PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 19, 2021
A consumer-owned, nonprofit corporation would take over for electric companies Central Maine Power and Versant Power under a bill announced Monday by a bipartisan group of Maine legislators and advocates for a locally owned utility. Foreign, for-profit corporations have mishandled the state’s electricity infrastructure, leaving Maine with some of the highest costs and lowest reliability in the United States, said Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, who initially proposed establishing a consumer-owned utility in 2019. Under the proposed bill, which is not yet finalized, a consumer-owned nonprofit to be named Pine Tree Power Co. would improve service, reduce prices and help the state meet its sustainability and clean energy goals, Berry said Monday at an Augusta news conference.