Central Maine Power's parent company files lawsuit challenging constitutionality of Question 1
After losing a ballot question that became the top issue in an off-year general election, the parent company of Central Maine Power, the state’s largest utility, filed a lawsuit aiming to reverse the result of the referendum.
“Yes” on Question 1 captured 59% of the vote to ban CMP’s 145-mile electricity corridor through the Maine woods, called New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC), because it is designed to transmit electricity generated by renewable hydropower in Quebec to a power station in Lewiston, where it would connect to the regional power grid.
“Obviously we’re disappointed with the results from the election, but this is not the end of the road for us,” said NECEC President & CEO Thorn Dickinson in an interview on Wednesday.
CMP’s Connecticut-based parent company, Avangrid, a subsidiary of Spain’s Iberdrola, filed a 37-page lawsuit in Maine Superior Court on Wednesday seeking a preliminary injunction to block the referendum to stop the corridor.
“The issue in this proceeding is straightforward: is it permissible to legislatively deprive a developer of the right to complete a project, after all federal and state executive agencies have issued final permits,” the motion said, “and after substantial construction has occurred and substantial expenditures have been made? Under Maine law, the answer is “No.”
The motion argues the vote can’t be lawfully applied retroactively to stop an approved, $1 billion dollar project already underway.
Dickinson said, “We did follow every rule in a very open and transparent process. We received our permits in January, and we began construction. Now we’ve spent over $350 million on the project.”
The lawsuit argues the company has a "vested right" to complete and operate the project, given its investment, the installation of 70 of 830 planned power poles, and most controversially, with more than half of the new 53-mile path in the woods already cleared of trees.
"We had a three-and-a-half-year regulatory process. The conclusion of every one of those permitting agencies was this was good for the environment and good for Maine's economy," said Dickinson, who has worked on the project for a decade.
Regulators who had approved the project, from Maine’s Public Utilities Commission and the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, had asserted the belief that electricity generated by Canadian hydropower would reduce planet-warming carbon gases by 3 million tons a year, the equivalent of removing 700,000 cars from the road.
The lawsuit describes the referendum process, governed by the state legislature, as "unconstitutional" for violating the separation of powers – effectively creating a legislative veto over executive agencies.
Dickinson said, "Essentially, you have the referendum process, which goes through the legislative branch, which is making conclusions associated with decisions that have already been evaluated in the executive and the judicial branch."
Maine residents who live closest to the corridor construction zone voted most forcefully to stop it, including 64% for Yes in Somerset County, where the clear cut path begins, and 69% in Franklin County.
"I voted against the corridor. I just don't think it benefits Maine enough,” said Josh Therrien, who lives in Farmington.
Yes on 1 campaign leaders argued the millions of dollars in promised CMP bill rebates would average about 9 cents per Maine resident over 40 years.
"I think it's important that we protect our lands and not put it out to corporations," said Yes on 1 voter Dahlia Jordan. “It’s important to protect lands and figure other ways to do renewable energy.”
That most of the new electricity would be consumed in Massachusetts bothered Aurelius Hinds, an electrician who voted Yes to stop the corridor.
"It's all for the benefit of the people in Massachusetts, and they are paying none of the price.
They’re not putting up with the gash,” Hinds said. “All they’re doing is using us like an extension cord.”
For months, Maine voters were deluged with rival ads in a campaign that cost around $100 million.
The No campaign, backed by NECEC, CMP, Avangrid, and its partner Hydro-Quebec, spent around $70 million, according to financial disclosure reports with the Maine Ethics Commission.
The Yes campaign, financed by a trio of out-of-state energy companies that each operate oil or gas-fired power plants in Maine, spent around $30 million.
Dickinson blamed NECEC’s defeat in part on what he called Yes campaign distortions.
“I never fully expected how much NextEra, Calpine, and Vistra would show up, fund 99% of this whole campaign and how effective they’d be on providing misinformation,” Dickinson said. "I think the biggest misinformation is that there's no climate impact associated with this project."
Yes on 1 leaders blasted the lawsuit, saying CMP is ignoring the voice of Maine voters.
“I was angered to learn of Avangrid’s legal strategy to overturn the will of an overwhelming majority of Maine voters. Despite an onslaught of money that CMP, Hydro Quebec and their assortment of front groups interjected into this campaign, the people of Maine strongly and clearly rejected the NECEC project at the ballot box. CMP should respect the vote of Maine citizens and immediately stop the continued destruction of our precious forest and its habitat," No CMP Corridor Director Sandra Howard said in a statement.