[0:13] Yeah, there she is.

[0:23] Okay, she's seen. Okay. She should be coming in soon. She's in the waiting

[0:29] room. She was,

[0:33] Ben had said he sent her a participant link. So there's something that screwed up that

[0:39] has to be worked out because she never is able to come in as a member like while we're in the

[0:48] but Robin you are we cannot hear you no okay me well we see you but okay now now

[0:57] you're you're in full length okay well the unmute the video the video so I did

[1:03] that first okay okay so we're all here so I guess we can start the meeting so

[1:16] So it's called to order sustainability committee meeting of March 26, 2026 is starting now.

[1:28] Welcome everybody.

[1:32] We have a roll call.

[1:34] David and I'll speak by chair.

[1:39] I'm sorry.

[1:41] I'm sorry.

[1:41] No, it's all right.

[1:42] Go ahead.

[1:43] over each secretary

[1:47] Robin the award committee member and my gk's chair so I'm I'm not sure

[1:56] did Robin did you do the minutes of the last meeting no I didn't the one before I got them

[2:07] they're in February 26th, right? Yeah. Okay. I show around everybody, I don't know what

[2:16] happened. Okay. Well, we can review them later then. We'll skip that. So today we

[2:27] have a guest speaker, Josh Caldwell, from the, well, I'll let him introduce himself

[2:36] and what he's going to discuss. He's with the Natural Resource Council of Maine and

[2:45] he will he's going to discuss the their environmental policy priorities. So I'm

[2:53] going to turn the meeting over to him right now and then we can follow up

[2:58] afterwards with some questions and then any other business we have. So

[3:03] Welcome, Josh.

[3:05] Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

[3:08] It's great to be here. We're entering the last three weeks of the state legislative session.

[3:13] So all of our priority issues are kind of coming to a head right now.

[3:16] So this is an exciting time to be talking to you all.

[3:20] But my name is Josh. I work on the climate and clean energy team at the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

[3:25] So what I'll be talking about today is primarily focused on our climate and clean energy concerns,

[3:30] but I will note that the Natural Resources Council of Maine also has a couple other departments

[3:34] that I'll be touching on some of their priorities, and that's our woods, waters, and wildlife focus,

[3:39] and our sustainability program. And for us, our sustainability program is more focused on

[3:45] recycling and waste issues and physical sustainability. So I do have a presentation

[3:51] That goes with some of my remarks. I'll share my screen now and see if that works out, but I think as a panelist it should.

[4:00] All right. How does that look? Are you seeing a screen?

[4:06] Yes, we see a crowd.

[4:10] I love when technology works.

[4:14] So feel free to ask questions throughout. I'll also just pause at the end for some questions,

[4:18] but it won't be a very long presentation, and I'll just go through some of our top issues

[4:22] and then we can have a little chat about it. But I wanted to highlight this. This happened

[4:28] last year. This was our Power Main Forward Day of Action, and we had over 100 folks

[4:32] come to the State House in Augusta and advocate at that time for LD1868, which is to establish

[4:39] at 100% clean electricity goal by 2040. And we did successfully pass that last year thanks in

[4:45] large part to this great lobbying effort. So this is just an example of the way that NRCM looks to

[4:50] congregate people in the halls of power to make good progress on our work. And for those of you

[4:57] who might not be as familiar with the Natural Resources Council at Maine, we've been around

[5:00] since 1959. We started by protecting the Allagash River wilderness up in Northern Maine,

[5:06] and we're proud of that accomplishment. It's still one of the most forested and protected rivers

[5:11] in the whole country. But we've since expanded, as I mentioned, to having three department

[5:15] focuses, and we also have a federal advocate who focuses on the federal policy landscape,

[5:21] and she is very busy right now, as you might imagine.

[5:27] These are our issues. Our Forest

[5:29] and Wildlife and Healthy Waters program have been combined so that we can have a strong

[5:35] I work on our climate and clean energy team, and Vanessa is the head of our sustainability program, and I'm sure she'd be excited to come and talk to you at some point as well.

[5:46] We are currently in the second session of the 132nd Legislature in Maine.

[5:52] This means every legislature is two years.

[5:56] The first is right after the legislators are elected and runs from January to June.

[6:02] This is when all the new ideas come forward.

[6:05] We get a sense of what pieces of legislation are in play.

[6:11] And it's incredibly hectic and people are really advocating for their priorities to go first and get passed.

[6:16] The second session, the second year, runs from January to April.

[6:21] And to be frank, most legislators are excited to leave and get back on the campaign trail or, you know, go back and have a summer.

[6:29] So a lot of the second session is focused on cleaning up what wasn't accomplished in the first year.

[6:38] And finalizing appropriations, getting money out to the bills that need money.

[6:44] So a lot of it is really getting down into the weeds of the particulars for some of the stickiest bills that were not decided on in the first session.

[6:52] And the other context that I think is important for this year is that it is a gubernatorial election year.

[6:57] And so this is Janet Mills' last year as governor, and so there's currently a three-way trifecta democratic leadership in the governor's office in the Senate and in the House.

[7:13] And so we're looking to try to accomplish as much as possible with that context.

[7:17] NRCM is a nonpartisan organization, but we recognize that this is a moment to take environmental action.

[7:25] These are our staff experts. These are the folks that if you were to come up to the state house, you might see in the halls. Pete is our legislative director, our advocacy director and he's been doing this work for 30 years to celebrate his 30 year anniversary with NRCM.

[7:42] And some of the other folks are newer to the team, but I share our climate and clean energy team with Jack and Rebecca.

[7:49] I want to start just by mentioning that we had two major successes in the climbing energy world last year, LD 1270 and LD 1868.

[8:00] 1270 established a new department in Maine, the Department of Energy Resources. So that is a new department similar to the Department of Environmental Protection or the Department of Transportation.

[8:09] It focuses exclusively on our energy resources and where Maine is sourcing our energy from and seeking explicitly to make those energy sources cleaner and more affordable.

[8:22] The other thing that we passed kind of in conjunction was LD 1868. And this was that bill that I mentioned that set a goal for 100% clean electricity by 2040, so that the electricity produced in Maine is all from clean resources by 2040.

[8:39] We initially had a goal for 2050 in our climate action plan and we were making such significant progress that that was actually moved up to 2040 and the legislature agreed that that was a good idea.

[8:49] So both of those are really great successes from this legislative session that occurred in 2025.

[8:54] We're following that up by by trying to pass several other pieces of legislation that the climate Superfund bill is maybe the one that I'm most excited about.

[9:02] The concept here is a polluters pay principle. If you make a mess you clean it up.

[9:06] We saw this with Big Tobacco when Big Tobacco came to a settlement that is still providing Maine with about $50 million a year due to public health impacts of tobacco.

[9:15] We saw this with the Opioid Settlement where pharmaceutical companies have been made to pay out for causing public health damages in states like Maine and New Hampshire and other places.

[9:25] In this case, Maine experiences significant damage from climate change.

[9:30] I know in a gunk quit, I'm sure you're very familiar with that, particularly the storms of 2023 and 2024.

[9:37] In the past few years alone, Maine has experienced over $100 million of damage to just our public infrastructure.

[9:44] And that's not even counting our private infrastructure and residences that have had been damaged and needed to be repaired by severe weather, flooding, sea level rise, shorter winters, longer mud seasons, you name it.

[9:59] So the Climate Superfund Bill is one that we're working on really focusing on, really hard right now.

[10:06] We've taken an approach where we split this into two focus areas.

[10:10] The first is to assess the climate damages that have occurred in Maine.

[10:16] So we need to do an assessment for the entire state of Maine to understand how climate change is impacting Maine above baseline.

[10:25] Once we have that assessment complete and a number associated with climate change has caused X millions of dollars of damage, we can then associate that cost with the responsible parties.

[10:39] And we know that the responsible parties are these major polluters, you know, fossil fuel companies, global fossil fuel companies that extract, refine and sell fossil fuel products at a profit.

[10:51] There are about 100 of those companies globally that have emitted over 100 million metric tons of CO2 since 1994.

[11:02] And those are the companies that we believe are most responsible for causing climate change and the companies that would then be asked to pay fees to Maine so that communities in Maine can build back from these storms without resting solely on the shoulders of taxpayers.

[11:18] So we're excited about this bill. It has not yet hit the House and Senate floor, so it hasn't been voted on yet, but we're hoping for the best there.

[11:27] The regional greenhouse gas initiative already passed, but that was this session as well. We're really excited about this. Reggie has been one of the longest standing cap and trade programs in the country for greenhouse gases.

[11:40] but regularly Maine has to pass legislation to approve updates to the program and reaffirm our commitment.

[11:49] Maine did successfully do that with a passage of LD 2037 earlier this year.

[11:54] So we are continuing to be a part of this regional program that produces a lot of money for Maine.

[12:01] Efficiency Maine trust in particular most of their funding comes from the Reggie program for energy efficiency initiatives like heat pumps and weatherization program.

[12:11] We're really excited about plug-in solar.

[12:15] You may be familiar with rooftop solar, rooftop solar where a contractor comes in and installs

[12:21] solar on your roof as a private residence.

[12:24] You then apply for interconnection to the grid as part of the net energy billing program.

[12:28] In this case, plug-in solar is an advocacy effort to allow people to purchase and use

[12:35] smaller solar panels that they can plug directly into their wall outlets without needing an interconnection agreement with a utility.

[12:44] So this would significantly reduce people's costs and offset electricity usage at home and really lower your utility bill without having to do a full installation on your home.

[12:54] Right now it is not legal to purchase these products, but over in Germany and just recently in Utah, they did make it legal to purchase these products.

[13:02] and in both of those places we're already seeing significant progress on reducing energy consumption

[13:08] and reducing electricity bills by using these smaller balcony solar arrays.

[13:16] Getting to the end of the climate and clean energy priorities, publicly-owned transmission

[13:19] started as a really big concept to establish an authority to publicly finance some of the

[13:25] transmission lines that we need to hit our climate and clean energy goals. It has since

[13:30] been somewhat downgraded, I would say, to a study. So now this will be a study of how Maine

[13:36] could go about establishing an authority to help with financing some of these large projects.

[13:41] But you've likely heard of the prospect of offshore wind or of some of these large onshore

[13:45] wind projects in northern Maine that need to be interconnected to the New England grid.

[13:50] Those large transmission projects are all really expensive and are risky investments

[13:55] and are often paired with each other.

[13:58] So a large onshore wind development project

[14:01] is dependent on the creation of a transmission corridor,

[14:04] but one can't move forward without the other.

[14:06] So that project on project risk

[14:08] is really a problem that we've seen.

[14:10] So the prospect of being able to use public dollars

[14:13] to put towards de-risking some of these large,

[14:16] important clean energy projects

[14:18] is something that is now currently in the works.

[14:22] AI data centers,

[14:23] This has taken a lot of oxygen at the State House.

[14:26] You probably have seen headlines about AI data centers.

[14:30] It has certainly been a big part of the news.

[14:32] There have been a lot of proposals from developers to develop AI data centers that are either being used for AI data processing or in some cases other computer uses.

[14:47] But we know that they're highly energy-intensive and highly water-intensive, so they have these potential major energy impacts, major environmental impacts.

[14:56] And so what LD307 would do if past this session.

[15:00] Is establish a moratorium for one year to prevent AI data center build out until we've

[15:06] established a coordinating council that can put some guardrails on what Maine would like to see

[15:11] for AI data center development. That could range from, yes, we're okay with some AI data centers,

[15:17] but they need to make sure to produce their own electricity and do so with clean energy sources,

[15:22] or they need to be a part of investing in the regional transmission and distribution grid to

[15:27] able to host themselves in given areas, but basically the concept being that we want to establish a

[15:34] coordination council under the Department of Energy resources that we just created

[15:38] so that they can take a look at data centers more significantly and put up some good guard

[15:43] rails so that developers and the general public alike understand what best practices are for

[15:49] data center build out. Now we'll just touch on a couple of the things that are outside

[15:53] out of the Climate and Clean Energy Department.

[15:56] Land for Mains Future is one of the most important

[15:58] conservation programs that is state funded in Maine.

[16:02] We are approaching that fund running out of money

[16:06] and there isn't a sustainable way

[16:08] to replenish it at the moment,

[16:10] but we think we may have found a sustainable way

[16:12] to replenish Land for Mains Future.

[16:14] Basically there were several different legislative vehicles

[16:17] that we could potentially use,

[16:19] but we think that we've actually succeeded

[16:21] and including it directly in the budget so that each year some state dollars will be allocated

[16:28] specifically for conservation purposes. We're also working to fund lake and farmland conservation

[16:34] through the bill LD2141. Every year there are unclaimed bottle deposits so every time you buy

[16:40] a bottle that is eligible for return you're paying an extra five cents. A lot of people

[16:46] don't actually return those bottles to the tune of about 16 million dollars a year in

[16:50] the state of Maine and right now that $16 million just goes right back to the

[16:54] beverage distributors which wasn't the initial intention of the the bottle

[16:59] return program. So what we're proposing here is that of that $16 million, $2

[17:04] million we go to farmland conservation and $2 million we go to lake

[17:08] conservation leaving $12 million still to go back to beverage

[17:12] distributors but basically you know using using this opportunity for

[17:17] these unclaimed model deposits to actually go towards something good in this state.

[17:23] And then over to our sustainability program, you all might be familiar with this corporate

[17:28] tendency to want to develop products that can only be repaired by the issuing manufacturer.

[17:36] So you know, some of these large corporations, if they sell you something, you need to

[17:40] go back to them in order to get it fixed.

[17:42] What we would like to see is for manufacturers that sell their products in Maine be required

[17:46] to issue guidance on how to actually fix those electronic devices so that you can do so in your own home

[17:54] and so that local businesses can help you to fix your products so that you don't have to go back to the original manufacturer with your products.

[18:02] And the last one here is our battery recycling.

[18:05] Maine has a lot of really great stewardship policies, but one thing that hasn't been included in our stewardship of waste materials is batteries.

[18:13] And we're seeing a lot more batteries with a lot more electrical appliances.

[18:17] And so we want to make sure that our batteries are taken care of in a sensible manner and

[18:22] that we have money dedicated to that stewardship program.

[18:26] Right now, there is not a single refuse center in the state of Maine that accepts batteries.

[18:32] So they have to be shipped out of state, and we want to make sure that that's something

[18:37] that Maine is actually taking advantage of.

[18:41] And then our Healthy Waters Program, this one is one that we've been working on for several

[18:46] sessions, you may have heard of it, but basically the four federally recognized tribes in the

[18:50] state of Maine are the only four tribes of the 574 nationwide that are not deemed sovereign.

[18:56] They're treated more as municipalities within the state of Maine, whereas the others

[19:00] are treated as sovereign nations.

[19:02] There have been several bills to rectify this historical mishap and currently LD 785 is moving forward and we hope to see it passed.

[19:15] So I just want to finish out here by making a plug for becoming a member of the Natural Resources Council of Maine or by joining us in other ways like taking action at our events,

[19:23] signing up for our email updates.

[19:26] We are the largest environmental advocacy group in the state, and we have the most presence directly at the statehouse, so we're the folks that are working directly on policy.

[19:34] We don't have land holdings like Nature Conservancy or other groups like that, but we do really focus on making sure that the right policies are passed.

[19:44] There's a couple of things that I wanted to highlight for folks that are coming up if you do want to participate.

[19:48] The make polluters pay phone bank is happening next Tuesday the 31st and Margie what might be best is I can send you some of these things after the fact for distribution just so that folks can sign up for them outside of the call.

[20:02] But we have a phone bank to call other energy and members and supporters to encourage them to reach out to their legislators to say yes we want to see the climate Superfund bill passed this session.

[20:12] Also, the first Thursday of every month we have a climate action call.

[20:16] This is an opportunity for folks that are more interested specifically in our climate and clean energy focus to come and chat with us.

[20:23] This month we are going to be focusing on the data centers question.

[20:27] So it's next Thursday at noon, the second that we'll be talking about AI data centers and more depth than what I went into today.

[20:34] If you want to be a part of that conversation, I can send you the link.

[20:37] And then we have a end of the session ritual action hour the session will end by April 15. So on April 7 we're reserving some time for you to come and join us and learn about the best ways to take action at the very end.

[20:50] You can also come see us in person at a couple of places that are near enough to a gunk with that I wanted to include them in this presentation.

[20:56] I'll be at the green home and energy show in South Portland this upcoming Saturday, which is a great space with hundreds of vendors ranging from heat pumps to sustainable clothing to plants for your home.

[21:10] There's just a lot of different home upgrades and modifications you can make to make your space more efficient.

[21:15] It also will have an electric vehicle ride and drive. So if you want to come and test out an electric vehicle you can do that there.

[21:21] And then we'll also be at the Portland Earth Day on Saturday, April 18th, if you want to come and say hi there.

[21:29] I'll just quickly breeze through these. You can sign up to learn more from us by getting action alerts.

[21:35] You can look for yourself at some of the bills that we're focused on on our website. We keep track of all the bills that we're working on, and you can read about their progress through the legislative process.

[21:44] You can also become a member.

[21:48] You know, typically, energy and members contribute $35 a year to keep our programs running.

[21:53] And I will conclude with that.

[21:57] Looking forward to any questions that you may have.

[22:00] And I might as well drop the screen here so that we can all look at each other again.

[22:07] I have a few questions.

[22:10] Yes.

[22:10] Happy to answer.

[22:13] Are you private?

[22:14] I mean, how are you funded?

[22:17] Yeah, we're a member-oriented nonprofit.

[22:19] So a lot of our funding comes from our member base providing funding for us to do what we do.

[22:24] We also pursue a lot of grants that allow us to do the work that we do.

[22:28] So there are some large funders nationally.

[22:30] We are an affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation and of the Environmental Defense Fund.

[22:36] So those national groups provide us some funding, but we focus on main specific issues.

[22:40] So we only do main-oriented advocacy work.

[22:44] Alright. So, okay. So, you're associated with the National Wildlife Federation and the Environment Department.

[22:55] So, do you get involved in any wildlife issues in Maine?

[22:58] We do. Yes, definitely. And that's over in our Woods Waters and Wildlife Department.

[23:04] My colleague, Luke Frankel, is the director over in that program.

[23:08] And so any, I'm happy to connect you with him if you have questions that I can.

[23:13] Yeah, and Luke was, what was he, he was, he did a lot of water testing on some of the grants that the town, Gunkwood had going back, 319 grant.

[23:26] Yeah.

[23:27] He was previously working as an environmental consultant prior to joining NSEM.

[23:32] Yeah.

[23:33] So, okay.

[23:36] And regarding the plug-in solar panels, because we discussed that at one of our meetings.

[23:46] And is that, do you have special permits for that?

[23:54] No, you don't.

[23:54] We can go buy one somewhere.

[23:56] You can go buy one.

[23:57] Well, you can't currently go buy one.

[23:59] So that's what the legislation by passing LD1730,

[24:03] and I should have mentioned that it did just pass the House and the Senate. So all it needs now

[24:07] is to be signed into law by the governor to be law. But once this change is made,

[24:13] it will be legal to purchase and install your own balcony solar. There are some requirements

[24:20] as to the product to make sure the product itself is safe, right? So they need to make

[24:24] sure that it won't cause any backlog on the electric grid or result in any unsafe

[24:31] conditions in the home. But this reduces a lot of barriers to people generating their

[24:37] own electricity at home and avoiding some of the costs associated with your current

[24:42] electric bills, which we know are high. Yeah, that's good to know. I didn't know

[24:50] that you had to have the state head to approve. Utilities typically like to control generation,

[24:58] which does make sense. You know, they want to make sure they know where generation is coming into the grid. But with such small scale appliances, we believe that this will effectively offset people's electricity bills without causing any issues on the grid larger scale.

[25:13] Yeah, but the electricity wouldn't be really going into the grid. You'd be generating your own electricity for your own appliances and everything.

[25:22] Exactly.

[25:23] Yeah, 400 watts. So pretty.

[25:25] I have a question, if I may. You said that you keep 2 million out of the 12 million in

[25:34] the bottle return.

[25:35] Yeah. So for the bottle return, the proposal on the table is that currently there are $16

[25:41] million every year that go back to beverage distributors. The proposal is to take $2 million

[25:47] of that and provide it for lakes funding and $2 million of that and provide it for

[25:52] or farmland funding, both would be issued

[25:54] through the Department of Environmental Protection.

[25:57] So it would be-

[25:57] Why not the 16 million?

[25:59] Why 14 million back to the, to the bottler or the, whatever?

[26:04] Well, it is, it's a compromise.

[26:07] Basically, we are getting significant pushback

[26:09] from the beverage distributor industry.

[26:12] And they-

[26:13] Why are they entitled to it?

[26:14] I mean, that's the thing, they aren't entitled to it.

[26:17] It wasn't originally designed to go back to them

[26:19] in the first place, but through lobbying efforts,

[26:21] they were able to argue that it should go back to them, and we're kind of gradually chipping away

[26:25] at it by trying to argue that this should either go towards supporting our recycling efforts,

[26:30] or it should go towards other positive initiatives for Maine.

[26:35] How about individual towns? I see sustainability for Ogunquit.

[26:41] Yeah, that's a good question actually, and one for Vanessa, because Vanessa has been working

[26:45] extensively on, you know, extended producer responsibility legislation. So for example,

[26:50] that's that's the legislation that main pass that was first in the nation that enables basically

[26:56] requires people who sell products in Maine that have some waste stream to pay for for recouping

[27:03] that waste stream. So that's where we've generated some funding for municipalities to be able to

[27:08] process waste coming and that money coming from, you know, the average distributor is rather

[27:14] than from the taxpayers.

[27:16] Can she get in touch with us?

[27:18] I really think it's the most unfair to give it back to them.

[27:24] Yeah.

[27:24] Yeah, go ahead.

[27:27] No, I appreciate that.

[27:28] I was just going to mention Margie,

[27:29] I think that you actually,

[27:30] you reached out initially to Vanessa and I.

[27:32] So I'll just make sure that to let Vanessa know

[27:35] that you have some additional questions for her.

[27:38] Yeah.

[27:38] Well, yeah, regarding the bottles,

[27:40] I mean, in Clink, which is the company that processes the bottles and all, you know, you

[27:50] can set it up.

[27:51] You can set up nonprofits to get the money from the bottle returns.

[27:58] Yeah, but who's picking it up right now?

[28:00] I mean, the 16 million, is that an effort by the state that goes around cleaning up

[28:06] and they recoup all these bottles or because individuals that recoup the bottles are not

[28:11] going to give it back to them, right? They're going to keep the money.

[28:14] Right. Basically, when you pay for a bottle that is eligible for a bottle return, you're

[28:18] paying the additional five cents. There's about $16 million worth of that that is not ever

[28:23] returned by the individual. And so that $16 million is extra. And would then currently

[28:31] goes back to the beverage distributors. But our argument is that it shouldn't actually go

[28:36] back to the beverage distributors and should be used to clean up our environment here in Maine.

[28:42] So that's the that's the objective and it is interesting because it creates kind of a

[28:46] an odd incentive because ideally we want more people to recycle and the more people that

[28:51] do effectively use our bottle program and recycle the less that unclaimed deposit

[28:55] amount is right so that 60 million should presumably over time be lower. So it's

[29:01] interesting where it's like we don't want to have our environmental sustainability programs

[29:05] dependant on the source that we're hoping gets smaller over time, but we're also saying while

[29:11] this money is available it should be used for better uses than just going back to the beverage

[29:15] distributors. I see a hand from Robin. Yes, when you were talking about Reggie,

[29:22] it seems that it has a finite applicability and we have to sign up to it periodically.

[29:29] How long is it enforced once we've signed up to it again,

[29:32] And why is it on this kind of revolving platform whereby you don't sign up for once and for all and commit to it?

[29:40] Yeah, it's an interesting question.

[29:41] We initially signed up as part of a memorandum of understanding an MOU with 12 other states in 2008, and states have joined and left since that time.

[29:51] And so Maine, I think, is on a four-year cycle, so that every other legislature will see it.

[29:56] but basically, if the program undergoes significant changes.

[30:00] If a state like Pennsylvania leaves and they have to reallocate some of the funding, then

[30:06] Maine has to approve that reallocation to continue participating in the program.

[30:11] Some states are actually set up with automatic renewals. Maine is just set up so that we actually

[30:17] have to pass it as a bill every time it comes up.

[30:22] Lots of extra work.

[30:24] Yes, lots of extra work. Fortunately, there wasn't. We were worried because we saw that

[30:28] Pennsylvania stepped away from the program and some Republicans in Pennsylvania were making a big deal about about the Reggie program and being an inhibitor to

[30:37] Yeah, sure

[30:39] But fortunately that wasn't as as much of a that wasn't taken up as much in main is from our opposition

[30:46] Paul I got a question and

[30:49] Your your program has been very expansive and

[30:53] And a compliment to you that let me tell you one problem that the state has it's killing everybody

[31:01] Costs to the energy. What are you guys doing about that? That's a that's a terror that that'll bankrupt people

[31:09] Yeah, no, I agree Paul. That's it's a good question energy affordability

[31:13] I think is on the front of everyone's minds at the moment

[31:16] There's a few ways that we approach that one

[31:18] Rebecca Schultz my colleague is in front of the public utilities commission regularly

[31:23] The Public Utilities Commission is the body that regulates our utilities, CMP and VersaNT.

[31:28] And so we advocated against the rate case increase that CMP brought this last fall.

[31:33] I don't know if you were tuning into that, but basically CMP said,

[31:37] we need to increase rates in order to recoup from some of these storms

[31:41] and for a number of other upgrades that they wanted to make.

[31:45] And we said, no, you should not increase rates.

[31:48] And in fact, we believe that too much of your money goes back to profits for shareholders that are overseas.

[31:57] And so as you know, CMP is owned by Avangrid, which is owned by Ebert Rola.

[32:01] So it's this huge Spanish energy company that is getting 14% of all of the profit or all of your bill that you pay regularly for your electricity.

[32:09] So we're regularly advocating for to reduce profits that CMP makes and for them to make sensible investments.

[32:17] We also really do believe, and I think that the current situation in Iran is illustrating this, that transitioning to clean energy is going to allow Maine to reduce rates in the long term.

[32:29] Because we don't have any control over the global fossil fuel market. And right now Maine imports over $4 billion of fossil fuels every single year.

[32:37] And so when you get an international conflict like the one we're currently seeing, energy prices go way up. We have no control over that.

[32:44] If we were to produce our own energy here in Maine, using solar and wind, we would have

[32:49] control over generation, which would ensure that we don't get those crazy spikes and fluctuations

[32:54] in energy.

[32:55] So those are just a couple of the ways, Paul, but it certainly is something that we are

[33:00] paying attention to.

[33:02] You understand Maine is one of the highest electrical rates in the United States.

[33:08] I know it.

[33:08] This is an area that's a killer for the state.

[33:12] If you can't fix that, you're going to lose industry, people are going to leave, and all

[33:19] the good work you're doing will go for naught.

[33:22] I appreciate you're doing what you're doing, but I don't see, and I understand how to

[33:29] reduce costs of investment, but it's a problem.

[33:36] I just don't know how to deal with it.

[33:38] Yeah.

[33:38] It is a problem, absolutely.

[33:40] Margie?

[33:42] That transmission line from Hydro-Quebec that finally was approved. I mean it goes to Massachusetts which

[33:56] helped but doesn't mean benefit get some of the electricity from that. Yeah this one's this one's

[34:05] tough one. We were opposed to the original New England Clean Energy Connect corridor.

[34:11] And the main people opposed it by referendum by about 60%. And then CMP was able to win the legal

[34:19] case that it should go forward, which we were disappointed by. A quick aside, part of that

[34:24] legal case is that they have to conserve 50,000 acres of land in Maine. So we are,

[34:31] you know, whenever we see a large project like this, we do want to make sure that

[34:34] we are getting some benefit from the project. So one of the benefits is conservation associated

[34:38] with the project. But we aren't opposed to all transmission lines. We need some transmission

[34:44] in order to build out the clean energy grid that we need to power our future. It just

[34:49] needs to be sensibly and thoughtfully cited, and it needs to provide benefit to Maine.

[34:53] And for us, that line that you're referencing cut through too much undisturbed forest land

[35:00] and was primarily redistributing existing energy from Canada to Massachusetts through Maine

[35:08] without providing a lot of long-term benefit for Maine.

[35:13] And we're beginning to see, you know, I hope this doesn't continue to play out,

[35:17] but Hydro Quebec is relatively famous for having these huge hydro dams, you know, up in Quebec province.

[35:25] And they say they have a lot of extra electricity to go around,

[35:29] and so that's why they wanted to build this line down to Massachusetts. But over this cold snap,

[35:34] this last winter, they ran out of energy to provide through that line down to Massachusetts

[35:39] because they had to focus on all the energy demand in Quebec province. So I think that's

[35:44] just an example of, you know, we always want to be a little bit suspicious of these claims that

[35:49] these large corporate entities are making about whether their, you know, energy is

[35:56] is going to be beneficial to to where they say it is.

[36:00] Wasn't there something I read some years ago about doing something with hydropower

[36:05] at the Bay of Funday?

[36:10] Because of the tide differentials.

[36:12] Yeah, tide tidal power.

[36:14] That's still, tidal power is kind of in its infancy, but there is this organization,

[36:19] and the acronym is ORPC, Ocean Renewables Power, something.

[36:25] I can find out what the exact acronym stands for, but they are developing these title turbines that are that flow according to the tides.

[36:34] I think our understanding right now is that it just isn't particularly scalable and they haven't proven that it's a legitimate technology for larger scale use, but it is something that they're researching and developing.

[36:47] And this sort of speaks to whenever we see a hydro proposal, you know, we just have to question that the impact versus the energy, right?

[36:56] I mean, we think that with large hydro dams, you know, sometimes you're chopping off entire river, riverine ecosystems.

[37:05] With tidal power, there's probably more potential for there to be some interplay and less ecological damage.

[37:11] But we just haven't seen large scale proposals yet.

[37:14] I have one more quick question, wasn't there a bill before the legislature to allow communities

[37:26] to negotiate rates directly with the Public Utilities Commission, I mean, or not with

[37:34] the public, directly with whatever source or other supply is. The, you know, because

[37:45] I had asked Jerry Runty rep a couple months ago or six weeks ago when he said there's

[37:52] a bill in front of the legislature so that communities can basically negotiate their

[38:00] own supply rate. I mean, the distribution rate is fixed by central main power, forgetting

[38:07] they own all the distribution lines, but the actual power generation, you know, there's

[38:13] all these companies that try to sell it to you. And, you know, it's great rate for six

[38:17] months and then they'll increase it and all that. But if you have a whole town, a city

[38:24] working out some deal at a lower rate. But I think the legislature had to approve it.

[38:35] And I thought that it was, you know, any day. This was six weeks ago. I haven't seen what

[38:44] happened. Okay. Well, Jerry certainly, Jerry serves on the Energy Utilities and Technology

[38:49] Committee. So he's definitely in the loop on this. I'm not as familiar with that bill.

[38:53] it hasn't been a component of one of our prior or major priorities this year, but I can circle

[38:58] back and find out because in Massachusetts, the most of the greater Boston towns and cities,

[39:08] you know, they send you a form.

[39:11] Once he is saying that your electricity supply is coming, you know, and you have a choice

[39:18] of whether you want all green, average, or no green, with three different rates.

[39:24] And the whole town gets that rate, which is negotiated by the town, not ever sourced.

[39:32] You know, you have the, that so, and it says saved money, and you don't have to get involved

[39:37] with, you know, all these supply companies that give you a great rate for six months

[39:41] and then double the price and stuff like that.

[39:44] So I had asked him about that. I'll follow up with him and see then.

[39:49] Yeah, and I'll do the same. I'll follow up with Rebecca Schultz,

[39:52] my colleague here who is more closely looking into the grid side.

[39:59] Robin, I see you had a hand raised.

[40:01] Yes, I'll guess that that C in your acronym stands for consortium,

[40:05] but actually my comment relates more to your discussion with Paul

[40:10] and you're talking about alternative sources of energy.

[40:14] As we have seen, the current administration

[40:16] is trumping around paying out our money

[40:20] to cancel initiatives like that.

[40:22] So I wondered what is Maine doing to try to future proof

[40:26] and protect these initiatives

[40:28] from unfriendly federal intervention?

[40:31] Yeah, that is, and what Robin's referencing

[40:36] for those who may not have seen this,

[40:38] this was the Trump administration paying one billion dollars to a French company who had

[40:42] proposed building an offshore wind farm off of the east coast to cancel that project.

[40:49] Yes, it was just in the news, yeah.

[40:51] Yeah, it's really a remarkably poor use of taxpayer dollars and the Trump administration

[40:56] in particular has just been really disproportionately opposed to wind.

[41:01] It's Trump's.

[41:02] Yeah, there's been some conversation about Trump having this ingrained thing against

[41:06] wind because there was some wind being proposed off of one of his golf courses in Scotland

[41:14] that he didn't like to look up on the horizon. So anyway, not economic rationale behind canceling

[41:20] that project and I think a waste of taxpayer dollars. But I do want to answer your question,

[41:24] Robin, which is, you know, primarily one of the things that we set up by doing a department

[41:28] of energy resources is tasking that department of energy resources with regularly scheduled

[41:34] procurements of clean energy here in Maine so that the state is committing on a biennial basis

[41:40] to continuing to support clean energy development in the state, regardless of federal conditions.

[41:47] So that's one way that we're future-proofing it by setting up that schedule of procurements

[41:51] and showing the economic benefits of having regularly scheduled procurements,

[41:55] which it also turns out is better for the marketplace for investors to be able to depend

[42:00] And reliably on there being a schedule that they can compete into right so it makes a lot of sense to set it up that way and I'm glad that we're doing so and that we have a schedule all the way out through 2040, which is how we anticipate getting to that 100% electric clean electricity goal so it doesn't prescribe

[42:20] Exactly the source. It just defines clean energy and has a series of sources that can be utilized under that clean energy definition.

[42:29] So, I think that's the strongest way that we're trying to do so. And then, we at NRCM just continue, you know, to mobilize our membership to contact our congressional representatives to oppose some of these more drastic measures that are being taken in the more immediate

[42:44] because they are certainly negatively impacting the prospect of may never developing, you know, offshore wind, for example, which is certainly a big part of our plan for our clean energy sourcing in the future.

[42:55] Thank you. I also wanted to suggest that if there aren't any more questions from the

[43:00] committee, Margie, would it make sense to see if any of the people who have joined us

[43:06] from the public have questions to ask directly to Josh?

[43:10] I don't know. I think.

[43:11] Yeah, we've got books. That's our hand up, so.

[43:16] All right. Yeah, well,

[43:22] is...

[43:23] Can I hear? Yeah, there you go.

[43:25] Hi. Thank you so much, Josh. That was really interesting. I'd like to know how you get to do what you do. Do you have a sense of what kind of educational opportunities there are in Maine at colleges and universities that would graduate people who want to work with natural resources?

[43:48] That's a really great question. I appreciate you asking it. I'm really fortunate and then

[43:52] I grew up in Maine. I grew up in West Gardner and then I went to Bates College in Lewiston.

[43:56] So I feel really grateful to continue to, and I studied environmental studies at Bates

[44:01] College. And so this feels like it's in direct alignment with what I worked on. And

[44:05] I'm really grateful to NRCM for prioritizing hiring folks with, with Maine backgrounds

[44:10] and experiences. But there are a lot of ways that, that people can get involved

[44:16] And one of them that is just on the top of my mind because I'm going to the event in just a couple of weeks is every single year, you main hosts a offshore wind demonstration challenge for high school middle school and high school students.

[44:31] So middle school and high school students come up to you main over 1000 of them every year.

[44:35] And they test sample offshore wind floating turbines in the state of the art facilities up at you main.

[44:41] And then the winning team, the members of the winning team get scholarship offers to

[44:46] the University of Maine.

[44:48] And the University of Maine is the leading research institute on floating offshore wind

[44:53] in the country.

[44:54] So they have this advanced composite center that has this wave pool and this 3D printer.

[44:58] and they have, you know, they...

[45:00] They fabricate these huge offshore wind turbines right on site.

[45:04] So that's just one way in which, you know, from a very young age onward, we're developing

[45:08] this pipeline of young students who are interested in contributing to a clean energy future and

[45:15] want to do so right here in Maine.

[45:17] And I'll just finalize that thought by saying, Maine doesn't produce any fossil fuels, right?

[45:23] We don't extract fossil fuels from the state.

[45:25] We don't extract coal.

[45:26] we don't extract natural gas, but we are increasingly beginning to install solar, build wind,

[45:33] you know, weatherize homes, install heat pumps, HVAC and weatherization programs are really available

[45:41] largely through vocational and community colleges that are getting some funding or we're getting

[45:46] funding to do that. So there are a lot of ways in which I think young manors right now could

[45:52] vision themselves working in the clean energy industry in Maine in the future in a way that didn't

[45:57] exist, you know, 10 years ago. I am always happy to talk with people as well. So I have regular

[46:05] conversations with high school students in particular who are either working on projects

[46:08] or who are curious about this career path. So, you know, I would say if you have young

[46:14] people in your life that are curious, there are a lot of, you know, whether it's natural

[46:18] Resources Council of Maine or Maine Conservation Voters or the Maine Renewable Energy Association.

[46:23] There are a lot of willing folks out there who would love to talk to manors about how they can

[46:27] continue to study this and get involved. And do you know of graduates who are working with

[46:34] municipalities?

[46:37] I do. Chrissy Adamowitz used to work for the Natural Resources Council of Maine

[46:42] and now she's working with the City of Brunswick on their sustainability program. So

[46:45] So there are examples of that I'm trying to think are you all familiar with the main can main climate and action network. Yeah.

[47:00] So this is one of the best best ways I think to get updated information about job postings and such.

[47:07] So this is an email list that connects a lot of municipalities together and municipalities can post their needs. And then anyone on that list can, you know, respond and either apply to jobs or vice versa, right?

[47:19] You can post that you're looking for something and then get something there. So I think we're beginning to develop these networks of interconnected climate and energy opportunities for municipalities.

[47:38] Thanks, Rebecca.

[47:43] Are there any other hands?

[47:50] No hands.

[47:51] Okay.

[47:53] Okay, from, I guess, from the committee, I guess, who answered all the questions.

[48:01] So we appreciate you coming and talking to us.

[48:07] And we know if we have any questions, we can ask you to direct us in the right direction.

[48:13] Yeah, exactly.

[48:13] And I'll follow up with a couple of the links to the things that I mentioned on the call.

[48:17] One thing that I am remembering now that I forgot to mention is that a few municipalities have

[48:22] moved forward by passing resolutions in support of creating a climate superfund for Maine.

[48:28] So the towns of Bath, the town of Rockland, and the town of Yarmouth have all passed

[48:34] resolutions in support of creating a climate superfund. Scarborough is currently considering

[48:40] yet as is Falmouth and a few other places. But basically, you know, I think a lot of towns are aware

[48:46] of the need for climate resilience funding and are maybe a part of the community resilience

[48:52] partnership. And the concept of creating a super fund that would be funded by climate polluters,

[48:58] but that would be distributed directly to municipalities for resilience and adaptation

[49:02] projects, I think is an exciting one. And if you, you know, what I've seen happen before

[49:08] Or is a sustainability committee or a climate committee suggesting to the town council adoption of a resolution. So if you'd like more information about that as a potential action to take, I'm happy to share.

[49:21] Okay, so that would be great. We'd really like to see more about that.

[49:24] Okay, great. I'll include that in my follow up.

[49:27] Okay.

[49:28] All right. Well, thanks.

[49:30] Thank you.

[49:31] Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

[49:32] Thanks very much.

[49:33] Okay.

[49:34] Okay.

[49:34] Bye-bye.

[49:36] Bye-bye.

[49:40] Okay well that was interesting and so to continue with beach updates the I guess I

[50:01] had heard that the beach grass was indeed being planted in the dunes.

[50:11] Did you see

[50:13] that Robin? I've seen the fencing. The fencing is what's happened since that we

[50:22] had our workshop on March 5th? Well the fence at the protected area at the

[50:30] one end of the beach has a low rise fence saying protected area keep out but

[50:34] that didn't seem to quite have the desired effect as there were some people

[50:38] clearly intruding upon said space and then heading up towards Moody where traditionally

[50:46] the Clover nesting sites are. There's a there's a series of posts along there from where I was

[50:53] standing they look to be about four or five foot high but that might have been perspective.

[50:59] And there's also a really strange one-off sign that's tied to the power lamp post

[51:09] near to where you have the seated area with the canopy,

[51:12] which is talking about the plovers

[51:14] and helping to protect them, but it's twisted around

[51:18] so it's not even square on for people to see.

[51:22] And I was wondering if that was something

[51:23] that another organization put up

[51:26] or if it was something that was meant

[51:29] to be bold and visible and just got damaged by the storms.

[51:33] But it was a very interesting thing

[51:35] given that our workshop was talking about improved signage and such, and this seems quite a friendly

[51:42] and accessible looking thing rather than the style of the Rachel Carson, but from where it came I do

[51:47] not know.

[51:50] Yeah, I get pictures sent to me once in a while, so I noticed that there was some

[52:01] for the damage at the end of the parking lot, which I keep, you know,

[52:06] talking about the dunes, but the end of the parking lot looks like it was collapsing.

[52:15] But I know that when we had our workshop, Mandy was supposed to attend, but she got busy

[52:24] and I think there were some questions that were sent to her that hasn't responded yet.

[52:33] Pam sent them in and she wrote a very emollient email saying, no, I know it's a budget season

[52:40] and you're very busy, et cetera, et cetera, but then sent in a list of questions because

[52:45] I did a draft that I included you all in when I sent and said, you know, if anyone

[52:50] has anything to add and Pam said that she had, she was taking down some questions as well but

[52:56] haven't seen anything back from Mandy whatsoever. So, well I guess we'll have to see.

[53:08] I will prod Pam to prod Mandy. You want? I will prod Pam to prod Mandy.

[53:14] Yeah. Well, they finished the beach scraping and I heard because I thought they had scraped

[53:21] in front of the Norseman. I was there when I was there. It looked, but somebody told me

[53:27] it wasn't scraping. It was just because there was actually the storm, one of the storms

[53:33] had brought up a lot of sand. There was like a lot more sand in front. You know,

[53:37] every year it keeps changing but so well we'll see how it is once everything gets cleaned up.

[53:46] So it's still I mean today's a nice day but it's going to be cold again on the weekend

[53:54] so but anyhow so all right if I may in terms of our workshop although I know Eileen set

[54:06] times aside for us through the year so that there was, it was available if needed.

[54:12] I don't see that there's a point to meeting again until we have that information from Mandy.

[54:17] But it's nice to know that we've got a block of time and we can then just check amongst ourselves to see

[54:23] is it a convenient time to meet.

[54:26] Okay.

[54:29] Okay.

[54:29] Okay. Any more questions or comments from the audience on anything? Anybody still watching?

[54:41] Elaine has her hand raised if Ben needs to admit her to speak.

[54:47] Can you hear me?

[54:49] Yes.

[54:50] Okay. I just wanted to say that the contractor who did the dunes, Labi, either he or a subcontract

[54:58] to put in thousands upon thousands of grasses. They're all in from the noisemen all the way

[55:04] down to moody. And they also put in the stakes in twine that usually is done by our DPW or

[55:12] the main Audubon. They're higher than normal and they have two rows of the string on them.

[55:19] So that's all done. It was all done before the 15th.

[55:25] So it looks great. We just hope that they take and that people stay out of the dunes.

[55:29] They also finish the crossovers, at least on the beach side. I think there's a little more

[55:34] work to be done on them on the river side.

[55:38] Oh, okay. Okay. Well, that's good news.

[55:43] Thanks for a great speaker today.

[55:46] Okay. Thanks for watching.

[55:48] You're welcome.

[55:50] anybody else no

[55:55] hands okay so any anything else the committee wants to

[56:04] discuss or any or should our next meeting would be in four weeks which is I

[56:14] forgot to look April let's

[56:22] say well if it's the fourth if it's the fourth

[56:25] Thursday, it would be the 23rd. Right, April 23rd, I see that, right. Okay. Okay, so I guess

[56:38] if there's nothing else, we can adjourn the meeting and if I wait one more minute, it'll be

[56:51] exactly. I moved to adjourn. I second. Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, everyone. Alright,

[57:02] thank you. Bye-bye.

Sustainability Committee - March 26, 2026

Transcript