I felt encouraged after reading about Biden’s American Jobs Plan. It covers so many things important to Mainers, among them keeping our waters clean, repairing roads and bridges, and reducing energy costs for businesses and homeowners. But one of the most exciting parts is the focus on clean energy jobs and energy independence.

All states will benefit from this, but improving the energy grid has extra significance here. Maine has been identified as having the most frequent outages in the U.S., as well as having the second-longest outages.

The American Jobs Plan would help with that by investing in ways to make our electric grid more reliable, as well as supporting the move to clean energy sources, with the goal of 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035.

This is an ambitious goal, and working towards it will help Maine significantly. We’ll have fewer and shorter outages, plus less pollution from carbon-based electricity.

Even better, this will bring many new jobs to Maine. Solar and wind development is already accelerating, and that will only continue.

And as we saw in this last year of the pandemic, more people are considering Maine as a place to call home. If we have good jobs in clean energy fields and more reliable power, we’re even more likely to attract newcomers – and keep our young people in the state.

I ask Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King to support the American Jobs Plan, so Maine can fully benefit from everything it has to offer.

Erica Bartlett
Portland