Clean energy Facebook ads dominate in Maine in fight over power corridor project
Conservation, clean energy pages make up majority of top spenders in the state
Construction recently began on a huge hydroelectric power transmission project that will run from dams in Québec and through much of western Maine, and both proponents and opponents of the project have been advertising heavily on Facebook in the past month. Pages representing groups on both sides of the issue have all been using rhetoric supporting sustainability and clean energy to argue for or against the project - even if their own sustainability credentials are dubious.
Overall, groups using ads promoting clean energy and/or conservation make up the majority of top spenders targeting Maine. Here are the top 10 spenders on Facebook political ads targeting Maine, including from pages that focus on issues other than clean energy and conservation, for context:
Last week, we reported on Maine Affordable Energy, a project of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce that is focused on defeating a proposed buyout of the state’s two major private utilities to create a consumer owned, nonprofit utility. They were the biggest spender on political Facebook ads targeting Mainers for the past month, and they have been using pro-clean energy rhetoric to maintain the status quo for the state’s utilities.
The same tactics are also being used in Facebook and Instagram ads both for and against New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC), a huge project that would build power lines across western Maine ostensibly carrying power from hydroelectric dams. Proponents - including major Maine and Canadian utilities - claim that it would reduce the state’s carbon emission and provide lots of clean energy, while opponents - including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Council of Maine - argue that the environmental impacts of its construction outweigh potential clean energy benefits.
The biggest spender on the issue is Clean Energy Matters, a political action committee formed by Central Maine Power (CMP) in late 2019, and they’ve used a wide variety of tactics to push for the project. While some of their ads are defensive and attempt to make the environmental impacts of the corridor’s construction minimal, the majority of their arguments focus on its environmental benefits.
Clean Energy Matters claims that it “is a leading example of the clean energy infrastructure upgrades being championed by President Biden,” and that it would “eliminate over three million metric tons of dirty emission from the New England energy grid each year by replacing fossil fuels with clean hydropower.” Another ad from the PAC touches on how opponents of the project are being funded by the “owner of one of Maine's dirtiest oil-fired power plants.”
The very group that Clean Energy Matters is attacking in some of their Facebook ads, Mainers for Local Power (which is indeed funded by fossil fuel plant owners), was the third-largest spender on the platform targeting the state last month. To argue against the project, their ads seem to focus on preserving Maine’s northern forests by keeping them out of reach from “bad actors” like CMP, “corporate fat cats in Spain,” and Canadian utility Hydro-Québec.
NECEC and Hydro-Québec, which is contributing significantly to the project, are the next biggest spenders on political Facebook ads targeting Maine. Like Clean Energy Matters, their ads either prebut or rebut arguments from opponents of the project like Sierra Club by highlighting the environmental benefits of providing more hydroelectric power to the region and even using “fact checks” addressing opponents’ arguments. While other groups target a mix of gender and age demographics in Maine, these two pages’ ads are largely targeted toward Mainers under 35.
NECEC even went as far as to advertise (exclusively to women in Maine, according to Facebook) the fact that they paused their forest clearing in June and July to protect a local bat species, ending the video with, “We treasure Maine’s woods, too.”