Maine’s clean energy legislation has spurred more than $2 billion in local investment and created at least 2,500 jobs in the Pine Tree State. That isn’t stopping some state lawmakers from trying to weaken and kill these laws, as the local political puppets do the will of their fossil fuel masters, the Koch brothers.

A quick reminder: there’s a coordinated national campaign to dismantle renewable portfolio standards (RPS) at the state level. Behind the campaign is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), who we’ve covered quite a bit before. Behind ALEC is the Heartland Institute and the Koch brothers.

It’s a scene playing out in State capitols around the country -- from Kansas to Missouri to Michigan to North Carolina. And now in Maine. State legislators, who typically receive hearty contributions from the Heartland Institute, Big Fossils, and local front groups who are wholly funded by the former, introduce legislation that was drafted by ALEC (a “corporate bill mill”) with the help of Heartland and the Big Fossils. The state legislators then present biased studies created by compromised think tanks that are funded by Heartland and the big fossils to support this boilerplate legislation. The legislation, of course, written to benefit Big Fossils -- and the Koch brothers -- and not the people of the respective states, where renewable portfolio standards are having great positive economic and environmental impact.

(For a good overview of ALEC’s work to bully state legislators into weakening these laws that undeniably help the economies and environments of the states in which they’re passed, check out this NRDC Action Fund post.)

Up in Maine, some local groups are asking, “Why do two rich men from Kansas want to dismantle Maine's renewable energy policy?” A new report just published by the Maine People’s Alliance, Maine’s Majority Education Fund, and the Maine Conservation Alliance (PDF) seeks to answer that question for Mainers.