[In November, Mainers will vote on whether they want Pine Tree
Power — a consumer-owned nonprofit utility — to replace the
investor-owned utilities. Advocates say the result of the vote could
have ripple effects across the country. ]
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A BATTLE RAGES IN MAINE COULD CHANGE THE COURSE OF CLIMATE ACTION  
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Sabrina Shankman and Aruni Soni
October 2, 2023
The Boston Globe
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_ In November, Mainers will vote on whether they want Pine Tree Power
— a consumer-owned nonprofit utility — to replace the
investor-owned utilities. Advocates say the result of the vote could
have ripple effects across the country. _

Pine Tree Power grassroots organizer Lucy Hochschartner spoke to Dean
Bradbury, of Portland, Maine, during canvassing on Sunday. Also
pictured is Bradbury's dog Sadie., Fred J. Field for the Boston Globe

 

PORTLAND, Maine — It’s noon on a Sunday, so Lucy Hochschartner is
where she often is these days: hoofing around Portland’s winding
neighborhoods, knocking on doors.

With her blond ponytail swinging behind her and armed with an iPhone
list of likely voters, Hochschartner asks residents: “What’s your
relationship like with your utility?”

For the most part, she knows the answer she’ll get. Maine’s
largest utility, Central Maine Power, provides electricity around
here, and it has ranked last in J.D. Power’s customer satisfaction
survey of large utilities for four years running, likely thanks to
Maine’s distinction of having among the nation’s highest
electricity rates and worst grid reliability.

And the utility didn’t earn any new fans this spring when it sent
out more than 60,000 disconnection notices
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to customers in arrears, an “extraordinary number,” according to
the state’s public advocate, that was much higher than in previous
years.

Another inflammatory issue in this fight is a widespread perception
that CMP has dragged its feet in the climate battle, and as
Hochschartner and other campaigners schlep from door to door, they are
trying to persuade voters that, come November, there is a better way
forward by casting their ballots for a new, nonprofit, consumer-owned
utility called Pine Tree Power.

If the ballot question is approved, the next step would be a statewide
election to choose seven of the new utility’s board members, who
would then appoint six others. And over the next five to 10 years,
Pine Tree Power would have to negotiate a purchase of the assets and
operations of both CMP and Versant, the other utility in the state,
which is also among JD Power’s worst-ranked.

[Pine Tree Power intern Owen Gramley held a clipboard with promotional
material before heading out to knock on doors in advance of a vote to
see if Mainers want to replace the two major electric power utilities
in Maine with a nonprofit utility company with an elected board.]
Pine Tree Power intern Owen Gramley held a clipboard with promotional
material before heading out to knock on doors in advance of a vote to
see if Mainers want to replace the two major electric power utilities
in Maine with a nonprofit utility company with an elected board.Fred
J. Field for the Boston Glo

Unencumbered by obligations to shareholders, proponents say, the new
utility would be able to push forward on clean energy and other
measures meant to reduce greenhouse emissions. The climate aspect of
this extraordinary drive to unseat existing utility companies has
riveted the attention of both activists and utility companies across
the country, all looking toward the outcome as a possible harbinger.

“This is a definitive fight of 2023 as far as climate,” said
Candice Fortin, US campaigns manager for the climate activism group
350.org. “This is a promising framework for other states to
investigate.”

In California, for example, the advocacy group Public Power San Diego
[[link removed]] is pushing for a community-owned,
independently run nonprofit utility. In several cities around
Michigan, groups have formed to pass local ballot measures for
publicly owned power. Others are watching closely.

“This isn’t just Maine acting in isolation,” said John Qua,
campaign manager at Lead Locally, a nonprofit that partners with state
and local organizations to support climate-related elections.
“There’s a larger and notable movement of groups that are fighting
for ownership and public ownership of the transition to clean
energy.”

The effort in Maine is a high-stakes campaign in which both sides
boast bipartisan support and powerful allies. Pine Tree Power has been
endorsed by several leading conservation groups, including the Sierra
Club and 350 US, as well as Senator Bernie Sanders
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On the other hand, Governor Janet Mills, who has ushered in an era of
ambitious climate reform in the state, opposes the effort. In a recent
radio address
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she called it a hostile takeover that would result in a drawn-out
court battle that “threatens to set back the progress we are making
in modernizing the electric grid to achieve clean energy goals and
address climate change.”

Hochschartner, deputy campaign manager for Pine Tree Power, says the
consumer-owned utility model has been proven to work when it comes to
progress in the climate fight. As of 2018, only six US communities had
100 percent renewable electricity. All had consumer-owned utilities.
Nebraska, the sole state to have a consumer-owned statewide utility,
is working toward decarbonizing electricity by 2050, per state
targets, and meanwhile charges its customers among the lowest rates in
the nation, she said.

In trying to rally support, the yes-on-three campaign has hammered
voters with messages about the existing utilities’ unpopularity,
high rates, and foreign ownership. (CMP is owned by Avangrid, whose
parent company is Iberdrola, a Spanish multinational; Versant is owned
by ENMAX, a Canadian company.) And the campaign has made hay of claims
the utilities have stood in the way of a clean energy transition by
lobbying against renewable electricity projects and being slow to
connect solar power to the grid — claims the utilities dispute.

Opponents of the change argue that a statewide consumer-owned utility
is an untested idea, with Nebraska being the only one, and no other
states have attempted a takeover of existing utilities as is being
proposed in Maine.

They say the transition could be messy and prolonged, potentially
delaying for years the changes proponents want, including more
aggressive climate action. If voters approve Pine Tree, the utilities
could sue to challenge the validity of the election, likely triggering
a lengthy legal battle, some experts have said. Meanwhile, Pine Tree
Power would have to purchase existing wires and infrastructure from
the utilities at a fair market value — which also could end up being
fought in court.

Adding another layer of complexity and delay, opponents say, is the
potential for politicization within the new board, since a majority
will be elected. Pine Tree Power would also have to hire a third-party
company to actually run the new utility.

“This is a big task,” said Joseph Curtatone, the president of the
Northeast Clean Energy Council.

Every night, those complexities take a front-and-center role in
televised commercials that are bombarding Mainers with the message
that “Question 3 is a risk that Mainers can’t afford — ever.”
Those commercials come from Maine Affordable Energy Coalition, an
anti-Pine Tree Power effort that is funded by CMP’s parent company,
Avangrid.

So far, according to state ethics disclosures, Avangrid has
contributed more than $18 million to oppose Question 3, and Enmax, the
parent company of Versant, has contributed $8.4 million to its
no-on-three political action committee, Maine Energy Progress. Our
Power, a coalition of groups supporting Pine Tree Power, has received
$786,000 from donors, of which $30,000 came from donations of $50 or
less.

Willy Ritch, who is leading the Maine Affordable Energy Coalition
campaign for CMP, argues that the risks of a publicly owned utility
far outweigh any potential benefits.

“It would inevitably lead to years of lawsuits, bureaucratic
wrangling, and there’d be this period of time, like 10 years or 15
years or something like that, when everything would be up in the air
and the investments that we desperately need to make today to be able
to pick up more solar and hook up more wind, those investments
probably wouldn’t be made,” Ritch said.

Donald Kreis, consumer advocate for the state of New Hampshire, who
closely follows electricity policy in the region, said that’s not
necessarily the case, in part because the utilities will have heavy
incentives to put their best foot forward amid any legal battles as
they work to keep their companies alive. He said he would expect the
companies to proceed with transitions to clean energy.

“They can, should, and indeed, must continue to do everything they
otherwise would have done to plan an excellent future for those two
companies and their customers,” he said.

Supporters of Pine Tree Power, meanwhile, say any continuation of the
status quo is risky. Both utilities “use their millions in profit to
protect the system that serves them,” said Al Cleveland, Pine Tree
Power’s campaign manager. “In recent years, that has meant that
they’ve fought bills to expand clean energy.”

Cleveland pointed to CMP’s history of long delays and unexpected,
multimillion dollar charges to connect solar farms to the grid, which
led to a settlement
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last year requiring CMP to invest funds to speed up grid connections.

While Pine Tree Power has steadily gained support, it’s not clear
how the vote will play out in November.

In a recent poll, paid for by Versant’s political action campaign,
likely voters were told
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the official language of the ballot question and asked, if they had to
vote today, whether they would enact the bill in its entirety, or
oppose it. Of respondents, 54 percent of Mainers said they opposed it,
31 percent were in favor, and 15 percent were undecided. The
campaign’s supporters are undeterred, saying the polls conducted by
utility-affiliated groups are biased. So far there have not been any
independent polls on the ballot question.

Patty Kidder, a volunteer with the yes-on-three campaign who was one
of thousands served a disconnect notice by CMP this spring, said she
isn’t giving up any time soon.

“I know that there are many things contributing to climate change
that I can’t do a damn thing about,” said Kidder, of Springvale,
Maine. “But whatever we can do something about, we need to do. And
getting rid of CMP and having control over the grid and how
electricity is generated is of the utmost importance to me.”

Sabrina Shankman can be reached at [email protected]. Follow
her @shankman [[link removed]]. Aruni Soni can be
reached at [email protected]. Follow her @AruniSoni
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* Pine Tree Power vs Central Maine Power; Maine Ballot Question;
Consumer Owned Utility;
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