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July 28, 2008 Inside Out

Ready for battle | Maine needs to do more than hold its ground against rising energy prices

By Matt Jacobson

On July 2, 1863, a group of Mainers held the future of the United States in their hands. The battle of Gettysburg, a battle that would last three days, was one of the most decisive in the Civil War. The Army of the Confederacy had won several battles in the winter and spring of 1863. A Union loss at Gettysburg would have likely led to the defeat of the Union Army and disintegration of the country. Soldiers on both sides understood this fact.

On the morning of July 2, the Confederate Army attacked the middle of the Union line. The Union response was to redeploy troops from Little Round Top on the Union flank and repel the Confederate attack. Other Union troops would back fill the vacancy at Little Round Top. Only the replacement soldiers did not arrive. Hastily, Joshua Chamberlain and his 20th Maine Volunteer Regiment were ordered to defend the hill with these instructions from the commander: “This is the left end of the Union line,” he said. “You are to hold this ground at all costs.”

The 20th Maine fired more than 15,000 rounds that day, and lost about half of the 400 men who had begun the battle. But they prevailed. Two years later Joshua Chamberlain presided over Union troops at the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, Va.

Today, Maine is facing another potential catastrophe. According to former Gov. Angus King, record energy costs are “the most serious crisis ever to face the state of Maine.” At a meeting last week of the U.S. Senate Small Business and Entre­pre­neur­ship Committee, Sen. Olympia Snowe said that parts of Maine could become “uninhabitable this winter.”

The recent spike in oil prices will affect every homeowner in Maine: oil this winter will cost more than twice as much as it did last winter. Hit hardest by this increase in price will be ordinary Mainers -- teachers, cops, nurses and other hard working Mainers whose daily lives build and enhance our reputation for a Gold Standard workforce. When our workforce cannot afford to heat their homes, the very foundation of our state will crumble.

A call to action

So far, our response has not been worthy of our history. It is time to act. While we need a national, comprehensive and long-term energy policy, Maine needs to react quickly to this crisis. We cannot wait for the federal government. We need to make every home in Maine as energy efficient as possible, and we need to do it now.

Maine’s homes are long-term assets. Given the reality, no matter what the energy source, our homes will need to become more efficient. According to Eric Kingsley of Innovative Natural Resource Solutions, a consulting firm with offices in Portland, most homes could save 25% of their energy costs by becoming more efficient. The market is already driving us toward efficiency. There are things we can do to capitalize on these new market realities and help dampen the blow of increased oil costs while we create competitively sustainable industries in our state.

We can retrofit our homes to take advantage of more efficient heat sources today. Since the average wage of Mainers is around $37,000 per year, many do not have the capital to pay increased oil costs, much less the $15,000 to $20,000 it costs for energy upgrades.

But what if we established a revolving loan fund of $500 million that would allow grants for lower-income homeowners, a mix of interest-free loans and grants to higher level income earners and interest free loans at the highest end of the income spectrum?

This crisis changes everything. We need to make this the most important priority of our state. In fact, I can think of no other priority in state government that is more important, and we ought to do this without raising taxes to finance the effort.

In this model, the funds could only be used to retrofit homes to take advantage of the most energy efficient heating and insulating components. Each homeowner would be able to access $15,000 in a grant, a combination grant and loan, or a loan.

Some of the money needs to go to our community colleges to train workers to do this work — creating jobs and industry in Maine.

And by creating demand in 400,000 homes, perhaps some companies would move to Maine to produce their energy efficient products. If we got really good at retrofitting and reducing energy costs, maybe some of these new Maine-based companies would have new markets across the country and the world.

At Gettysburg, the United States and Maine faced a grave crisis. The survival of the country was at stake and we responded. Mainers responded. Our history is that of leadership. In Maine we meet crises head-on and prevail. It is time for Maine to lead again.

Matt Jacobson, president of Maine & Co. in Portland, can be reached at mjacobson@maineco.org.

Read Jacobson's previous column on business attraction, in Place race.

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