Tip O’Neil, the powerful Democratic Speaker of the US House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987 and US representative for north Boston from 1953 to 1987, is closely associated with the phrase “all politics is local.” Putting this motto into practice, he was reelected 16 times. Upon his death in 1993, President Clinton said that he “was the nation’s most prominent, powerful and loyal champion of working people.”

In an AXIOS on HBO interview that aired on Friday May 7, 2021, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was asked why the Democratic Party has had such a hard time with rural and non-college voters. Senator Sander’s answer was straightforward: the Democratic Party has focused on urban and college-educated voters and ignored rural and non-college educated voters and their concerns. Moreover, the attitude of the Democratic Party and its wealthy coastal backers has been condescending and arrogant. This behaviour created a vacuum and allowed the Republican Party to step-in and amplify rural and blue-collar resentment and grievances.

Senator Sanders did acknowledge that President Biden is trying to reengage this base through targeted measures which will provide concrete and immediate individual benefits such as relief cheques and enhanced unemployment benefits. It will, however, take some time for these measures to bear fruit.

In Maine, the politics of rural and blue collar resentment and grievance may derail a 1,200MW transmission line to transport green electricity from Quebec to Massachusetts. The project, known by its acronym NECEC, passes through Maine’s second congressional district. This district, which covers much of Maine and is one of the most rural in the US, gave both the popular and electoral college vote to President Trump in the last two elections. Like Nebraska, Maine does not allocate all of its presidential electoral votes to the winner of the state’s popular vote.

Opponents of the transmission project, a broad coalition that includes rural populations, hunters, national environmental groups, First Nations and incumbent electricity companies with deep pockets and a willingness to spend, have successfully petitioned the State of Maine to force a referendum to be held on November 2, 2021, that — should it pass — would effectively block the project.

It would appear, as was the case a few years ago with the now abandoned Northern Pass Quebec to Massachusetts through New Hampshire transmission project, that not everyone in northern Maine thinks that allowing high voltage power lines to cross their state to serve the needs of wealthy Boston is a good thing per se, particularly when there is little direct benefit for the affected populations. Climate change remains for many a remote concern.

Even Tucker Carlson, a right wing TV commentator, jumped into the fray in late April with a piece on Fox Nation decrying the environmental damage being caused by foreign companies in what he describes as the “largest forest” in the US Northeast.

Some NECEC proponents have responded by attacking the bona fide intentions of their opponents and deep-pocketed backers. By doing so, however, they are attacking the way politics is played in the US — a complaint that, when uttered by foreigners, usually falls on deaf ears. But more  importantly the proponents are not addressing the concerns of voters in Maine’s second congressional district. 

Power transmission projects such as NECEC which need to transit through states or provinces are mercantilist by nature and their “green” credentials seem insufficient to still the opposition to their lengthy high voltage transmission lines. Because of technological developments, renewable electricity can be produced just about anywhere at a competitive cost, even in the crowded Northeast US. The 800MW Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind power project off the coast of Massachusetts has just received federal approval and is evidence of how quickly things are changing in the renewable space.

The main lesson to be drawn from Northern Pass and NECEC is that the time for traditional one-way export projects is drawing to an end. Projects will now have to be structured so as to (i) assist the local renewable power industry, with services such as energy storage, and (ii) provide concrete direct benefits to the communities all along their path.