Tiny bats put kibosh on power line tree-cutting for 2 months go.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from go.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Maine Public Construction has started on Central Maine Power s corridor that is meant to carry hydroelectric power from Quebec through Maine to Massachusetts, although the project still faces legal challenges.
A federal appeals court has lifted an injunction that bars Central Maine Power from clearing trees in part of its planned transmission corridor to Canada.
Project opponents had won a temporary injunction on work in a 53-mile section of the corridor that stretches from Jackman to The Forks.
The Natural Resources Council of Maine and other groups asked for the hold pending the outcome of their case that federal environmental permits should be invalidated.
By Staff
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 companies in a joint news release said they have committed $10 million to be paid to the state by the end of the year. The money will be earmarked for broadband expansion, heat pumps, electric vehicles, weatherization and more.
“We are committed to helping Maine advance a clean energy agenda that also benefits the state economically,” said Thorn Dickinson, CEO and president of NECEC, which is a subsidiary of Avangrid Inc. (NYSE: AGR), Central Maine Power s parent company. NECEC LLC took over the transmission line project from CMP earlier this year.
"I urge you to express my concerns and request an agency review of the issuance of residential permit," the Democratic Congressman writes in a two-page letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
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The battle over a power line in Maine features a television advertisement depicting felled pine trees in the wooded U.S. state paired with noir images of a corporate tower in modern Bilbao, near the Guggenheim art museum. A voiceover declares: “A good deal for Spain, and a bad deal for Maine.”
The Spanish utility company Iberdrola S.A.’s political action committee has spent almost US$15 million to promote its US$950 million New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) electric transmission project which would run for more than 230 kilometres. Yet last month opponents won a partial stay of construction in court and an activist group filed papers to hold a state referendum to revoke its permits.