After a full day of vigorous testimony (including supportive testimony from CLF) on March 25, Maine’s Marine Resources Committee today unanimously voted that LD 72, a bill that will reopen the St. Croix River to alewives, ought to pass. This is an excellent outcome.

With that strong recommendation, the bill will soon go to the full Legislature for a vote. If passed, LD 72 will reverse the law on the books since 1995 that has closed the fish ladder at the Grand Falls Dam  to alewives, preventing them from reaching their spawning grounds. Originally justified by a mistaken belief that alewives competed with smallmouth bass and caused a decline in their population, numerous scientific studies since then debunked that myth. But in the intervening years, the alewife population has shrunken to the point where the species may be listed as threatened. Alewives provide food for numerous species higher in the food chain, provide bait for the spring lobster fishery, provide cover for other migrating species, and much more.

CLF has been blogging on this topic regularly. To read those posts, click here. For a great article on the issue in the Bangor Daily News, click here. 

CLF has been pushing for the unfettered restoration of alewives to the St. Croix in the Courts and in the Legislature. We’re very close to an historic victory that helps the environment and economy of the St. Croix region. Now is the time to push this over the finish line. Please stand with us and contact your legislators and urge them to support this bill.

An important step forward for restoring alewives to the St. Croix river

Fishermen, environmentalists, anglers, representatives from the Passamaquoddy tribal government, federal agencies and the Canadian government have spoken: Alewives should be allowed to return to their native St. Croix river.

At a legislative hearing Monday, speaker after speaker rose in support of a bill, L.D. 72, that would immediately open many fishways at the river’s dams to Alewives.

Our own Sean Mahoney, EVP & Director, CLF ME, testified in support of the bill, arguing, “L.D. 72 is simple, it does the right thing and its benefits – to the watershed, the ecosystem and the many whose livelihoods would be enhanced by a return of the alewives – would be relatively immediate.”

The legislature is currently considering three bills, and Mahoney was joined by the vast majority in supporting L.D. 72, an emergency bill sponsored by Passamaquoddy tribal Rep. Madonnah Soctomah, that would require the Grand Falls Dam fishway to be opened to the “unconstrained passage” of Alewives by May 1^st, before the species’ spring spawning season.

The opening would give the fish immediate access to over 24,000 acres of habitat, compared to a sparse 1,174 open today. In all likelihood, this opening would lead to Canada’s opening the fishway upstream at the Vanceboro dam, allowing access to thousands of additional acres. One researcher estimated that if spawning runs had access to the entire watershed, alewives could number more than 20 million, up from just over 31,000 now.

The alternative Adaptive Management Plan, L.D. 584, calls for a more gradual, staged reintroduction of spawning Alewives to the river. Proposed by Governor Page’s administration, this plan met overwhelming opposition at Monday’s hearing, and was even condemned by one of its own co-authors. It falls far short of restoring alewives throughout the watershed.  It also would run afoul of federal law concerning the operating of dams such as the Vanceboro Dam, as well as the State’s own water quality standards, as noted by Sean in his testimony.

The LePage administration, along with fishing guides from Washington county, were alone in their concerns that reintroduction of Alewives may lead to a decline in smallmouth bass. The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asserted that smallmouth bass, which were introduced into the St. Croix in 1877, have lived harmoniously with spawning Alewives in hundreds of Maine’s lakes and rivers.  Mahoney’s testimony, which you can read here, provides the legal arguments against L.D. 584.

You can more about our work restoring the alewives to Maine’s rivers here, or check out our latest blog posts about alewives here.

In the late 1980’s, more than 2.6 million alewives were counted at the head of tide on the St. Croix River.  That was, and remains, the largest run of this critical species in Maine and New England.  But politics and willful ignorance of the facts led to enactment of a law that closed off access to the upper St. Croix and reduced the numbers of alewives from 2.6 million to 900 by 2002.  It’s well past time to right this wrong, repeal the shortsighted and politically expedient law and restore alewives to the St. Croix.

The law at issue requires the owner of the Grand Falls Dam to keep the fishway at the structure – which works perfectly well – closed during the Spring return of alewives to their native waters. The law was passed in 1995 at the behest of a small but vocal minority of guides who claimed that the resurgence of alewives in the St. Croix River watershed was the root cause for a decline in the number of smallmouth bass in Spednic Lake.  A law requiring the owner of the Woodland Dam and the Grand Falls Dam to keep the fish passage closed was enacted as emergency legislation.  So instead of returning to the St. Croix and spawning in the millions, alewives literally ran into a concrete wall and their numbers dwindled from the millions to the hundreds.

13 years later, armed with two well researched and extensively reviewed scientific studies, one conducted by the Maine Department of Marine Resources and a study supported by Maine IF&W and DMR,  that proved conclusively that alewives not only had coexisted successfully for years with smallmouth bass in numerous lakes but also improved the water quality for those non-native fish, fisherman and other outdoor enthusiasts moved to repeal the law and once again allow alewives access to probably the most productive alewife habitat on the entire East Coast.  But the Legislature failed to right its wrong and allowed fish passage at only the Woodland Dam, meaning that alewives remain blocked from accessing 98% of their native habitat in the St. Croix River watershed.

The number of fish now counted in the River is in the thousands. The tragedy of the St. Croix is not just that the current law flies in the face of science and good wildlife management but also flies in the face of the good work that Maine has done with respect to alewife restoration on so many other rivers – the Presumpscot, the Kennebec, and the Penobscot to name three – and the importance that alewives play as a critical bait and forage fish for both our recreational and commercial species such as striped bass, Atlantic cod and lobsters.

Many of Maine’s rivers have healthy runs of alewives that have actually increased in numbers over the last decade, unlike other States on the Atlantic seaboard where the populations of alewives (and their cousins, blueback herring) have declined so steeply that there is a very good chance that they may be listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act later this year.

And just last week, hundreds of groundfishermen in Maine were given the sobering news that the number of Atlantic cod has also declined sharply, so much so that fishermen in Maine and New England have had the allowable number that they can catch reduced by almost 80%.   So it is beyond comprehension that Maine continues to enforce a law that prevents alewives from accessing the most productive habitat in the State, the St. Croix River.

Certainly that is the opinion of my organization, the Conservation Law Foundation, which last year took the EPA to Court to establish that the Maine law is not consistent with the Clean Water Act and this year is bringing the State to Court to establish that the Maine law runs afoul of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

But the time and expense of this litigation could be avoided if the Legislature does the right thing this year.  A bill introduced this session, L.D. 72, would repeal the current law and require the Commissioners of IF&W and DMR to ensure that the fishways at the Woodland and Grand Falls Dams allow unconstrained passage of alewives.  With Democrats and Republican legislators co-sponsoring the bill presented by Representative Soctomah of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, now is the time for the Legislature to fix this travesty and allow alewives to flourish once again in the St. Croix River.

This article was originally published in the March 2013 issue of the Maine Sportman. 

The Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) took important steps this week to increase energy efficiency in the state and pass those savings along to Maine’s electric customers. On Tuesday, the PUC issued its final order unanimously approving the Efficiency Maine Trust’s Triennial Plan, the comprehensive document that outlines the strategies, programs, budgets and estimated savings for three years starting July 1, 2013.

Some of the more critical components of the approved Plan are its budgets for the Trust’s largest programs related to electric efficiency. The Trust had proposed and made the case for expanding its budget for these programs by almost three times what would otherwise have been available to the Trust, estimating over $650 million in achievable cost-effective savings. The PUC  took a more conservative approach, but acted meaningfully, doubling the electricity budget and affording ratepayers close to $500 million in savings from these programs.

With their decision, Maine’s energy experts have spoken and they unanimously agree that the Legislature should significantly increase funding for energy efficiency. We hope the Legislature will take the responsible course of action this time and claim a victory for Maine ratepayers and the environment.

But, as I wrote last week, going forward, these efficiency funding decisions should reside with the experts at the PUC. The Maine law implemented last year shifting final say on certain energy efficiency funding from the PUC to the Legislature must be amended to direct that authority back to the PUC where it belongs. The Legislature will have the chance to make that change this session. The Legislature should look to the PUC’s actions this week as a demonstration of its keen understanding of the facts and the value of energy efficiency to the people and the state of Maine, and should follow the lead of our energy regulators.

The press release announcing the PUC’s decision is here.

(photo credit: Jack Zalium/flickr)

Get ready: long-simmering chatter among lobbyists and officials in state houses and administrative agencies is about to become a loud, insistent chorus proclaiming that New England needs to give Canadian hydropower financial incentives so that our region can meet renewable energy and climate goals. This policy change would be a wrong turn for a region that is trying to build a truly clean energy future.

As we’ve been discussing for several years now, Québec and other eastern Canadian provinces are eager to increase power exports to New England, including through proposed transmission projects like Northern Pass. Our neighbors to the north have developed and are building more power than they need, and, until New England power prices began their historic decline, the economic motivation for increasing exports was clear: Canadian utilities like Hydro-Québec could sell power to customers in New England and the northeastern U.S. at much higher prices than their own domestic customers are paying. Profits from existing exports to the United States were and remain a major contributor to those utilities’ bottom lines, and they saw and planned to take advantage of a major opportunity to increase profits with new transmission capacity and newly developed hydropower facilities.

The economics behind this long-term Canadian strategy are increasingly in question. Following on the heels of recent technical analysis questioning the strategy’s underpinnings, the most recent projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that total U.S. imports of all energy and electricity in particular are slated to decline over the next fifteen years, with electricity imports never again to achieve the peak level of imports seen in 2012. Given the availability of U.S.-based energy supplies at lower long-term prices, especially natural gas but also wind and other renewable sources, there will be less market demand in the U.S. for Canadian power. These projections reflect a very different reality from the prevailing expectations in 2008, when Hydro-Québec’s strategic plan and the Northern Pass proposal were taking shape. In a research note published last week, Stéphane Marione of Canada’s National Bank Financial warned that “none of the Canadian energy-producing provinces can ignore the profound changes that are taking place in the U.S.”

Montréal, we have a problem. In this new world, the potential market profits from Hydro-Québec’s export strategy are far less compelling. Hydro-Québec may not be able to sell power in New England at the prices it needs to recover the costs of building new transmission like the Northern Pass project and new hydropower projects like the Romaine complex and also return substantial export-driven dividends to the provincial budget.

One possible way that Hydro-Quebec could restore some of these profits is by convincing New England states to increase the price New England customers will pay for Canadian hydropower above the market price. While this may directly contradict the widely held assumption (and marketing claim) that Canadian hydropower is a low-cost power source that is economic without any special incentives, the cognitive dissonance has not prevented Hydro-Québec and Northern Pass developer Northeast Utilities from lobbying New England states to achieve just this goal, an effort CLF has opposed around the region, including in New Hampshire. (Hydro-Québec succeeded several years ago in convincing Vermont to allow its power to count towards a portion of the state’s renewable targets.)

Although the utilities’ lobbying is mostly outside the public view, it is increasingly occurring out in the open, with a direct and urgent new tone. Case in point: Hydro-Québec and Northeast Utilities recently filed comments on Connecticut’s draft energy strategy, which contained some language favoring expansion of Connecticut’s renewable portfolio standard program to include Canadian hydropower, the very policy change that the utilities are seeking. (Incidentally, the final strategy, released last week, made a few changes to the language, and Connecticut is now considering whether and how it might incentivize new imports in a separate study, which is due out soon.) So what did they say?

Hydro-Québec, through its U.S. trading subsidiary HQUS, commented that hydropower should be counted towards meeting Connecticut’s renewable objectives and that its hydropower is less costly than other renewables, but not all power in the marketplace:

HQUS urges Connecticut to recognize Hydro-Québec hydropower as a renewable resource and consider how it might contribute to achieving renewable objectives, as well as other important energy and economic goals. HQUS recognizes that Connecticut has multiple objectives for its renewable programs including to support the development of in-state and in-region resources and emerging technologies. However, if Connecticut’s priority is to maintain its commitment to renewable supply in a cost-effective matter, consideration should be given to the participation of Canadian hydropower. Allowing these resources to contribute to renewable objectives offers a pragmatic way for the state to lower program costs in the near term and, if desired, to extend and increase renewable goals into the future. An approach that values the multiple benefits of Canadian hydropower could also create a market signal necessary in today’s market to promote the infrastructure needed for incremental deliveries into the region for the benefit of all consumers….

Some stakeholders suggest that Hydro-Québec hydropower facilities are “cheap” or low cost to construct. This is incorrect. In fact the cost of building hydropower facilities is significant and generally also requires the construction of new transmission facilities to deliver generator output to load centers, which is also very costly. (Hydro-Québec has also proven successful in the development and construction of transmission facilities to deliver large quantities of electricity over long distances.) However, even with the added cost of transmission to deliver hydropower from Quebec into New England, HQUS estimates its costs to be significantly less than the cost of the delivering equivalent quantities of renewable power from other potential renewable resources in and near New England.

Northeast Utilities, through its Connecticut subsidiary Connecticut Light & Power, commented that hydropower delivered through new transmission projects should get incentives, which would count against the state’s current renewable requirements:

Connecticut has an opportunity to tap into Canadian hydroelectric facilities that are available now or under development, through the development of new transmission infrastructure. A Connecticut RPS market design, which acknowledges that RPS can not only enable new generation, but also support new, clean energy transmission infrastructure could, in this instance, provide for significant Connecticut customer savings….

CL&P believes Connecticut could create a new class of RECs for incremental hydro-electric supply that is delivered over a new transmission interconnection that has been built as an economic project (as opposed to a reliability-based one) which would supplant the need for meeting some portion of Class I RPS requirements….

CL&P believes that embracing large scale hydro power delivered on new transmission as a qualified renewable would meet all three of the State’s energy goals:

• It would be cheaper than other clean energy resources,
• It is clean with very low lifecycle CO₂ emissions, established by independent scientific reviews, and
• It is reliable, and would lessen the region’s dependence on natural gas for power generation needs.

It’s clear from these comments – and the utilities’ growing campaign to secure changes to New England’s renewable energy policies – that they are looking for subsidies from electric ratepayers to support new hydropower imports into the region. In fact, the Northeast Utilities comments constitute a direct effort to secure ratepayer subsidies for Canadian hydropower transmitted over Northern Pass, something Northeast Utilities repeatedly claimed it would not seek and does not need (e.g., here, here,  and here).* (For the record, they are mischaracterizing the emissions benefits to support their argument for subsidies. But that’s another story, well chronicled in prior posts.) Certainly, Hydro-Québec’s own comments reveal that its power can no longer beat the market on its own.

It’s also clear that, depending on how it is pursued, this kind of policy change threatens to put New England’s renewable energy industry at a deep and unfair disadvantage and to undermine its growth. Even Northeast Utilities, in the comments linked above, acknowledges this risk.

CLF has been clear that more Canadian hydropower could be a good thing for the region under the right conditions. But why should New England customers be forced to pay an above-market price? State renewable portfolio laws are intended to get new renewable projects built here, not to force ratepayers to pay extra to improve the economics of Québec’s new hydropower facilities and specific transmission development plans. That’s why CLF strongly objected to the draft Connecticut strategy’s mention of potential inclusion of Canadian hydropower in Connecticut’s renewable portfolio standard law. You can read our full comments, which address other major Connecticut energy issues as well, here.

It’s not too late for the New England states to get smart about new imports and make sure that new imports only happen, if at all, in cost-effective ways that allow alternative power sources and companies to compete on a level playing field, respect local communities, and provide meaningful economic and environmental benefits, accounted for in fair and open processes. Committing New England residents and businesses to pay above-market prices for Canadian hydropower isn’t one of them.

* from Northern Pass’s website, accessed today:

Providing economic clean energy—without a government subsidy

This will be one of the few—if not the only—renewable energy projects in the region that does not need a government subsidy to move forward. Hydro-Québec can generate and sell the power to us at prices that will compete with the average market prices that are being set today by fossil fuel power plants.

Image courtesy of shoothead @ flickr

In the past two weeks, Maine’s energy efficiency programs received two significant votes of confidence – votes that will save customers money, will reduce energy use, and help Maine businesses.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) recently recommended approval of a $10 million electricity energy efficiency long term contract to fund a program of the Efficiency Maine Trust’s serving industries such as Maine’s paper mills and other large electric energy consumers. Last week, the PUC unanimously approved the Trust’s Triennial Plan and supported funding for the Trust’s electric efficiency programs that could more than double it from current levels.

Both of these approvals are important steps in the right direction: they reflect the PUC’s recognition of the value of Maine’s energy efficiency programs and the need for more funding to maximize their benefit to ratepayers. Unfortunately, the ultimate decision of how much funding the programs approved by these decisions will receive has been left to the Legislature. This politicization of energy policy results from a combination of flaws in Maine law and our PUC’s willingness to defer to politicians in Augusta.

The long term contract could provide up to $10 million in funding to help some of Maine’s largest electricity consumers to purchase technology and equipment that would reduce their energy consumption, such as more efficient motors and lighting. Historically, this successful program has saved more than three dollars for every dollar invested. In 2012 alone, $4.5 million in grants leveraged over $8.6 million of private investment in these largely industrial facilities, creating jobs associated with the individual efficiency projects but also helping to retain employment at the facilities where the projects were installed through the bottom line benefit of savings on energy costs. See the Efficiency Maine Trust’s 2012 Annual Report here.

The approval of the Trust’s three-year efficiency program plan will allow the Trust to maintain its most effective programs and possibly enhance its biggest programs related to electric efficiency, by increasing funding in this area from current levels of approximately $39 million over the next three years to over $96 million. These programs will decrease the amount of energy used in Maine, saving Maine ratepayers millions of dollars by suppressing the price of electricity, limiting the amount of energy that needs to be purchased and helping avoid the construction of new transmission projects. Equally important, the Trust will be less reliant upon the uncertain and limited federal monies that have funded a large chunk its programs over the past three years. The increased certainty of available funds means efficiency contractors and grant recipients will be more likely to invest in their businesses by hiring new employees and stimulating Maine’s economy.

While we generally applaud these decisions, any successful outcome from them is entirely dependent upon funding approvals from the Legislature. This reliance on our political process to assess the value of programs for Maine ratepayers must change. Our PUC must be more bold and must lead on matters of energy policy. Maine law designates the PUC as the sole authority on energy efficiency long term contracts of the sort requested by the Trust. Consequently, the PUC could and should have not only recommended, but approved, the long term contract without the need for subsequent legislative approval. Similarly, though the PUC is legally required to recommend to the Legislature how much funding is needed to maximize energy efficiency in the state, certain Commissioners appear hesitant exert this authority, as reflected in the Commission’s recent Triennial Plan deliberations. As the state’s energy experts, the PUC must use the full extent of its administrative powers to guide on energy policy, not leave such questions to partisan politics.

Indeed, politics should be removed from energy efficiency funding altogether. To achieve this, the Maine law implemented last year shifting final say on certain energy efficiency funding from the PUC to the Legislature must be amended to direct that authority back to the PUC where it belongs. A bill proposing just such a change will be before the Legislature this session. We encourage our legislators to recognize their limitations in this highly complex regulatory area and to restore this efficiency funding decision-making authority to our energy experts at the PUC. That kind of leadership will help steer Maine on a path to better energy policy.

The effort to restore Alewives to the St. Croix River is about to go into full gear. In addition to our lawsuit challenging the state law that prevents Alewives from getting above the Grand Falls Dam, we are collaborating with other groups and the Passamaquoddy Indian Nation on a legislative solution as discussed in this recent story in the Maine Sunday Telegram. I’d like to take a second to add a couple of points to this fine story by Colin Woodard on the plight of alewives in the St. Croix River.

First, the so-called adaptive management plan that the LePage administration is promoting in a competing bill at the Legislature is, at this juncture, only supported by the LePage administration – it has never even been considered for adoption by the International Joint Commission, has been disavowed by the federal agencies that have jurisdiction over the River, and is not supported by the Canadian government. The lack of any support for the plan is appropriate because it mirrors the lack of any scientific support for its provisions and its inconsistency with sound fishery management that considers more than just the ups and downs of one sport fish.

Second, in a time of fiscal challenges, the legislation that CLF is supporting, L.D. 72, has no costs associated with it – all it requires is the removal of the board that currently blocks the existing fish ladder at the Grand Falls Dam. That is not the case with the adaptive management plan; annual costs for that plan will be at least $50,000 and in some years could be as much as $100,000.

Third, while the Maine Professional Guides Association may be the only groupthat continues to doubt the science that very clearly establishes that alewives and smallmouth bass do not compete for food or habitat, its executive director, Don Kleiner, is not bashful about praising the value of alewives to the smallmouth bass fishery in other forum, such as in this recent newsletter. As Mr. Kleiner noted, ”in the Saint George drainage we are fortunate to have large numbers of sea run alewives that come to lay their eggs in the ponds each spring. As the small alewives begin to move back to sea with the first rains, all of the predator fish begin to feed actively. Yesterday I was down in White Oak Pond with clients and many of the bass that they caught were actually potbellied from all of the feed they have been enjoying.”

Mr. Kleiner’s inconsistency mirrors the State’s inconsistency in its management of alewives on the St. Croix River as opposed to its management of that fishery in every other river in Maine. It’s time for the Legislature to correct itself and remove this inconsistency from the State’s otherwise laudable efforts to restore alewives to Maine’s watersheds.

Counting Alewives at the Milltown Dam fishway on the St. Croix river in New Brunswick, Canada, Photo courtesy of the Portland Press Herald

Fish ladders and elevators “aren’t working like they’re supposed to, and fish aren’t making it to where they need to go.” So began a recent article in Science magazine. In many cases this assertion is spot on – but in others, fish passages have been remarkably successful. Maine has examples of both.

To find a faulty fish passage,  one need look only at the dam on the Androscoggin River between the towns of Brunswick and Topsham, Maine. The fish ladder at that dam quite simply does not work and the number of fish that successfully navigate its labyrinth is paltry. If anadramous fish like salmon, shad or river herring are ever to return to the reaches of the Androscoggin, significant changes will need to be made to that fish ladder. Better yet would be, where possible, the removal of dams through collaborative efforts like those that led to the success of the Penobscot River Restoration Trust’s efforts or the removal of the dam in Winterport several years ago.

On the other hand, fish ladders remain an important management tool in areas where dam removal cannot be achieved. Indeed, there are a few fish ladders that have been very successful at passing fish, especially when they are allowed to work. For example, in Maine fish ladders at the first three dams on the St. Croix River worked remarkably well – in just 5 short years of operation in the 1980’s, the number of alewives successfully surmounting the 3 dams via fish ladders went from 20,000 to more than 2.5 million. And in 1995, when, for reasons that had nothing to do with science or logic, a state law was passed closing two of the fish ladders, the number of alewives plummeted to less than 1000. Today, even after one of the fishways was allowed to be opened in 2008, alewives are still barred from 98% of the waters that they use to spawn. That’s why CLF will continue to fight to repeal that law, either through the Courts or with our allies in the Legislature.

That said, the data provided in the Science article is depressing. At three major rivers on the East Coast that less than 150 years ago had been teeming with anadromous fish – the Merrimack, the Connecticut and the Susquehanna – virtually no fish –  706, 86, and 7 respectively – passed through the fish ladders at those dams. The author’s call to remove those dams would no doubt increase those numbers significantly and should be pursued to the extent feasible. Alternatively, the fish passage at those and other dams should be evaluated as to effectiveness and those that fail as miserably as those on the Merrimack, Connecticut and Susquehanna, as well as the Androscoggin, should be repaired, modified or replaced with fish passage that does work, like that on the St. Croix.

On Thursday, January 28, 2013, Maine’s Public Utility Commission (PUC) approved, by a 2-1 vote, the terms of a long-term contract for the first floating turbine offshore windfarm in Maine. After a few months of negotiation, this is good news for the state, and for renewable energy.

This vote clears a major hurdle toward Statoil putting four, three-megawatt wind turbines on floating platforms in deepwater 12 miles off Boothbay, and marks the early days of implementation of Maine’s Ocean Energy Act. Signed into law in 2009, the Act encourages projects like this one, so as to support the development of renewable energy technology that harnesses ocean energy. In this project, energy generated from the project would be transported via underwater cable to a transfer station on land, delivering renewable energy to the mainland.

Approval for this project has been a long time coming. Statoil, which has successfully operated a one-turbine pilot project off the Norwegian coast for the past year, originally sought approval for a version of its project in October of 2012. At the time, CLF submitted comments supporting the project and the long-term contract, but the PUC tabled its deliberations and asked Statoil to come up with terms that would have a lower price for the electricity generated and guarantee more future benefit to Maine. Click here to see PUC Chairman Welch’s notes from deliberations. Since then, the project has only improved.

Working with PUC staff, Statoil revised the terms of its contract to reduce the price of energy to Maine consumers and add more assurances that if its initial small scale windfarm is successful, it will make all efforts to employ Maine companies as it scales up the project. Click here to see Statoil’s Revised Term Sheet.  We liked these additional terms even more than Statoil’s initial proposal. Again we wrote in favor of the project and expressed our increased support. Click here to view our additional comments.

The vote at this past week’s hearing was 2-1, with Commissioner Littell and Chairman Welch voting in favor of the project. Littell has long been a champion of efforts to reduce carbon emissions, whether during his time at the DEP where he championed RGGI or now at the PUC. Welch deserves credit as he was not supportive of the long-term contract in its initial phase, but recognized that Statoil had made efforts to address his concerns and even more so recognized the potential that offshore wind holds for Maine.