Politics
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Bobby Charles, the Republican running to become Maine’s next governor, is accusing his Democratic opponent, Hannah Pingree, of failing to reduce harmful carbon dioxide pollution in Maine.
And Charles, who opposes subsidies for renewable power and advocates an expansion of natural gas pipelines, claims that Maine’s current climate policy is bankrupting the state and increasing climate-warming pollution.
A close review of federal emissions data, however, shows a more complicated picture than Charles presents and his energy proposals could more closely tie the state to fossil fuels.
In a fact sheet called “Hannah Pingree is bad for the climate,” the Charles campaign alleges that Maine’s carbon emissions rose almost 19% between 2020 and 2024, at a time Pingree co-chaired the state’s climate council. Charles said that makes Maine the state with the third-fastest growing emissions in the country.
“Their narrative is that Maine has become a national leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That’s simply not true. Maine is on the exact opposite end of that spectrum,” Charles said in an interview.
He said that years of ideologically driven wind and solar development, including Maine’s controversial, and ultimately rolled back, net energy billing expansion, has left the state with expensive electric bills and greater greenhouse gas emissions.
“They pretend that putting out all these solar panels and putting out all this wind power and then billing you and me for it is somehow solving the problem. It’s not,” Charles said.
Moreover, Charles doubts that Maine’s goal of cutting carbon emissions 80% by 2050 is reasonable or realistic, if it means rising energy costs.
“We represent something like 0.01% of all the emissions in the country, and if you look at it globally, we are not going to solve this problem here in Maine,” Charles said.
Charles’ own energy plan calls to reduce energy prices by negotiating the completion of two natural gas pipelines the Trump administration has said will bring more gas into New England.
He also embraces “all reliable energy sources” including renewables, fossil fuels, hydropower and small modular nuclear reactors, a new generation of atomic power plants.
“We’re doing things backward,” Charles said. “No matter what your end game is you want to see cleaner lakes, cleaner skies — we should be doing those things but we should be doing them in the context of making life affordable,” he added.
Charles is correct that Maine added almost 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels between 2020 and 2025, according to the latest data available from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
But a closer look at the figures shows that most of the increase was from natural gas fired power plants. And includes a big jump in plant emissions just in 2024.
“Maine counts electricity emissions based on how much energy is generated in the state. But Maine itself is actually using less electricity since 2019, as is all of New England,” said Will Taylor, infrastructure and resilience strategy director at the Acadia Center, a regional clean energy nonprofit.
Taylor said that most of the power being generated by natural gas-fired plants in Maine wasn’t destined for the state, or even for New England. The rise in emissions coincided with a drop in electric imports into the region and a slight rise of exports to New York and Canada, Taylor said.
“Maine is just generating a higher percentage of the region’s electricity, and the way Maine counts emissions, it takes the hit for that electricity it’s generating for the entire region,” Taylor added.
Pingree co-chaired the Maine Climate Council for six years and oversaw two iterations of the state’s climate action plan.
She said Charles is revealing his lack of knowledge about the energy market and the drivers of climate change.
“It shows that Bobby Charles does not understand how our markets work. He is not an expert in these issues and he is putting a lot of garbage data out there to try to mislead people,” Pingree said.
And Pingree said she is ready to debate Maine’s progress on climate any day.
“You know, Maine has led the country. We have cut our heating oil use by 20%,” Pingree said. “We have helped thousands of families weatherize their home and install heat pumps. We have now helped hundreds of towns become more energy efficient and prepare for huge storm events.”
Climate change was barely on the radar in the hotly contested gubernatorial primaries, taking a back seat to the rising cost of electricity, gas and groceries.
And while Charles says natural gas expansion will bring down energy prices, his opponents are aligned with the state’s current climate strategy.
Pingree proposes to add wind, solar and battery storage onto the grid, lower electric costs and reach 100% clean power by 2040.
Independent Rick Bennett, the third candidate in the race, wants to improve energy efficiency and weatherization. He also plans to create a public “generation authority” to make sure renewable energy in Maine benefits residents instead of out-of-state developers.
“Because we can develop renewable resources, renewable wind, renewable solar and hydro and other sources and do it in a way that actually reduces rates for Maine people if we actually focus on that as the outcome,” Bennett said.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.