Override Mills’ veto on foreign interference

Recently, I received an email from Congresswoman Chellie Pingree about Maine’s beloved Acadia National Park and her work to improve and enhance it. Acadia is a wonderful place, no question about it, but I would ask that she (and the rest of the federal delegation) turn their attention to the decimation proposed and supported by Gov. Mills in regards to the Central Maine Power corridor through the largest uninterrupted forest east of the Mississippi.

This project is undoubtedly a federal issue, as it crosses an international boundary and all New England state boundaries. Approval of this project makes Maine complicit in the displacement of many Indigenous people in Canada, moves 18 billion American dollars to Canada, Spain, and Qatar via Avangrid, Iberdrola, and Hydro-Quebec, warms the gulf of Maine, and imperils the energy security of New England. All because Massachusetts thought it was a good idea.

With her recent veto of L.D. 194, Gov. Mills has thrown the efforts of thousands of Maine veterans, and veterans from all states, under the bus by preserving the Maine constitutional loophole allowing foreign government-owned businesses to compete with Maine citizens in referendums, while our federal delegation remains silent. Our federal delegation can, and should, be vocal in this travesty being forced upon Maine’s western mountains, a gem certainly equal to Acadia.

It is time for our lawmakers, at every level, to stand up for the people of Maine and override this poorly defended veto. While this will curtail the efforts of Hydro-Quebec’s promotion of the project, the issue is much larger. What foreign government, owning a business, would you like to be next in competition with your referendum rights? Good projects sell themselves. It is action like the governor’s, and a blind eye from Washington, that secures my yes vote to reject the corridor this November.

Bob Haynes

Skowhegan