PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 18, 2022
The campaign promoting a consumer-owned electric utility in Maine plans to make an announcement on Wednesday amid evidence that supporters have been unable to gather enough signatures for a ballot question this November. Pine Tree Power would be an antidote to the high costs and reliability problems plaguing CMP and Versant, according to supporters. But CMP and Versant are fighting the effort, which they call a scheme to seize the state’s electric grid in a government takeover. Through a political action committee called Maine Affordable Energy, the utilities and their allies in business and organized labor have spent heavily to convince residents that the consumer-owned power plan is an unnecessary and costly idea.