When Maine resident Angel Vaillancourt opened up her utility bill in late 2020, she received quite a shock. Her utility provider Central Maine Power (CMP) sent her a bill stating she owed over $4,000 and that her service was being disconnected.
“I’ve been very scared and stressed about the disconnect notice,” Vaillancourt said. “I can’t afford that.” CMP had been fined in the past for billing errors. And those were not the only problems that the company and the state’s other private utility company, Versant Power, had with their customers.
Maine, known as the Pine Tree State, ranks number one on a list of the top ten states with electrical outages. It also ranks second for the highest number of hours of electrical downtime. Both of Maine’s two private electric utilities, CMP and Versant Power, rate among the lowest in the nation in terms of customer satisfaction.
These and other factors have spurred support for a ballot initiative this November that would buy out Maine’s utility companies and replace them with a statewide, public power company named Pine Tree Power.
Currently, CMP and Versant Power distribute 97 percent of the state’s electricity. If the Pine Tree Power measure is successful, the companies would be replaced by a consumer-owned nonprofit governed by a thirteen-member board. The ripple effects of the creation of Pine Tree Power could spill into other states and localities; the odds, however, are daunting.
If the Pine Tree Power measure is successful, the companies would be replaced by a consumer-owned nonprofit.
By the end of June, the opposition had raised over $27 million to defeat the initiative while advocates had raised about $840,000, a 32-to-1 financial advantage for opponents. The opposition has also received support from large political institutions like the Maine Chamber of Commerce, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 567, and the Maine AFL-CIO.
Yet consumer and environmental groups, such as Our Power Maine, remain undeterred. They point out that in Maine, elections are not necessarily decided by the side that has the most money.
“Outspending does not necessarily ensure success. We have seen this with Sara Gideon’s race [the 2020 Democratic U.S. Senate candidate] against Susan Collins, where she had millions and millions more than [Collins]…it did not quite work out,” says Candice Fortin, the U.S. Campaigns Manager for 350.org, an environmental advocacy group.
Fortin’s view was echoed by other local activists that I spoke to.
“Folks do not like it when they can see that someone is trying to buy their vote. We plan to win with a grassroots campaign,” Lucy Hochschartner, the deputy campaign manager for Our Power Maine, tells The Progressive.
Supporters are stressing a small number of key issues to persuade voters including:
- Public power offers cheaper, more reliable service
Beyond the two private utility companies’ reliability issues, advocates claim that a nonprofit public power system would save them money because they don’t have to pay shareholders or the excessive pay packages for top executives. That money could also be invested in upgrading electrical infrastructure, increasing reliability for consumers.
“Privately owned utilities are fundamentally motivated by their own profit, not by what is best for the consumer,” Fortin explains. “This leads to outrageous bills and also shutoffs.” Supporters contrast electricity bills for the few, already-existing, consumer-owned power systems in Maine to those of the investor-owned CMP and Versant.
Our Power Maine claims that if the initiative passes, Pine Tree Power would save the average consumer over $360 per year. Currently there are nine consumer-owned utilities serving all or part of ninety-seven of Maine’s 488 communities.
- Public power systems are more eco-friendly
Advocates maintain that public power systems currently generate about 40 percent of their power from carbon-free sources. This figure is a much higher one than those of privately-owned utilities. Our Power Maine cites CMP’s past opposition to renewable energy legislation, claiming that public ownership would speed the transition away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner energy.
“The way that we are looking at utilities right now is that we believe it is a direct way of targeting the fossil fuel industry,” Fortin adds. “Returning power to the people and looking for big fights is where we can best show solutions and also resist the fossil fuel infrastructure.”
One in seven Americans is currently served by a public power utility.
- Public power would put customers first
Because voters in Maine would elect a majority of the board of directors, the Pine Tree Power Company would be more accountable. Our Power Maine is particularly hammering home the point that both the majority of CMP’s and Versant’s stocks are held by foreign investors and that the current private system vacuums money out of state.
“Just this spring…there were 94,000 disconnection notices. 10 percent of Maine households couldn’t pay,” Hochschartner notes. “And then they hiked their rates this July all while they got $187 million in profits last year. If that is not an extractive system, I just don’t know what is.”
Hochschartner also equated the gap between the two models with the difference between paying rent and paying mortgage; when you pay rent, you never gain ownership, but when you pay a mortgage, you do. “Right now, we are paying very high rent to CMP and Versant. The reason we can save money from day one [upon switching to public power] is that it is essentially moving to a low-cost mortgage,” she says.
The power industry is waging an aggressive disinformation campaign
The well-funded opposition has already aired advertisements against the initiative. They claim that there would be a huge debt incurred in buying out the private utilities, one that could only be paid off by raising electricity prices. They also argue that switching to a public utility would put union contracts at risk, and that, in general, the private sector is more efficient than “big government.”
Advocates, of course, disagree. They counter that the debt figures the private utilities cite for the costs of a public takeover are blatantly exaggerated. As for bargaining contracts, Hochschartner highlights how there are protection clauses written into the Pine Tree Power proposal that protect wages, benefits, and job security of utility workers. “CMP paid less in money to all of their workers last year than they made in profits,” she says. “This is not a company that cares abouts its workers.”
Hochschartner dismisses the idea that “big government” would be running the utility if the initiative passes. “The government won’t actually be running our power grid. The Pine Tree Power Company is a nonprofit that is separate from the government,” she says.
- The public model could spread nationwide
It’s likely that, depending on the initiative’s outcome, proposals for a public utility will sprout up in other states outside of Maine. As Fortin sees it, “This is a fight that deserves national attention. [It] will inspire more people to start taking the same measures and using the same tactics in their own communities.”
Hochschartner points out that Maine has, in recent years, passed other progressive ballot initiatives such as clean [publicly financed] elections and ranked-choice voting. The state's passage of those ballot initiatives provided the political momentum for proposals in other states.
Industry insiders, most tellingly, view the vote as a potential watershed moment that could impact their bottom line. “This is one ship they [investor-backed utilities] don’t want to see launched, because it could turn into an armada,” said Kenneth Colburn, a former consultant with the global energy firm Regulatory Assistance Project.