By Michael Shepherd - March 22, 2022 Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up.
Good morning from Augusta. The Maine Legislature returns to Augusta for floor sessions after a burst pipe thwarted them last week. Here's your soundtrack.
What we're watching today
A messy Democratic split over utility regulation is threatening one of the governor's major election-year proposals. When Gov. Janet Mills rolled out a utility accountability proposal in February, it first looked like she was uniting lawmakers across the political spectrum — from fierce critics of Central Maine Power Co. to Republicans who joined a coalition helping the utility beat back the big legislative challenges to their business. But that idea quickly faded and the Legislature's energy panel is mired in a three-way split. On Friday, five Democrats on the committee including Sen. Mark Lawrence, D-York, and Senate Majority Leader Eloise Vitelli, D-Arrowsic, backed a version worked out with the Democratic governor. It goes further than Mills' original proposal but hews closest to her vision of enshrining penalties for poor service and establishing a firmer process by which regulators could force CMP and Versant Power, the state's other big utility, to sell their assets here. Holdouts included Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, who co-chairs the panel with Lawrence and is spearheading a referendum planned for 2023 that would replace CMP and Versant Power with a consumer-owned utility. He and three other colleagues back a more aggressive version, including a major shift that would only allow utilities a 20-year monopoly before regulators must decide whether the right should be extended or if there is a better alternative. One of those two versions is most likely to advance in the Democratic-led Legislature, although four Republicans on the committee are backing a rivaling version extracting pieces they believe will increase energy costs and containing their long-standing policy goal of scrapping Maine's cap on hydropower. The electoral politics here are palpable. Facing a November challenge from former Gov. Paul LePage, Mills opened the year by taking a more aggressive tone with CMP after backing its $1 billion hydropower corridor rejected by voters in November. She vetoed Berry's consumer-owned utility proposal last year. Our Power, the political group running the referendum campaign on that issue, immediately hammered Mills' proposal and whipped testimony against it at a public hearing in February. Lawrence, who has supported the consumer-owned utility, was frustrated over the division on Tuesday, when he said Berry's version would not get past Mills' veto pen due to the major changes. He said he has been "baffled" by Our Power's position on the measure and that referendum politics are interfering. "It's just unfortunate that this debate over the consumer-owned utility has prevented us from taking collective action over to hold investor-owned utilities accountable now," Lawrence said. "The emotions have just run high and I'm very disappointed that they couldn't bring themselves to come to the table and reach an agreement on what needs to be done to achieve accountability now." Berry underscored that he was ready to negotiate on the issue, specifically singling out the 20-year franchise piece as something he was flexible on. But he defended his version as the one that would hold utilities most accountable and said lawmakers should be "honest with Maine people" about what other versions would accomplish. "Giving the [Maine Public Utilities Commission] permission to do what is already within their powers is not very meaningful," he said. "So in those parts of the bill, which is most of the bill, I don't think a lot is lost if nothing passes." The fight is now headed to the floors of the House and Senate, where the Lawrence and Berry versions will compete for Democratic votes to see which one will go to the floor first within the next three weeks. It is clear that one side has more urgency to pass something with a potential vote looming on the consumer-owned utility.
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What we're reading
— Maine's planned $850 relief payments could come faster than expected. Budget Commissioner Kirsten Figueroa told lawmakers that they could begin going out in June if approved by the Legislature, a month earlier than initially stated. Legislative Republicans want money to go out quicker and by direct deposit, something Figueroa said may work for many people but could come with some logistical hurdles. — Advocates are worried that a new plan to shift a state special education program for young children to school districts would make the change too quickly. Mills is the third consecutive governor to suggest such a shift, but familiar problems and a short legislative schedule are getting in the way. — Maine's elver market could be in jeopardy due to COVID-19 lockdowns in China. Demand looks steady entering the 11-week season for the valuable baby eels. They are shipped live and raised into adulthood in China before entering the Japanese seafood market, so risks of delayed shipments are high.
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Follow along today
10 a.m. The House and Senate are in. The calendars are getting long with Democratic bills that came divided along party lines out of committees. Potentially up for votes today in the House are bills that would allow students at Maine universities and colleges to access transcripts despite smaller amounts of institutional debt, a permissive bill allowing Maine college athletes to make money on their image and allowing cities and towns to use ranked-choice voting in local elections. Watch here. The Senate could consider two election law overhauls and a bill aimed at fighting a tactic big-box stores use to lower property taxes. Watch here. 1 p.m. Theenergy committee will meet after the session to go over language of recently advanced measures. Watch here.
