Central Maine Power Bleeding Cash Trying To Thwart The Will Of The People

Wowsers!  Central Maine Power has spent more than $7M so far on its campaign to stop a referendum vote on its New England Clean Energy Connect transmission project, and if it keeps spending at this rate it could dump another $13M into the transmission toilet, making it the most expensive referendum campaign in Maine history, according to the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

This astounding amount of political spending by Maine’s largest utility amounts to $55,448 per day from January through March, which compares to the average medium household income in Maine of $55,602.  The government-owned Canadian energy giant Hydro-Quebec has spent $2.047 million as part of its coordinated effort with CMP to defend the project against a citizen initiative successfully brought forward by more than 66,000 Maine voters to stop the project. Total daily spending by the two companies combined over the report period was nearly $77,000.

And what did they spend it all on?

CMP’s political campaign includes a vast network of out-of-state political consultants; misleading and simplistic television, print, and online advertising; and mobilization of lawyers and lobbyists trying to stop Mainers from voting on the project. The company has spent lavishly on polling, private investigators to stalk petition gatherers, opposition research, consultants that specialize in blocking citizen-initiated referenda, helicopter services, and even fine dining. The company’s political spending reports show:

• $5.139 million on TV and cable ads and $70,138 on digital ads
  
• $870,623 on direct mail and print ads
• $505,495 on polling and survey research
• $99,021 on a private detective firm, Merrill’s Investigations, to stalk Maine citizens who were gathering signatures
• $91,520 on campaign manager Jonathan Breed since October, already significantly more in six months than the annual salary of $70,000 for Maine’s governor
• $94,392 on an Oakland, California-based opposition research firm, VR Research
• $75,000 on an Arizona-based political firm, Signafide, whose sole purpose is to discredit signatures for citizen’s referenda
• $2,500 on helicopter services
• $2,077 on fine dining, including at David’s, Flood’s, Union, and Katahdin restaurants

... along with lavish "salaries" for certain named individuals.  And what did it get them?  Nothing.  A judge found that the petition had enough valid signatures to be included on the November ballot. 

If CMP and Hydro-Quebec are spending this kind of money trying to thwart the will of the Maine people, what's in it for them?

Huge profits are at stake for these corporations, and investors in CMP’s parent company, Avangrid, recently expressed significant concerns that Maine people might defeat this project. Hydro-Quebec stands to make $12.4 billion on this project and CMP and its parent companies would earn $2 billion.

I suppose $20M or so is a drop in the bucket compared to those kinds of profits, however that seems to be what the companies will be paid according to the contract with Massachusetts to supply power.  Those numbers also include the companies' costs to generate and deliver the power.  For HQ there's still a healthy margin, but maybe not for CMP, whose profits become smaller and smaller for every dollar they spend on this campaign.  If CMP fails at thwarting the people and the referendum passes, the company will not be able to recover any of this money.  It will be gone forever.  At what point will CMP be too far down into its profits to continue this game?  The ultimate joke will be if they manage to get the project built, but it's a monetary loss for the company.  Be careful what you wish for, CMP!

“At this rate, CMP and Hydro-Quebec could spend more than $20 million by November in their effort to sell Mainers a project they don’t want,” said Natural Resources Council of Maine Advocacy Director Pete Didisheim. “This level of spending is unprecedented, deeply troubling during the current coronavirus pandemic, and, frankly, obscene. Mainers should be outraged that CMP would spend this much money when the company still struggles to restore power outages and deliver accurate bills.”

CMP seems to be its own worst enemy here.  As if voters can't see how obscene the company truly is when it comes to NECEC...  My money's on the people for the win!