There’s more than seven months to go till November, but already the referendum campaigns have begun, albeit quietly.

Pine Tree Power supporters highlight steep electric rate increases as a reason to replace Central Maine Power and Versant with a public-owned utility — though the increases are caused by natural gas spikes, not CMP’s distribution costs.

Referendum opponents claim taking over CMP and Versant would cost $13.5 billion, though — while undoubtedly a big number — no one can predict exactly what the price ultimately will be.

Waiting in the wings is another question, to ban “foreign interference” in Maine’s mile-a-minute referendum campaigns, which stems from Hydro-Quebec’s hapless attempts to defend its project to wheel 1,200 megawatts through Maine to Massachusetts as part of the regional effort to “decarbonize” our electric grid.

Still with us? It gets even more thrilling.

We haven’t figured out exactly what happened in November 2021, when Question 1 voters supposedly deauthorized the Hydro-Quebec project, even though it was already 43% complete, and a new 53-mile corridor largely cleared to the Canadian border with tower-building well underway.

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The “supposedly” rests with the Maine Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) which, having already knocked a 2020 referendum off the ballot as unconstitutional, ruled the 2021 version likely so on Aug. 30, 2022, but then remanded the case to the lower Superior Court, or Business Court.

In the courts’ leisurely ways, a trial to determine whether CMP and its parent company, Avangrid, acquired “vested rights” nullifying the referendum vote is scheduled for next month.

This is where things get dicey. According to a recent Maine Lawyers Review article by UMaine Law Prof. emeritus Orlando Delogu, inevitable appeals following any Business Court decision could stretch well beyond November.

That means we won’t even know if the gigantic $950 million utility project undertaken by CMP in 2020 — among the largest ever in New England — can be completed by the same company that started it, pending the Pine Tree Power result, which itself is sure to be challenged in court.

The voting public, likely confused now, may be totally bewildered if this chain of events plays out.

There’s a clear public need to resolve the 2021 referendum vote pronto. The New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC), as CMP dubbed it, received every permit and regulatory approval required, and there were a ton of them, state and federal, and in Canada, too.

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The Maine Public Utilities Commission found the project in the public interest — that it would benefit Maine ratepayers, and ultimately move the region toward its clean energy goals.

It was even more important to Massachusetts, which has the same ambitious climate goals as Maine, with less means of achieving them within its own borders, though it’s now moving offshore.

Yet NECEC was tagged as “anti-environment,” and thanks to the inept referendum defense mounted at great expense by CMP and Hydro-Quebec, the charge stuck with voters. Now, with soaring regional electric rates driven by natural gas, there are signs of buyer’s remorse.

Even so, the need for resolution outweighs the desirability of any particular outcome. Although courts do not and generally should not explain their rulings, the SJC’s course to date leaves one grasping for a coherent strategy.

The U.S. Supreme Court takes on many urgent questions, and resolves them far more expeditiously than the SJC has. It has ruled quickly on the search of the former president’s home over classified documents, migration over the U.S. border, and many others without elaborate proceedings.

The SJC itself made relatively short work of a related challenge to NECEC, when it upheld the granting of a public lands lease.

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Fortunately, as Prof. Delogu suggests, it could reclaim jurisdiction without disturbing the Business Court proceedings through direct review of the PUC’s final decision, permitted whenever “the constitutionality of any ruling or order of the commission is in issue.”

Since that portion of state law is separate from the referendum process, it would allow an expedient, even statesman-like means to rescue a case now bogged down by procedure, bringing it to a reasonably prompt resolution, probably by summer.

The blaring campaigns ads will still go on full force, and the claims and counter-claims will fly fast and furious, with voters hard-pressed to sort them out.

But at least we won’t have to worry about whether we’ll have — fairly soon — another major source of greenhouse-gas-free electricity flowing into New England, and not have to build still more wind turbines, on- and off-shore, and even more solar installations across the landscape.

No one said solving the climate crisis would be easy. But in this respect, the SJC could help — and make our referendum dilemmas far easier to understand.

Douglas Rooks, a Maine editor, commentator and reporter since 1984, is the author of three books, and is now researching the life and career of a U.S. Chief Justice. He welcomes comment at: drooks@tds.net

 

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