People have asked me how I’m voting on Question One, the NECEC Corridor. Well, I voted just the other day at my town office. And I voted No.

This is Governor Janet Mills. Let me tell you why.

Last night, thousands of Maine people turned up their thermostats to keep warm as the weather gets colder. For nearly 60 percent of Maine homeowners, that means their oil furnace is firing up, and, at an average of $3.10 a gallon, Maine families are spending more money on fossil fuels that ought to go to groceries, medicines, school supplies...

The sad fact is, our state is the most heating oil dependent state in the country. Maine families send more than $4 billion every year to out-of-state fossil fuel companies for heating oil. The high cost of energy and electricity are slowing down our economy, while carbon emissions in our atmosphere threaten our health and our environment.

I ran for Governor promising to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and to do something about climate change. And I told you I would tell you exactly how I feel. 

We just can’t afford just to do nothing.

I support the New England Clean Energy Connect, and I urge you to vote No on Question 1, because it is about climate change.

Utilizing clean hydropower already in existence, this project will put our state and our region on the road to a zero-carbon economy. Enhancing the reliability of our grid to avoid a loss of power in storms, it will also reduce carbon emissions in New England by 3.6 million metric tons a year — It’s like taking 767,000 gas guzzling cars off the road.

This project will allow us to buy electric vehicles and to put charging stations all across the state. 

It will let Maine families turn off the furnace and heat their home in the winter and cool it in the summer with modern and very efficient heat pumps.

It is no wonder why fossil fuel companies are threatened by this project and are fighting it tooth and nail.

By all objective analyses, this project will hold down the price of electricity all across the region, saving Maine ratepayers alone millions of dollars each year. And, as a result of my negotiations with Hydro-Québec, the project will deliver clean electricity directly to Maine to as many as 70,000 to 75,000 homes right here in our state at a discounted rate.

And it will cost Maine ratepayers nothing. Massachusetts will foot the bill.

This project is already creating construction jobs in rural Maine, and with an investment of nearly $1 billion in the first ten years, it’ll provide substantial tax benefits to Lewiston and other communities along the route, as well as scholarships for youth and 145 miles of broadband fiber from Jackman to Lewiston and all the way to Wiscasset.

Now, there are people of good will on both sides of this issue. And I acknowledge those who are worried about our environment. You know, Western Maine is where I live. It’s where I was born and grew up, and it will always be my home.

But, you should know, this project has also been changed a lot to minimize the environmental impact. It has undergone rigorous review, and in independently issuing its permit, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection has narrowed the corridor considerably, its required revegetation, and it requires the permanent conservation of 40,000 acres in Western Maine and the conservation of more than 700 acres of deer wintering habitat.

Now, make no mistake about it, I am no fan of CMP.  I understand the frustrations with CMP. And it’s why the Maine Public Utilities Commission, including two commissioners I appointed, is pushing CMP hard to become more reliable, more accountable and better managed.

And I believe our utilities should be held to the highest standards of accountability. Or else they shouldn’t do business in our state.

But honestly Question 1 won’t solve that problem. In fact, it might just send a chilling message of unintended consequences, a message to others, including renewable energy companies, that they might have to have the rug pulled out from under them long after they’ve invested and played by the rules and gotten approvals, because of some change in the political winds.

Fundamentally, for me, it’s not about CMP. It’s about climate change. We need clean energy. We need reliable electricity. We’ve got to turn down the furnace and we’ve got to say no to fossil fuels.

And that’s why I voted No on Question One.

This is Governor Janet Mills. Thank you for listening.

If you have to go to the hospital, or into a nursing room, or your loved one does, you have the absolute right to expect that you will receive high quality care and that you will be safe.

That means health care workers taking care of you will be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and other contagious diseases.

Hello this is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.

We decided to require health care workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 for three basic reasons:

1. To protect our health care system’s ability to care for people by making sure health care workers stay healthy and on the job;
2. To protect the health of those in Maine who are most vulnerable to the virus who happen to be in a hospital, nursing home, or other health care facility;
3. And to protect the health and safety of all Maine people, patients and health care workers alike.

You know, just as vaccinations defeated small pox a hundred years ago, and with vaccine, we rid the world of polio, so with vaccines will we defeat the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s why COVID-19 vaccine was added to the vaccines for polio and mumps and others as a requirement for employment in Maine’s health care facilities. And now vaccination rates have risen rapidly among those health care workers.

This is great progress that protects front-line health care workers and the health and lives of people in their care, and that safeguards Maine’s health care capacity.

Unfortunately, seems like we’re facing two pandemics sometimes. There are two pandemics at work here – one is the pandemic of COVID-19, the deadly virus that’s taken more than 1,000 lives in Maine. The second seems to be the pandemic of fear and disinformation.

Among other things some people have dishonestly claimed that Maine people would die as a result of requiring vaccinations for health care workers.

That’s an insult to every Maine person who has lost their life to COVID-19, especially those who contracted it from a health care worker who chose not to get vaccinated.

In fact, it is this policy that will keep health care workers and their patients alive.

As of October 12, more than 6,000 health care workers have tested positive for the disease and more than 350 health care setting outbreaks have been reported.

The same folks who criticized a vaccination for health care workers have also said that we should provide a testing alternative.

Sounds simple, but the science doesn’t back that up.

The Delta variant – which is much easier to pass on – can reproduce in just 24-48 hours so weekly testing doesn’t pass muster. And the most accurate tests take at least 24-48 hours to come back, which means daily testing doesn’t cut it either.

The Maine Hospital Association, the Maine Health Care Association, nursing homes, hospitals, all support our policy because they know it is the best way to protect workers and patients and residents and to prevent our health care system from being overwhelmed, thus preventing you from getting health care.

I am also committed to addressing the problem of workforce from the bottom-up. We’ve had a workforce shortage in health care for more than a decade now, and we’re tackling that head-on.

The Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan for instance that was approved by the Legislature has just taken effect and that will allow us to invest millions in health care workforce needs and training and expansion of facilities and critical industries across the State of Maine will get help.

Maine is one of the most highly vaccinated states in the nation against COVID-19, but we are also seeing a surge of the more dangerous and highly transmissible Delta variant and that’s causing infections, serious illness, hospitalizations, and deaths, almost entirely among those who have not gotten vaccinated.

We’ve got a lot of work to do.

Getting vaccinated – which I think is the collective responsibility of Maine people and it’s something that more than one million of us have already done and something that Pope Francis calls “An act of love”– it’s the best and most effective way out of this pandemic. And the courts have agreed.

I continue to urge those who haven’t already rolled up their sleeves please do so and get your shot.

You can get COVID-19 vaccines all across the state. Just visit maine.gov/covid19/vaccines or call 1-888-445-4111.

This is Governor Janet Mills. Thank you for listening. Please stay safe.

I am proud to announce that more than 28,000 high-efficiency heat pumps have been now installed in Maine buildings over the past year. This marks a major milestone towards my target of installing 100,000 new heat pumps by 2025.

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills. Thank you for listening.

Last year one of the significant actions we took to reduce our carbon emissions, our carbon footprint, and to advance clean energy in Maine was the enactment of LD 1766. That was the bill that put into law our goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps by 2025.

You know cold weather’s coming upon us pretty fast and we’ve got to be efficient and save money as we heat our homes and businesses.

And you know, Maine is the most heating oil dependent state in the country. $5 billion a year goes out of state, out of our pockets, and into the hands and pockets of big oil and gas companies. Let’s reverse that.

Transitioning to heat pumps instead of costly, inefficient and environmentally-harmful heating oil is creating good-paying jobs right now, it’s curbing our carbon emissions, and it’s cutting costs for Maine families across the state while making those families more comfortable in their homes, a hat trick for our state.

These high-performance heat pumps are affordable, efficient, and accessible. They are appliances that both heat and cool. And they do heat in very very cold temperatures. They work well in cold climates and are much more efficient than window air conditioning in the summer when used for cooling, and they are easy to use. 

The law we enacted in 2019 directed the Efficiency Maine Trust and Maine Housing to use existing revenues — that’s non tax dollars — to achieve our goal by adding 100,000 new heat pumps. Doing so is predicted to reduce your heating bill by between $300 and $600 a year. That’s between $300 to $600 a year per home. That’s a pretty big savings for all Maine families. And, there are rebates available. You can get savings and programs through Efficiency Maine Trust and through Maine Housing to install a new heating pump in your home.  

Expanding the use of high-efficiency heat pumps is also sparking a demand for heat pump installers and distributors and sellers. That in turn creates good-paying jobs and diversifies our economy  — which is a step towards achieving my goal of more than doubling Maine’s clean energy and energy efficiency jobs to 30,000 by 2030.

Already, hundreds of firms are registered on the Efficiency Maine website as heat pump installers, who serve customers from Madawaska to Millinocket to Munjoy Hill.

In addition to installing 100,000 heat pumps by 2025, we are expanding incentives for purchasing electric vehicles and we’re building more electric vehicle charging stations all across Maine; we are doubling the pace of home weatherization, equally important; and we are purchasing more renewable energy through the state procurement process.

We should all be proud of this milestone — 28,000 heat pumps in one year. That’s more than three times the number of heat pumps installed in Maine in 2018. This means we’re contributing to the global efforts against climate change, and we are reducing the use of fossil fuels, and we are building a thriving economy with good-paying, green-collar jobs all across Maine.

This is Governor Janet Mills. Stay warm and thank you for listening.