Gov. Paul LePage and lawmakers recently proposed that the Efficiency Maine Trust program should be restructured.

Under the proposal, Efficiency Maine’s budget and officials would be put under direct state control and influence. More specific impacts include using program funds to pay for electric heating systems with guaranteed loans that benefit lenders and utilities. As the recent past suggests, however, Efficiency Maine also could become Maine’s piggy bank for oil-heating crises and virtually anything else deemed appropriate.

A recent Brookings report showed that ratepayer surcharges generated $4.4 billion for 20 different state Energy Efficiency programs in 2009, which is projected to grow to as much as $11 billion by 2015.

Efficiency Maine spent $23 million in 2011 and estimates that its efforts have saved the state $128 million in energy costs as a result.

If this kind of funding is allowed to stray too far from its intention of promoting energy conservation then we will have effectively given up an obvious historic opportunity to divert billions in energy waste to other worthy pursuits.

Efficiency Maine isn’t a piggy bank for governors or legislators to raid when they cannot find other sources of funds. That waste and fraud have been found in governmental and non-governmental agencies recently is not a license to start turning all independent programs over to state control.

Efficiency Maine should not tax ratepayers to serve narrow political interests. Maine, like the nation, needs and will benefit most from a long-term energy plan that does not change with each election cycle.

The proposed changes open the door to letting special interests take advantage of our energy funds or, worse, use them in ways that do not promote energy conservation at all. One should seriously question the necessity and purpose of this proposal.

Matt Hopkins

Manchester