Question 1’s approval has ripple effects for future clean energy projects, advocates say

Clean energy advocates are weighing the long-term implications of Maine’s vote Tuesday in favor of retroactively banning Central Maine Power’s controversial transmission corridor. The ballot question’s success, which came on a roughly 60% margin after the most expensive referendum campaign in state history, is expected to tee up another high-stakes legal battle over the future of the power line. And amid a push to build renewable energy in New England, it also changes the landscape for similar projects going forward — barring them altogether from Maine’s Upper Kennebec Region, and requiring majority legislative approval for other such projects elsewhere in Maine. Pete Didisheim, the advocacy director of leading corridor opponent Natural Resources Council of Maine, said this change is a surmountable and necessary hurdle for “well-planned” large power lines, and that his group supports “building out transmission for the grid of the future.”