Because politicians and their constituents hate to pay the cost of granting their demands
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But adults have to pay their bills when they come due
An average CMP customer would pay $5 per month more in the first year of the plan, bringing the average bill for a home using 550 kilowatt hours of electricity to $131 per month. The rate would go up $2.5o per month in each of the following two years of the plan, bringing the rate in the third year to $136 per month. ….
The utility hopes to improve its poor reputation for reliability and add automation to its network to handle higher demands on the grid as more people draw on it to power electric vehicles, heat pumps and other devices, Joseph Purington, CMP’s CEO, said. …
The idea sparked backlash from political figures. Gov. Janet Mills said Mainers are already struggling with sky high costs from record inflation. She asked CMP to refrain from asking for the rate hike and threatened to call on her energy office to intervene to oppose it and the utilities commission to reject it.
“There is simply no way that increasing folks’ electricity bills right now can be considered just and reasonable,” she said in a statement. “I will fight this.”
Former Gov. Paul LePage, the Republican running against the Democratic governor in November, issued a statement calling the CMP proposal “frankly unacceptable” with Mainers “already struggling to pay their electric bills” and criticized Mills’ energy record…..
(Earlier this year bills jumped $30 per month to cover the 91 % increase of natural gas paid to out-of-state producers – that’s the “supply portion” of the bill, which typically comprises 1/3 of the total bill – CMP has no control over that cost because, after closing its nuclear plants and shutting down its oil and natural gas plants, Maine imports its energy from Canada and other states).
An electricity bill includes two components, electricity supply and delivery. The electricity supply rate is set by the competitive bidding process required by Maine law, not by the electric companies. CMP and Versant have full control over the delivery rate.
The company is still struggling to regain customer confidence and improve its reputation, two factors that helped lead to a referendum win [media term for defeat of proposal to bring down Canadian hydro power] last November for those opposed to its $1 billion hydropower corridor.
Chickens, home to roost, Department of
