Opinion: Reliable, green, affordable energy is possible in Maine—as soon as we demand it

“When are we gonna find Osama bin Laden?”

“Soon as we want to.”

That was what one comedian said (I wish I could remember his name) as part of his standup routine a few years after the tragedy of 9/11 and a few years before our Special Forces “found” Osama bin Laden. The comedian’s point: we’d find bin Laden when we tried hard enough. Or when we decided we wanted to…

And so it is with Maine’s electricity. We’ll have affordable, reliable, environmentally-friendly electrical power as soon as we want it bad enough. How bad do we want it?

If we want our electricity bills to balloon out of sight; if we want to funnel every stray cent in our pockets to corporate shareholders; if we want to give foreign governments a chokehold on an essential American public good; if we want renewable energy projects and high-speed internet projects to be delayed and blocked at every turn; if we want Central Maine Power and Versant to tell the Public Utilities Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Environmental Protection, and all the rest of our government what to do; if we want the worst electrical reliability in the entire United States — then we should keep CMP and Versant right where they are.

Maybe we Mainers enjoy highway robbery, corruption, and multinational corporate tyranny.

If not — then a consumer-owned utility, like Pine Tree Power, would be a step toward electrical democracy.

And here I’d better explain the main differences between Central Maine Power, a privately-owned, corporate public utility, and Pine Tree Power, the proposed consumer-owned utility.

CMP is a publicly-traded corporate utility supplying a public necessity: electricity. CMP has shareholders — in CMP’s case, a Spanish corporate shareholder named Iberdrola — for whom CMP is supposed to maximize profits. CMP’s primary corporate mandate is not to deliver electricity, but to maximize profits. Same with Versant. Versant has to maximize profits for its owner, the city of Calgary, Canada. The electricity CMP and Versant provide is really just a means toward the end of maximizing profits. CMP and Versant are driven implacably, inexorably, unrelentingly, toward this one end.  And now we can begin to understand their poor service, their ever-rising electricity rates, their hostility to clean-energy competition, and all the rest of it.

Here’s the great journalist and profound social commentator Lincoln Steffens reporting on the connivance of corporate public utilities — in this case, railroads:

“…You cannot run a railroad without corrupting and controlling government…either the State own and operate the railroads and other public utilities (my italics) or these public corporations will ‘own’ and govern that State. C.P. Huntington, one of the Big Four who built the old Central Pacific Railroad…said: ‘So they are going to regulate the railroads, eh? Well, then, the railroads must regulate the regulators.’ And he went after, and he got finally, the railroad commission. But his word was ‘must’; he ‘had to’ do it; a railroad must govern, somehow, the State or the commission that otherwise would govern the railroad.”

So it must be, Lincoln Steffens said — not just with railroads, but with all corporate public utilities. Steffens reported on it all, and he foresaw it all — the political connivance, the price gouging, and all the rest of it — driven as corporate public utilities are by that implacable profit motive. There it all is, on page 565 of the second volume of Lincoln Steffens’s autobiography, written in 1931, nearly 100 years ago.

However, Pine Tree Power — the proposed consumer-owned electric utility — would have no such relentless mandate to maximize profits. It would not be managed to siphon off profits for shareholders, foreign or otherwise. Being a consumer-owned utility, it would be controlled and managed for the benefit of its customers: the ratepayers of Maine. It would be overseen by the Pine Tree Power Company Board, consisting of four expert advisors and seven elected advisors — Mainers elected to the board by the People of Maine — thereby keeping the foxes out of the henhouse.

Speaking of foxes and other vermin: Pine Tree Power would eject CMP and Versant’s top executives. But all other CMP and Versant workers would stay on, keeping their jobs, contracts, and pensions. Pine Tree Power, by design, would give us Mainers cheaper, more reliable, and ultimately cleaner electricity.

The choice is ours. It all comes down to our political will, and our national character.

We Mainers pride ourselves on our rugged independence. Well then, do we prefer highway robbery, corruption, and multinational corporate tyranny? Or do we dare take a step toward electrical democracy? And how bad do we want it?

Mainers are gathering signatures right now for a referendum to put just this choice before us.

If we gather enough signatures, we’ll have a choice next November.

Photo: Allagash Brewing Company, Facebook