I am not going to say "I told you so," but I did tell you so. As an attorney representing community residents, I fought every one of these projects in front of the BEP and, for some, in court. We lost every case because at that time the state was all hot on how wonderful these projects are! And the counties were at best complicit. None of them fought side by side with their residents against these projects. Now the cash is decreasing and, in my opinion, will disappear completely in a few years. What is not mentioned in this excellent article, is the fact that most of them were not required to have a decommissioning escrow fund set up. So as they become obsolete they could in fact be abandoned by the owners, who seem to have a penchant for "going out of business" (probably bankruptcy to avoid debt) and then creating a new entity to sell the project to at a bargain basement rate. Oh, and Stacey Fitts, Maine asset manager for Onward, the one that screwed Somerset County, was in the legislature at the time of the surge of these companies' ascendancy, and on the Energy and Utilities Committee the whole time. While I recognize the urgency of addressing climate change, I truly think we should try to do it without putting billions of dollars into a bunch of companies that will eventually show their true colors. So, as we move into offshore wind, let's please keep this in mind.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

 As anyone who how knows me is aware of, I am NOT a late night person. But I was pleased and honored last night to stay up until about 2 am to help pass the Maine Supplemental Budget at the Augusta Civic Center, which passed unanimously less one vote. It had to pass by a 2/3 majority in order to qualify as an emergency and go into effect immediately. In short, the supplemental is an adjustment to the 2020-2021 budget, which is passed in order to make adjustments to the original budget that reflects situations that arose subsequent to passing that budget last year. The major situation that had to be addressed was the financial costs of the pandemic to the people of Maine. Following is what the supplemental passed last night includes: Critical relief for 160,000 Mainers who lost their jobs due to the pandemic: The supplemental budget includes $47M to exempt unemployment benefits from state income taxes. Without this relief, Mainers who relied on unemployment benefits at some point du...
Read more
  From the Quietside Journal: State Rep. Lynne Williams... issued the following statement after QSJ reported that the federal government has weighed in on the American Aquafarms’ application for an industrial salmon farm in Frenchman Bay. “I am so pleased that Acadia National Park has come out strongly against the industrial salmon farm proposal, and brings up issues that DMR doesn’t appear to address, including scenic resources, night sky and cumulative impacts. When I heard that Secretary (Deb) Haaland was coming to Acadia, I was hoping that she would listen and understand the impacts that the proposed project would have on the Park and the Bay. Clearly she did, since sources say that the letter has her approval. Thank you Superintendent Schneider and Secretary Haaland, for protecting our Bay and our communities."
Read more
 As of today, my bill LD 1242, regarding oversight of the Maine Medical Marijuana Program has become law. The Governor had until midnight last night to veto the bill but she did not. Clearly our 117-25 vote in the House and 33-2 vote in the Senate had something to do with that, as did the bi-partisan nature of the vote.  Thank you to all of my co-sponsors and a huge thank you to Susan Meehan and Arleigh Krause who worked the legislature for weeks before the vote. Likewise, thanks to all of the caregivers who gave up days to be at the Capitol so that they could engage the legislators and talk about the program. And, of course, a huge thank you to Rep. Patrick Corey who used his legislative skills to help us get an "ought to pass" vote out of Committee, Alysia Melnick, lobbyist (in the good sense) supreme, to Mark Barnett and the Maine Craft Cannabis Association, and to Paul McCarrier who has spent much more than a decade working to protect and improve the Maine M...
Read more