Maine Regulators Deny Proposal to Use Energy Bills to Detect Marijuana Farms

Marijuana plants at an indoor cannabis farm in Gardena, Calif., on Aug. 15, 2019. (Richard Vogel/AP Photo)

Maine utility regulators on Aug. 13 rejected a proposal that would have allowed utilities to share information about high-usage customers with law enforcement to detect illegal marijuana growing operations.

The proposal was put forward in March by Versant Power, a Maine-based electric utility, which said it has “a high success rate” in identifying marijuana growing locations but no ability to share that information with police.

Maine’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) unanimously rejected the proposal during Tuesday’s meeting, citing concerns that disclosing such information to law enforcement may violate customer privacy.

Chairman Philip Bartlett said it would not be appropriate for utilities to report high-usage customers to law enforcement.

“Such customers may have other legitimate reasons for high usage and using such broad criteria would likely result in the privacy of many innocent customers being violated,” Bartlett said in the meeting.

Commissioner Patrick Scully emphasized that it should be the responsibility of law enforcement, not utilities, to identify suspected illegal activities in the state.

“I do not believe it’s the role of a utility to make such reports on its own initiative. And I would be concerned that reports based solely on usage could expose customers engaged in lawful activities to criminal investigations,” the commissioner said.

“This is the job of law enforcement, not utilities. And certainly if law enforcement has a reason to investigate a particular property, it has the ability to seek through a lawful subpoena records maintained by the utility,” he added.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Versant Power for comment.

In its March 6 filing to the Maine PUC, the company said it sometimes receives subpoenas for information on up to “50 locations at a time,” adding that these locations do not include those identified by Versant Power.

The proposal came as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigates transnational criminal organizations involved in illegal marijuana growing activities in 20 states, including Maine.

In a May statement, U.S. Attorney Darcie McElwee said that approximately 100 illicit marijuana growing operations have been identified in Maine, and 40 search warrants have been issued.

The attorney stated that federal agencies were investigating organized criminal enterprises with China ties.

“The possibility that organized criminal enterprises with alleged ties to China are using Maine properties to profit from unlicensed marijuana operations and interstate distribution makes it clear that there is need for a strong and sustained federal, state, and local effort to shut down and thoroughly investigate these operations,” McElwee said.