PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 17, 2021
An expired term on the three-member Maine Public Utilities Commission is giving Gov. Janet Mills an opportunity to advance her climate change mitigation agenda with a key nomination to a panel with an outsize influence on state energy policy. The six-year term of Bruce Williamson, an economist who was nominated by former Gov. Paul LePage in 2015, ended in March. Observers say Mills is likely to seek someone who can help implement the four-year “Climate Action Plan” she issued in December. And based on speculation about who’s being interviewed, they say, Mills would prefer a woman who would bring diversity to a panel now occupied by three men.