Politics
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A former state lawmaker and brewery owner is set to succeed Public Advocate Bill Harwood as Maine’s utility and consumer watchdog after Harwood retires next month.
Gov. Janet Mills plans on appointing Heather Sanborn, a Portland native who served in the Maine House of Representatives and Maine Senate between 2016 and 2022, to the position after Harwood retires when his term ends Jan. 31, 2025. The Senate will need to confirm the Democrat’s nomination.
Harwood, 72, said earlier this week he was retiring after more than 40 years of work on energy and utility issues to spend more time with family and friends. Mills appointed Harwood to the ratepayer and consumer advocate role in 2022.
Sanborn and her husband, Nathan, founded Rising Tide Brewing in 2010 as one of the first breweries in Portland’s East Bayside neighborhood. Oxbow Brewing Company announced Wednesday it would acquire Rising Tide in the coming weeks.
Mills said in a news release Thursday that Sanborn, as a small business owner, knows “just how important it is to have stable, affordable energy costs for Maine people and businesses, and, as a lawmaker, she has championed bipartisan legislation to make energy costs more affordable and to improve energy efficiency across the state.”
Sanborn, who served on the Legislature’s energy committee, would take over from Harwood after he upset lawmakers at times on both sides of the aisle for seeking to limit new natural gas pipelines in Maine and warning about how the state’s community solar program will result in high costs to ratepayers.
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One of the more public and noteworthy parts of the public advocate’s job is challenging Central Maine Power Co. and Versant Power to justify their requests for rate increases in a state that has seen rising energy costs while also seeking to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals.
“My experiences as a small business owner and as a legislator have made me acutely aware of the burden of high energy prices on Mainers,” Sanborn, who practiced law and taught at Cape Elizabeth High School earlier in her career, said in Thursday’s release.
