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Maine’s high court ruled Tuesday that a referendum blocking the controversial $1 billion hydropower corridor by an affiliate of Central Maine Power Co. running from the Canadian border through western Maine was unconstitutional.
In a 39-page ruling, five members of Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court said the portion of the November 2021 referendum that retroactively applied to the corridor project, which had previously secured a number of approvals, was unconstitutional.
The referendum was overwhelmingly passed by voters and halted construction on the corridor. The second challenge to the project regarding a public lands lease was not ruled on.
The result was a messy split that still leaves the project in limbo. The court’s decision sends the project back to the business court for further proceedings. Massachusetts, which is paying for the corridor, has given CMP and its allies until the end of 2023 to fulfill the project that will help that state meet its clean energy goals and supply power to the regional grid.
It is another twist in one of the largest and costliest fights over a project in Maine’s history. The project, known as the New England Clean Energy Connect, aims to bring 1,200 megawatts of hydropower energy to New England. The region has seen the prices for electricity and the fossil fuel energy that powers it skyrocket over the past year, and Maine regulators expect prices to continue rising.
The complaint alleged that the referendum violated legal principles including vested property rights, separation of powers and the contracts clauses in both the Maine and U.S. constitutions. Vested property rights mean that NECEC has already made large investments in the project in good faith that it would go forward. Work on the project was halted the day after the referendum passed last November per Gov. Janet Mills’ request.
The referendum was the most expensive ballot initiative in state history with the campaigns spending more than $90 million. Avangrid and its supporters largely funded their side of the campaign while corridor opposition saw generous funding from fossil-fuel interests competing for market share as well as environmental and grassroots groups.
In 2020, the high court killed an earlier anti-corridor referendum attempt on the grounds it was deemed unconstitutional.
The court’s rulings come after a July finding by Maine’s Board of Environmental Protection that allowed the project’s developers access to the lease with two caveats. One was that if the high court found the referendum unconstitutional, construction would have to start within two years for the permit to remain valid. The other was increasing the amount of conservation land from 42,000 acres to 50,000 acres.
CMP said last October that it had spent $350 million on the project so far and that it would lose $67 million if work on the corridor was delayed for a year over the disputed lease.
BDN reporter Caitlin Andrews contributed to this report.
