GRID: After a Maine referendum rejected its power line project, Central Maine Power’s parent company files a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the ballot initiative. (Portland Press Herald)

ALSO:
• Despite the vote, Central Maine Power continues constructing the transmission corridor. (Bangor Daily News)
• Some Lewiston, Maine, officials say the vote to suspend a permit for Central Maine Power’s transmission corridor is disappointing, given that the city was relying on the related infrastructure to boost its tax base. (Sun Journal)
• New England’s grid operator says that Vermont should have enough power in the next decade to handle rising demand in response to transportation and heating electrification measures. (news release)

CLIMATE:
• A tiny, flood-prone Rhode Island town considers a $138.3 million plan to buy out and relocate residents living in low-lying areas to a brand-new neighborhood. (Providence Journal)
• Boston Mayor-elect Michelle Wu’s city-level Green New Deal plan aims to tackle the city’s emerging climatological vulnerability and long-standing structural economic inequalities. (The New Republic)

UTILITIES:
• Advocates for socializing Maine’s two investor-owned utilities say they’ve collected enough signatures to likely put the issue to voters in November 2022, although the group wouldn’t say how many were obtained. (WMTW)
• Although the state’s winter heating shut-off moratorium begins in a week and a half, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey cautions ratepayers that their energy bills will likely be higher this season. (WCVB)
• Eversource warns its Connecticut customers that electricity and gas heating bills will rise in tandem. (Fox 61)

EFFICIENCY:
• Ithaca, New York, councilmembers vote to electrify and decarbonize all 6,000 residential and commercial buildings in the city. (Washington Post)
• A Vermont city’s ice rink, which a facility designer calls an “energy pig,” has gone net-zero following a $1.4 million energy efficiency project. (Seven Days)

SOLAR:
• A Maryland public works board grants around $171,000 to an Eastern Shore town to install solar panels on its wastewater treatment plant and connect them to the grid. (CBS Baltimore)
• A downeast Maine town votes to enter into a net energy billing credit program and institute an ordinance encouraging new solar development. (Portland Press Herald)

CLEAN ENERGY: Teaneck, New Jersey, voters decide to change their residential energy service provider to one delivering greener power. (NorthJersey.com)

WASTE-TO-ENERGY: Two energy developers say a western New York farm’s anaerobic digester has begun producing and marketing its first amounts of dairy biomethane. (news release)

COMMENTARY: The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s president emeritus argues Maryland is falling dangerously behind in terms of addressing the climate crisis. (Baltimore Sun)

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Bridget Reed Morawski

Bridget is a freelance reporter and newsletter writer based in the Washington, D.C., area. She compiles the Northeast Energy News digest. Bridget primarily writes about energy, conservation and the environment. Originally from Philadelphia, she graduated from Emerson College in 2015 with a degree in journalism and a minor in environmental studies. When she isn’t working on a story, she’s normally on a northern Maine lake or traveling abroad to practice her Spanish language skills.