I have been involved in alternative energy since I studied architecture at MIT in the late 70s. I'm currently working with Peace Action Maine to develop the energy segment of their 2008 program - Reclaim Maine. I write personally and in my capacity as a Director of Peace Action Maine in strong opposition to LD2255 in any form. Wordsmithing will not help.

March 26, 2008

Sen. Bartlett
Rep. Bliss
Joint Standing Committee on Utilities and Energy

RE: LD 2255, An Act To Protect Maine's Energy Sovereignty...

Sen. Bartlett, Rep. Bliss and members of the Utilities and Energy Committee,

I have been involved in alternative energy since I studied architecture at MIT in the late 70s. I'm currently working with Peace Action Maine to develop the energy segment of their 2008 program - Reclaim Maine.

I write personally and in my capacity as a Director of Peace Action Maine in strong opposition to LD2255 in any form. Wordsmithing will not help.

This legislation makes matters worse

Imagine this legislation causes no direct harm. Imagine that we all get more electricity and more fossil fuel from somewhere else at a cheaper price. Imagine that we have more tourists and more miles driven, that we have more trucks going to Wal-Mart and Hannaford.

If it "works" energy supplies will be tighter. We will run out of natural resources and fossil energy that much faster. Because "working" means more energy to chew up more resources that much faster. If this bill "works", it will not increase Maine's energy security; it will leave Maine more insecure and poorer - the forests stripped and chipped - the rivers sterile.

"The first rule of holes;" Molly Ivins wrote, "When you're in one, stop digging."

Our current economic paradigm - our values and beliefs - is the direct cause of the environmental crises in which we find ourselves. The harder we work to provide more, the worse we make those crises. Virtually every solution to keep business as usual going longer makes matters worse because business as usual is creating the problem.

We don't need more of what does not work; we need to change the paradigm.

This legislation is internally inconsistent

1. Commission designation. The commission may designate corridors within the State for the purposes of siting energy infrastructure if the commission finds that energy infrastructure development within the corridor is reasonably likely to be in the public interest and consistent with environmental and land use laws and rules. ^0.1

Any infrastructure that provides more energy will produce more CO2. That is true even of solar, tidal and wind unless the energy we glean from such sources goes directly to replace existing fossil energy. More energy is inconsistent with a healthy environment. That is not "reasonably likely to be in the public interest"?

2. Energy infrastructure. For purposes of this section, "energy infrastructure" includes electric transmission and distribution facilities, natural gas pipelines and other energy transport pipelines or conduits and associated appurtenances.

What are those associated appurtenances? The rivers and dams? The tidal zones? A never ending stream of coal barges going to a new CTL plant in Wiscasset? The forests and fields? The sunlight behind photosynthesis? Truckloads of wood chips. Truckloads of trash meant to be burned? Rt 95 itself? Every automobile and filling station?

This is not about "persons"

A person may petition the commission for a certificate of public convenience and necessity for authorization to develop and use energy infrastructure within a designated energy infrastructure corridor under subsection 1. The commission shall issue a certificate of public convenience and necessity if it finds that the development and use of energy infrastructure within a designated energy infrastructure corridor is in the public interest, complies with the State's environmental laws as determined by a review conducted pursuant to subsection 5 and is reasonably likely to:

A. Minimize utility rates or increase the reliability of utility service;

B. Have the net effect of reducing the release of greenhouse gases; or

C. Enhance economic development within the State.

A person may not engage in development or construction of energy infrastructure within an energy infrastructure corridor unless the person has obtained a certificate from the commission.

A person. No person in Maine is going to petition for an energy corridor. The lawyers who crafted this bill mean corporations. This legislation is meant to extract resources from Maine and its people and to put those resources and captive markets at the service of foreign and alien corporations - no domestic corporation is going to petition. The state energy plan doesn't go any further than wishful thinking about the "health of the free-market"; this legislation is about making the state more attractive to investor-owned corporations. It has been crafted to define and capture a market for corporate profit. It has been crafted in violation of any sense of law as justice or law as social norm.

A person. The lawyers who crafted this bill mean corporations. Persons are not corporations; their needs are in opposition.

Nor can the Commission play roles as both a person and the State.

A person may not - within the energy corridor - install his own energy infrastructure. It's hard to imagine the havoc that might cause, but it can't be good for munis and community alternatives.

Economic development and enviromental quality - framed as minimimally as possible in this section as "net effect of reducing the release of greenhouse gases" - are incompatible at the scale we now operate.

Energy corridor

When push comes to shove, "energy corridors" will suck resources out of the state of Maine. When natural gas runs short, it will run short not only in Maine, but nationwide. This is the dynamic playing out today in Botswana, Eastern Europe and South America - high degrees of connectivity strip communities of power.

A mom, shivering in the dark with her children, will pull out the chainsaw and take down the transmission line. Call it a "Tea Party". ^0.2

Maine will be more secure if only loosely coupled.

Private profit, socialized costs

The commission shall issue an order within 6 months after the filing of a completed petition. The commission may approve or disapprove all or portions of a proposed project within a designated energy infrastructure corridor and shall make such orders regarding the project's character, size, installation and maintenance as are necessary, having regard for any increased costs caused by the orders.

In other words, if Florida Power and Light wants to sell more power from the dams on the rivers, the State of Maine will agree to the destruction of any number of marine species and whatever portions of the web of life depend on them because it might increase costs to the corporation.

The commission may direct investor-owned transmission and distribution utilities to enter into contracts under this subsection only as agents for their customers and only in accordance with this section. For purposes of this section, long-term contracts include contracts for differences or other financial instruments intended to buffer rate payers in the State from potential negative impacts from transmission development.

This legislation dumps the potential negative impacts directly onto the people of Maine. No private operator should be allow to fiddle with financial instruments "intended to buffer rate payers in the State from potential...". The current across-the-board financial meltdown suggests stronger standards.

That you are being asked to go to this extent to maintain business as usual should run up all sorts of red flags.

8. Cost recovery. The commission shall ensure that an investor-owned transmission and distribution utility recovers in rates all costs of contracts entered into pursuant to subsection 3, including but not limited to any impacts on the utility's costs of capital. A price differential existing at any time during the term of the contract between the contract price and the prevailing market price at which the capacity resource is sold must be reflected in rates and may not be deemed to be imprudent.

10. Rules. The commission shall adopt rules to implement this section. In adopting rules, the commission shall consider the financial implications of this section on investor-owned transmission and distribution utilities.

The corporations get guarantees. The corporations are held harmless. The people of Maine get left holding the bag. The State of Maine's Energy Policy - everything depends on the free market ^0.3 - is being twisted here to socialized costs and privatize profits - by this legislation.

This does not preempt Federal action

Some suggest this preempts Federal action. The Legislature, the PUC and the Utilities Committee have already demonstrated their willingness to tolerate the most blatant federal abuse in the case of NSA and Verizon - a case involving the "paramount" interests of the State. The Governor is still sending Maine citizens to Iraq. Were the Committee or the Legislature serious about state and federal limits, they would have acted. In the case of Federal action, the State of Maine will cave.

This bill permits damage to widespread areas

Others suggest that energy corridors may somehow limit environmental damage. Ask the salmon on the Presumpscot or near Sebago. Or the eels. Or anyone downwind of Eco Maine - where everything that enters goes up the stack. ^0.4Energy corridors will only increase the efficiency with which we trash the Maine environment.

Poor and faithless Catholic that I admit to being, I agree with Cardinal Ratzinger - the current Pope - that those who promote environmental destruction commit Cardinal sin. I only wish there were a way to bring down the wrath of God in the here and now.

The new paradigm is a four letter word - LESS

"Our beliefs and the civilization we have constructed around them are the direct cause of all the crises now bearing down upon us." ^0.5

The harder we work to provide more, the worse we make those crises. Virtually every solution to keep business as usual going longer makes matters worse. Business as usual is creating the problem.

The mom with the chainsaw is right. We don't need energy corridors. It is in Maine's best interest to block existing energy corridors. To decouple from the grid. To reduce our dependence on natural gas. To return generating facilities to local ownership. To bring our footprint into alignment with the biosphere.

As Charlie Stephens of Oregon's Energy Office so eloquently puts it: a better paradigm is "LESS". We don't need ways to distribute ever more precious energy ever faster; we need to redevelop our infrastructure to use radically less energy. That is the path consistent with a healthy environment and the public interest.

Not to widen our roads, but to increase energy taxes. To enforce hard, binding, geographically bounded caps on energy use. To do it fairly so it works for Oxford Street at least as well as it works for Cumberland Foreside.

We can start now while there is still a little gas in the tank, or we can wait until the tank is empty and it is too late. That's the choice before this Committee, Legislature and Governor.

LD2255 only digs the hole deeper.

Sincerely,

/Christopher F. Miller/

Christopher F. Miller

About this document ...

This document was generated using the LaTeX2HTML translator Version 2002-2-1 (1.71)

Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, Nikos Drakos, Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds.
Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, Ross Moore, Mathematics Department, Macquarie University, Sydney.

The command line arguments were:
latex2html -split 0 -toc_stars stripped.tex

The translation was initiated by Mr. Christopher F. Miller on 2008-03-26

---

Footnotes

... rules. ^0.1

http://http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/billtexts/LD225501.asp

... Party". ^0.2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party

... market ^0.3

http://www.maineenergyinfo.com/10principles.html

... stack. ^0.4

http://www.ecomaine.org/electricgen/index.shtm

... us." ^0.5

Michael Byron, "Path Through Infinity's Rainbow", p22