While world leaders meet in Glasgow over the seemingly insurmountable crisis caused by Greenhouse Gas supercharged climate change, approximately 60 percent of Maine voters have now opposed a one billion dollar project already being constructed to bring hydroelectric power from Canada to Massachusetts.
The New England Clean Energy Connect transmission project enjoys the support of the Biden Administration, the current Democrat Governor of Maine and the former Republican Governor of Maine, and, of course, the Governor of Massachusetts.
The project is essential for Massachusetts to achieve its GHG reduction mandates. There is no sufficient "Plan B".
It has successfully navigated over four years of federal and state permitting only to find itself mired in federal court litigation with more litigation certain to follow.
Earlier this year we saw NIMBY complaints filed in federal court in a NIMBY attempt to stop already permitted wind energy projects off the coast of Massachusetts.
If continued "business as usual" in how we generate and use energy poses an existential threat to our future, as pretty much every one believes, when are we going to get serious about making sure that the planning, permitting and construction of important clean energy projects have a beginning, middle and end consistent with timely overcoming that threat?
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