PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • September 21, 2021
Bill Nemitz’s Sept. 16 column (opposing New England Clean Energy Connect) got it wrong. He criticizes Central Maine Power’s current ad campaign focused on the upcoming initiative’s retroactivity provisions. Retroactive provisions that confer a benefit are legally different from retroactive provisions that curtail the vested rights of an individual or a corporation. The former are often sustained; the latter are “ex post facto laws,” barred by the Constitution. Nemitz also ignores the fact that CMP has all needed state-federal project approvals; that CMP underwent 20 months of Public Utilities Commission–Department of Environmental Protection hearings and technical staff scrutiny of thousands of pages of data and testimony; that Maine’s highest court sustained the PUC approval. Finally, Nemitz ignores global warming; the fact that fossil fuels are killing us; that Canadian hydropower will improve air quality in all New England states. ~ Orlando E. Delogu, emeritus professor, University of Maine School of Law