Opening arguments began on Monday in a jury trial that could determine whether Central Maine Power's $1 billion transmission corridor can proceed, less than two years after voters scuttled the project.
The central question that the nine Cumberland County jurors must answer is whether CMP’s investment in the 145-mile transmission project was unfairly scuttled by voters after obtaining all the relevant permits, or whether the utility accelerated work to make a legal claim known as vested rights that could effectively be used to overturn an unfavorable referendum result.
That result came in 2021 when nearly 60% voters decided to stop the project.
CMP then challenged the result by making a vested rights claim in a lawsuit in which it and its partners are the plaintiffs.
Assistant Attorney General John Bolton, who is defending the Bureau of Parks and Lands, told jurors that CMP spent heavily to expedite construction, all for the purpose of making the vested rights claim.
"We're going to show you that it wasn't cheap, too," Bolton said. "You'll see the plaintiffs agreed to pay their contractors significantly more than they had originally contracted to get these poles in the air early. And why did they do that? Well, we expect the evidence to show that plaintiffs paid this extra money to move up pole installation specifically for the purpose of getting vested rights in the project."
John Aromando, an attorney for Avangrid, CMP’s parent company, argued that work was expedited in order to catch up on a schedule delayed by lawsuits and permit challenges by competing energy companies threatened by a project known as the New England Clean Energy Connect.
Aromando said 122 miles of the 145-mile corridor was cleared of trees and hundreds of millions of dollars were spent by the time voters went to the polls in November, 2021.
He said that while CMP's contractors were behind schedule, they were ahead of their opponents that pushed the citizens initiative.
"They knew that they were too late to stop it unless they could do it through a retroactive law," he said. "And that is what this lawsuit is about. It's about whether the second initiative came too late."
Evidence and testimony in the trial is expected to dive deep into these competing claims using internal corporate documents, correspondence and witnesses to make their case.
The trial will be closely watched because it could mark the first time the fate of a major U.S. energy project could be determined by a jury.
Final arguments are expected April 17.
