Mainers For Energy Choice. Protecting Your Right to Choose.
Energy Choice and Affordability
An ‘all of the above’ energy strategy keeps prices manageable for Mainers
Let’s be candid — the last few years have not been easy on household budgets. Maine residents have seen prices go up for a range of reasons, from pandemic-related disruptions to supply chain interruptions to global conflicts. We haven’t seen price surges like these in many, many decades.
So, our state’s energy policy must make it possible for households to embrace efficiency and shrink their carbon footprints without breaking the bank. The way to do this is to promote your freedom to choose the best energy source, not by limiting your energy choice.
What’s the Right Energy Source for You?
Right now, Maine families can select the energy sources that most effectively heat their homes, fuel their vehicles and power their appliances. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, more than half of all Maine homes use petroleum products for heating. And almost as many people use wood as electricity.
Energy choice is all about allowing you to pick the best product that works for your budget. Rather than requiring people to use a particular energy product — and incur expenses associated with that — you could invest in the most efficient equipment to reduce your overall energy consumption (and lower your bills in the process).
No Equipment Mandates in Maine
What would sacrificing energy choice mean to your household expenses? In other states that have pursued a strategy of electrifying everything, residents have faced the following incredible expenses:
- Home heating options have been limited to electric heat pumps. Converting a whole home to these products can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
- Other efficient and popular oil and gas products, including water heaters and gas stoves, have faced onerous regulations.
- Vehicle sales have been regulated to reduce the stock of more affordable products that use traditional fuels in favor of EVs.
- New taxes, fees and other revenue-raising programs have artificially inflated the cost of traditional energy sources like heating oil, natural gas and propane.
The result of these kinds of electrification laws is higher costs for everyone.
Keeping Grid Power Affordable
Right now, Maine’s power grid uses a mix of energy products for generation. These sources include hydroelectric, natural gas, petroleum and wind. We also import up to 30% of our electricity each year to meet our state’s demand.
Protecting energy choice in Maine helps keep our electricity affordable in several ways. Electrifying our homes, businesses and vehicles vastly increases electricity demand, requiring new infrastructure to be built. The costs of these improvements tend to fall on rate-payers. These costs can be further exacerbated if utilities are forced to build more wind and solar generation and move away from proven sources like natural gas.
Finally, if lawmakers place new taxes and other financial obligations on natural gas and petroleum products, the inflated cost of these fuels will likely increase the cost of electricity generated from them.
LD 556 Protects Your Right to Choose Affordable Energy
Today, we have the right to select the best, most affordable energy source for our homes, commercial operations and roadways. We’re also seeing traditional fuels becoming more and more eco-friendly. You can heat your home with low-carbon options like biofuel-blended heating oil, conventional propane and even renewable propane. Motorists are incorporating ethanol, biodiesel, renewable diesel and propane autogas. These energy options slash greenhouse gas emissions without imposing new expenses on Mainers or inflating the cost of our energy products.
Maine’s Legislature must ensure that energy choice is preserved and that LD 556 is not repealed. This legislation prevents Maine municipalities from prohibiting any safe and commercially available energy source. Anyone can still buy an EV or heat pump — but no one would be required to do so.