A Ratepayer Bill of Rights for Maine Families

If you live in Maine, you don’t need a chart or a study to know our energy system isn’t delivering for families or small businesses.

You feel it every time you open your electric bill.
You feel it when you’re deciding whether to turn the heat up or put on another layer.
You feel it when costs keep rising, but reliability doesn’t.

The truth is simple: Mainers are paying too much for energy, and it doesn’t have to be this way.

Over the past decade, Maine’s retail electricity prices have risen faster than most of the country. They’re rising again in 2026. At the same time, clean energy projects that could lower costs and improve reliability are stuck in delay, tangled in outdated rules, or under political attack.

The system has let us down. And it’s time to think differently.

That’s why I’m proposing a Maine Bill Payers’ Bill of Rights. A clear commitment to put Maine families first, lower costs, improve reliability, and make sure our energy system actually works for the people who pay for it.

Why this matters to me

I’ve spent my life working on energy solutions here in Maine and around the world. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t.

As the founder and former president of Peaks Renewables, I worked inside a gas utility to build clean energy projects that created clean energy and cut emissions without adding costs to Maine families. One of those projects was a digester in Clinton that turns cow manure into renewable energy. It heats homes, creates jobs, and lowers emissions.

It wasn’t easy. At times it meant literally shoveling manure all night to keep things going. But we didn’t accept “that’s how it’s always been done” as an answer. We found a better way.

That experience taught me something important: when we’re willing to work hard, bring people together, innovate, and hold people accountable, we can deliver real results.

Maine needs that same approach now.

A Ratepayer Bill of Rights

Under my administration as governor, Maine families will have six core rights:

The Right to Lower Costs
We should not be paying six times more for new energy projects than other countries. By streamlining regulatory and permitting processes, we can bring clean energy like wind and solar online faster, at lower cost, while still protecting our natural environment.

The Right to Fairness
No free ride for data centers. If data centers want to come to Maine, they should pay for the increased demand they place on our grid, not pass those costs on to families and small businesses.

The Right to Efficiency
Before we build expensive new infrastructure, utilities must use the grid we already have as efficiently as possible. Grid-enhancing technologies and other innovations can increase capacity by up to 30 percent at a fraction of the cost, saving ratepayers millions.

The Right to Accountability
Today, the incentive for utilities is to build more and raise rates. Let’s change that incentive so that they focus on lowering costs first. Performance-based rates should be expanded so incentives align with what Maine families actually need, which is a more reliable and lower cost grid.

The Right to a Better Deal
Maine deserves energy agreements that benefit our state and Maine people. We have to make sure that future programs and policies lower costs here, create jobs here, and strengthen reliability here. Maine has some of the best potential energy resources in New England in the form of wind in the north, and we need to make sure it’s built in a way that helps all of us.

The Right to a New Plan of Action
Energy policy must be coordinated, up to date, and focused on real outcomes. That means aligning affordability, reliability, and clean energy goals with the system we have, and delivering results families can count on.

The long and short of it is: energy should be cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable. That’s not a Democratic idea or a Republican idea. It’s a Maine idea.

I believe we can still do big things in this state. I believe we can build a better energy system. And I believe we can do it, because I’ve brought people — regulators, utilities, consumers, builders — together before to help create our energy future. It’s not easy, but I know it’s possible.

If you believe that too, I hope you’ll stand with me.

Chip in to build a better Maine

Your support helps us keep sharing this vision, organizing across the state, and making sure Maine families come first.

Let’s get to work.

— Angus