AUGUSTA - The Maine House advanced a historic bill Tuesday sponsored by Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, to replace Central Maine Power and Versant with the Pine Tree Power Company, a consumer-owned electric utility.
The vote on LD 1708 was 76-64, earning support from Republican, Independent and Democratic lawmakers.
"With this vote, Maine ratepayers are one step closer to more affordable, more reliable, cleaner and Maine-operated power," said Berry, former House majority leader and current House chair of the Legislature's Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee. "The Pine Tree Power Company will be an independent nonprofit with an elected board and private-sector operations, and it will allow us to control our own money and our own energy destiny - to advance fast and fairly toward our own clean energy and connectivity future."
Berry's bill is a carefully crafted, bipartisan measure that would let Maine people vote to create the nonprofit, consumer-owned utility and is the result of three years of research and refinement by the Legislature.
"The supporters of this bill wish to take back our power, not because we are Democrats or Republicans, but because we are Mainers," said Berry.
Maine endures the worst and longest outages in the nation and the 10th highest rates in the nation. Maine ratepayers send $150-$325 million per year to the owners of CMP/Avangrid/Iberdrola, and millions more to the owners of Versant. Versant is also Maine's most expensive mainland utility, and it now seeks a 25.4% rate hike.
Maine's for-profit utilities, CMP and Versant, also rank at the bottom nationally for customer satisfaction, according to J.D. Power's authoritative survey of customer satisfaction for all large and mid-sized utilities. CMP is ranked worst of all 142 utilities in the survey, and Versant third worst.
The bill's public hearing on May 20 drew strong bipartisan support from members of the public.
The bill faces further consideration in both the House and Senate.
Berry represents House District 55: Bowdoin, Bowdoinham, Swan Island and most of Richmond. He previously served from 2006-2014, the final two years as House majority leader, and returned to the House in 2016.
Contact:
Jackie Merrill [Berry] c. 812-1111