Angry Maine residents will vote on plan to take over electric utilities in hopes of making them more accountable

Having had enough of high rates and poor customer service, some Maine voters are setting out to change who delivers their power. "Maine residents will vote Tuesday on a ballot measure that would dissolve its investor-owned utilities and replace them with a nonprofit," reports Evan Halper of The Washington Post. Fed-up Mainers are "joining a burgeoning national movement of consumers frustrated with power companies that they feel are unaccountable to ratepayers, and that have taken center stage in disasters such as this summer's devastating wildfires in Maui."

Mainers promote Pine Tree Power during morning
 traffic. (Photo by Andrew Dickinson, WP)

The ballot measure Maine voters will decide on Tuesday "calls for a hostile takeover of sorts, creating a nonprofit company called Pine Tree Power that would seize control of the state's electricity grid from Central Maine Power and Versant Power, the subsidiaries of multinational corporations that now own it," Halper explains. "The shoestring campaign is an existential threat to the industry, moving the Maine utilities to spend more than $35 million blitzing ratepayers with ads warning that the measure threatens to create massive public debt, unending legal fights and soaring bills for customers."

The massive ad campaign only drew more ire "giving customers one more grievance with firms they say should be investing the money in bringing them better service," Halper notes. "Pine Tree Power supporters are working with a meager $1 million budget but some high profile support, including the Sierra Club, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and environmentalist icon Bill McKibben."

No matter which way the Maine vote goes, more consumers seem to be scrutinizing their electrical companies' delivery, customer service and spending habits at a time when those companies are already stressed by extreme weather and increased demand, Halper writes. Electrical companies are trying to respond to issues with "nimble action while operating under a dated financial and regulatory model."

"A flash point in the debate is the way corporate utilities make their profits, collecting hefty interest payments from ratepayers on the big power grid projects the companies bankroll," Harper explains. "Pine Tree Power proponents say a public utility can save ratepayers billions on such investments, as its goal would be financing projects as cheaply as possible rather than generating profits for shareholders.'

Business owner Steven DiMillo is not in favor of the
takeover. (Photo by Andrew Dickinson, WP)

Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, "is urging voters to reject the Maine proposal, warning that enmeshing the state in a decades-long battle over control of utility poles and transmission lines would be a costly mistake," Halper reports. "'The last thing we should be doing is trying to force an acquisition by eminent domain to buy something that, once we buy, we don’t know how to run,' said Fred Forsely, the chief executive of Shipyard Brewing Co. and a public face of the opposition campaign. The sentiment is shared by the owner of another well-known business in Portland, DiMillo’s on the Water, which for decades has served tourists lobsters in a former 206-foot-long car ferry converted to a restaurant. 'I never look at government to fix something for us, said Steven DiMillo, who manages the business.'"