PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 4, 2023
Tax credits and incentives built into the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act passed last summer will help us make the transition to clean electricity, saving lives and mitigating climate change. But there is a bottleneck that could mean that only 20% of the Inflation Reduction Act’s benefits are realized: the lack of sufficient transmission capacity to get clean power from where it is generated, often over state lines, to where it is used. Experts tell us this capacity must be tripled by 2050. But, over the last decade, our electricity transmission infrastructure has grown by only 1% per year, too slow a pace to fend off climate change and stem the use of polluting fossil fuels. Local, state and federal entities must better coordinate their work and set more aggressive timelines to speed up the permitting process while ensuring that the public interest is protected. ~ Sam Saltonstall, Brunswick