On October 16, 2020, Sierra Club Maine filed a lawsuit in federal court in Maine seeking to force the U.S. Department of Energy to disclose records Sierra Club Maine requested nine months ago under the Freedom of Information Act or FOIA. In January 2020, Sierra Club Maine submitted a FOIA request to the Department of Energy seeking documents related to Central Maine Power’s Transmission Project, which is in its final federal permitting phase. The Department of Energy (DOE) has jurisdiction over the project, and it must issue a Presidential Permit prior to construction starting.
Under FOIA, federal agencies usually have 20 business days to respond to records requests. Since January, DOE has provided a fraction –less than 10 percent—of records responsive to Sierra Club Maine’s request. In July 2020, Sierra Club Maine sent a follow-up request. DOE has not provided any documents responsive to that request, even though the agency’s environmental analysis of the project is ongoing.
“The public has been kept in the dark about many aspects of this ill-conceived project and through this lawsuit we are seeking transparency from our public officials,” said Becky Bartovics, Sierra Club Maine volunteer leader. “For example, apparently the Department of Energy commissioned a report about the greenhouse gas effects of the transmission line, which has not been released to the public. The Department of Energy knows this is a highly controversial project in Maine and it should be going out of its way to provide the public with information, not the other way around.”
Sierra Club Maine is represented in the lawsuit by Earthrise Law Center, the environmental legal clinic of Lewis & Clark Law School.
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Sierra Club Maine is one of 64 chapters nationally with 4 million members and supporters. Working in Maine for over 40 years, Sierra Club Maine has 24,000 members and supporters across the state. As a volunteer-run, grassroots organization, Sierra Club Maine believes in the power of people working together to make change happen. Their mission is to explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; to practice and promote the responsible use of the earth’s ecosystems and resources; to educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means necessary to carry out these objectives.