AUGUSTA, ME -- Republican gubernatorial nominee Bobby Charles today released the Emergency 207 Plan, a comprehensive plan to bring down Mainers energy costs ahead of winter, which includes calling on Governor Janet Mills to for major policy proposals that will give working families relief at the pump before winter heating bills hit. The plan will be paid for by drawing down the state’s Rainy Day Fund by $207 million.

Using the funding in the billion-dollar Rainy Day Fund, which has reached its statutory maximum, state government should act to provide the following energy relief.

The plan breaks down this way:

$100 million      Supplement School Heating bills (avoid property tax hike)

$60 million        Gas tax over three months (remainder of 2026).

$42 million        To supplement LIHEAP (doubling its aid)

$5 million          For “Energy Crisis Intervention Program” for low-income people “facing a winter heating emergency.”

Augusta has pushed citizens, property taxes, energy costs, grocery prices, and more to the brink. With the spike in energy prices it is incumbent on state government to provide significant relief, preventing further pressures against affordability.

Schools: Our teachers and children need classrooms that are warm enough to support effective learning.

Property Taxes have maxed out citizens’ ability to pay, our city and town budgets cannot absorb further expenses.

Affordability: The cost of everything we consume moves via delivery trucks and is impacted by diesel fuel prices

Gas Prices: Impact all of us every day

Charles called on Governor Mills to:

1. Immediately suspend Maine’s state gasoline tax through the winter heating season.

2. Immediately suspend the state automobile fuel tax ahead of winter.

3. Publicly support Sens. Collins and King’s request that President Trump release supply from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve.

4. Stop adding new climate mandates and renewable-portfolio costs onto the electric bills of Maine families and small businesses.

5. Direct the Public Utilities Commission to put ratepayer affordability first -- not the next green-energy target.

Bobby Charles is also calling for the immediate suspension of the automobile fuel tax (which costs Mainers around $20 million each month) and to supplement School Heating Bills for $100 million, which will avoid the need for a property tax hike.

Charles also announced his support for U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King’s call to tap federal petroleum reserves -- including a release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve -- to bring down fuel and heating-oil prices as Mainers face a costly winter.

“Governor Mills still has time to do one useful thing before she leaves office: get out of the way of Maine families trying to heat their homes and get to work,” said Charles. “Suspend the state gas tax now. Support Collins and King in releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the Northeast heating-oil reserve. Augusta has spent eight years lecturing Mainers about climate while they pay some of the highest electricity rates in the United States. That is not leadership. That is a bill.”

Maine’s state gasoline tax is 30 cents a gallon, with total state fuel taxes and fees running more than 31 cents a gallon. Combined with the federal excise tax, Mainers pay nearly 50 cents a gallon in fuel taxes before they ever start the car. Statewide regular gasoline now averages about $4.43 a gallon -- more than $1.30 higher than a year ago. Diesel, which tracks closely with home heating oil, is above $6.50 a gallon.

While heating oil -- the fuel half of Maine households still rely on -- is not taxed by the state, it has nonetheless surged about 74 percent from last September, recently hitting records near $6 a gallon. Filling a standard 275-gallon tank now costs hundreds of dollars more than it did a year ago.

Charles said the crisis at the pump is only half the story. Under Governor Mills, and with Hannah Pingree serving as director of the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future and co-chair of the Maine Climate Council, Augusta doubled down on a green-energy and climate agenda -- expanding the Renewable Portfolio Standard, pushing mass heat-pump conversion, and locking the state onto a path to 100 percent “clean” electricity by 2040.

The result, Charles said, is a disaster for ratepayers. Maine residential electricity now averages about 29.6 cents per kilowatt-hour -- more than 60 percent above the national average and among the highest rates in the United States, trailing only a handful of high-cost states such as Hawaii and California. The average Maine household is paying well over $1,700 a year for power, and winter bills will climb further as families heat with electricity or oil.

“Hannah Pingree spent years in the Blaine House as Janet Mills’s climate architect. She co-chaired the Climate Council. She sold Mainers a plan called ‘Maine Won’t Wait.’ Mainers waited anyway — and they got the bill,” Charles said. “Her failed green-energy experiment did not make power cheap, reliable, or homegrown. It made Maine one of the most expensive places in America to turn on the lights. Now she wants a promotion. Maine cannot afford four more years of the same ideology.”

Charles said a Mills–Pingree energy policy that treats gasoline, heating oil, and natural gas as problems to be taxed and phased out has left the state exposed to global supply shocks while imposing new costs on the grid. He argued that suspending the gas tax this winter is the fastest relief Augusta can deliver without waiting on Washington, and that joining Collins and King on reserve releases is the least Augusta Democrats can do after years of driving costs up.

“Winter is not a talking point. It is a deadline,” Charles said. “If Janet Mills and Hannah Pingree will not give Mainers relief at the pump and on the power bill, Maine will elect a governor who will.”

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About Bobby Charles

Bobby Charles is the Republican nominee for Governor of Maine. A Maine resident and attorney from Leeds who was raised in Wayne, he served in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush administrations, including as Assistant Secretary of State. He is running to cut crime, cut taxes, and end the nonsense in Augusta. Learn more at www.BobbyForMaine.com.

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