Tag: Maine Department of Environmental Protection

It is the biggest milestone so far for the project that has been in the works for more than a year and drew support from Gov. Janet Mills in February after parties inked a 40-year benefits package worth $250 million. The three-member Maine Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on the proposal in April. John Carroll, a CMP spokesman, said in a statement that the report “squarely addresses the questions that have been raised in the course of this proceeding,” and “confirms that the project will provide environmental and economic benefits for Maine.” Next month’s vote will come amid fervid grassroots opposition in western Maine and during the further permitting processes that are required. Mills’ hometown of Farmington voted against it overwhelmingly last week, joining eight other towns in opposing it and almost all of the more than 1,300 public comments filed with the commission on the proposal were in opposition. “There’s nothing in this report that changes the facts that this transmission corridor is a bad deal for Maine and it’s deeply unpopular,” said Sandra Howard, the director of Say NO to NECEC, an opposition group that uses the acronym for the project’s formal name. Former Republican Gov. Paul LePage also backed it. Threats to the project loom in the Legislature, where Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, the co-chair of the Legislature’s energy committee, has submitted a bill backed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers that would require every town along the corridor’s path to accept it by referendum before the utilities commission moves it forward. They start on Monday morning at the University of Maine at Farmington.