🔒Letters: Outdated advice in the #MeToo era; reaction to Hydro-Quebec column

Outdated advice in #MeToo era

I was glad to read the question for your Ask Ace column in the issue of Jan. 27, “My supervisor’s behavior is really arrogant. How can I deal with it?” I was then thoroughly disappointed with the advice that seems to be written from another time and place, certainly tone deaf in a #MeToo era. We are all entitled to a safe, fair and dignified workplace, and a “really arrogant boss” doesn’t belong there.

A “really arrogant boss” (RAB) is setting up a power dynamic. Not too many subordinates will feel comfortable giving feedback, and maybe already have. Regardless of gender, young people, single parents on fixed incomes, hourly wage workers and plenty of others feel too vulnerable to confront RAB. The correct answer would have included: Ask for help, approach the HR department, file a complaint, etc.

At MaineCanDo, where I’m among the founders, we believe that the people of Maine deserve safe, respectful and inclusive places to work, shop, eat and play. Each of us has a role to play to make that happen. I hope you’d reconsider the advice in the Ask Ace column to be more expansive — especially if the boss refuses to find some new norms about making the relationship more productive and satisfying.

— Christen Graham, MaineCanDo

CMP corridor power doesn’t need to ‘come back’ to Maine

I write to offer a few comments re: the Politics & Co. column in the Jan. 27 issue of Mainebiz, “With CMP’s effort stalling, Hydro-Quebec steps up campaign.”

You describe the New England Clean Energy Connect project as a “transmission line that would transmit power from Hydro-Quebec’s hydroelectric plants to Massachusetts, where the power would go into the New England grid.” In fact, the power would go into the New England grid at a connection point in Lewiston, Maine, not Massachusetts. Because it enters the rest of New England via Lewiston, the Maine share of the energy would not even have to “come back” to Maine.

In the interest of balanced journalism, you are quite right to report on the Natural Resources Council of Maine’s voice of opposition. However, I can’t leave their claims unchallenged. They say the transmission right of way would clear an “undisturbed swath” of forest. This is nonsense. Two thirds of the proposed route would be alongside an existing transmission corridor and the remaining third is a 53-mile stretch through what has been commercial logging land for generations, as evidenced by the hundreds of miles of logging roads that crisscross it.

NRCM’s claims that the NECEC would “stifle Maine’s own renewable energy industry” are debunked by the Public Utilities Commission. In its May 3, 2019, order, a unanimous PUC says that it “finds little merit to the concerns regarding the extent to which the NECEC may frustrate Maine-based renewables.”

It’s also worth noting that very same impartial PUC order is the source for Hydro-Quebec CEO Eric Martel’s claims of project benefits to Maine, including, “yearly savings [to Maine ratepayers] of up to $44 million in lower energy costs.”

Again, you are quite right to note the involvement and expenditures of the PAC, Clean Energy Matters, established to oppose the looming referendum battle on this project. In future coverage, you may also want to make note of another PAC, Mainers for Local Power, established to advance the referendum. Mainers for Local Power was founded by two Texas-based fossil fuel electricity generators, Calpine and Vistra Energy.

Finally, you are correct to cite the project cost of approximately $1 billion but you don’t mention that this infrastructure — delivering a major new source of renewable, low-cost energy to Maine and all of New England — is paid for entirely by Massachusetts. Not a dime of the cost comes at the expense of Maine taxpayers or ratepayers.

Respectfully,

— Benjamin Dudley, Mainers for Clean Energy Jobs