Gerry Chasse, an electrical engineering graduate from the University of Maine, was president of Bangor Hydro/Emera Maine and chief operating officer of Tampa Electric Co. in Florida.

Gordon Weil’s argument for public power (“How to cut electric rates in Maine — without public power,” April 2) ignores a hard reality: Maine’s high electric rates aren’t driven by utility profits. They are driven by more than 40 years of legislative micromanagement and mismanagement.

While Weil laments the failed Pine Tree Power referendum, Maine’s small, unsophisticated public power utilities continue to largely escape the impacts of over 400 pieces of energy legislation passed since 1997, all promising to lower electric rates. 

Apparently, what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander.

Maine’s electricity rates are now over 30 cents per kilowatt-hour for CMP and Versant Power’s residential customers.  The one thing Mr. Weil and I do agree on is that they need to come down. However, blaming it on natural gas or utility profits is patently incorrect.

Our situation is 100% self-induced. The state is fully responsible for 18 of the 30 cents/kwh we pay, and the heavy increases that Mainers have seen over the past 40 years. Electricity supply, the public policy charge, the Efficiency Maine assessment, Maine’s renewable portfolio standard, the RGGI tax, the impacts of deregulation, hydro dam removal and many more make up that 18 cents.

Some are hidden in CMP’s and Versant’s rates. Some are in the Standard Offer rate. All end up on a piece of letterhead delivered to your mailbox with your utility’s name on it, while your utility hands over 60% of your payment to others whose profits are far greater than any of the state’s utilities, public or private.

Maine’s solar net billing program, the most aggressive in the country, and renewable portfolio standard add 20% to your electric rate. And they are poised to continue to increase dramatically.

The irony is that these high costs have priced out the very technologies — like heat pumps and EVs — that would reduce the most carbon and save you money.

You don’t have to take my word for it. London Economics, a well-respected company based in Boston, said, “Maine can achieve the benefits of solar generation at a much lower cost than it is currently paying.” Translation: we are paying far too much.

From costly biomass contracts in the 1980s, to deregulation in the ’90s, to wind and solar policies in the 2010s, Maine’s political leadership has driven electric rates to the third highest in the country.  A reversal in the trend requires a fix of the root cause; that is legislators and a governor who promote climate ideology rather than sound economics and physics.

I worked in Florida for nine years where the legislature created an environment for lower electric rates while utilities managed the grid and, importantly, the choices of electric supply.  The result: 15-17 cent electric rates despite heavy reliance on natural gas, excellent reliability and a natural expansion of large-scale, cost-effective solar. 

A clean transition can be done with affordability at the forefront. While Maine is a rural state, with more infrastructure supporting fewer customers than most, it’s understandable that our electric costs are above the national average of 17 cents. A reasonable and achievable target is closer to 20 cents/kwh. 

Our next governor will not have an easy task getting there, but step one is to reverse the things that got us to 30 cents. That starts with electing politicians who actually care about reliability and affordability, and ones who have enough humility to let the experts build and implement the plan to achieve it.