMEC as it is the largest consumer owned utility in the State and a member of a larger national entity known as Touchstone Energy Cooperatives. I selected CMP as I am located in their territory, and they are the largest investor-owned utility in the State and a part of a larger national and international entity. What I found is illustrated in the attached Excel spreadsheet. What you will see is that the EMEC ratepayer would have paid a total of $117.03 and the CMP ratepayer $175.24 in that given month. These amounts are before sales tax. In the same table I also included what if scenarios of 1,000, 1,500, and 2,000 kWh of usage. I also included an annualized total which is simply taking the one-month difference and multiplying by 12 months. As kWh usage is expected to increase in the future, due in part to beneficial electrification efforts, I would expect that the 550 kWh usage average will increase and that the cost delta between these two territories will expand accordingly.

For me, this raises two fundamental questions:

1. Why are CMP ratepayers paying so much more for the same electrons as compared to the EMEC ratepayer?

2. What can be done to bring the CMP ratepayer cost more in line with the EMEC ratepayer?

Some things that come to my mind that may lead toward an answer to these questions are:

1. Are any of these cost differences related to EMEC being a part of NMISA and CMP a part of ISO-NE? [Editor’s note: See this post on ISO-NE] If so, and if being a part of NMISA was found to be less expensive, what would it look like for the entirety of Maine to be under NMISA rather than ISO-NE?

2. What is driving the T&D portion of the rate difference? CMP has often stated that part of what drives their T&D costs are related to Maine being the most heavily forested State in the country and with many areas that they serve being very rural, creating large geographic areas to maintain vegetation and equipment with fewer ratepayers. However, EMEC experiences similar characteristics, so there seems to be more to it than the heavily forested and rural characteristics that should be explored. Also, on this subject is the question of how does CMP service reliability performance compare to EMEC? Does the higher T&D cost in the CMP territory reflect a higher service reliability performance level as compared to EMEC? If not, why not?

3. EMEC is a consumer-owned non-profit entity and CMP is an investor-owned for-profit entity. Is the investor-owned model adding to the cost CMP ratepayers are paying that are not being added to the consumer-owned model that EMEC ratepayers are paying? If so, then a) how much more is it adding to the investor-owned ratepayers cost and what added benefits are derived and b) should we consider what it would look like for the entirety of Maine to be operated under a consumer-owned utilities model, such as EMEC concept?

4. What is driving the supply portion of the rate difference? The Maine PUC negotiates the standard offer price for CMP residential ratepayers while EMEC appears (I could be wrong) to negotiate the standard offer price for their residential ratepayers. CMP’s standard offer rate is set for a one-year term and for 2026 includes a mix of New Brunswick Energy Marketing, which is a subsidiary of New Brunswick Power (25%), Constellation Energy Commodities Group (25%) and Next Era Energy Marketing (50%). EMEC standard offer rate is currently set for three years and for 2026 - 2028 is from New Brunswick Power Generation Corp. Given the significantly lower load of EMEC vs CMP, my initial expectation would be that a standard offer rate bidder would be more aggressive with lower pricing in the CMP territory vs the EMEC territory. Since that does not appear to be the case, a question then becomes whether the three-year commitment that EMEC is willing to take on is resulting in a lower standard offer price, as compared to the Maine PUC one-year standard offer price for CMP? And if the consensus is that natural gas prices are going to continue to increase, which the Brattle Group suggests, then would it be advantageous for the Maine PUC to be soliciting multi-year duration standard offer price bids as a part of their bid solicitation process?

I realize that some of my questions may raise political issues, however I truly believe we owe it to all Maine ratepayers to take a close look at what I am asking to a) determine the answers and b) determine whether any of the answers will help to reduce ratepayer costs in the investor-owned territories. I realize there are many other potential tools in the toolbox that the EUT committee, DOER, EMT, OPA and PUC are all looking at to help lower ratepayer costs, and I appreciate that. I hope that the DOER will consider adding what I am bringing up to that toolbox of things to look at.

Thanks,

Steve Ingalls

Stetson

Cc’ing Senator Mark Lawrence, Representative Steve Foster and OPA Heather Sanborn

ISO-NE is a not-for-profit that manages the grid interconnections between CMP, Versant, and the other New England electric T&Ds. New Hampshire is currently considering withdrawing from ISO-NE because it is might be part of the reason that electric costs are untethered to normal fiscal responsibility (or even to inflation).

But get this: ISO-NE has 855 employees and contractors right now. (I would have guessed 50-100 based on what I understand them to do.) If you’ve ever been inside of CMP for a tour, you will know that CMP has a huge grid management room. This would be true for all the T&Ds. So what is ISO-NE but a hefty layer of administration on top of that, asking for a loan of $60 million to renovate their offices? Could that somehow end up as costs that increase the electric costs to consumers?

Moreover, ISO-NE has only been around since 1997! How did we get electricity before then? My guess: from the T&D, for cheaper, without an administrative layer. Has “expanding competitive market forces” done anything for the average ratepayer?

Who here remembers what their electric bill was in 1996?

Here’s what they want to do:

1. full renovation on the 150k sq foot facility (approx 20 years old) at 1 Sullivan Ave, Holyoke, Mass

2. Building a new 75k sq foot building next door

   
   
   Some screenshots from the request, below.

Section 25. Right to food. All individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to food, including the right to save and exchange seeds and the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being, as long as an individual does not commit trespassing, theft, poaching or other abuses of private property rights, public lands or natural resources in the harvesting, production or acquisition of food.

Maine Constitution, 2023 version

The original effort, which did not pass, included the right to transact, including meat. Quickly, the USDA swooped in and threatened to take over the state meat inspection facilities.

Today’s post is outside of our normal scope, which typically focuses on the impact of New England energy policy on Maine farmland, forests, and fields.

But, since this substack is called Protect Maine Farmland, it’s topical enough.

This week, the New Hampshire state senate heard testimony on HB 396, which is a state sovereignty challenge to the Federal USDA reach.

HB 396 would allow NH farmers to perform on-farm slaughter and sale in-state of meat.

The key point, of course, is the in-state sale. Right now, that is illegal, under the 1982 court interpretation1 of the 1906 Federal Meat Inspection Act.

In New England, this is a properly bipartisan issue. The Food Sovereignty constitutional amendment in Maine was championed by Senator Craig Hickman (D).

In New Hampshire, HB 396 has been sponsored by Republicans, but appears to have Democrat support as well.

On a federal level, the adversarial stance to local food sovereignty is primarily acted through the Big Ag and Big Meat monopolies or quasi-monopolies—and these have midwestern Republican influence.

But the MAHA agenda—which had a natural base in the Democratic party until 2024— now represents an aspect of the current administration.

So it seems like this is the moment for states to assert their right to food intrastate sales (under powers of health and police, tenth amendment.)

How many federal laws have changed in the past 120 years because states acted first, and forced the hand of the Supreme Court or the Federal Reps to act? Which ones come to mind for you? Might we be at that point today?

Do you think it makes sense to regulate in the same way the meat packer JBS (estimate of processing over 26 million cows per year) with a small farmer who might process 36 and sell to their community?

Is it not more humane to keep animals on their farm until slaughter? Could that not perhaps decrease costs and emissions in transport?

Take a listen to testimony for HB 396 here. The link should open at the right moment, but if not, it’s hour 2:01.

I’m not sure the objectives of this change, but here is the notification.

Tanya Blanchard provided excellent testimony during the public hearing for LD 838. You can watch that here (5 minutes).

And then at the LD 838 work session, yesterday, the bill morphed into “Resolve, to Establish a Commission to Study Options for Public Financing of Transmission and Distribution Infrastructure and Energy Storage Projects.”

It now has completely different language, copied below. Of course, none of this is easily accessible to the public on the state website. You need to email the committee aide to get this, or be on the distro list.

LD 838 Current (2-5-2026) amendments, as circulated during work session.

Considering how much language has changed, shouldn’t there be a new public hearing?

MEPCO is a corporation jointly owned by CMP and Versant. It buys and owns transmission corridors.

One of the corridors it owns is what we have called the MEPCO line. It is greenfield (owned but not developed.) I wrote about it here.

Here’s an example of what it looks like on tax maps. I cobbled together the thing below in a super old school way. This is the town of Corinna, Maine. Their tax database is in PDF form with only lot and map numbers. Their tax maps are also PDFs, and do not list owners. I screenshot the PDFs, put them into an image processing program, and then circled the parcels owned by MEPCO (Maine Electric Power Company) by cross referencing with the tax database. This is tedious and clunky work, and this is the reason it is hard for people to discern where greenfield corridors are. Any thing orange is owned by MEPCO or CMP, based on what I saw in the most recent published town PDFs. Of course, the town tax maps do NOT track easements that may have been acquired through deeds.

Two days ago, this letter from Versant showed up on the Northern Maine Transmission Line 2025-00361 docket. It describes their ownership of the Bridal Path, and their willingness to negotiate joint use. It also says they are not bidding. (But that doesn’t mean subsidiaries such as MEPCO aren’t….my comment.)

This is what the Bridal Path looks like, according to my research.

See below for the MEPCO corporation information. Their website is not resolving, but at one point in time the <head> section of their site in the meta field indicated this:

The conference was schedule for ninety minutes. The PUC attorneys finished their prepared Q&A after thirty minutes, and then opened it for questions. No bidders or other participants wanted to ask any questions publicly.

So let me take this opportunity to re-introduce this substack.

Protect Maine Farmland is a substack about energy policy in Maine and New England, because this energy policy specifically impacts—and sometimes aims to take—fields, farmland, and forest in rural Maine to place solar panels, transmission lines, and wind turbines.

As of January 2026, one of Maine’s primary energy goals is to accomplish the Northern Maine Transmission Line and Wind Turbine project. This electricity is intended to be sold through Power Purchase Agreements to CT, RI, Mass, and VT.

Thus, it is literally selling off Maine rural landscapes to provide electricity to southern New England.

Back to the bidders conference.

I was not able to discern from the list of participant boxes shown any names.

It’s not that surprising that bidders would like to stay private—but, since joint bids are now suggested and preferred, I was expecting a little more interaction.

Rewatch the video here. Below is a screenshot of what was visible on screen.