Posing as an effort to protect public lands, Question 1 would do several very undemocratic things.
It would overturn decisions made by the democratic body that approved construction of the New England Clean Energy Connect after consulting with environmental scientists to ensure it will offset greenhouse gas emissions resulting from fossil fuels power generation.
It asks people to follow the advice of those who challenge the expertise of climate scientists, who collected and analyzed more than 500,000 emissions samples over decades so they could make inform decisions like this.
After asking people to overturn that decision, Question 1 asks that they give the minority presenting it an undemocratic advantage in all votes concerning this matter retroactively to 2014, and into the future, by requiring a two-thirds majority to pass such legislation.
While that’s presented as a protective measure, it would instead ensure that the minority that’s opposed climate responsive legislation could do so while garnering only one-third of the vote in the future. That might just explain why so many former climate change deniers are so determined to see this pass.
Misdirection is the norm in politics these days. If people are wondering why they haven’t heard much from a certain political faction on state matters for a couple years, they might consider it’s possible they engaged in a bit of that here. That they didn’t suddenly see things people’s way, but decided they might lead them to believe they did, so they could get legislation like this passed.
Jamie Beaulieu, Farmington
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