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Poll results

Central Maine Power’s controversial $950 million New England Clean Energy Connect transmission project in western Maine received a critical “certificate of public convenience and necessity” last Thursday from the Maine Public Utilities Commission. Additional hurdles remain as it makes its way through regulatory reviews by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and Land Use Planning Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But a new wrinkle in the approval process has been introduced in the Legislature, where at least two bills have been introduced adding new requirements on CMP before its proposed 145-mile transmission line could be built. One bill would require CMP to receive approval in public votes from every town in the corridor before its transmission line is built. Another would mandate a study of the project’s greenhouse gas emissions before it can proceed. But Anthony Buxton, an attorney at Preti Flaherty representing the Industrial Energy Consumers Group, which supports CMP’s project, says partisan politics shouldn’t be allowed to override “the considered judgment” of regulatory officials. “If we have a process which allows a party to file for one solution and then have it reversed by the political process, what we have is no regulatory process at all,” he told the Bangor Daily News.

Do you agree that lawmakers should not interfere with regulatory processes already under way for CMP’s project?
Yes (42%, 1053 VOTES)
No (58%, 1432 VOTES)
Poll Description

Central Maine Power’s controversial $950 million New England Clean Energy Connect transmission project in western Maine received a critical “certificate of public convenience and necessity” last Thursday from the Maine Public Utilities Commission. Additional hurdles remain as it makes its way through regulatory reviews by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and Land Use Planning Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But a new wrinkle in the approval process has been introduced in the Legislature, where at least two bills have been introduced adding new requirements on CMP before its proposed 145-mile transmission line could be built. One bill would require CMP to receive approval in public votes from every town in the corridor before its transmission line is built. Another would mandate a study of the project’s greenhouse gas emissions before it can proceed. But Anthony Buxton, an attorney at Preti Flaherty representing the Industrial Energy Consumers Group, which supports CMP’s project, says partisan politics shouldn’t be allowed to override “the considered judgment” of regulatory officials. “If we have a process which allows a party to file for one solution and then have it reversed by the political process, what we have is no regulatory process at all,” he told the Bangor Daily News.

  • 2485 Votes
  • 49 Comments
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49 Comments

  • April 17, 2019
    Then the corporations hire lawyers to circumvent the regulatory agencies.
  • April 17, 2019
    This corridor is bad business for Maine . Don't believe anything CMP says about saving money on electricity or lowering prices. They haven't done it before and they won't do it now. This is helping Massachusetts only . Not us !!
  • April 17, 2019
    Live in York. Recently the Maine Turnpike Authority decided to move the toll plaza a few miles up I-95 for reasons very few people in this town could understand. They did it because they wanted to in spite of the fact that toll money comes from drivers not politicians. We should have a say. If CMP is too financially stressed lower my rates or to repair storm damage in a timely manner where do they get the funding to build transmission lines to help Canada and Massachusetts? Where will Vermont and upstate New York get their clean power? I live next to the power line they are proposing to enlarge. It is a scar across the town, weeds and brush where forests and fields were. The rabbits and deer have vanished. And now they want to widen it. If they wanted to put a nuclear power plant back in Maine to serve Massachusetts and fund a Spanish Corporation would we allow it. Apparently.
  • April 17, 2019
    Canada will sell power to Massachusetts. CMP will be paid to transmit the power. Massachusetts will buy Canadian hydro power rather than build any new generating facilities. Maine gets scraps. If we hold out for a continuing percentage of CMP profits I might support this.
  • April 17, 2019
    Read this closely before signing or supporting it.