Last week marked the close of a major legal dispute under Maine law regarding the applicability of retroactive laws to development projects already under construction. The issue in the .
The retroactive law at issue was a citizen initiative adopted in 2021 that purported to bar completion of the New England Clean Energy Connect or NECEC project, a billion dollar utility corridor running from the Canadian border to Lewiston, Maine.
Closing arguments in a civil trial focused on whether developers of the stalled 145-mile line sped up construction simply to gain legal rights to continue building.
The question for the jurors was whether the project developers were acting in good faith, or whether they expedited the project in order to establish vested rights specifically to thwart the referendum.