Groups ask PUC to reconsider Efficiency Maine cut
Two environmental groups and a trade group representing building contractors are asking the Maine Public Utilities Commission to reconsider its controversial decision to effectively cut $38 million from the Efficiency Maine program.
The Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Council of Maine and the Maine Association of Building Efficiency Professionals asked the PUC to reconsider its decision in a motion filed on Wednesday. The groups said the PUC’s recent decision will result in “more than $1 billion in increased electricity costs for Mainers” over the next five to 10 years.
In the motion filed on Wednesday, the groups said that despite “clearly established law and overwhelming weight of evidence,” the PUC’s order misinterpreted a passage in a 2013 energy law that determines state funding for Efficiency Maine.
The passage in question currently says the organization's funding is based on 4% of "total retail electricity transmission and distribution sales," which some legislators and Efficiency Maine advocates said was meant to be written as "total retail electricity AND transmission and distribution sales." The Maine Public Utilities Commission in early March voted to strictly interpret the law as the former, meaning Efficiency Maine's state funding would be slashed by about $38 million next year. The legislative committee behind the 2013 law said the extra "and" was erroneously left out of that passage when the law was first passed.
The PUC’s decision has launched a debate in the Legislature over how to address the issue, with some offering a quick fix to restore the funding and others seeking to give Gov. Paul LePage’s administration more oversight of Efficiency Maine in return.
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