The public vs. private power battle revives as some Mainers, sick of poor service and reliability, push for a takeover

A worker inspects a Central Maine Power electricity corridor.
(Photo by Robert F. Bukaty, AP via The American Prospect)

In the 1930s and 1940s, one of the greatest political battles at the state level was between investor-owned utilities and public power, which had as its best allies member-owned rural electric cooperatives. Now, the battle has been rejoined as customers of investor-owned utilities in one of the most rural states try to make them public. "Investor-owned utilities are hardly known for being adored by the public," reports Lee Harris of The American Prospect. "Even so, Maine has two of the least popular in the Northeast. For the past two years, Maine's two privately owned utilities, Versant Power and Central Maine Power, have ranked last in a customer satisfaction survey evaluating utilities' performance in the Eastern United States." (Of note, the ratings for rural electric cooperatives are dominated by large co-ops near cities, suggesting that data on smaller co-ops was too limited to rank them.)

Mainer voters will get to weigh in on a "ballot initiative up in November, backed by Mainers who are fed up with that status quo, aims to take back the monopoly privileges granted to those private utilities and convert them into Pine Tree Power, a nonprofit authority that an independent board would run," Lee writes. "Backers say it would improve reliability and bring down rates. They argue this is a critical time to take back public control of utilities, as Maine embarks on a mass electrification drive that will transform its energy system. . . . Opponents, including some Democrats and utility workers, are skeptical that the authority can deliver the savings it promises, and worry about the risks involved in overthrowing incumbent utilities."

Buying a private electric utility is complicated; however, some communities have succeeded. "Winter Park, Florida, formed a public power utility in 2005, after 69 percent of residents voted in favor of the plan. Since then, it has laid the majority of its electric lines underground, strengthening storm resiliency," Lee explains. "But other cities have struggled to pull off similar de-privatization. Boulder, Colorado, recently gave up on its decade-long struggle to take over its private utility. Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, vetoed a similar utility buyout plan in 2021, after the legislature approved a bill that would have taken the proposal to Maine voters."

Enmax and Avangrid have "poured millions into a campaign to prevent Pine Tree Power's proposed takeover," Lee writes. The initiative also faces union resistance. "Workers' biggest concern is that the PTP initiative would cause them to be classified as public employees, potentially weakening the union. Since the 2018 Supreme Court ruling in Janus, public employees have not been required to pay dues to unions representing them, even when the union bargains on their behalf."