Thoughts About the Text of Maine's Latest Bill to Create a State Electricity Monopoly
Constitutional considerations that are routinely ignored but are arguably actionable and costly.
Regarding my last post about the Green Party convention, as it turned out, one needed to be a registered Green to attend the convention, although the Facebook Page said anyone on Facebook, which should have said any registered Green Party member on Facebook because if it had said that, I would have made the effort to go to my town office and change my registration. So I did not attend the Green Party online event- but I will make a point of registering now.
Meanwhile, I signed the petition online objecting to the proposed government take over of Maine’s electric grid. I have written to Representative Holly Stover before, but as an individual, I have never received a response, so it seems that to get a response, there has to be a petition signed en masse.
The petition text reads:
I am a concerned citizen, residing in the 04537 ZIP code:
The proposed government takeover of Maine's electric grid is risky business, and a handful of politicians in Augusta shouldn't be able to rush it through. They don't know how much it will cost and they want us—their constituents—to write them a blank check. I believe this would be a disaster for Maine, and we need to slow down until we get some answers.
The response from Holly was primarily composed of words taken from the summary of the proposed legislation which was said to be attached but was not attached.
I responded by saying that I did not see an attachment and so I obtained the legislative act in progress, but it in the form of a PDF file and not a downloadable link.
I created a downloadable link of the proposed legislation, on the Andersen Design website, being that government documents are in the public domain.
There is a lot I could say about this bill, but what is most important is that it is a violation of the Maine Constitution, Article IV, Part Third, Sections 13 and 14, a part of the Maine Constitution that is frequently ignored by the Maine Legislature. Section 14 forbids the Legislature from chartering corporations by special act of legislation, except for municipal purposes or if the object of the corporation cannot be done another way, a phrase that I interpret to primarily intend that if the object of the corporation cannot be done in the private sector, which clearly it can.
The object of the corporation is defined in its purpose, which is stated as thus:
1. Company purposes. The company shall use its access to low-cost capital and its ability to manage the electric transmission and distribution system in a manner that is not focused on ensuring shareholder profits for the following purposes:
( Nonprofit campanies can be started in the private sector)
A. To deliver electricity to the company’s customer-owners in a safe, affordable and reliable manner;
(can be done in the private sector)B. To ensure excellence, timeliness and accuracy in billing, metering and customer service;
(can be done in the private sector)
C. To provide an open, supportive and competitive platform to develop and deploy renewable generation, storage, efficiency and beneficial electrification technologies;
(can be done in the private sector)D. To assist the State in rapidly meeting or exceeding the climate action plan goals established in Title 38, chapter 3-A;
(can be done in the private sector- as in public-private relationships and Benefit Corporations)E. To improve the State’s Internet connectivity through more affordable access to utility poles and other infrastructure in unserved or underserved areas of the State, as defined in section 9202, subsection 5;
(can be done in the private sector, with the aid of general laws. The legislature says it will contract with private sector resources to run the company)
F. To advance economic, environmental and social justice and to benefit company workers and all communities in the State;
(can be done in the private sector, as a Benefit Corporation or Non_Profit Corporation)
G. To provide for transparent and accountable governance; and
(can be done in the private sector)
H. To support, secure and sustain economic growth and benefits for the State.
(Hmm doesn’t this sound like a state corporate for-profit agenda?)
2. Governance; board. The company is created as a body corporate and politic and is governed by the Pine Tree Power Company Board in accordance with this section.
( a violation of The Maine Constitution, Article Iv Part Third, Section 14)
There is also Article Iv Part Third, Section 13, which states:
Section 13. Special legislation. The Legislature shall, from time to time, provide, as far as practicable, by general laws, for all matters usually appertaining to special or private legislation.
That means the state can address all of the above in general laws and not by creating its own monopoly corporation by a special act of legislation, and if it does create a corporation by special acts of legislation, general laws will apply. Government is fairer when it is separate from the private sector, not when it takes over the functions of the private sector so that the laws that government enacts apply commonly to all, and do not create special exceptions for itself, as in the section below:
A state should not be a player in a field where it also writes the rules. I submit that the section above violates Section 13 and Section 14 in that it exempts special acts of legislation from general laws (Section 13) and admits that consumer-owned transmission and distribution utilities can and do exist in the private sector (Section 14).
Not only is this act creating a corporation by special act of legislation whose object can be achieved through the private sector, but it is proposing to forcibly replace private sector companies with the corporation chartered by a special act of legislation.
This post is not intended to be an extensive analysis of the proposed legislation but it makes the point that the response to the petition I received from my State Representative does not address the primary point in the petition- that the legislators do not know how much this will cost the taxpayers, including potential legal battles.
Another part of the act states:
the company shall purchase or acquire by the exercise of the right of eminent domain all utility facilities in the State-owned or operated or held for future use by any investor-owned transmission and distribution utility.
Is that risky business or is it risky business? Does the Legislature think it will not be sued by powerful electric companies with large financial resources if it tries to take those companies over in the manner of a Banana Republic? How much will that cost the “consumer owners” of the state electricity monopoly? If the electric companies were to sue on the constitutional issues raised herein, what kind of domino effect would that create? Thinking about that possibility almost makes one want this bill to pass in consideration of the large network of corporations enacted with special acts of legislation that currently exist.
The email response from my representative invited questions and so I decided to ask about Article IV Part Third Section 14 of the Maine Constitution but as I was writing the email functionality froze. At the bottom of my screen, I saw a message about Gmass searching my database but I don’t use Gmass, my state representative probably does.
I couldn’t get out of the frozen email section and so I decided to restart my computer. When it felt like it must have been at least 10 minutes and the computer was still restarting, I decided to time it but after another ten minutes, I wondered what kind of process was slowing the restart down and restarted my computer manually.
The computer restarted normally and I sent my question. Will I get a reply?
Sign the Petition Here!