Tuesday, July 28, 2026: New transmission line proposed for Maine; new state laws to go in effect
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31 segmentsFrom Maine Public Radio and Mainepublic.org, I'm Nicole Ogrisco with the news on this day in Maine, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. Central Maine Power and Eversource are proposing a new $2.2 billion power line from New Hampshire into Maine. CMP spokesperson John Breed says the line would let power flow better across New England and connect to potential renewable generation in northern Maine. The bottlenecking that has occurred between southern Maine and northern Maine has been there, regardless of what future generation may lie ahead. The proposed line which would terminate in Pittsfield, Maine, is being recommended by grid operator ISO New England as part of a long-term transmission plan initiated by state governments in the six-state region. The plan could be amended or terminated by New England governors. If successful, it could be operational in six years. On the heels of the fatal ice shooting in Biddeford, several state laws aimed at restricting cooperation with federal immigration agents are set to take effect tomorrow. Ari Snyder has more. The laws are designed to limit local authorities' involvement in federal immigration enforcement, restrict agents access to sensitive locations such as schools and hospitals, and borrow landlords from sharing the immigration status of their tenants with ice. Sue Roche with the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project said at a virtual press conference Tuesday, the laws are a bulwark against federal policy. While Maine cannot completely bar ICE from our state because that agency is under federal jurisdiction, we can and we must maximize the tools and protections that we have available to us at the state and local level. Several municipalities across the state have passed local ordinances in recent months, reinforcing the state restrictions on police departments participating in civil immigration enforcement. For Maine Public Radio News, I'm Ari Snyder. And dozens of other new laws also go into effect tomorrow. They include the supplemental budget that makes free community college permanent and sends $300 checks to some $500,000 Mainers. Other laws include an extension of a state tax credit program that subsidizes affordable housing development and a measure that gives the Wabanaki Tribe's exclusive rights to operate online gaming. The main Department of Transportation says it will begin projects that were temporarily delayed due to funding concerns. The Mills administration announced last week that the state ended the fiscal year with a general fund surplus of more than $148 million. Mills last week dedicated $136 million to fund the delayed transportation projects. But officials say the state still faces long-term infrastructure challenges complicated by inflation, increasing construction costs and transportation revenues that have not kept pace with those costs.
Maine Congressman Jared Golden and more than a dozen other veterans in the House are raising, quote, serious concerns about how the Pentagon is reporting deaths and injuries from the war in Iran. Last week, the New York Times reported that the Pentagon had reduced the number of U.S. military personnel killed during the conflict from 18 to 14 because four of the members died during a ceasefire. The number of injured service members has also fluctuated. In a letter to President Donald Trump, Golden, and 14 other Democrats wrote that the U.S. government, quote, owes U.S. service members, their families, and every American, the truth about all U.S. casualties in the war with Iran. After a shooting incident in Lewiston yesterday, left one injured and another facing attempted murder charges. Mayor Carl Shalene is calling for more neighborhood police patrols. Michael Livingston has more. A 21-year-old man was shot in the leg on Monday night and a 20-year-old suspect was arrested hours later. In a statement, Shaline says he's spoken with the Lewiston police chief and administrator over the weekend about the need for more neighborhood patrols and that residents should expect updates soon. He also urged parents and witnesses to come forward if they have information about the most recent shooting or others. Quote, if your kid has a gun, only one of two things will happen. They will shoot someone or they will be shot. City counselors held a special meeting earlier this month with law enforcement and school officials about an escalation of youth violence this summer. For Maine Public Radio News, I'm Michael Livingston. Maine has nearly 30 cases of salmonella infection and is part of a multi-state outbreak linked to backyard poultry. On Maine calling today, Stephen Combs of the state CDC cited nearly 30 cases in Maine and says some people have been hospitalized. Unusually high, every year we are included in this outbreak. It starts when people are ordering the baby chicks, usually around springtime. Combs said that people can get salmonella after handling backyard poultry, such as chickens and ducks. The U.S. CDC says even healthy-looking poultry can carry the bacteria. The agency advises washing hands immediately after touching poultry and eggs and avoiding close facial contact with the birds. Work is underway on one of two dams slated for removal as part of a restoration effort on the Royal River in Yarmouth. The project has been in the works for nearly two decades. Having a dammed river usually means higher temperatures, lower dissolved oxygen, and we don't get any of our sea run fish. moving up the river. Heather Kenyon of Friends of Casco Bay says removing the dams should change all of that as herring, alewives, eels, trout, or even salmon could return to the river, which has been obstructed for over 250 years.
Work began last week to remove the Bridge Street Dam. The Maine Natural Resources Conservation Program approved $1 million toward the project in January, which was enough to get it started, but the town says it's still waiting to hear back about a federal grant that would fund the removal of the East Elm Street Dam. Bobby Charles, the Republican hoping to become Maine's next governor, is suddenly concerned about climate change. Charles, who favors ending subsidies for renewable power, alleges that Maine's fossil fuel carbon pollution soared at the time his Democratic rival Hannah Pingree chaired the state's climate council. But as Peter McGuire reports, a close review of emissions data shows a more complicated picture. And Charles' own energy policies would tie Maine tighter to fossil fuels. In a fact sheet called Hannah Pingree is bad for the climate, the Charles campaign says Maine's carbon emissions rose 19% between 2020 and 2024 under Governor Janet Mills' inaugural climate action plan. Charles says that would make Maine the state with the third fastest growing emissions in the country. Their narrative, and I quoted again, is Maine has become a national leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That's simply not true. Maine is at the exact opposite end of that spectrum. He says that years of ideological public investment in solar and wind power have left Mainers with higher electric bills and more climate pollution. And he doubts that Maine's goal of cutting carbon emissions 80% by 2050 is reasonable or realistic. We represent something like 0.01%. of all the emissions in the country. And if you look at it globally, we're not going to solve this problem right here in Maine. Charles Energy Plan hinges on negotiating the completion of two pipelines to bring more natural gas into New England. He embraces an all-reliable energy sources strategy to reduce prices, including renewables, fossil fuels, nuclear, and hydropower. We're doing things backward. We're not, no matter what your end game is, you want to see a cleaner. Cleaner lakes, cleaner sky, we should be doing those things, but we should be doing them in the context of making life in Maine affordable. Charles is correct that Maine added almost two and a half tons of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in those five years, according to the latest data available from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But a closer look at those figures shows that most of the increase was from natural gas fired power plants, and includes a big jump in plant emissions just in 2024. Maine counts electricity emissions based on how much energy is generated in the state. Will Taylor is an analyst with the Acadia Center, a regional clean energy group. But Maine itself is actually using less electricity since 2019, as is all of New England. A drop in imported power from New York and Canada in recent years meant Maine power plants were fired up to help keep the lights on across the ISO New England electric grid. Maine is just generating a higher percentage of the region's electricity.
And the way Maine counts emissions, it takes the hit for that electricity. It's generating for the entire region. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Hannah Pingree co-chaired the Maine Climate Council for six years and oversaw two iterations of the state's climate action plan. She says Charles is revealing his lack of knowledge about the energy market and the drivers of climate change. So it shows that Bobby Charles, you know, does not understand how our markets work. He is not an expert in these issues, and he's putting a lot of garbage data out there to try to mislead people. And she says she'll debate the state's climate progress any day. You know, Maine has led the country. We have cut our heating oil use by 20%. We have helped thousands of families weatherize their home and install heat pumps. We've now helped hundreds of towns become more energy efficient and prepare for huge storm events. Until now, climate change was barely on the radar in the hotly contested gubernatorial primaries, taking a backseat to the rising cost of electricity, gas, and groceries. And while Charles says natural gas expansion will bring down energy prices, his opponents are aligned with the state's current climate strategy. Pingrate proposes to add wind, solar, and battery storage onto the grid, lower electric costs, and reach 100% clean power by 2040. And the third candidate in the race, independent Rick Bennett, wants to improve energy efficiency and weatherization. He also plans to create a public generation authority to make sure renewable energy in Maine benefits residents instead of out-of-state developers. Because we can develop renewable resources and renewable wind, renewable solar and hydro and other sources, and do it in a way that actually reduces rates for Maine people if we focus. on that as the outcome. As the price of gas tops $4 a gallon amid the U.S. conflict with Iran, Charles may have a tough sell on natural gas expansion, especially as solar and wind remain the cheapest forms of new electricity generation. For Maine Public Radio News, I'm Peter McGuire.
And that's today's Maine news. For more stories, visit mainpublic.org. Coming up on Maine calling at 11 o'clock tomorrow morning, how retirement is changing. I'm Nicole Ogrisco. Thanks for listening.