The state nurses union has endorsed a November referendum to create a consumer-owned electric utility.
The Maine State Nurses Association on Wednesday morning called reliable and clean energy a “public health concern.”
“It’s been proven that unreliable power truly hurts communities. Power loss has been linked to higher mortality rates, especially for our elders, due to a myriad of reasons. And Maine currently leads the nation in power outages. That’s dangerous for our communities,” the nurses union said Wednesday.
Question 3 on the November ballot would authorize the state to buy out Central Maine Power Co. and Versant Power and create the Pine Tree Power Co., which would be governed by seven elected board members and six appointed experts.
It is the highest profile referendum among the eight questions that will appear on the November ballot, with the foreign-owned parent companies of CMP and Versant Power spending more than $20 million so far to oppose it.
Pine Tree Power supporters argue it will lead to a more responsive and reliable utility amid CMP and Versant’s dismal outage and reliability rankings, while the utilities leading the opposition have argued it will cost $13.5 billion and bring uncertainty to the state’s electric grid. Public Advocate William Harwood took no stance on the question this month but said it is unknown whether cost, reliability and climate effects would improve under a new utility.
Gov. Janet Mills came out against the referendum earlier this month, likening it to “a hostile take-over that will cost billions of dollars to Maine ratepayers and inject partisanship into the delivery of our power.”
Her opposition came as no surprise, given the Democratic governor vetoed legislation in 2021 to create a consumer-owned utility and criticized it during an interview on Maine Public Radio.
The nurses union said it stands with CMP and Versant Power workers, who it argued would maintain their jobs, union contracts, right to strike and other benefits under the consumer-owned utility.
