Maine's Very Own Beverly Hills, Billy
Come and hear a story 'bout a State named Maine
A proud thrifty group, barely kept the wolf away,
Then one day wind energy matured,
And through those windmills blew a wealth they'd have for good.
Wind that is, free fuel, up for grabs.
Just off the coast in the blustery chop of the Gulf lies a veritable gold mine of wind energy. It is whipping about, just waiting to be harnessed, transformed into electricity, and potentially distilled into profit. Long-term leases are now being negotiated, and as of May 1st a decision will have been made.
The Maine Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) is, as a public service, primarily obligated to protect the interests of its citizens. Right now it has to make a decision whether or not to allow a Norwegian oil company, named Statoil, to build wind turbines off the coast of Monhegan Island. This sounds like a simple problem, but there is more at stake than just a single turbine in a pilot program. Long-term contracts are at stake.
There are a few things that need changing before ANY leases for wind projects move forward. Foreign companies, no matter how 'good' they purport to be, have no place in Maine's energy supply chain. Period. Furthermore, Maine has an abundance of coastal wildlife supporting coastal economies, and BOTH depend upon the appearance of a pristine and timeless maritime atmosphere. Move the turbines back from the intended 12 nautical miles offshore to a reasonable, and publicly agreed-upon, distance from the outer islands of the coast.
Yes, these decisions make for a greater initial cost in terms of infrastructure, and they require input and proactive action from the public. But these initial sacrifices pale in comparison to the irreparable ecological/economic harm our precious coastlines would suffer from such large-scale projects and their maintenance. These turbines will be skyscraper huge. We need to accomodate for this now, before the plans are locked and the wheels are set in motion. More important to Maine's future is that we ensure that Maine's CITIZENS maintain control over this source of energy. Why do we want to give this wealth away to corporate entities whose bottom line may not be in Maine's best interest? Why should we sacrifice our offshore wind by signing away long-term leases? Where is our initiative to innovate?
In a New York Times Article published this week and entitled, Deepwater Oil Drilling Picks Up Again as BP Disaster Fades, by Cliffor Krauss and John M. Broder, last December the Obama Adminstration was quoted to have "held its first offshore auction since the BP spill, granting leases for more than 20 million acres of federal waters — bigger than West Virginia. The leases are worth $330 million to the federal government and have the potential to produce 400 million barrels of oil."(1)
We as a State can lease these parcels; We as a State can create a Municipal Wind Energy Utility. Why have the Nestle Corporation feed us Poland Spring for our drinking water when we can just take it out of the tap? It is that self-evident. Let's not sell our energy rights. Think about the budget that has weighed so heavily on the State. What is driving those high prices? Much of the trouble comes from the rising cost of fuel oil.
Our schools, our homes, and our municipal buildings are our primary cost as citizens, and their primary cost is fuel; heat in the winter, conditioning in the summer, and transportation fuel throughout. The U.S. Energy Information Administration website -updated Feb.16, 2012- states that Fuel Oil accounts for 80% of Maine's home heating burden.(2) These costs can be drastically reduced, as would our tax burden if our public schools and government structures also became independent of oil prices. This is a transformative period in time, and we as a State need to see past fossil fuels as the primary source of energy. That Gulf is our property, it has long been abused by international fishing conglomerates as well as disinterested parties from away. It is the Gulf Of Maine, and we need to remind the Federal Government just how valuable an asset we are to the Union.
We as citizens of Maine are easily capable of deciding what is best for our future. It is time that people from away stop dictating what is best, isn't it? We are standing within view of one helluva gusher of energy. But unlike a traditional oil gusher, this one NEVER runs out. Why give that away? This is just one opinion, but hopefully it seems as reasonable to others as it does when I read it back to myself on this page.
Alternatively, we can sit back and watch what happens. Also recently posted online in the New York Times was a story about a proposed hydroelectric dam to go into a section of Chile's Patagonian steppe. The article states that, "The energy project is a partnership between the Italian-Spanish company Endesa and the Chilean company Colbún, which plan to harness the power of the untamed Baker and Pascua Rivers through a series of five dams that would generate 2,750 megawatts, primarily for energy-starved cities farther north."(3) That is roughly the energy equivalent of three nuclear power plants equivalent to the now-decommissioned Maine Yankee.
Proposed limits to Maine's wind power exceed 140 gigawatts. Professor Habib Dagher of the University of Maine has spoken extensively on these numbers. What does even a fraction of that mean in economic terms? Well? It means that this is the Big-Time and our Junior Varsity squad needs to get out of its scrimmage mentality. Or not. We can indeed just sit back. Observe with that Downeast Indifference we've perfected over generations of stoic winters. If we do that, it's over. But, the law is on our side, and so is the future of the renewable energy economy. Start writing letters and proclaim that we as citizens need to maintain control of our wind energy. May 1st is fast approaching.
(1) - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/business/deepwater-oil-drilling-accele...
(2) - http://205.254.135.7/state/state-energy-profiles-data.cfm?sid=ME
(3) - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/world/americas/in-patagonia-caught-bet...
People to Contact:
Boothbay Representative
Bruce MacDonald
RepBruce.MacDonald@legislature.maine.gov
Christopher K. Johnson
District 20 Senator
Kevin Raye
Office of the Senate President
3 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0003
Senator@KevinRaye.com
Chellie Pingree (D)
District 1
1037 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-6116
https://forms.house.gov/pingree/contact-form.shtml
Susan Collins (R)
461 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-2523
www.collins.senate.gov
Governor Paul R. LePage (R)
1 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0001
(207) 287-3531
governor@maine.gov
State Treasurer Bruce L. Poliquin
39 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0039
(207) 624-7477
Email: state.treasurer@maine.gov
Bill Beardsley Commissioner Maine Department of Conservation
East Side Campus
18 Elkins Lane, Augusta
Commissioner's Office
1st floor
P: 287-4900 F:287-2400
Bureau of Parks and Lands
2nd and 1st floors
P: 287-3821 F: 287-3823
Land Use Regulation Commission
4th floor
P: 287-2631 F: 287-7439
Natural Areas Program
93 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0093
P: 287-8044 F: 287-8040
Bureau of Geology and Natural Areas
East Side Campus, Williams Pavillion
P: 287-2801 F: 287-2353
P:(207) 287-2211 F: 287-2400
DEP rulemaking information (terry dawson)
terry.dawson@maine.gov
The Actual Working Class
"I found the crown of France in the gutter, and I picked it up." - Napoleon*
The above quote resonates today. Traders, financiers, real-estate fetishists, and grafty politicians practically have it tattooed across their asses. Furthermore the subject of, ahhh, the 'international stake' in this country's assets won't be touched here. It is painfully embarrassing.
The tone of it all is rather black, or red, depending on your terminology, but the gist of it is that we are all looking around with a sense of bewilderment. And everyone from President Obama to Warren Buffett to your local astrologer doesn't really seem to be dishing out any hope for the next step upwards. There is a reason for that. Honestly, there is a whole zoo full of reasons, and this menagerie of conflicting interests would take a whole pile of blogposts to even sketch out. So, an initial "shot across the bow".
Again, that Napoleon quote we started off with may parallel the state of today, but it does not have to. The Large Interests of the world, the Napoleons of today, swashbuckling their way through bankrupt pensions, currency markets and whole industries, undermining retirement benefits and turning the working poor into something closer to a slave class, those people don't need to be the ones who pick this society up out of the gutter. That will mean that there is more sorrow to come for the Actual Working Class. But our gutters are indeed littered with many crowns. Here is one small crown we can snatch up before it is taken: our investments.
How can we convince "everyone" to stop flocking to the stock market and start looking around our neighborhoods? How can we convince ourselves to invest in what is around us? How can we help our communities diversify out of box stores and big pharmacies? The most fundamental way this ball can start rolling is in three parts:
1) redefining community
What do we value about our families and our culture? Who are these neighbors that surround us? What is our common interest as opposed to our more individual aims?
2) redefining business
What is a corporation and why is it so legally protected? What is the 'future' of free-market capitalism and is eternal growth sustainable? At its core, why do we all go out and 'work'? What is the actual root of this construct? This is an age of dwindling resources, heavy pollution, and, lets face it, a compulsive desire to go and go and go. To what end is this all going?
3) redefining history
What confluence of factors has actually created this contemporary situation? How can we decouple agendas, political or otherwise, from the objective telling of history. It is not pretty, but this shared 'history' is awfully revealing...if told honestly and from the beginning.
Notice that there is no #4 with the words 'redefining government' after it...America's representative government is deceptively unique and VERY necessary; it is ever so much more of a social equalizer than people might think it is. For right now we have bigger fish to fry. For a long time disillusion with Government has grown and grown, further distancing the public from their representatives. Big business rode that big ole wave of resentment right into Washington, filling up the retreating public spaces with lobbyists and proxies. The ironic thing is that one core resentment people seem have with government is its cozy relationship with big business. Yet time and again, the public almost willingly reinforces this friendship, and this is done simply by ignoring their potential role in shaping policy. That needs to start being a primary topic of discussion.
And so now we have a beginning. Pock-marked with questions and without a clear directive, but a start nonetheless. Now the real architecture must take place. There is an Actual Working Class out there, and it is in need of a voice.
-editor
*The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection from His Written and Spoken Words [Edited and Translated by J. Christopher Herold] Columbia University Press 1955
