Bravo to the Stop the Corridor folks. Their success in getting enough signatures is a testament to the commitment of a concerned citizenry. It gives us an opportunity to put a stop to CMP’s effort to run through Maine a powerline extension cord from the “dirty” Hydro-Quebec mega-dam projects to Massachusetts. I have been involved in numerous referenda efforts. I must say I have never witnessed such passion as in this statewide grassroots effort to stop the CMP Corridor. The fact that they collected tens of thousands of signatures in the heart of a Maine winter is phenomenal. Standing outside of Reny’s in Farmington with a clipboard in Jan. is no small task!

Now that the signatures have been submitted, the Stop the Corridor Campaign will focus on getting it enacted into law. The legislature will have the first crack at passing it. While they have shown some spine in passing previous bills to stop the corridor, all their efforts have been vetoed by Janet Mills who seems to be disconnected from the pulse of the people on this issue. I can only speculate that the Democratic Party power brokers and money folks have got her ear.

It is most probable that the legislature will decide to put it out to referendum for a vote. The campaign developing around this eventuality is intriguing. The next stage of the campaign is going to be hard fought.

In recent years we have heard a lot about foreign interference in our elections. Avangrid, the Spanish Company that owns CMP, is funding a PAC “Clean Energy Matters” in opposition to the Stop the Corridor effort. Hydro-Quebec, the Canadian mega-dam company, has also registered a PAC. We are up against big money from foreign corporations. One has to wonder why they have a right to spend millions – much of it paid by ratepayers – to determine the outcome. Is this not foreign interference?

We need to expose the disingenuous claim of these foreign corporations that this corridor is about clean energy and reducing greenhouse gases. Destroying tens of thousands of acres of carbon sequestering boreal forest, reversing the course of rivers, displacing native Canadians from traditional hunting and fishing grounds, disrupting Caribou migrations, increasing mercury contamination, and

slicing through the boreal forest and Maine Woods with massive powerline corridors, in my book, doesn’t make for “clean” energy. I call Hydro-Quebec’s mega-dam projects – Canadian Tar Sands East. These dams are huge ecological disasters.

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The energy is not clean and the huge reservoirs are producing massive amounts of greenhouse gases – mostly methane which is 30 times more impacting as a greenhouse gas.

A PAC has also been formed called, “Mainers For Local Power”. Paradoxically, it is funded by two Texas-based companies, Calpine and Vistra. Calpine owns a natural gas electricity generation plant in Westbrook, and Vistra owns one in Veazie. These out of state corporations are fighting the Corridor because they see it as a threat to their bottom line.

Politics certainly makes odd bedfellows. Fossil fuel energy generators are not “clean” either. Some studies have shown that “leakage” from the wellhead to the generators makes natural gas worst than coal as a greenhouse gas producer.

It is important for the Stop the Corridor grassroots effort to lead the way as the big out of state and foreign corporations duke it out. For those of us who understand that stopping the Corridor is not about earnings reports, but far more importantly about saving the planet from annihilation from climate change. Forests due to their huge carbon sequestration capacities are the key to mitigating the climate change extremes. They offer us a bit of hope for a future habitable planet. We need to start putting the planet in front of profit.

I have great confidence that Mainers will, in the final analysis, vote for hope by stopping this CMP Corridor. They will vote for the planet over profit.

Jonathan Carter is the director of the Forest Ecology Network and a former Green Independent candidate for governor.

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