By Michael Shepherd - Aug. 12, 2022
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📷 Central Maine Power utility lines are shown in Pownal on Oct. 6, 2021. (AP photo by Robert F. Bukaty)

Good morning from Augusta. There are 88 days until Maine's November elections.

What we're watching today

Politically unpalatable rate-hike requests give the governor and her rival a stage to stake out differences. Maine's two biggest utilities are asking for electric rate hikes during a midterm election year marked by high inflation and costs. Do I really need to tell you how that landed in Augusta? This is supposed to be a newsletter, so I will. Poorly.

When Central Maine Power Co. released their proposal to raise distribution rates to cover costs of a $570 million reliability plan in May, Gov. Janet Mills and her rival in the 2022 election, former Gov. Paul LePage, jumped to oppose it. This month, Versant Power proposed an average $10.50 monthly increase that would start next July and was quickly opposed by Mills as well.

The Democratic governor's energy office started the formal process of opposing the CMP rate hike proposal on Thursday, as did the office of Public Advocate William Harwood, who was formerly an energy adviser to Mills before she picked him as the ratepayer watchdog. It will now play out before Maine's utility regulator, which is charged with deciding on the request.

Mills couched this as one of a handful of actions from her administration that are aimed at reducing costs. LePage, a Republican, fought back against the Friday flurry of messaging by accusing Mills of "hypocrisy" by not adopting his longstanding wish list of major energy overhauls.

One of those is the 100-megawatt cap on hydropower projects that can fall under Maine's renewable power standard. LePage has pushed to overturn this 2009 policy for roughly a decade in hope of benefiting from cheap power from big Canadian installations, but Democrats and the renewable industry have fought to preserve it fearing that power would crowd out smaller developers.

LePage has a new goal of repealing the key policy that has driven Maine's solar boom during the Mills era but has come with a downside. Since commercial developments had to get high, subsidizing rates linked to overall energy prices under the original policy, the price rose risen sharply to nearly 21 cents per kilowatt hour this year, well over the 14 cents the power was valued at in a 2015 study. This year, the Legislature turned a Republican bill looking to kill the policy into a fix that switched mid-sized developments to cheaper, fixed-price contracts.

Stoking differences has also led to a bit of irony. In 2016, LePage inked a deal with Quebec to expand electric vehicle charging stations in tourism areas, saying it was "vital we have a plan to make Maine open to this important technological change." During her tenure, Mills has made electric vehicles a centerpiece of her climate agenda, although a 2021 report for the state said it needs more money to meet ambitious goals.

In a recent interview with the conservative Breitbart News, LePage said the only form of energy that Mills is investing in is solar, "so if people use their cars during the day, and you want to charge them at night, how you gonna charge ’em?" But electric cars run on batteries and solar remains a growing but still small part of the regional energy portfolio. LePage spokesperson Brent Littlefield said his boss meant to highlight that solar is a poor baseload source.

Tradeoffs between cheaper prices now and the long-term benefits of fueling renewables mark virtually all energy debates. The former governor would need to win the election with solid Republican majorities to make these changes, as his longtime struggle with the renewable cap shows. But the hot topic of energy provides a way for LePage to create differences with Mills during the campaign season.

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What we're reading

— The governor's race drove staggering projections that Maine will see $127 million in political advertising during the 2022 election cycle.

— Maine's three COVID-19 aid fraud cases stand out for their small size, with the U.S. attorney's office only prosecuting $300,000 in alleged fraud so far.

— A district attorney will not bring charges against corrections officers involved in high-profile use-of-force incidents at the state's youth prison last summer.

— A shuttered Hampden waste facility has officially been purchased by a group of more than 100 Maine communities planning to restart it.

— The restoration of the USS Sequoia, which served as the official yacht for eight presidents, is expected to begin soon in Belfast, where the 1925 vessel is being stored under plastic in a prominent waterfront location.

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News and notes

📷 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, arrives to attend a bill signing event at the White House on Wednesday in Washington. (AP photo by Evan Vucci)

The House is expected to pass Democrats' tax, climate and health care bill on Friday.

— House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, looks to have the votes to push the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act through the chamber.

— U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from the 1st District, was an immediate yes on the measure. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from the 2nd District, looks set to vote in favor after praising the measure for health care changes and deficit reduction, but he has made no commitments so far.

— Golden's Republican opponent, former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, opposes the package, saying the House should not approve a tax increase. (The bill would raise taxes on large corporations and high earners.)

A Bangor Daily News alum shared in a big national journalism award.

— Former BDN political reporter Jessica Piper, now of Politico, shared the 2022 Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting for "The Hidden Bill for Foster Care," a series she contributed to as an NPR intern.

— We always knew the kid was going places. Here's your soundtrack.

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