Whether or not you support the New England Clean Energy Connect (i.e. NECEC or CMP Corridor), Mainers deserve to know whether the corridor truly produces the climate benefit CMP touted in its extensive marketing campaign over the last five years. In 2019, CMP paid its lobbyists more money to kill legislation requiring an independent study of the project’s climate impact than, get this, the cost of conducting the study itself. The study could have grown public support for the corridor if the results showed CMP’s claims had been true.
Furthermore, CMP’s corridor partner, Hydro-Quebec, refused to submit sworn testimony at the PUC while making its climate benefit claims. And on top of that, the Army Corps of Engineers never conducted a thorough Environmental Impact Statement, so Mainers don’t even have a vetted response to the actual climate impact of the NECEC.
Right now there is legislation, LD 1658, requiring an independent climate study after one year of corridor operation. It would analyze whether the project reduces global greenhouse gas emissions, meaning the entire effect of the project, including methane emissions from new Hydro-Quebec reservoirs to meet increased demand, firing up dirty power plants to meet the people of Quebec’s needs when there is not enough hydropower left for them, and so forth.
In this age of disinformation, this legislation deserves support. I hope you will join me in contacting your representatives in the Maine legislature and let them know you support LD 1658, a bill to find out the truth.
Sandra Howard
Director of Say NO to NECEC
Caratunk, Maine
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