Letter: A ‘authorities takeover’ of Maine vitality has already occurred

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Central Maine Energy is owned by Avangrid, which is an 81.5 % owned subsidiary of the Spanish utility Iberdrola. In case you Google search the phrase “Iberdrola massive shareholders,” the primary end result shall be a web page titled “Iberdrola Vital Shareholders” on the Iberdrola web site.
Scroll down a bit and you will note listed that the three largest shareholders of Iberdrola are: Qatar Funding Authority, Blackrock Inc, and Norges Financial institution. Qatar Funding Authority and Norges Financial institution are monetary establishments operated by the governments of Qatar and Norway, respectively, whereas Blackrock is a big funding fund primarily based in New York Metropolis.
The contrasts between Qatar and Norway are fairly stark, the previous being a monarchy with a persistent, documented historical past of human rights violations in opposition to its residents and the latter persistently scoring lofting rankings for the standard of lifetime of its residents.
The purpose of bringing this up is that folks funding the marketing campaign in opposition to Pine Tree Energy use what I consider to be fearmongering language a few “authorities takeover” of our electrical utility, when that situation isn’t too removed from what already exists. It’s simply that the governments benefiting from the income from CMP aren’t in Maine, and even in the US.
Timothy D’Angelo
Bowdoinham
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