At a rare news conference, Gov. Paul LePage again blasted the state Public Utilities Commission for its decision changing the way home solar generating facilities are treated under Maine law.
The governor says the PUC commissioners, whom he himself appointed, should resign over their decision to change the way home solar facilities are treated in utility policy.
“I will be very honest, I have said it before, if I could fire all three of them, I would,” LePage says. “I would ask them to resign in a heartbeat.”
He says the decision to replace the decades-old net metering system, in which homeowners can sell excess power back to grid at market rates, will double the cost of power distribution in Maine.
“The price of transmission and distribution is going to double. So if it’s only 2 or 3 percent of the grid now and it gets up to 10 percent, it’s huge. It’s huge money that we the ratepayers are going to pay,” LePage says.
But the governor told reporters it’s unlikely that he will submit legislation to overturn the ruling because he believes it would be futile.
“The answer to that is probably not because you can’t win in the Legislature. There is no path to victory. All I have up there is the ability to stop bad legislation — I have no ability to pass good legislation,” he says.
