After a seven-minute public hearing, the Wiscasset Planning Board approved Central Maine Power’s site plan application for its transmission line corridor construction and improvements. The approval came after multiple meetings and presentations from CMP and many questions from the board.

To say I was disappointed to read Sen. Scott Cyrway’s recent attack on the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) project would be an understatement. In a recent op-ed, Cyrway was flat-out wrong about basic facts of the safety measures we have in place to keep our forests protected and our workers safe.

I care about Maine’s environment and, more importantly, our future. I spend every spare minute hiking, kayaking and exploring Maine’s incredible outdoor playground.

Maine’s dependence on fossil fuels is a serious threat to the Maine we all love, from our coast, lakes, mountains, and forests. No other state in New England relies on petroleum as much as Maine.

People who work in law enforcement develop the ability to discern truth from fiction pretty quickly. Some might call it a B.S. detector.

My detector has been going off a lot lately.

President Biden has issued a bold pledge to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that increasingly endanger our livelihoods, health and security — reducing U.S. emissions by 50 percent below 2005 levels over the next decade.

The Canadian government has given its final approval for construction and operation of a power line to serve as a conduit for hydropower to reach the power grid in New England, officials said Friday.

A major new transmission line intended to pipe carbon-free hydropower from Canada into the U.S. Northeast has met a powerful opponent: the world’s largest provider of wind and solar energy.

The 145-mile (233-kilometer), nearly $1 billion transmission line, known as New England Clean Energy Connect, broke ground in February after nearly three years of review by regulators. If completed, it would be able to import 1.2 gigawatts of electricity from the Canadian utility Hydro-Quebec. That’s enough to reduce carbon emissions in the region by 3.6 million metric tons a year, according to the project’s developer, Avangrid Inc., or about 12% compared to 2019 levels.

The Planning Board approved a shoreland zoning application Tuesday for about 7 miles of the proposed New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line expected to go through the town.

An appeals court judge has now ruled Central Maine Power’s parent company can start work on the last 53 miles…

An injunction that prevented work on a northern stretch of the New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line was lifted Thursday afternoon, meaning a Central Maine Power Co. affiliate building the line can begin full construction.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston vacated a January injunction on work on the Segment 1 portion of the project, ruling that the plaintiffs "have failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits" of their complaint that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit for the project without a a full environmental assessment.

Construction can proceed on a 53-mile (85-kilometer) stretch of utility corridor that’s a critical part of a $1 billion project to bring Canadian hydropower to the New England grid, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

Hydro-Québec and a Central Maine Power Co. affiliate have made initial benefit payments of $5.8 million to Maine for energy infrastructure as part of the $258 million committed to the state in exchange for the 145-mile Clean Energy Corridor construction, according to a news release from the two companies.

The New England Clean Energy Connect will deliver renewable electricity to Maine and New England from Hydro-Québec (HQ); it will reduce climate emissions; it will substantially benefit Maine’s economy; it will conform to rigorous environmental standards. These are conclusions from exhaustive scientific study and exhaustive review by objective institutions tasked with safeguarding the public interest.

Once again, when it comes to energy choices and the environment, it is not sufficient to say something is good or bad, right or wrong. There are no absolutes here. If we hope to arrive at sensible policy to save our atmosphere, we need to pay attention to quantitative comparisons. The Numbers may set us free!

Flooded buildings and eroded beaches. More illness from ticks, mosquitos and high heat. A reduced lobster harvest, with crustaceans moving northward to cooler water. Down East weather that resembles present-day Rhode Island.

Those are some of the ways scientists say Maine will change over the next 30 years unless substantial steps are taken now.

To help slow the change, they say Maine urgently needs to slash greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for the myriad impacts of a climate that’s changing so quickly, it poses a cascading threat to the health, prosperity and way of life of every resident and enterprise.

The primary way to do it is to encourage a quick pivot from gasoline and heating oil, Maine’s dominant, longstanding energy options for fueling cars and warming homes. In their place, electricity from renewable generation such as wind and solar, coupled with evolving storage technology, will power electric vehicles and efficient heat pumps.

A contentious $1 billion power line that would deliver hydropower into two New England states has received its final permits from the Army Corps of Engineers, according to its developer, opening the way to start construction "in the coming weeks."

The New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) line would bring the equivalent of 17% of Massachusetts's power demand from Canadian hydropower facilities into Maine and Massachusetts. The governors of both states have supported the transmission line as an important tool in reaching future goals of 100% carbon neutral power.

Avangrid Inc., which owns the project's utility developer, Central Maine Power, said yesterday that the Army Corps' approval would allow it to move forward with construction in Maine, noting that it had already obtained its necessary permits from state authorities. That left only municipal-level permits and a presidential permit from the Department of Energy that would let the line cross into the U.S. from Quebec.

A controversial $1 billion hydropower project won its fourth key permit Wednesday from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the project’s sponsor said.

Avangrid, the parent company of Central Maine Power, said the approval clears the way for construction on its proposed New England Clean Energy Connect project to start in the coming weeks.

The company already has announced more than $300 million worth of contracts to build the project, Avangrid President Robert Kump said. He said the company hopes to fill many of the 1,600 positions for the project through job fairs to be held across Maine this fall.