BALLOTOPEDIA • August 16, 2021
On Aug. 10, Judge Michaela Murphy of the Maine Superior Court vacated a lease for the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) to bisect one mile of public land in northern Maine. NECEC is a 145-mile long, high-voltage transmission line project that would transmit around 1,200 megawatts from hydroelectric plants in Quebec to electric utilities in Massachusetts and Maine. The state Department of Environmental Protection suspended the firm’s lease of the one mile of land through West Forks Plantation and Johnson Mountain Township. The permitting process for the public lands violated a constitutional amendment passed in 1993. The constitutional amendment required a two-thirds vote of the legislature to reduce or substantially change the uses of state park, conservation, or recreation land.