Maine public-power vote could shape new course for utilities

Maine residents are set to vote next week on a ballot initiative that would make the state the first with a publicly owned electric utility governed by an elected board.  

Proponents say the initiative could chart a new path forward for utilities, increasing local control of something that profoundly affects people’s lives and reducing service interruptions in Maine, which leads the nation in frequency of power outages.

Detractors, meanwhile, say it would be prohibitively expensive.  

The ballot initiative, Question 3, would allow for “a new power company governed by an elected board to acquire and operate existing for-profit electricity transmission and distribution facilities in Maine.”   

Maine’s electricity is provided by two investor-owned utilities, Central Maine Power (CMP) and Versant Power. The push for a public utility was fueled by frustration with those two utilities, which cover 97 percent of Mainers, said Lucy Hochschartner, a spokesperson for the campaign.  

The cost of electrical service, in combination with the frequency of outages, “has all really been frustrating to people on the ground,” Hochschartner told The Hill.  

But while state-specific frustrations fueled the initiative, she said “the people of Maine are really deciding on whether to move to a fundamentally different kind of utility.” 

The idea of moving toward public ownership of electric utilities is already being explored elsewhere, although at a municipal rather than statewide level. The Rochester, N.Y., city council voted in June to study the logistics of a public power campaign, while San Diego committed up to $3 million for the same purpose in 2022.  

“These investor-owned models aren’t working anywhere in the country,” Hochschartner said. “At its heart, this is about whether, [as] we are setting up this public good, electricity, do we want that crucial system to be in the hands of corps whose job is to extract as much money as possible? I think that has an appeal across the country.”  

The ballot initiative is the second attempt at creating a consumer-owned utility in Maine. The state Legislature earlier voted to create the proposed public company, Pine Tree Power, in 2021, but Gov. Janet Mills (D) vetoed the measure, calling the existing utilities’ performance “abysmal” but criticizing the bill as “a patchwork of political promises rather than a methodical reformation of Maine’s complicated electrical transmission and distribution system.”  

After that veto, Hochschartner said, the campaign began gathering signatures the following year to get the question on the ballot in 2023. They ultimately secured 69,735 signatures, according to Maine’s Department of State.  

Mills has been one of the highest-profile opponents of the Pine Tree Power ballot initiative as well, telling Maine ABC affiliate WMTW it would be “a huge gamble.”  

The state’s two senators, Angus King (I) and Susan Collins (R), have stayed out of the fight, with King’s office telling The Hill he considers it a state issue. But Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), perhaps the New England figure with the highest national profile, has backed Question 3.   

“Power belongs in the hands of the people, not greedy corporations,” Sanders said in a statement in July. “Fortunately, Mainers have a rare chance to take control of an important part of their daily lives. Instead of a private power system that last year sent $187 million in profits out of the country, Mainers can have cheaper, more reliable power – and help fight climate change at the same time.”  

Proponents of public utilities ownership have argued that investor-owned utilities frequently end up in scenarios in which they must choose between profit and addressing climate change, and opt for the former.  

“The incentive structure for private utilities was designed to encourage them to build as much infrastructure as possible,” Amber Ruther, an organizing coordinator with the Alliance for a Green Economy who was then testifying in her capacity as a member of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, testified before the New York Legislature in 2019. “But now that incentive structure is obsolete and it’s preventing us from achieving our climate goals.”  

Opponents, meanwhile, argue that if ratepayers are concerned about cost, shifting to public utility ownership would be a move in the wrong direction. 

Willy Ritch, executive director of Maine Affordable Energy, told The Hill the three main marks against the idea are its cost, the years of legal red tape involved in implementing it and the prospect of a new system of bureaucracy with no experience running an electrical grid.  

“If you waved a magic wand and made all those problems disappear except for the cost, the cost would still be insurmountable,” Ritch said. 

To start with, he said, in order to transition to a publicly owned utility the state would have to buy out the existing utilities. Maine Affordable Energy estimates this would cost about $13.5 billion, while proponents of the initiative estimate the cost at around $5 billion.  

“That’s $500 million a year in interest payments alone, [which is] two and a half times the profit of the current investor-owned utilities,” Ritch said of the Maine Affordable Energy estimate, adding that would be on top of the cost of paying a private third-party company to run the grid.

Ritch also expressed concerns that setting up Pine Tree Power at all could involve years of legal and regulatory purgatory. “The … thing I hear most frequently is how long this would take, how long would this be tied up in court, how long would the legal maneuvering take,” he said. He noted that the state’s public advocate has said it could be tied up in litigation for 5 to 10 years, while Mills has suggested it could take decades.  

Less than a week out, it’s unclear which way the vote will ultimately go. Versant and CMP have outspent Pine Tree Power proponents 35 to 1 on advertising, and an Oct. 26 poll from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center showed 56 percent plan to vote against the measure.   

Hochschartner told The Hill that whichever way the vote goes, the campaign tapped into widespread public dissatisfaction with utilities, which will be the backbone of future advocacy.  

“In the event that Question 3 does not pass, we know that it will have been due to overwhelming political spending by our very own utilities,” she said in a text message. “[Our movement] will remain committed to finding solutions with our communities.”