Crony capitalism — driven entirely by Maine Democrats and far-left ideological extremists — has corrupted Maine’s energy market, and the result is that all of Maine is poorer, less vibrant, and every Mainer is suffering.
Well, not every Mainer.
Some are growing fabulously wealthy. Namely, those “green energy” lobbyists, government hacks, and the few providers of subsidized “renewable energy” products that are actually located in Maine.
It’s a cruel irony that the very people driving the policies that are impoverishing Mainers are also the ones getting wealthy off of these green energy schemes.
Take the Maine Public Utilities Commission (MPUC).
Typically, the commission is tasked with regulating Maine’s electrical utilities.
Under Gov. Janet Mills (D), the MPUC has become stacked with Democrat hacks and far left liberals who singularly advocate intermittent, unreliable, and expensive power sources like wind and solar.
Phil Bartlett, the former chair of the Maine Democratic Party, received compensation worth $182,913 last year.
When he’s done with his, er, public service, he can of course look forward to landing a cushy crony job with some wind power company or a solar panel lobbying group.
No one on that commission makes less than $170,000 per year. Expensive rubber stamps Democrat crony capitalism.
Next up is Dan Burgess, the head of the “Governor’s Energy Office”, a position that earned him a comp package worth more than $157k last year.
A true payroll patriot, Burgess’s resume includes government jobs in Massachusetts and government jobs in Maine.
Burgess has a well-paid staff of 15 bureaucrats who have devoted the last five years almost exclusively to the off-shore wind boondoggle and cockamamie solar schemes that will end up costing Mainers more than $220 million per year by 2025.
UMaine Professor Habib J. Dagher, the chief scientific advocate for offshore wind, earned the highest total salary in the UMaine system in 2022, with earnings of $594,172.
All of these hack salaries may be based on political connections and loyalty to the Democrat Party and green ideology, but at least the money is staying in Maine.
Sadly, the same cannot be said for the vast majority of the profits reaped through Maine Democrats’ green energy scams.
MPUC records show that 88 percent of all registered solar projects paid for through the insidious solar tax are located outside of Maine.
Simply put, out-of-state developers and financial companies have identified their mark, and Democrat-backed policies have allowed them to ruthlessly exploit working class Mainers and small business owners.
Wind power, too, is going to send Mainers’ money out-of-state, and even overseas.
The proposed King Pine Wind Project in Aroostook County is backed by Longroad Energy, a company that’s 92 percent owned by foreign investors, including New Zealand’s pension fund.
The top candidates for the multi-billion dollar offshore wind project will all be European companies.
Why are Democratic policymakers so invested — literally and metaphorically — in ludicrous schemes that make the vast majority of Mainers poorer?
Climate change. Global warming. Or whatever Al Gore’s latest idiot-bait is. For sure, some of them are religious zealots who have convinced themselves that humans are a disease from which Mother Earth must be protected.
But even the true believers can never really articulate how hiking Mainers taxes and energy rates by hundreds of millions of dollars will translate into absolving Mainers of their climate sins.
Even the really committed global warming fanatics cannot say with any certainty, or with any backing from rigorous science, how Maine plowing billions of dollars into off-shore wind and solar panels will mitigate global warming one iota.
The truth is these insidious, harmful policies won’t have any benefits for the climate — especially not as the developing world continues to build out coal-fired power plants at an impressive rate.
Instead, we’re setting ourselves up to have a bunch of new crises down the road.
The solar panels — many of them made with the help of Uyghur slave labor in China — use per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). What a wonderful thing to blanket Maine’s farmland with!
The wind turbines have, at best, a 20-30 year lifespan. Out in the Gulf of Maine, that service life will likely be much, much shorter. Will the green energy tycoons growing rich off these projects be around to help remediate PFAS-poisoned soil? Or stop heavy metals in wind turbines from leeching into the Gulf?
Most likely, the profiteers from this crony capitalism will pay about the same price as the owners of Maine’s river-poisoning mills.
That is to say, no penalty at all.
Both wind and solar are intermittent and unreliable — which is a really stupid power source to support at the same time you’re looking to increase the use of electric heat-pumps and electric vehicles.
Sorry about those rolling blackouts in the middle of January, Grandma, but Janet and her crew of sycophants thought they could change the weather…
Just as Mainers now suffer the financial burden of the liberal climate cult’s crony capitalism, our children and grandchildren will bear the burden of imprudent attempts to centrally plan Maine’s energy grid.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="28792 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=28792">12 Comments
Just following the corruption at the Federal level. The Democrats do not want America to be great, just corrupt.
“Even the really committed global warming fanatics cannot say with any certainty, or with any backing from rigorous science, how Maine plowing billions of dollars into off-shore wind and solar panels will mitigate global warming one iota.”
That’s because it won’t make one damned bit of difference. It is all a scam. Sad part is so many by the lie
Bend over and take it as we watch the scum corrupt democrats steal out tax dollars and destroy our state and planet with their “green” b.s. money laundering scheme
Please do not give in to the left by using the term “crony capitalism!” There is nothing “capitalist” about it. It is fascism or at best corporatism. The other term denigrate capitalism which is the goal of the left.
594,172 for a professor at UMaine. Not Harvard, Princeton, MIT oc CalTech mind you but UMaine. Still wondering what’s driving college costs and student loan debt?
When I heard 8.6 million dollars for seventeen EV charging stations with a total of fifty two plugs I choked .The Augusta Crowd bragged that the federal government will pay 5.6 million of the cost . Simple math ( no longer taught in schools ) says that my Maine taxes paid 3 million and my federal taxes paid the rest . Those are pretty pricey plugs . I wonder who will get THAT contract .
Who’s going to maintain them ? Who’s going to service them ? Who’s going to plow them in the winter ? The Maine Taxpayers .
But as our children are being taught , we are saving the planet from extinction
Well that explains the constant approval of rate hikes.
Electricity is getting so expensive lots of us are going to be sitting in the dark after 4 on winter nights.
A Mills’ appointed PUC Commissioner has recused herself from the Northern Maine Renewables Energy Development Program because she worked for Daymark, the company that offered an opinion that the King Pines Wind Project would benefit Maine.
The same Commissioner participates in the Net Energy Billing scam.
Another PUC Commissioner maintains that solar and wind projects suppress the wholesale prices of electricity.
And the third Commissioner wrote an opinion about the LS Power/King Pines Wind Project proposal that the cost to Maine ratepayers was troublesome
It is highway robbery. The corrupt democrats are holding a gun to our heads and stealing our money. Don’t know how this is going to end but don’t think in a good place.
Suggestion: Many Maine libraries including Falmouth, of course, offer climate change lectures promoting these insane policies. It might be a good idea to attend these meetings and voice your opposition with the actual facts.
My ten year old granddaughter has been completely indoctrinated into believing the scam. She was very surprised when I told her the real truth.
Apparently they no longer teach critical thinking in school.
(I WOULD shake my head but it hurts too much from reading today’s news…. ).
most corrupt state in the country