is it time for Big Business to sit down
and shut up it's it's based on one
particular story but it's meta to
stories that are happening all over the
country right now
and uh it it kind of
Builds on an op-ed that I wrote last
year
and back in December of last year
suggesting that our federal government
should buy out the three biggest
American oil companies it would cost
about one-third of what it caught of
what the Trump tax cuts cost the nation
and you know run them for the benefit of
America
if we bought these oil companies we
could stop them from funding climate
denial we could stop them from funding
Republican toxic Republican politicians
I mean there's a bunch of stuff that we
could do and we could you know force
them to clean up their acts stop the
methane leaks stuff like that
well no members of Congress for the
administration so far have taken my uh
suggestions seriously yet
but the people of Maine have a very
similar idea and they're moving forward
with it 97 percent of the electric power
in Maine is provided by two for-profit
corporations Versant and Central Maine
Power CMP
and these two companies aren't even
you know keeping their profits here in
the United States versat is uh it's
owned by nmax which is based in Calgary
Canada
and CMP is owned by iberdola essay which
is a Spanish company whose largest
investor is the Qatari investment
Authority so the profits aren't even
staying in the America much less in
Maine
so the citizen activist group called our
power has got on the ballot they've got
a ballot initiative out there that the
state will buy out these two for-profit
electricity providers buy all their
assets and their lines and everything
and then run the company
purely for the benefit of Maine
residents
now this has been done many times before
for example in 1998 the state of New
York's legislature created a non-profit
called The Long Island Power Authority
to provide electricity to Long Island
because the for-profit companies that
were doing so were just doing a terrible
terrible job
and it now serves over a million people
and the rates when they when they
dropped the for-profit status and went
to non-profit rates dropped 20 percent
why because they no longer have to set
aside money to give profits as dividends
to shareholders to stockholders and they
no longer have to pay their CEOs tens of
millions of dollars
Winter Park Florida same thing the the
residents of Winter Park Florida were
sick and tired of being screwed by a
for-profit electric utility and so they
voted to take it over they bought it out
and they run it now and and they I have
been saving a pile of money and not only
that the extra money and this is you
know like in California PG e has been
charged with manslaughter with murder
essentially for ref for you know not
spending money to bury their power lines
and so they you know above ground power
lines get hit by storms and they cause
wildfires that that killed all those
people you know in that in that town uh
Paradise I believe was the name of the
town where it was some 80 people died
and it was caused by apparently caused
by PG E power lines going down if they
had buried those power lines it wouldn't
have happened well that's what Winter
Park Florida has done and so all the
towns around them when when a tornado
goes through or a hurricane goes through
Florida all the towns around them lose
electricity winter Parks their power
stays on because they've buried all
their lines instead of taking that money
and giving it to shareholders and CEOs
so the people of Maine want to do this
but Versa and CMP have already dumped 18
million dollars into a massive
advertising carpet bombing campaign
they're outspending our power this local
good government group 18 to 1 17 to 1.
and you know this in all probability
what's going to happen is the same thing
that I've I've told you about before
that happened here in in Washington
state right across the river from me
back uh a couple of years ago in 2020 I
believe it was when when uh Jay Inslee
the governor got a ballot Initiative for
a carbon tax on the on the ballot it was
very popular until the fossil fuel
companies came in and just poured
millions and millions of dollars in
advertising you couldn't watch any
television program without seeing an ad
telling you how dangerous it was to vote
for proposition whatever it was and it
went down in flames
and that's probably what's going to
happen in Maine I mean I don't know I
hope not
but we should stop this we you know
corporations shouldn't be allowed to do
this they're able to do this because of
a Supreme Court decision First National
Bank versus Pilates back in 78 that was
written by by
Powell himself
you know a power memo Fame
and and Lewis Powell and so
frankly I think we need to reverse this
Congress needs to get into the act and
say to corporations no you cannot
interfere in the political will of We
the People