Socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday endorsed a ballot question campaign that would in theory force the owners of Maine’s largest electrical utilities to sell their Maine-based assets to the state.
“Power belongs in the hands of the people, not greedy corporations,” Sanders said in a statement.
“Fortunately, Mainers have a rare chance to take control of an important part of their daily lives,” he said. “I’m proud to support the Pine Tree Power campaign, and I urge Mainers to support it as well.”
The Pine Tree Power campaign would require the state to come up with a plan to force Avangrid, the parent company of Central Maine Power (CMP), and ENMAX Corp., the parent company of Versant Power, to sell their assets.
The question on the ballot this fall will read: “Do you want to create a new quasi-governmental owned power company governed by an elected board to acquire and operate existing electricity transmission and distribution facilities in Maine?“
The legislation related to the question would create a commission to evaluate CMP and Versant’s “fitness to serve” on the basis of customer satisfaction, reliability, subcontracting practices, and profitability.
The legislation is written in such a way that the commission members will almost certainly conclude that CMP and Versant are not fit to serve and therefore must sell their assets to the state.
After the forced sale, the state would then create a new government board to control the utilities, which Pine Tree Power supporters believe would lower the cost of electricity, spur development of renewable energy, and even make power outages less frequent.
Whether seizing the power companies’ assets is legal under Maine law is unclear. If the campaign succeeds, it will most certainly result in protracted litigation, as the utility companies have made clear they would like to keep their assets.
Backers of the Pine Tree Power scheme will also have to contend with a separate ballot question, also coming this November, that would require voter approval before any state-linked entity takes on more than $1 billion in debt.
Supporters of the plan are affiliated with various national environmental organizations, as well as the Portland chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Our Power, a political action committee formed to campaign for the “Yes” side, has been funded primarily by a wealthy family from San Francisco.
This isn’t the first time Sanders has joined forces with socialists in Maine. In 2022, he backed a local minimum wage hike campaign in Portland that ultimately failed.
Whether Sanders endorsement will help Pine Tree Power or simply galvanize moderates and conservatives against the plan is an open question.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="21150 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=21150">4 Comments
“Power belongs in the hands of the people, not greedy corporations,” Sanders said in a statement [except for those corporations that donate money to him].
So, how is it that a life-long public servant who never made it in the private sector has three homes? Being a socialist for decades apparently worked for him as it does for sooooo many others political hacks.
Ya, I am going to listen to a guy who used to write porn for a living. The roads belong go the people, how do they look, all in great shape, how about those public schools, think your children are learning anything worthwhile, compared to private school? Think the people who are “elected” to run the utility will have Maine’s best interest in mind or just more crazy ideas. A couple things I can guarantee is, that service will be worse, prices will go up.
This is a terrible idea brought to you by the same people responsible for our high rates now, Net Metering, just saying.
all these people want is power of all of US, PERIOD! if they get it, we will see devastating increases to our bulls and alot more outages. they want us to be like California . and I, for one, do NOT ! LOOK AROUND PORTLAND , ARE YOU ALL HAPPY WITH WHAT THEIR DOING TO THAT ONCE REALLY NICE PLACE TO LIVE !???? GO LOOK AROUND, IT FRIGGN GROSS. THATS WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF WE LET THESE SCUM MARXIST HAVE POWER
Anything the government runs always ends up in a disaster. Renewable power doesn’t provide base load energy more than 16 % of the time. No one has shown me the receipts on how this is profitable for an electric company to be investing in. Or how it will save consumers any money. If it wasn’t for the government subsidies power companies wouldn’t invest in Renewables.
It’s getting woke and going broke.