Who Does “Public Advocate” Heather Sanborn Really Represent?

On her second day as Maine’s new public advocate – the official responsible for representing the interests of low-income ratepayers before Maine’s Public Utilities Commission – Heather Sanborn gave an interview to the Portland Press Herald which read like a full-throated defense of Maine’s controversial net energy billing (NEB) policy.

NEB is a system which provides participating ratepayers with credits to their electricity bill when they use private or shared renewable energy sources, like solar. Ratepayers who do not participate in NEB effectively foot the bill through higher rates charged to them by Central Maine Power and Versant to make up for the lost revenue. You can see this charge on your electricity bill, often referred to as a “public policy charge.”

On my Central Maine Power bill, for example, there’s a message at the top of the page which reads: “The average residential CMP Delivery amount includes about $15 per month in non-CMP costs to support Maine public policy initiatives including net energy billing subsidies, low-income assistance and energy efficiency.”

Regarding the state’s NEB policy, Sanborn told the Press Herald that Maine needs to “take the issue seriously,” but said she would not support “deleting words from statutes” because net energy billing has been law of the land for five years now and is even “part of the economy.”

“Deleting them is not good policy making,” Sanborn told the Press Herald.

It’s hard to grasp how Sanborn can effectively advocate for the interests of low-income ratepayers without supporting the wholesale elimination of this policy, especially when you consider the fact that her predecessor, Bill Harwood, opposed it.

In 2023, Harwood penned an op-ed in the Press Herald titled “Legislature must act now to save ratepayers from PUC solar program.” In that piece, Harwood estimated the state’s NEB policy “will soon cost ratepayers approximately $220 million per year for the next 20 years, or about $4 billion in total.”

Those costs to which Harwood referred are borne by non-participating ratepayers, including low-income Mainers and seniors on fixed incomes who simply can’t afford to install solar panels on their property or cannot participate in a community solar program.

Sanborn served in the Maine Legislature when the state’s NEB policy was passed in 2019 and voted in favor of the bill. When asked during her confirmation hearing whether she regretted that decision, Sanborn seemed to indicate she understood how NEB impacts the most disadvantaged Mainers.

“I can’t assure you that I, in the benefit of hindsight — that was five years ago, and technology has advanced, the costs of things have changed, we had COVID in between, I don’t know. And I don’t think it’s productive to sort of Monday morning quarterback things that happened five years ago,” she said.

“I do think, though, that there are lessons to be learned that we can carry forward,” Sanborn added: “and can use (these) to make sure that the lens that I view things through going forward is informed by what some of the expensive elements of the 2019 policy ended up being.”

Despite seemingly learning lessons from the mistakes of this policy, Sanborn told the Press Herald her office will testify neither for nor against a pair of bills that seek to repeal the program.

If Sanborn takes seriously her legal duty to represent the interests of low-income Mainers, her office would advocate for the full repeal of NEB. No good argument exists to support that it serves the interests of disadvantaged Mainers.

Sanborn’s recent comments to the Press Herald beg the following question: Who does she really represent? Low-income Mainers, Gov. Janet Mills’ expensive climate legacy, or the solar lobby?

[Disclosure: The Maine Wire is a project of the Maine Policy Institute.]