On Tuesday, Maine voters approved a referendum to oppose a transmission line by an 18 percent margin. I learned about this in a group chat, where it was met with celebration. With climate change weighing heavy on our minds, most, like my friends, would jump to approve this outcome. In the public imagination, power lines are branded as evil and associated with projects like Keystone XL, which carried crude oil over the Ogallala Aquifer and indigenous land. A quick Google search shows that supposedly trustworthy environmental organizations — including the Sierra Club — supported Maine’s referendum opposing this transmission line. But unlike Keystone XL, this powerline was carrying clean energy; enough to power 1.2 million homes. Use this as a warning: If you care about the environment, beware of appeals to conservation. Visions of preserved forests often hide fossil fuel interests.
The proposed referendum referred to the New England Clean Energy Connect line, which would have carried cheap, renewable hydropower from Quebec to the population-dense Northeast — which accounts for eight percent of the region’s energy budget — increasing the share of carbon-free energy in New England by 40 percent. Better yet, this carbon-free energy would also have reduced the cost of energy for New Englanders. In a world existentially threatened by climate change, carbon reductions are the first priority of most environmental mandates. However, the positive environmental outcomes from the transmission line were hidden by effective political messaging that disguised corporate fossil fuel-driven interests as concerns for local conservation projects.
Fossil fuel companies convinced Maine citizens to oppose the clean energy project through effective messaging campaigns, including co-opting conservation interests. Overall, $26 million was contributed to PACs by power plant owners NextEra ($20 million), Vistra ($2.2 million) and Calpine ($1.7 million) to kill the project, making it the most expensive referendum in Maine’s history. The strategies used were duplicitous. Rather than calling NECEC its official name, it was branded as the CMP Powerline. We have seen this politically effective move before. The Affordable Care Act was colloquially called “Obamacare” to make the act seem like a project of greed and ego by President Obama, rather than a health care bill. Calling the transmission line by the name of the Maine’s utility company rather than its official tannaitle, a description of its purpose, makes it seem like a money grab by Central Maine Power rather than an important part of the necessary decarbonization efforts.
Most misleading of all, appeals to environmental ideals of nature and conservation were used to oppose the transmission line. The transmission line would have only cut through an additional 53 miles of forest in the North Woods, much of which is for-profit forests held by Timber Investment Management Organizations, or TIMOS, and not for preservation. Yet No CMP Corridor, a group funded by fossil fuels, told us to “preserve the integrity of western Maine”, and that the line “would forever change the forestland.” However, Maine’s forests are not virgin. Two-hundred years ago, New England was entirely deforested. All forests have already been “forever changed”: it is not “wild.” In fact, it is held by TIMOS or used for lumber. Further, website after website countered the transmission line by claiming that “environmental benefits are overstated,” providing no evidence, while the other side can quantify the amount of carbon savings.
To meet the United States’ net zero emissions target by 2050, mass decarbonization of the energy system is required. Decarbonization necessitates new infrastructure, including a ramp-up of production of transmission lines to bring renewable energy from areas with high production to areas with high demand. The necessary ramp-up of renewable power infrastructure is progressing too slowly to meet emissions goals. This was one of many missed opportunities to transition to clean energy.
This is not the first time New Englanders have rejected clean energy projects. In 2008, a fully funded offshore wind project was overturned by Save Our Sound, a “non-profit environmental organization dedicated to the permanent preservation of Nantucket Sound” that argued fish and bird habitats would be harmed by the turbines. What did these individuals actually care about, the fish or their beachfront property values? Utility-scale solar on farm and timberland is currently being fought by Save the Pine Barrens and Save Massachusetts Forest in Southeastern Massachusetts over concerns “that rural communities are becoming ‘sacrifice zones for these large land-based solar projects’”. Two nuclear plants have also been shut down in New England. In each case, appeals to local conservation were made. These appeals are notably absent when a housing development, or a windowed skyscraper with high bird fatalities is proposed. Decarbonizing the energy system will require land use change, and if we don’t want to see acute effects of climate change, we must accept that. If you care about decarbonization, beware of the appeal to local conservation. It may be funded by dirty interests.
ANNA B. ALBRIGHT is a senior in Grace Hopper College. Contact her at annab.albright@yale.edu.