In what looks like another example of the government breaking it so it can pretend to fix it, Maine has a ballot initiative set for November “launched by a citizens group called Our Power.”
Supporters want to buy out the assets of Central Maine Power (CMP) and Versant Power – which distribute 97% of the state’s electricity – and replace them with Pine Tree Power, a new, not-for-profit distribution utility.
Customers are reportedly unhappy with the high cost of electricity and the poor service during outages. If anyone thinks socializing the state’s power companies will improve that, I have some cheap vodka, a hammer, and a sickle to sell you.
And this isn’t some local municipality grabbing the reins; we’re talking about the entire state of Maine’s electric supply and infrastructure controlled as a not-for-profit collective committed to a faster greening of the grid and lower prices.
It won’t work.
Those two ideas are incompatible. Government interference to green the grid raised prices and manufactured this unhappy ratepayers crisis. The government broke it, and the communists say they can fix it.
Big Utility is, naturally, spending a small fortune to stop it. They are a business and make money, and the folks behind it want to keep making money.
Takeovers are rare, and usually involve cities, a process called municipalization. Since 2000, more than 60 communities have considered municipalization, but only nine proceeded, according to a 2019 study for the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities.
The fight in Maine is unprecedented in scope and potential losses. In smaller takeover battles, incumbent utilities lost a share of their business. In Maine, CMP and Versant are threatened with going out of business.
And money has poured into the battle but not always into the hands you’d expect. The Guardian reports that Democrats are being paid to stop the ballot initiative, including “$5m to a Democratic media and political strategy firm called Left Hook that regularly works with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and is staffed with Obama administration alumni.”
Obama alumni are taking paydays to prevent the socialization of Maine’s electricity. Strange bedfellows, indeed.
And what would Mainers get if the initiative succeeds?
The proposal for the new plan would create an elected 13-member board made up of a mix of residents from across the state and designated experts. The board would hire a private grid operator chosen through a competitive bidding process.
All in the advertised name of lower rates, but the plan is still handicapped. Pine Tree Power is focused on more green energy. That will cost them and not just in price. Reliability is a problem, and we can look to Germany for the solution. Burn more coal. And even then, people will be running gas generators and burning a lot of pine trees to keep from freezing to death in February.
The last time I checked, it wasn’t green but cheaper.
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