By Sen. Peter Lyford

It was Benjamin Franklin who penned, nothing is “…said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Of course, he was referring to the question of permanency of our newly minted U.S. Constitution. While he’s right about death and taxes, he may have been a little off the mark since that document has stood strong as the foundation of our democracy for more than 235 years.

Hello, this is Senator Peter Lyford representing Penobscot County and Hancock County. It’s my pleasure to join you for this week’s Republican Radio Address.

When someone makes a statement that cannot be verified but is believed to be true, we call it a hypothesis. If proven, it’s called a theory. If it is meant to foretell something in the future, it’s only a guess. In the case of politics, however, it is a promise but only if you lend your support.

We have that situation now with the upcoming ballot Question 3, a citizen’s initiative that would create the Pine Tree Power authority. Proponents guarantee us it will reduce our electricity rates, improve our service and give us local control, all through taking the assets of both Versant Power and Central Maine Power (CMP) and operating them.

They are lofty goals. Let’s test each one individually.

First, the promise of reducing rates. It’s always attractive when someone promises us a better deal. We are a nation of consumers and when something goes on sale, we jump on it like a fish chasing a worm. But what happens when we get hooked and it turns out we’ve been reeled into something completely different?

Proponents say they can purchase the assets of both companies for about $7.5 billion. Those on the other side of the argument say it’s closer to $13.5 billion. But both numbers are really big, especially when you consider that Maine’s entire two-year budget is $10.3 billion.

And those are borrowed dollars, meaning we’ll have to pay back both principal and interest. If you haven’t noticed your credit card bill lately, interest rates are pretty high right now. Even at $10 billion, that’s $500 million per year in interest alone. If you do the math, it will cost every one of the roughly 750,000 ratepayers under this new company an extra $675 a year, or $56 a month.

In essence, it translates to at least an 11-cent per kilowatt-hour rate hike to pay the debt service, almost doubling it from its current average of 12.8 cents. Even if you take out any profit margin, it still guts the entire premise of that promise.

Their second promise is service would improve. Yet Maine is the most forested state in the nation; and much of our reliability issues have more to do with the interaction of weather, trees and our power infrastructure.

A perfectly recent example of this is Hurricane Lee, which knocked out power to over 36,000 customers in the Versant Power service area and 61,000 CMP customers at its peak. In all, hundreds of thousands of people had some sort of power outage as the storm came through; and much of it was the result of downed trees and heavy branches.

In fact, weather and trees – including those outside of either company’s right-of-way where they are not allowed to cut or trim – caused about half of all outages for CMP and 75% for Versant’s more rural area. The second-largest reason for outages were vehicle-pole accidents, followed by equipment failures and interaction with wildlife.

All of those reasons are outside the control of any power company no matter who runs it. Therefore, that promise doesn’t hold up either.

And finally, backers of Pine Tree Power say it will give us local control through a 13-member board. Seven board members who are elected statewide will appoint the final six to make up the board. I can’t even begin to tell you how political and partisan that will become – ever hear of cronyism?

Further, how do voters who don’t live within the geographical area of either power company and therefore have no skin in the game have any right to decide for those who do through an election? And what if they hire a company out of California or Canada to run it? There’s nothing “local” about that scenario, and that promise fails as well.

Like Franklin said, nothing is certain except death and taxes; and the arguments for Pine Tree Power seem more like empty promises than certainties. As attractive as it looks, we should swim fast and far from this lure.

Again, this is Senator Peter Lyford representing Penobscot County and Hancock County. I hope you have a great weekend.

Senator Peter Lyford represents District 10, which includes communities in Penobscot and Hancock counties. He is the Senate Republican Lead for the Legislature’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee and State and Local Government Committee.