**(Bolded sections are what is contained in our Summary Stance)**
The Southern Midcoast Maine Chamber’s Executive Committee, and staff have spent dozens of hours researching, discussing and questioning the merits of the arguments presented by Question 1 regarding the New England Clean Energy Corridor and whether Maine citizens should reject it. We do not take positions reflexively, and we do not accept rationales and talking points until we have done our own evaluation. Below is our full stance, with the myriad of issues brought up during the debate we felt we need to address as many of these concerns as we could.
Before we dive into our stance, it needs to be mentioned that this citizen’s initiative has been one of the most expensive, polarizing and frankly misleading campaigns in Maine’s history. The inciteful rhetoric used and the intentional insinuations of untoward antics that these political action committees have used to try and deceive voters to manipulate their votes, is disgusting. What have we come to when political action groups think so little of our intellect that they choose to reduce major policy issues into a battle of which side can outrage their supporters more with inflammatory accusations? This very complex issue deserved better, in our eyes, than to be reduced to lowest common denominator mudslinging as it has been by both sides. We hope future referendums don’t devolve into similar rock fights and that we can go back to discussing the merits of these major issues without these unnecessary histrionics.
The Executive Committee of the Southern Midcoast Maine Chamber has evaluated both sides of this issue.
We have similarities with the proponents for the Yes on 1 side, in that we also love Maine’s natural resources, and enjoy hunting, fishing, hiking, biking, snowmobiling and protecting the land we call home. It cannot be denied that a new power line will have an environmental impact- it simply will. You cannot run a powerline, build a road, construct an apartment building, install a windmill, create a solar farm or drill more pipelines, without having an environmental impact on some piece of Maine land.
We have similarities with the proponents of the No on 1 side, in that we see the need for major clean energy upgrades to the New England Power Grid to complement the other energy components of wind, solar, nuclear and natural gas that make up our energy mix and to drive down energy costs. In addition to that, the NECEC project has already employed hundreds of Mainers and produced revenues for Maine businesses who are currently preparing the land that CMP already owns for the second line. More jobs for Mainers and business revenues are things chambers of commerce will always support.
After weighing each side of this issue, our SMMC Executive Committee believes that although both sides have considerable merit, that the benefits of the project outweigh the costs of the project and recommend, like the Governor’s office have, to support a position of No on 1.
Here are several of the deciding reasons for this stance:
We hope in this stance that you fully understand we are not minimizing the environmental concerns- as it is undeniable that any infrastructure project will have an environmental impact and that weighed heavily on us. Additionally, we understand some Mainers have a distrust of large companies, and CMP in particular, and in response all we can say is, that if you distrust CMP there is likely nothing we can say in this stance that will change your opinion. Our chamber represents businesses large and small, and an investment like this, whether from a large business, or a conglomeration of small businesses, still needs to be considered for the tremendous impact it can have for our state and for our climate goals.
The bottom line for us is this:
Any major clean energy project will require new infrastructure and will have some impact on the existing environment. It's hard to imagine any future proposal being less intrusive than this project which has 2/3s of it being built on their own land beside existing power lines, and the remaining 1/3 running through commercial logging lands. This new section of the line, being no wider than the length of a baseline on a little league field, runs through the unorganized territories. Meaning, we’re not rehoming people, running it through parks, through school yards or anywhere that many people live, while also permanently conserving 40,000 acres of Maine forest to offset the impact of the 964 acres of new land being used- a 40:1 ratio.
Additionally, Maine gets $258M in incentives including $140M in discounted rate relief alone, while also each municipality along the project route getting the increased tax revenues of CMP building new poles and wires on their existing land. Add to that the jobs the construction has created for Mainers, the secondary economic impacts of those working on the project grabbing lunches and hotel rooms to be near the project site, and the greenhouse gas reduction equivalent to taking 700,000 vehicles off the road, and our team can conclude that in our estimation the benefits outweigh the costs for this project.
For those reasons, our SMMC Executive Team is recommending a stance of No On 1 this November 2.