Alert - A Bill to Rubber Stamp the Northern Maine Transmission Infrastructure has been submitted

LD 596 - Resolve, to Provide Legislative Approval of Northern Maine Transmission Infrastructure

Senator Lawrence and Representative Sachs, the Chair and Co-Chair of the Energy, Utilities, and Technology Committee, have submitted a bill that would give Legislative approval to the construction of a high voltage transmission line. This approval is required in Maine statute Title 35-A, section 3132, subsection 6-C, which reads:

In addition to obtaining a certificate of public convenience and necessity, a high-impact electric transmission line may not be constructed anywhere in the State without first obtaining the approval of the Legislature, …

This bill would give the required Legislative approval. It’s a rubber stamp on a project that has no details.

How do you give Legislative approval to something you know nothing about??
The PUC has not yet issued an RFP for this project.
There are no plan details, but Senator Lawrence and Representative Sachs want to approve a project without any details.
If this bill passes, our ability to effectively change any plan is limited.

The bill was just printed and sent to the EUT committee yesterday. As far as I’m able to tell, it has not yet been scheduled for a public hearing. You can access the bill here. Please contact your legislators and tell them about this bill. Begin preparing your testimony against this bill. I’ll let you know as soon as I learn more.

In case you don’t remember, part of the anger and outcry against the route for the Northern Maine Renewable Energy Transmission Line that was proposed by LS Power, was that LS Power stated in a public hearing that they didn’t have a planned route and needed the Legislature to approve the line before moving forward. Only days after that approval was signed into law, LS Power published the route. Legislators were justifiably angry. That approval put the land of hundreds of rural Mainers on course to have a 345,000 volt transmission line constructed over their homes, farms, and fields. The result of that proposed project is the founding of Preserve Rural Maine, a nonprofit group run entirely by volunteers, this substack, and a Facebook group with over 1,100 members. I encourage you to join Preserve Rural Maine - membership is free. United, we make a difference.