Maine lawmakers are taking up a bill that has major implications for relations with Canada, future electricity costs, alternative energy development and jobs for Maine workers. Critics are worried the bill backed by the Baldacci administration doesn't contain enough safeguards.

Picture a super highway for power lines, pipelines and the other infastructure necessary to move energy from where it gets produced to where it goes to market. And then visualize Interstate 95, I-295 and what's known as the Searsport-Loring Corridor being used for this purpose.

It would seem a logical way to streamline effort, especially if you can charge energy companies for leasing the space. And that's what Gov. John Baldacci and his administration want to do, with oversight from an intergovernmental panel and review by the Public Utilities Commission.

"Maine could make better use of its existing corridors by utilizing them as utility corridors as well as perhaps highway corridors," said John Cashman, a member of the Public Utilities Commission. Cashman told a public hearing that he was speaking not as a PUC member but as someone who served on a state commission to study energy infastructure last year.

The bill being considered by the Legislature is an outgrowth of that group's work, although the 13 members were divided on their final recommendations. Cashman is among the majority that favors LD 1786. He says the bill establishes several criteria that an applicant would have to meet before using a state-owned energy corridor.

"They would have to enhance opportunities for energy generation within the state; significantly and measurably reduce electric rates or other relative energy costs for residences or businesses -- those are the first two criteria," Cashman said. "And there is no argument that that should be the objective of the use of these corridors."

Other criteria include minimizing land use impacts and reducing the release of greenhouse gases by investing money from the contracts in energy efficiency projects. But while many agree with the bill's concept and framework, several others who served on the commission say it needs additional safeguards.

Rep. Sharon Treat says the group ran out of time before adequately addressing them. "These criteria, which the commission labored long and hard to develop, will apply only to projects on public lands. The major transmission projects on private lands, including projects with the scope of the buildout we're seeing right now on the CMP power grid would be exempt from such review," Treat said. "And I guess I would just ask the committee here: Why does this make sense?"

Treat suggests the two-tiered approach will drive projects to be sited on private lands to avoid meeting the public interest test that applies to corridors on public lands under the bill.

Critics also pointed to Hydro Quebec's acquisition of New Brunswick Power. They worry that if the company takes advantage of Maine's energy corridors, it could flood southern New England with cheap power at a time when Maine is trying to develop its own wind and tidal projects.

And fears about Canada run deeper than that in Washington County, where planned LNG projects are facing stiff competition from New Brunswick, which is ahead in the process. "Expediating the delivery and sale of Canadian-produced energy without consideration of Maine energy projects will impede the ability of these Maine-based projects to remain economically viable," said Harold Silverman, a former state senator from the region. "We're proud to be who we are in Washington County. But give us a break! We have to earn liveable wages to live there."

PUC Commissioner John Cashman says he understands there are those who think the bill is taking the state too far too quickly. But Cashman says the public interest protections contained in the bill were written to ensure that Maine's energy corridors don't simply become a "pass-through" for a company like Hydro Quebec.

Cashman puts it this way: Either Maine can be a player and take advantage of the corridor opportunity or it can sit on its hands and let the opportunity pass by. Others maintain there is still room for compromise.