The Impacts of Wind Power Development in Maine 2003-2010

The development of wind power in Maine has emerged as a significant economic opportunity in the past several years, providing one of the few growing sectors in the latter half of the last decade. The impact of this development has been estimated in regulatory filings before, but has not been examined in detail using data on actual expenditures for wind power development. This report examines the economic impacts of three major wind power projects: Mars Hill in Aroostook County, Stetson Mountain in Washington County, and Kibby Mountain in Franklin County. (Stetson and Kibby were undertaken in two phases) These projects together provide 257 megawatts of installed generating capacity

Revisiting the New Directions Report

This article is based on a presentation at the Pure \u2793 Conference last January. Charles Colgan discusses Maine\u27s recent policies on telecommunication. Colgan, former state economist, provided the staff support for Governor Joseph Brennan\u27s report New Directions in Telecommunications Policy. The analysis of telecommunications policies of the two recent Maine gubernatorial administrations [Brennan and McKernan] reveals a surprisingly common core over the entire period since the AT&T divestiture

The Economic Effects of Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Exploration and Developement in the South Atlantic Region: Issues and Assessment

In 2013, the American Petroleum Institute and the National Ocean Industries Association, oil and gas industry groups, commissioned Quest Offshore Resources, Inc., to prepare a report (the Quest report) on the economic impacts of offshore drilling in the Atlantic. This report has been widely cited to make the case for opening the Southeast to oil and gas development based on significant local, state, and regional benefits from drilling. The report, however, was based on an incomplete and misleading economic picture, which resulted in overstating the likely regional economic effects of offshore oil and gas exploration and development. This summary identifies issues with the Quest report that lead to significant overestimates of the economic impacts of offshore drilling in the Atlantic and provides an overview of the existing ocean economy of the South Atlantic region in order to provide the context of the industries that could be vulnerable to disruptions from oil and gas activity. For purposes of this assessment, the region of interest consists of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia and is designated as the “South Atlantic” region. In Department of the Interior planning, Virginia and North Carolina are included in the “Mid-Atlantic” planning region, while South Carolina and Georgia are in the “South Atlantic.” In this assessment, however, all four states will be referred to as falling within the South Atlantic region. Key Findings • The existing ocean economy in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia accounted for 249,000 jobs in 2012 and is thus larger than the Quest estimates for oil and gas employment in 2035, which as noted appear to be exaggerated. • Employment in sectors that have been vulnerable to disruption from oil and gas development is significant in the region. • The Quest report was prepared before the Department of the Interior released its leasing proposal in 2015, and is therefore based on scenarios that assume significantly more leasing in the near term than will actually be undertaken in the Department of Interior’s still preliminary plans. – The report assumes that lease sales will be held annually beginning in 2018, but the Dept. of the Interior has proposed only one lease sale, to be held in 2021. – The report assumes that production will begin in 2026, but production would likely not begin until at least 2029 under the actual proposal. – The report assumes that Atlantic drilling can take place in all federal waters, but the Department of the Interior is proposing to limit oil and gas activity to areas of the coasts of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and has proposed a 50-mile buffer from the coastline within which drilling would be prohibited. • Employment estimates in the Quest report are likely exaggerated. It is unclear, for example, how much of the projected employment will be filled by residents outside the South Atlantic region. • The Quest report fails to disclose key assumptions about the location of support activities such as equipment manufacturing and does not distinguish between oil- and gas-related economic activities taking place in the South Atlantic and those based outside the region. • The Quest report examines the impacts if Atlantic coast states were to receive revenue sharing from the federal government, as Gulf of Mexico states do, but it fails to acknowledge the long history of difficulty of establishing revenue sharing in Congress

The Economic Impacts of the Horizon Wind Energy Project

Horizon Wind Energy proposes to build 800MW of electric generation in Aroostook County, Maine. This report examines the economic impacts from the construction and the operational employment associated with the proposed project. The economic impact analysis was conducted using an econometric model of the Maine economy maintained by the USM Center for Business and Economic Analysis and developed by Regional Economic Models Inc. (REMI) of Amherst, Massachusetts. The REMI model is a widely used economic forecasting and impact estimation model which has been used by CBER for more than 15 years. It has been used by the State Planning Office more than 25 years, and is also used by public and private organizations throughout the country. The USM version of the model incorporates seven regions within Maine; total effects in Maine are the sum of impacts in all regions

A Comparative Assessment of National Approaches to Defining the Ocean Economy

The development of an Ocean Economy Satellite Account (OESA) within the Industry Accounts of the National Income and Product Accounts is taking place at a time when there is increased attention to the measurement of the contribution of oceans to national and regional incomes in many countries. The question arises, therefore, about how the experience in other countries can inform the process in the U.S. The first part of this report presents a summary of discussions that took place at a symposium held at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in November 2017 on the subject of the measurement of oceans in national income accounts. It then presents a preliminary analysis of the industries and sectors that have been defined in twenty-five ocean economy studies for national governments and international organizations

Editor\u27s Introduction to the Special Edition: The Economics of Climate Change in Coastal Areas

Editor\u27s introduction to the Special Edition on the Economics of Climate Change Adaptation in Coastal Area

Measurement of the Ocean and Coastal Economy: Theory and Methods

This paper supplements reports and data released on the coastal and ocean economy of the United States by the National Ocean Economics Project. It provides a discussion of the relevant literature involved in the investigation of the ocean and coastal related economy, the theoretical background of measures such as gross domestic and gross state product, and provides details on sources, methods, assumptions, and limitations of the data provided by NOEP

Economic Impacts of the Proposed Maine Power Reliability Project

Central Maine Power Company (CMP) proposes to invest in a significant upgrade to much of its high voltage transmission system in central and southern Maine in order to increase reliability in the future and to meet Federal standards for the nation’s electricity grid. The project, known as the Maine Power Reliability Program (MPRP) is expected to cost an estimated $1.5 billion and to be implemented over the four year period from 2009 to 2012. Large construction projects such as MPRP typically have a different type of impact on the economy than, for example, a new manufacturing plant. Construction and related jobs are by their nature temporary, with construction workers moving from project to project. The short term nature of construction projects means most of the indirect jobs estimated through economic impact analysis represent current jobs that are supported by the direct construction activity rather than new jobs. However, if implemented as planned, the activity associated with MPRP will be taking place a time of substantial slack in the economy, particularly in the construction industry. Thus, a larger, but unknown, portion of the jobs associated with the MPRP will be “new” in the sense that they would not otherwise exist but for the project