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128th Legislature Second Session – Winter-Spring, 2018<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 12-7-2017 to EUT on LD 257 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>“An Act To Enable Municipalities Working with Utilities To Establish Microgrids”<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Testimony on LD 257 on December 7, 2017 of Hendrik D. Gideonse (119 Old County Road, Brooklin, ME, 04616 207-266-2663 <\/span>gideonse@midmaine.com<\/u><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>) before the JSC on EUT <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Chairman Woodsome, Representative Berry, and members of the Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities, and Technology. I am Hendrik Gideonse, of Brooklin, ME.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Microgrids lie in Maine\u2019s future; LD 257 acknowledges this. That\u2019s because electricity and our own indigenous sources for its generation will define Maine\u2019s energy future. Microgrids will be a key element in that. I support the concept bill and urge you to refine it further and, equally importantly, extend it outward to the proper scale of energy planning for Maine of which microgrids will be key.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Along with all the rest of the world (if<\/i>, that is, we are all to have a future worth having), Maine must end its heavy dependence on fossil fuels. For us, that dependence amounts to $6 billion a year, year in and year out. Our dollars are being sent outside the state for the fossil fuels we consume, and they never again circulate in our economy. Those fossil fuels heat our buildings, power our vehicles, and serve our off-the-grid needs for auxiliary power. It is abundantly clear \u2013 to everyone, that is, except our Governor and his appointees \u2013 that in the years and decades ahead we must shift to indigenous sources of renewable electric energy to do what fossil fuels have been doing. Maine has those indigenous sources in abundance. To stimulate and undertake that transformation we must end the current incapacity and misdirection of our energy planning, and reform its byzantine policy structure. At present Maine energy policy fails to recognize the crisis we are in or be meaningfully motivated by the climate change we\u2019re beginning to experience (whether it be the likes of hurricanes Sandy, Harvey, Irma, and Maria, climate induced migration patterns in the globe, recurrent droughts, or sea-rise).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n While to say so may irritate our \u201cleaders\u201d from the Governor on down, they show they neither understand the facts of contemporary energy policy nor the risks of continuing in the direction they have pursued for the last half-dozen-plus years. Right now those directly responsible for current state energy \u201cplanning\u201d actually state as their premise their task is not to make the difficult choices, in fact, not<\/i> \u201cto choose winners and losers.\u201d And they\u2019re doing it essentially behind closed doors. Those who should be publicly posting those developments so that Maine\u2019s citizens can know and participate if inclined to, have not published a thing about the dates for public input to the energy planning process. (Statewide public sessions on the Federally-funded state\u2019s energy planning were first reported in the Press Herald Oct. 10, 2017 but then canceled the very next day (Press Herald Oct. 11, 2017). In fact, as of this drafting (12\/6\/17), despite promises in late August, the last events posting of any kind on the Governor\u2019s Energy Office\u2019s website was in September, 2016, and, on state energy planning, more than two years before that.) <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Maine\u2019s energy planners refuse to identify the potential winners and losers of responsible energy transformation. But how else can we develop a comprehensive, multi-decade plan which, if carried out in a caring and responsible manner, would assure that those who might otherwise lose the most are held harmless (in a parallel concept to that of eminent domain)? We must do so to meet responsibly the critical need to phase out the burning of fossil fuels. Not to do so is to be complicit in the jeopardizing of humanity’s \u2013 and Maine’s \u2013 future. It would be wrongheaded and risky for the state and its people, both those now here and those who follow in the decades ahead. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Microgrids will be a crucial element in the transformation lying ahead. The fleshing out of LD 257, however, needs to be fully mindful of the larger energy context, the rationale for the changes sought, the difficult but achievable aims we must pursue, and the fundamental reformulation required in the State\u2019s energy policy structure to support it all.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Thank you for your attention. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n January 3, 2018 Remarks at<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/span>Alliance for the Common Good, Hall of Flags, State Capital, Augusta, ME (can be viewed at\u00a0https:\/\/youtu.be\/bum_1w2myR4)<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Maine’s Energy Plan for Self-Sufficiency \u2013 <\/b><\/span><\/span>Hendrik D. Gideonse,<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The theme for today’s Alliance gathering is sustainability. You see the title (above) in today’s program for what I was asked to address? The simplest response? There <\/b>is<\/b><\/i> none! <\/b>Again, the simple \u2013 shameful \u2013 response? There <\/b>is<\/b><\/i> none! <\/b> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Maine’s heavy use of fossil fuels \u2013 $6 billion worth every year \u2013 is completely unsustainable. And yet all too ironically what seems completely<\/i> sustainable is the present shambles of our state’s energy policy thinking, its wrong-headedness, and its startling present incapacity. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Eric Tuttle and other members of the STEWC Steering Committee first urged me to begin work on these matters two years ago. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. In fact, it initially struck me as pretty arcane. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n But it wasn’t at all. What stood for energy planning in Maine was, <\/i>in almost its entirety, misconceived, barely competent, from a policy structure point of view a hodge-podge, inadequately supported by sound data or substantial, high-quality, multi-faceted and imaginative analytic support so badly needed for sound state-wide policy. Strong words, indeed, . . . but warranted!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n That initial involvement unfolded in a series of questions, and when I couldn’t resolve those questions to my satisfaction, I testified<\/i> to them before the Legislature’s energy committee (JSCEUT). As it turned out in that instance, that testimony had an impact them. And it impacted me<\/i> as well; over summer, 2016, I pursued energy planning even further, corresponding and talking with several dozen knowledgeable people. Why were there such serious gaps between the need as I had come to perceive it and Maine’s capacity? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A broad consensus emerged from those conversations. First, undertaking such planning was seen as critically important for the state. Second, very little was seen to be going on, even in the Governor’s Energy Office., Third, my correspondents believed very little would be done about it until he is replaced by a more knowledgeable successor. But surely, I thought to myself, that couldn’t be the end of it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Continued digging underscored the absence of any sense of urgency \u2013 let alone crisis \u2013 respecting energy issues. Corporations, narrow instrumental stakeholder and interest groups, and individual consumers were the focus rather than the larger commons. You would never know from examining Maine’s policy pronouncements that we are as unwittingly culpable as the rest of humanity in contributing to climate change. That mentioned, $6 billion every year,<\/i> a full ten percent of Maine’s gross domestic product is sent outside the state for fossil fuel use (gasoline, oil, and natural gas), and it receives little play in Maine’s energy planning. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n There are two huge problems with that. Maine’s claims to aspirations about energy efficiency are belied by the refusal to address the huge emount of our resources simply sucked out of our economy never again to recirculate as it would under indigenous alternative energy scenarios. Efficient? Hardly! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Second, by ignoring the contribution of Mainers to climate change and actually recommending the fossil fuel natural gas as a policy option because it’s seen as cheaper (!!?), <\/i>it renders environmentally-conscious Mainers complicit in yet another <\/i>environmental risk \u2013 fracking \u2013 which we would never<\/i> allow within our own borders. And yet our governor and his appointees fight solar, undermine wind, and tout natural gas. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Instead, Maine needs to be encouraged to undertake energy transformation planning initiatives on an unprecedented scale, multi-decade in length, entailing deep economic and technological imagineering. That planning should be directed to taking Maine off <\/i>fossil fuels, midwifing us on<\/i> to indigenous alternatives, and serving not so much corporations (international, at that) or individual consumers as the commons<\/i> of Maine, conceived as both our peoples and our environment, now and in the future. The broad aim would be maintaining and enhancing the best of what we are to the world and the nation even as we achieve the aim of holding harmless those who might otherwise be hurt by the needed transformation. Six billion a year for 40 years is nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars. Do you think it might be possible to reach such ends with resources like that understood to be in play?? I<\/i> do!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Last winter I followed up my conversations and strategic analysis (see the website identified above for the full exposition) with what I came to think of as a Johnny Appleseed approach to redirecting Maine’s energy policy. I would offer up critiques \u2013 or support \u2013 of as many energy bills as I could from the perspective of just such a reorientation.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Five vignettes illuminate what I ran into as I cast my seeds.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n First, last spring a representative of one of Maine’s major electricity utilities argued for brownie points for being willing to pay for the required new meters for advancing solar power despite, <\/i>he pointed out, the long-standing fact that \u201celectricity demand curves in Maine were flat.\u201d Drum roll! Cymbal crash! He was oblivious to his own blind-sightedness! Consider the huge increase<\/i> in demand for electricity that will come with the needed shift from fossil fuels to indigenous sustainable energy sources and the boost to a thriving Maine overall by an energy economy that recirculates within the state instead of being a perpetual drain.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Second, at the Mitchell Center in Orono the co-director of the Federally-funded energy planning project being run out of the Governor’s Energy Office told us unapologetically that the project’s purpose was not <\/i>\u201cto choose winners and losers\u201d! He thus side-stepped totally Maine’s contribution to the climate crisis by our heavy use of fossil fuels.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Third, for months I have monitored the Governor’s Energy Office website for the schedule and location of projected statewide meetings for the public to review and comment on its own planning effort. In fact, as od this writing nothing<\/i> has been posted under ‘News and Events’ since September a year ago and, on state-level energy planning, nothing since 2014! Simply put, an assault on transparency! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Fourth, Governor LePage’s energy policy bill LD 1547 is an abject failure. It would actually limit<\/i> Maine’s energy goals to reducing electric rates and costs and \u2013 oh, yes \u2013 \u201cair pollution\u201d! It would repeal <\/i>state policies and goals related to energy generation from renewable resources! I chose not to critique LD 1547’s complete insufficiency, but elected instead to propose alternative goal language along the lines just referenced. The Committee didn’t act on LePage’s bill; it held it over to the second session where we’ll get a second whack at it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Finally, by the end of the spring there were signs the Johnny Appleseed approach was beginning to have some impact. People present throughout the 128th’s first session, including committee members, commented on how different my almost dozen different testimonies had been. Instead of \u2013 as one of them put it \u2013 the usual \u201cdigging into the weeds of policy\u201d mine were seen as trying to lift heads to the energy \u201chills, valleys, and beyond.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n In sum, there are three things we all need to do.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n We need to engage ourselves in energy policy planning processes wherever they transpire. The Energy, Utilities, and Technology Committee, ENR, and Economic Development etc. as a minimum must hear from us early and often, but also the Public Utilities Commission, LURC, Maine’s Public Advocate, and so on. And we must insist that their deliberations get out of \u201cthe weeds\u201d and into broad, long-term purposes.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Second, we must demand that energy deliberations be bold, comprehensive, transformative, and imaginative enough to protect the waters<\/i> that give Maine life as well as the world’s climate<\/i> which sustains us all. However, in doing so we must hold harmless over that long haul Mainers who might otherwise be negatively affected. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Third, we must work not only state-wide but encourage individual, municipal, county, and regional initiatives, both as a fall back posture given the seven year retrogression we’ve just experienced, but also as tangible evidence that we, the people, mean business on the energy issue and intend to lead.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I will continue working on these matters. I invite you to join in the effort. Thank you all for being part of Maine’s commons and for being here today.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n January 5, 2018 E-mail to\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Barry Hobbins, Maine Public Advocate\u00a0(Status: receipt never acknowledged or responded to, but I saw an OPA staffer at the May 1, 2018 public hearing on the EMERA rate hike request and noted to him that I’d heard nothing)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Dear Barry,<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I trust you will remember me from the day I testified before your committee in connection with efforts to contain the E\/W corridor proposal. Given the overall result, that was a good day, but in part it was because I found myself in such a responsive environment (not always the case with legislative committees as you surely know). Thank you!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n You now hold the precise title<\/i> for Maine (capital<\/i> M, P, A), although for the last half dozen years it’s a generic role I’ve found myself playing in Augusta and elsewhere on a variety of concerns ranging from food sovereignty, to climate change, to local farming, to environmental protection, and, more recently and very heavily, energy planning for Maine. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Three points. A few weeks ago I was asked to present at the annual gathering of the Alliance for the Common Good opening day of the second session of the 128th. The request asked me to speak to Maine’s energy plan for self-sufficiency. My examination of the matter, however, starting two years ago quickly revealed that for Maine there isn’t<\/i> one! And yet Maine’s $6 billion annual dependence on fossil fuels is completely <\/i>unsustainable, and policy planning to take us from here to energy self-sufficiency is non-existent. My remarks are attached to this e-mail, and I am asking you to read them. (The url for the video is also below.) I submit you are uniquely positioned to begin bridging the chasm which separates Maine from where it is on energy planning to where it must inevitably go. Failure will mean we will “pay” every one of an expanding range of penalties that will befall us.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Second, the work I have done as well as the strategic analysis to avoid failure are documented on the website identified in the heading of those remarks. Part of the website is a multi-colored schema aimed at guiding the thinking required leading to meaningful long-range action. I invite you to explore what you will find there. The concept of magnanimity embraced there as a fundamental premise and aim is a powerful way to understand what the role of Maine’s Public Advocate might come to be in our sustainable energy future.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Third, I have been following and participated in the unfolding dialog bearing on Emera’s request for a rate hike (2017-00198). A few weeks after taking myself to my son’s and granddaughters’ home in Medford, MA to pass the winter months (12\/1 to 4\/1), I read the submission OPA commissioned of Lafayette Morgan. While at one level I could understand why he would be asked to undertake the particular analysis and arrive at the conclusions he did, I think you will also understand why the still, small voice inside of me at the start of my reading became a veritable howl by the time I was done. Morgan teased out the implications of the past <\/i>ways of thinking, <\/i>yes, but they are precisely what we must put behind us. Who \u2013 besides me \u2013 will be looking to the future<\/i> for Maine’s sustainable energy policy, applicable to the commons<\/i> of the entire state, conceived of as both a special place and populations of both the present and the future? (Contrast his analysis in filing #30 to my public comment filed October 27, 2017.) <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I would urge you to engage with me on all of this. It is no small thing I am asking of you. I can only imagine how far a place you may be from the one where I am. But if I were to assume<\/i> that it was so very, very far that it was unreachable and didn’t act, the responsibility for that would be wholly my own.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n You have my e-mail. My cell is 207-266-2663.\u00a0 I hope to hear from you. Whether I do or don’t, I intend to continue this quest lest I find myself embarrassed to face my granddaughters for failure to persevere while I still can.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n