Last week, Maine released the second iteration of its climate action plan, “Maine Won’t Wait 2.0.” This newspaper’s editorial board responded (Nov. 24) by saying it’s time for Maine to “lock in” its efforts to combat climate change.

That editorial also criticized a recent analysis of the costs of decarbonization by the Maine Policy Institute and partner groups as being too narrowly focused on what people pay in household electricity bills.

To be frank, I couldn’t agree more that it’s time for Maine to take real climate action. Why? Because I have no doubt that if the politicians who dream up these reckless schemes could get their way, voters would boot them out of office at their earliest convenience.

As we enter the final two years of Gov. Janet Mills’ administration, it’s worth asking why Maine hasn’t done more to combat climate change. We’ve done a lot of grandstanding and goalsetting, but when push comes to shove, Maine and other states in the region seem reluctant to go all-in on any of these grandiose climate schemes. Why is that?

Remember the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI)? That scheme involved 12 New England and mid-Atlantic states that were all going to sign a memorandum of understanding establishing a costly new gas tax. The intent was to punish drivers of gas-powered vehicles and incentivize electric vehicle adoption as a means of reducing transportation-related emissions.

To enter the agreement, all Gov. Mills had to do was sign on the dotted line. But she never did. In fact, she and most other governors of the mostly blue states involved in the TCI backed out at the last minute, and the plan fell apart. Why is that?

And despite impressive Democratic majorities in both chambers of the Legislature at the time, Maine lawmakers never adopted a state-level gas tax to fight climate change after the TCI failed. Why is that?

Or what about earlier this year when the governor’s handpicked Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) voted against adopting California-style electric vehicle mandates under the Advanced Clean Cars II Program after receiving massive pushback from Mainers?

Those rules would have required car dealers to sell larger shares of electric vehicles each year until eventually, like California, selling a new vehicle with an internal combustion engine would be prohibited.

Not only did the BEP reject that scheme by a 4-2 vote, the Maine Legislature immediately responded – in a bipartisan fashion – by moving to require legislative approval of all future EV rules. The governor signed that bill, effectively making it as hard as it can possibly be to create new EV regulations moving forward.

What do these tales of climate action failure tell us?

It’s easy to create climate councils and working groups and subcommittees with a gazillion members to dream up new ways to fight climate change. It’s a lot harder to put any of these schemes into action, however, because a majority of Mainers don’t support them.

Public policy is all about tradeoffs. They are simply inevitable. The backdrop on which any honest conversation about climate action should be set begins with the reality that Maine and New England are responsible for 0.4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and that figure doesn’t account for our carbon capture capabilities.

How much economic pain are you willing to cause the average Mainer to eliminate less than one-half of one percent of global emissions?

Our recent analysis estimates that it would cost $815 billion to fully decarbonize the ISO-NE grid by 2050 with enough renewable energy to ensure the lights always come on. Maine’s share of that cost is roughly $70 billion, or roughly seven times the value of the state’s biennial budget.

But these costs aren’t borne by the state. These are costs borne by ISO-NE ratepayers in their future electricity bills. It amounts to the average residential ratepayer paying an additional $99 per year for electricity through 2050, and even greater increases for commercial and industrial ratepayers.

Most people I know can’t afford that. Most people I know don’t want their electricity rates increasing while the state hands out more giveaways to wind and solar at ratepayers’ expense.

It’s time for climate alarmists to ditch the non-binding goalsetting and make good on their promises for radical climate action. They should then defend those schemes before voters and see where it gets them.