We’ve been hearing the phrase “Clean Energy Matters” a lot lately, and it does matter – but not to Central Maine Power. Don’t be fooled by high-price marketing campaigns. The corridor will not supply green energy, and CMP knows it.

In 2019, then-Sen. Brownie Carson introduced L.D. 640 – To Require A Study of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions from the Proposed Central Maine Power Company Transmission Corridor. The bill would have required CMP to prove that their proposed corridor through Maine’s wilderness would reduce greenhouse gases. CMP paid $250,000 to lobby against the bill. L.D .640 passed both the House and Senate. It was vetoed by Gov. Mills.

CMP opposed this study knowing it would reveal that the corridor will not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. At a March 2019 Wiscasset Select Board meeting, CMP spokesperson John Carroll, when asked about the corridor’s role in combating climate change, said that although CMP expected the corridor to make a difference in reducing emissions, they wouldn’t guarantee it. “That’s not our job. That’s not our business,” he said.

Why did CMP spend a quarter million dollars to stop this study if the corridor is truly a green-energy project?

CMP has been lobbying against solar and other small-scale renewable-energy projects for years. And now they claim that a long-distance power line (which is highly profitable for CMP) is the clean-energy answer?

I am dubious. I am putting my faith in local people and local initiatives, not CMP.

I am voting “yes” to reject the CMP corridor in November.

Amy Partridge-Barber
Cape Elizabeth

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