Maine

Some progress in Maine, but $850 checks are a lost opportunity

Published

3 years ago

May 4, 2022

Some progress in Maine, but 0 checks are a lost opportunity

Because the Maine Legislature left city this week after what started because the third annual pandemic session, there was a word of delicate optimism. COVID-19 didn’t proceed to dominate, and lawmakers made sufficient progress on recalcitrant points to benefit a modest celebration.

There have been incremental advances in housing coverage, felony justice reform, vitality, and the fraught relationship between the state and tribes. As virtually goes with out saying, extra must be carried out, but when the coverage impasse marking the earlier two years is lastly damaged, prospects for 2023 are brighter.

Particularly notable was a change in tone from Gov. Janet Mills, who vetoed quite a few payments handed by fellow majority Democrats throughout her first three years – 31 in all, with 21 issued in 2021 alone. To date this 12 months, she’s vetoed solely three payments, one a carryover from 2021.

The brand new strategy was evident in a carefully argued letter to legislative and tribal leaders, pointing to administration actions to learn tribal members, and chronicling her strategy through the current session.

It didn’t begin that means; administration testimony on LD 906, a measure to lastly permit the Passamaquoddy tribe to get clear water on their Nice Level reservation, emphasised the destructive – that since different cities share the utility district, the invoice was unacceptable.

Previously, the administration’s objections – like these of each administration because the Land Claims Act was signed in 1980 – led to failure, however not this time. After overwhelming bipartisan help within the Home, Mills bargained. The Legislature recalled the invoice, made requested adjustments, and a brand new water system ought to be getting in later this 12 months.

Mills additionally provided the tribes unique entry to on-line sports activities gaming, a probably substantial income supply, and tweaked a number of friction factors of the Land Claims Act. In return, the Legislature backed off on the “huge invoice,” LD 1626, which might have repealed key sections to permit tribes to learn from all federal laws enacted since 1980. It’s gradual, however plain progress.

One can’t say the identical concerning the choice made earlier than the supplemental finances was even offered – Mills’s vow to commit half the $1.2 billion finances surplus to checks, now elevated to $850, for the overwhelming majority of grownup Mainers.

Nobody ought to be celebrating; this can be a large missed alternative, and a failure of creativeness about state authorities itself.

To know why, we should take an tour into macroeconomics and the federal finances. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, everybody understood the federal government wanted to spend a lot whereas a lot of the nation was out of labor.

The CARES Act was the bipartisan outcome, adopted by the American Rescue Plan, handed solely by Democrats, then a bipartisan, 10-year infrastructure invoice. They had been all financed by deficit spending, totaling practically $6 trillion.

That is what’s so irritating about pretensions to “fiscal duty” of senators like Joe Manchin, who voted for all the pieces else, however balked on the fully-paid-for Construct Again Higher plan that had really modern insurance policies.

President Biden wished to keep away from the overly cautious response to the Nice Recession of 2008, the place President Obama settled for a stimulus package deal extensively thought-about too small; unemployment and depressed wages continued for years. This time, full restoration was speedy.

It’s honest to say Biden could have overshot. A lot cash in individuals’s pockets, with the pandemic limiting provide, helped push up inflation – one thing we hear about day by day.

The success of the general coverage isn’t talked about: Full restoration and full employment in Maine and the nation, with booming wages. Maine’s hospitality business, as an example, noticed 13% wage development in 2021, far outpacing inflation.

Why have we heard so little about this? Probably as a result of inflation hurts the monetary sector way over odd wage-earners.

However what does this need to do with Maine’s checks? Simply this: The very last thing we want proper now’s extra fiscal stimulus. Nobody imagines Maine has a lot impact on the nationwide financial system, however it doesn’t assist.

Mills was against increasing state applications completely. Confronted with the final main surplus in 1999-2000, although, Gov. Angus King put most of it towards changing outdated state infrastructure.

Recalling an disagreeable train from the Eighties when earnings taxes had been over-collected and needed to be refunded, King was dead-set in opposition to checks, however pandemic reduction apparently made them irresistible this time.

One can solely think about what else we’d have spent the cash on.

The “imaginative and prescient factor,” as George H.W. Bush termed it, was nowhere in proof. However 2023 will probably be a brand new second, and possibly the tentative indicators of spring will final.

Douglas Rooks, a Maine editor, commentator and reporter since 1984, is the writer of three books. His first, “Statesman: George Mitchell and the Artwork of the Attainable,” is now out in paperback. He welcomes remark at drooks@tds.internet

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Maine

Maine electricity bills increased again this month

Published

2 hours ago

January 6, 2025

Press Room

Maine electricity bills increased again this month

Central Maine Power Co. customers began paying 7% more in their monthly bills Jan. 1 to help fund $3.3 billion of upgrades to transmission lines, poles and other equipment in New England. Versant Power ratepayers can also expect increases, though smaller, later this year.

Federal regulators are apportioning about $280 million of the region’s costs to Maine’s two major utilities, with the remainder assigned to utilities in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. The costs are divided based on load, or how much electricity each service area uses.

Consumer advocates in the region have criticized the practice of assigning transmission costs to ratepayers, saying upgrades proposed by utilities are often unnecessary, insufficiently regulated and enhance the value of assets for shareholders at the expense of customers.

“The ratepayers are the only wallets in the room,” said Donald M. Kreis, New Hampshire’s consumer advocate who says poles, wires and other components of transmission are overbuilt.

As an example, one energy company proposed rebuilding a 49-mile transmission line in New Hampshire for $384 million, when less than 8% of it needed to be replaced, according to consumer advocates.

Versant said transmission rates are set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission “using a preset formula and cover needed investments” in local transmission and regional investments.

“Most of the transmission rate increase is due to Versant paying our share to support regional transmission projects as part of our ISO-New England membership,” it said in an emailed statement.

CMP spokesman Jon Breed said ratepayer-funded spending authorized by FERC “will help reduce outages and protect our system from the threats of extreme weather in Maine.” New England’s transmission is a nearly 9,000-mile system, he said.

How the money in its entirety will eventually be spent is unclear. Eversource Energy, the parent company of utilities in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, has plans for numerous projects, such as a partial line rebuild and other work totaling nearly $80 million in Connecticut, and a $7.4 million rebuild of a substation in Massachusetts.

“We’re responsible for maintaining just under half of the regional transmission system in New England and are constantly working to upgrade and modernize the transmission system, making the electric grid more resilient to increasing extreme weather caused by climate change and improving reliability for customers across New England,” Eversource spokeswoman Jamie Ratliff said in an email.

A representative of National Grid, parent company of New England Power Co., which said its revenue requirement is $485.4 million this year, did not respond to an emailed request for information about its projects.

CMP customers who use an average of 550 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month are paying $149.83, up from $139.62 in 2024, according to the Maine Office of the Public Advocate. Versant customers in the Bangor Hydro District who use the same amount of power pay $155.80, up from $148.09, a 5.2% increase, the utility said. Customers in Versant’s Maine Public District in the northern reaches of the state pay $146.37, an increase from $144.35.

Utilities in New England say “revenue requirements” of $3.3 billion are needed for 2025, up more than 16% from last year, according to the New England Power Pool, or NEPOOL, an advisory group of utilities, consumer advocates, consumers and others.

Together, CMP and Versant account for 8.4% of the revenue needed in the region for the transmission upgrades, as identified by the utilities. In contrast, subsidiaries of Eversource Energy account for nearly 59%, or about $1.9 billion.

Increased rates for consumers are not due solely to transmission costs. Utilities also are collecting more than $254 million, including interest, to compensate for previous under-collecting of revenue based on the difference between cost forecasts and actual costs last year.

Ratiliff said the rate change is “largely the result” of utilities recovering less of their 2023 transmission costs.

Still, the largest driver of higher rates that took effect Wednesday is significant construction by utilities and replacing older transmission equipment, Landry said.

“They figured out they can build stuff and send the bills and everyone has to pay them,” he said.

The transmission costs will overwhelm a slight decline in electricity bills approved by Maine regulators in November. A lower 2025 standard offer rate — the default supply price for most home and small-business customers who don’t buy electricity with competitive energy providers – reflects stable natural gas prices, the main driver of power generation in New England.

Seth Berry, a former state legislator who chaired the Legislature’s Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee and is critical of the performance of investor-owned utilities, said scrutiny by state regulators could uncover weaknesses in the argument for transmission upgrades and force utilities to scale back their plans.

The lure of profitability is difficult for utilities to resist and the result, he said, is “a race to a very expensive and overbuilt transmission network.”

Utilities should instead focus on repairing and upgrading “very creaky” distribution systems, he said. The networks of roadside power lines is most vulnerable to storms and potential damage that knocks out power.

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Maine

Pistons to sign Maine Celtics forward to two-way deal (report)

Published

9 hours ago

January 5, 2025

Press Room

Pistons to sign Maine Celtics forward to two-way deal (report)

The Pistons have plucked some depth away from the Maine Celtics, agreeing to a two-way deal with Rob Harper Jr. according to a report from ESPN’s Tim Bontemps.

Harper Jr. played for the Celtics in the Summer League and signed an Exhibit 10 deal with the team before being waived at the end of training camp. He earned a bonus after suiting up for the Maine Celtics where he had been a standout in recent weeks. Harper Jr. played the entirely of the G-League Showcase Cup with Maine and had put together a terrific stretch in recent days up North.

Over the past four regular season games, he was averaging 22 points per game off the bench while shooting 42.5 percent from 3-point range, playing alongside JD Davison, Baylor Scheierman, Drew Peterson and Anton Watson in Maine.

The 24-year-old wing went undrafted out of Rutgers in 2022 but played the first two years of his career with the Raptors. He was waived by Toronto after suffering a season-ending injury last December before catching on with the Celtics this summer when he was recovered.

The 6-foot-4 wing still has two years left of two-way eligibility, making him an appealing prospect to Detroit likely after they lost a key guard in Jaden Ivey last week to a season-ending knee injury. The Pistons will need to release one of their two-way players in order to make room to sign Harper Jr. officially.

The Celtics filled all of their own three two-way spots with Davison, Peterson and Watson, so the team had no way of retaining Harper Jr. without offering him a spot on the 15-man roster.

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