PORTLAND, Maine - Nearly 300 industry representatives and interested voters gathered at the University of Southern Maine today for what was supposed to be a chance to compare the energy policies of all three gubernatorial candidates. But Republican Gov. Paul LePage backed out before the forum could even get underway. The governor objected to a format change in the program, leaving his two opponents to carry on without him.
The "Heat of the Moment" theme for this year's Environmental & Energy Technology Council's energy forum at the University of Southern Maine turned out to be remarkably appropriate. Republican Gov. Paul LePage arrived, took one look at a table that had place cards imprinted with the names of all three gubernatorial candidates, and abruptly left Hannaford Hall.
Democratic challenger Mike Michaud said he could almost understand why the governor changed his mind. "This administration has had a failed policy on energy - maybe that's one of the reasons he chose not to stay," Michaud said.
Independent challenger Eliot Cutler arrived early to the forum and spent the first 15 minutes sitting by himself on the lecture hall stage before E2Tech officials could shunt him aside to tell him what was going on with LePage.
"The governor refused to be on the stage with the other two candidates and spent quite some time sitting in the garage in his vehicle, and then left - that is everything I know," Cutler said.
The invitation to the forum called for each candidate to make an energy presentation, with time afterwards for questions from the audience. LePage was to go first, followed by Michaud and then Cutler. But when LePage saw that the event organizers had placed a table, chairs and assigned name cards, he concluded that he was being forced into an unplanned debate.
In fact, the event's organizers say they had just set up a table and chairs for the benefit of the candidates. But LePage didn't buy it. He saw it as a change of format.
"The change of format was that we would have no interactions with the other candidates," LePage said. "They'd come in and give us their plan and move out, but then they said we'd all be sitting together," LePage said. "Well, debate - we have five debates. We didn't need another one today."
At a news conference later in the morning, the governor said he would have told the forum about his efforts to encourage the use of heat pumps in Maine and attract more natural gas competition to the area by making overtures to energy suppliers, like Summit Natural Gas of Maine.
"I'm the guy who made the first call to Summit," LePage said. "Out of the blue, I called them. I said, 'Why don't you come to Maine?' And they've invested $300 million in the last two years. Now we've got to continue to get more capacity, because there's just not enough capacity in the state."
But Michaud accused LePage of driving energy producers out of Maine, and cited the governor's opposition to a proposal by Norwegian energy giant Statoil to install a $200 million deep water off-shore pilot wind project. Michaud said that, as governor, he would work toward encouraging more clean energy initiatives.
"With our long coastline, our big tides and our steady winds, our spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship, Maine can be a leader in alternative energy while creating thousands of new jobs here in the state," Michaud said.
Cutler blamed the state's energy woes on the governor's failure to develop a statewide energy policy. He said the state's resource basket of power generation options represents a remarkable confluence of opportunities that can be identified in three ways: "One, become increasingly self-sufficient in clean energy; Two, generate jobs and incomes from the export of clean energy; and three, do both in ways that are more environmentally benign," Cutler said.
Organizers of the E2Tech forum expressed disappointment that LePage had jumped to the wrong conclusion, and denied there was any attempt to place politics before policy, as alleged by the governor.