TIMES RECORD • September 24, 2020
Due to U.S. Supreme Court cases decided in the 1920s and 1940s, the captive customers of any investor-owned utility must pay in full, plus interest, for all capital investments. A utility can maximize its return to shareholders by overinvesting in a way that creates a problem, and then investing even more to fix the problem they have created. The obnoxious CMP lights that have plagued Merrymeeting Bay for over a year provide a guaranteed, double-digit return to distant investors over twenty years. In addition, we will pay the company’s corporate taxes on these profits. Until they own the grid themselves, CMP customers will keep paying for expensive “solutions” to fix previous “solutions” to fix problems that may never have existed in the first place. ~ Seth Berry, Bowdoinham