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

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....