Sen. Curry's Floor Remarks on LD 2266

The following is a transcript of the remarks Sen. Chip Curry gave in the Maine Senate on April 15, 2024, regarding LD 2266, “An Act Regarding Offshore Wind Terminals Located in Coastal Sand Dune Systems.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Sears Island is a 930-plus-acre, state-owned island that was purchased to be a port through a voter-approved ballot initiative. Through negotiations with environmental groups, over 600 acres of the island were committed to conservation, reserving 330 acres for port development.

This Sunday, in preparation for this vote, I drove to Sears Island to walk there once again. I walked along the DOT-built, paved two-lane road that runs through the island. It’s seven strides across. Significant earthwork was required to build the road with embankments exceeding 20 feet in some places. I walked out to the parcel of land DOT has identified as their preferred site for the offshore wind hub. Finally, I climbed out onto the jetty built by DOT. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I sat for a while contemplating this piece of land and this part of Penobscot Bay.

Directly across the Bay, I could see Lincolnville, Northport, and parts of Belfast. To my left was Islesboro, and closest to my right was Searsport. From the Jetty directly to the right is Mack Point, along with its numerous tanks and cranes and port infrastructure. I could hear the sounds of an active port, with the beeping of trucks backing and the dumping of bulk materials. An osprey was riding the thermals over the water, fishing I suspect.

I have heard Sears Island described as pristine. It is not. It has two roads, one two-lane and paved, the other a one-lane dirt road. It also has power lines, fire hydrants, a cell tower, loads of culverts, and in the area closest to the port, massive earthwork has taken place to reshape the land to meet some previous port plans. It is not pristine, but it is beautiful and special to more than a few people.

Thirty years ago, I came to Maine to work at Unity College and lead students in outdoor programs, including backpacking, canoeing, and sea kayaking. Maine’s natural resources are very important to me, as they are to most Mainers. When it comes to facing the reality of climate change, everything we hold dear is at risk: our futures, our health, our homes, our fisheries, our beloved natural environment and native species, and our capacity to farm. It is all at risk.

With the development of the offshore wind energy area, we finally have an opportunity to do something at scale that will actually help combat climate change. Practically speaking, the most important thing we can do in Maine to transition to renewable energy is to fully develop the commercial offshore wind energy area recently finalized 50 miles off the coast of Maine. This would be a decades-long endeavor to build enough turbines to generate the 32 gigawatts of energy estimated to be available in the area. This is our Maine-sized Moon-shot: building and transporting many, many hundreds of floating offshore wind turbines. Without offshore wind, we simply cannot achieve our renewable energy goals.

I am also very passionate about combating child poverty and promoting family financial security. I have worked in this area since 2001, and it is the reason I got involved in community organizing and, ultimately, politics. Increasingly, we are becoming a place where the only people who can afford to live in decent conditions either bought property long ago or retired here after making their money elsewhere. Inland (and by that, I mean 1/2 mile away from the coast) poverty levels are very high.

My wife is a teacher in Searsport and directs theater. Before serving here, I was able to volunteer to build sets. It was not uncommon to need to take a teen home after rehearsal. Many times, a young person has asked me to stop on the road at the head of their driveway well before their dwelling. They didn’t want me to see where they lived. They didn’t want me to know their poverty situation.

I can’t tell you the number of times while driving around knocking on doors during my campaign, my volunteer driver would say, “Oh, no one lives here” when we got to the structure down the long driveway. And I’d have to say, “No, wait – people do live here.” It is so easy not to see rural poverty.

By building the offshore wind port in Searsport, we have the potential to provide economic security to thousands of people for decades.

When I worked on child anti-poverty initiatives under Governor King’s Children’s Cabinet, we tracked numerous metrics for healthy development and resilience outcomes.

We would pour over the Maine Kids Count Data Book put out by the Maine Children’s Alliance. We sought to impact critical metrics of child health.

Things such as:

• Number of children living in poverty,
• Children without health Insurance
• Chronic Absenteeism
• Teen depression
• Access to a caring adult
• Access to child care
• And many more

If you have followed these metrics over the years, you will know they are stubbornly hard to move. We could have the most robust mentoring programs, after-school programs, or early childhood interventions, and the metrics barely budged, if at all. But you know what did move these metrics dramatically and for the worse? The closure of the mill or other significant employer.

With this project, we can significantly improve the lives of hundreds of children and thousands of people within a 90-minute drive of Searsport.

What’s at stake:

• Reaching our ambitious and necessary renewable energy goals and actually addressing climate change at a scale that matters and
• Creating jobs that provide financial security to thousands of people across the region.

I know many advocates with local conservation groups believe it can be built at Mack Point. Possibly, it can, but it will definitely add millions of dollars in annual costs in the form of leases.

Actually building this port will require attracting significant federal, state, and private investment. The developers will have to be able to deliver electricity at a price rate-payers, and the Public Utilities Commission will accept. If the numbers don’t work in attracting the required capital or if the price for the electricity is too high, the port will fail long before any groundbreaking.

I believe foregoing Sears Island and placing it at Mack Point bakes in substantial added costs that significantly risk the entire project.

I think we all need to be pretty humble about what we know to be true. If I’m wrong, we would have unnecessarily built this port on beautiful land — land that was purchased and then later negotiated to be a port.

If we kill this bill and the project fails because of it, we lose our ability to address climate change at the required scale, and we pass up on a once-in-a-century opportunity to significantly improve the lives of Maine people.

I simply cannot vote to increase the chances that this project does not happen. The stakes are far too high. Please follow my light and vote yes on the pending motion.