Jury holds key to fate of $1 billion transmission project involving Hydro Quebec

A battle over a $1 billion transmission line that gained all regulatory approvals solely to be rebuked by state residents in a referendum now comes right down to 9 common of us.

In a uncommon transfer, a jury is being requested to determine a sophisticated constitutional matter — whether or not builders have a vested proper to finish the 145-mile (233-kilometer) mission, which might provide Canadian hydropower to the New England energy grid.

The constitutionality of the statewide referendum on the mission will depend on the jury’s determination on the slender vested-rights situation. And the case may activate a easy majority of jurors.

“We’re not aware of a similar instance in which the fate of a large energy asset rests in the hands of a jury. This is an unusual circumstance,” Timothy Fox, vp of Clear View Partners, an vitality analysis agency in Washington, D.C., stated earlier than the trial started Monday.

The courtroom was packed Monday.

Attorneys for teams against the mission and the state lawyer normal’s workplace, which is charged with upholding the referendum, advised to jurors on Monday that builders rushed building with a aim of profitable vested rights and nullifying the referendum.

But John Armando, lawyer for the builders, stated the development schedule was put in place years earlier, and that the case is “about fundamental fairness, about vested rights, about protection of property rights against retroactive laws.”

Last 12 months, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court breathed new life into the stalled mission when it dominated the retroactive nature of the statewide vote to cease the mission would violate the builders’ constitutional rights if substantial building already had begun in good religion earlier than the referendum. Construction began in January 2021, about 10 months earlier than the referendum through which 59 per cent of voters rejected the mission.

Justice Michael A. Duddy may have made the fact-finding dedication himself however dominated in favor of mission opponents, together with the Natural Resources Council of Maine, who requested for a jury to make the dedication. That ruling is taken into account a victory for many who are against the mission.

Central Maine Power’s guardian firm and Hydro Quebec teamed up on New England Clean Energy Connect, which was unveiled in 2017 with a aim of supplying as much as 1,200 megawatts of Canadian hydropower to the New England energy grid. That is sufficient electrical energy for 1 million houses.

It’s one in every of two proposed large-scale transmission initiatives aimed toward tapping hydropower from Quebec. The different would supply electrical energy to New York City.

Early on, builders envisioned clean crusing as a result of the transmission path would largely observe current corridors, with solely a brand new 53-mile (85-kilometer) part crossing sparely populated woods to achieve the Canadian border.

But the mission encountered opposition every step of the way in which even because it obtained all obligatory regulatory approvals. Developers already had begun slicing bushes and setting poles for months when the governor requested for work to be suspended after voters rejected the mission in November 2021.

Supporters say daring initiatives equivalent to this one, funded by ratepayers in Massachusetts, are essential to battle local weather change and introduce extra electrical energy right into a area that’s closely reliant on pure gasoline, which might trigger spikes in vitality prices.

Critics say the mission’s environmental advantages are overstated — and that it might hurt the woodlands in western Maine.

In Maine, two lawsuits over the mission went earlier than the Supreme Judicial Court, which in the end upheld a lease for a 1-mile portion of the proposed energy line that crossed state land.

The constitutional situation will seemingly find yourself again earlier than the Supreme Judicial Court whatever the end result of the choose’s determination after the jury trial.

This report by The Associated Press was first revealed on April 10, 2023.