Since 2018, residential supply rates have more than doubled (up 125 percent) from .07850 to .1763 cents per kilowatt hour. During the same period, hundreds of thousands of solar panels and hundreds of wind turbines have been installed, supposedly to save Maine ratepayers costs and improve the environment. Neither has occurred. This debacle is a fraud and was a lie from the get-go. We can thank the Legislature for breaking up our two utilities at the behest of former Governor Angus King and John Baldacci for the expediated wind law. Now Governor Mills wants to continue the damage with offshore wind.
Our public advocate, Mr. Harwood, responded to this resident by blaming high natural gas prices. Well, from a one-month high of $8.41 per million BTU last August to the March price of $2.45 should it not follow that the current price decline would announce an imminent supply price reduction to be reflected in our bills? I'm patiently waiting.
I have a suggestion for Maine taxpayers. Instead of approving a $13.5 billion bond issue creating a self-serving public boondoggle, Pine Tree Power, let's instead put Humpty Dumpty back together and buy every power-producing and holding dam sold to Brookfield and Nextera and others since 1999. We could then have some Wall Street investment geniuses repackage the entity created after negotiating long-term power purchase agreements just for Maine. Wall Street could then resell the entity and pay Maine back the $13.5 billion plus a reasonable profit.
Also, when CMP and the New England Clean Energy Connect win their court case overturning the referendum, let's string a few more power lines in the right of way strictly for Maine and require Massachusetts to pay for that as well. This would eliminate the need to wreck Aroostook County with power lines, windmills and solar panels all over the North Maine Woods. These so-called alternative energy policies were sold to us as valid energy saving and environmental saviors, but they have failed miserably, and Maine taxpayers have received nothing beneficial.
