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Platner Calls to 'Take Back American Power' With Rate Freeze, National Infrastructure Fund in Energy Plan
"It is long past time to hearken back to the legacy of the New Deal, to unlock American ingenuity and work ethic to rise to our energy challenges."
May 08, 2026
In his energy policy unveiled Friday, Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner in Maine emphasized that political choices over the last several decades undid the robust New Deal-era framework that helped keep household bills down and financed electricity across his state and the country—and that lawmakers can and must shift their priorities in order to help working families afford energy once again.
"What was done by political choice can be undone by political choice," said Platner in the plan. "If we approach our energy challenges with the resources currently reserved for the Pentagon and for billionaire tax breaks, we can meet our energy needs."
The oyster farmer and combat veteran, a political newcomer who is the presumptive Democratic nominee and is running to unseat five-term Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), unveiled a plan under which the US can "Take Back American Power" by replacing "regressive gas and diesel taxes" with his billionaire wealth tax proposal, introduced last month; take aim at Big Oil windfall profits; and prioritize clean energy development instead of "overpriced, dead-end Pentagon pet projects."
The plan is divided into four sections, with the first focusing on slashing energy prices for households across the country and in Maine—where the average family paid $900 more this past winter compared to the previous year to heat and light their home and power their car.
While the federal gas tax is meant to fund the Highway Trust Fund for infrastructure projects, Platner noted that $275 billion general fund have been needed to supplement the trust fund since 2008. Instead of funding projects with taxes that "hit working-class Mainers that hardest," said Platner, "public goods should be financed by progressive, general revenues" like his proposed 5% tax on wealth over $1 billion.
He expressed support for the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act, introduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), with a national fund to lower or freeze electricity rates supported by a per-barrel tax equal to 50% of the price difference between current oil prices and those from last year.
"We can cut Wall Street speculators out of the equation, build at scale with union jobs, and lower costs for everyone."
A rate freeze would also be funded by "repurposed federal fossil fuel subsidies and federal energy leases... so that states can support utilities making long-overdue upgrades that create a stronger, better-utilized, and cleaner grid that lowers power bills."
The second section of the plan focuses on funding clean energy projects and replacing the model of "financing energy investments with expensive private equity and high-yield debt" with a National Energy Infrastructure Fund. The fund would issue debt backed by the federal government, working with state agencies to provide "cheap capital directly to utilities, rural electric co-operatives, public energy authorities, and other developers of low-risk clean energy projects."
Combined with permitting reform for clean energy projects, the National Energy Infrastructure Fund would allow for an efficient build-out of transmission lines and offshore wind projects while passing tens of billions of dollars in savings on to ratepayers.
"We can cut Wall Street speculators out of the equation, build at scale with union jobs, and lower costs for everyone," said Platner.
The Senate candidate also proposed strategic fuel reserves for fisheries and farms, modeled on a reserve that hold approximately 1 billion barrels of oil for households across the Northeast in case of a fuel disruption.
Releases from a marine fuel reserve would "be triggered by verified price spikes during fishing seasons," while the stock for farmers, who bear "the brunt of our energy crisis," would be used to insulate the nation's food supply "from price shocks, particularly those caused by arbitrary wars."
The policy proposal was released as President Donald Trump issued his latest violent threat against Iran despite a ceasefire that was reached a month ago in the war the US and Israel started in late February. The average gas price is now above $4.50 per gallon, while 70% of US farmers told the American Farm Bureau Federation last month that the price of fertilizer has gotten so high due to Iran's closing of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the attacks, that they will not be able to afford all they need for the 2026 planting season.
Platner has taken aim at Collins for her votes against war powers resolutions that would give Congress a check on Trump's authority to attack Iran.
"Mainers can no longer afford Susan Collins, her party, or the crony capitalism that has handed over our essential public infrastructure to oil companies, private equity, and foreign-owned utilities," said Platner. "The solutions are straightforward. They simply require the political will: to end Big Oil’s stranglehold on our energy policy, to slash prices for consumers, and to build the energy of the future."
The Democrat's energy plan also calls for a National Whole Home Repair Program, modeled on a Pennsylvania initiative and scaled to the federal level. The program would partner "with public housing authorities, county-level programs, and local building and construction trades unions to cover the full range of work that would bring old housing into the present."
"Weatherization, electrification, and heat pumps can lower bills by thousands of dollars a year," reads the plan. "The technology exists. The skilled trades exist. What does not exist, for most Mainers, is the upfront capital."
It concludes that "it is long past time to hearken back to the legacy of the New Deal, to unlock American ingenuity and work ethic to rise to our energy challenges."
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'Charade Is Over': New Platner Ad Takes Aim at Collins' 'Symbolic Opposition' to Trump Agenda
"Symbolic opposition doesn't reopen hospitals. Weak condemnations don't bring back Roe v. Wade," the Democratic challenger thundered in a new broadside against Maine's five-term Republican senator.
May 07, 2026
US Senate hopeful Graham Platner called out the "performative politics" of his Republican opponent, Sen. Susan Collins, in a campaign ad released Thursday.
"Susan Collins' charade is over," Platner said in a recent Portland speech featured in the minute-long ad which calls the Maine incumbent—a self-styled "moderate"—out for what he describes as "symbolic opposition" to President Donald Trump while co-signing his agenda.
Despite frequent public statements of opposition to the president, according to a tracker by VoteHub, Collins voted in alignment with Trump nearly 95% of the time in 2025.
While criticizing Trump's threat to wipe out all of Iranian civilization as "incendiary language," Collins has on multiple occasions voted against war powers resolutions that would give Congress a check on the president's warmaking authority. (Though she did recently break with Trump by voting to advance another failed measure to remove US forces after a 60-day deadline in late April—making her one of only two Republicans to do so.)
Previously, while expressing concerns about the "harmful impact" of massive Medicaid cuts in last summer's Republican budget legislation and ultimately voting against the final bill, Collins played a critical role in its passage by casting a decisive vote that allowed the legislation to clear a procedural
In 2022, when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Collins warned the ruling would lead to “extreme abortion bans,” but ultimately voted against a bill that could have codified abortion rights into law while refusing to help lift the filibuster to pass her own bill.
"We don't care that you pretend to be remorseful at the start of a new forever war that you chose to let happen," Platner thundered from the podium in the new ad, which will air digitally and on TV across Maine. "We don't care that you are 'concerned' while we go broke as you sell us out to the president and to the Epstein class," referring to the wealthy allies of the late billionaire sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
Platner said these elites "are engineering the greatest redistribution of wealth from the working class to the ruling class in this nation's history."
"Symbolic opposition doesn't reopen hospitals. Weak condemnations don't bring back Roe v. Wade. And selling out working-class voters who've delivered mandate for change after mandate for change is not forgivable," he continued. "A performative politics that enables the destruction of our way of life is disqualifying."
After Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills suspended her floundering campaign last week, Platner, a 41-year-old former Marine-turned-oyster farmer, is on track to easily win the nomination to take on the five-term incumbent Collins in a race that could decide the Senate’s balance of power in November.
Platner’s campaign, which has unapologetically deployed the rhetoric of class war and centered on proposals like Medicare for All, a tax on extreme wealth, and an end to foreign wars, has been described as rewriting the conventional wisdom of what sort of Democrat can be viable in a purple state like Maine.
Though Mills had the backing of the Democratic Party establishment, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), polls have consistently shown that Platner’s message has resonated much more with the state’s Democratic voters. It appears to be resonating with general election voters as well.
According to a poll by Echelon Insights in early April, before Mills dropped out, Platner was leading Collins by a six-point margin of 51-45%, while Mills led by just two points.
But Platner will face a challenge to maintain this lead, as the Pine Tree Results PAC—an outfit supporting Collins with funding from wealthy tech and Wall Street barons—has more than $11.5 million on hand to pepper him with attacks in the coming months, according to Politico.
Platner has rejected super PAC donations, but has dominated with small donors, raising around $4 million from about 88,000 individual contributors in the first quarter of 2026, though he has just about $2.7 million left after his protracted battle with Mills.
During the same quarter, Collins raised just over $300,000 from individual donors of under $200, according to Federal Election Commission filings—less than 15% of her total fundraising haul.
In an email, the Platner campaign said it hoped the new ad would help it make "the case for change in Maine" as Collins "sells Mainers out to corporate lobbyists."
Ryan Grim, the editor and co-founder of Drop Site News, remarked on social media that with this ad, Platner was taking a much harsher tone towards Collins than previous Democratic opponents have.
"Platner hits the Epstein class in his first ad," he said. "Treating Collins with kid gloves hasn’t worked before. Platner is taking them off."
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'Which Side Are You On?' Platner Releases First Ad in General Election Against Collins
In the ad, Graham Platner describes GOP Sen. Susan Collins as “the epitome of the establishment politician” who “serves the donors and herself."
May 01, 2026
Graham Platner, the upstart candidate who is now the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for a crucial US Senate seat in Maine, put incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on the spot in his first general election campaign ad released Friday.
The video features Platner, who became the presumptive nominee after top rival Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign on Thursday, talking at a campaign rally in which he describes Collins as "the epitome of the establishment politician" who "serves the donors and herself" more than the people who elected her.
Susan Collins is on the side of the billionaire class.
I’m on the side of the rest of us who built this country. pic.twitter.com/ouKtXhgHji
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) May 1, 2026
Platner goes on to describe Collins as "duplicitous" and "willing to say one thing and do another," while chyrons flash on the screen highlighting Collins' crucial vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who helped end the constitutional right to abortion case healthcare by joining the court's majority to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
As Platner speaks, voices can be heard in the background singing the union anthem "Which Side Are You On?"
At the end of the ad, a chyron appears on the screen that reads, "Susan Collins: Not on our side."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who was the first US senator to endorse Platner's campaign last year, sent out a letter of support for the Maine Democrat on Friday, arguing that his victory over the establishment-backed Mills in the primary is evidence that "status quo politics is not good enough" in the face of President Donald Trump's authoritarian power grabs.
"We need to elect candidates all over this country who have the guts not only to stand up to Trumpism," Sanders wrote, "but to take on the monied interests of both parties and fight for a working class that has been ignored for far too long. Graham Platner is one of those candidates."
Sanders cautioned that no one should take a Platner victory over Collins for granted, warning that the coming contest "will be one of the closest and most expensive races in the country."
Semafor on Thursday reported that Republicans were planning a massive advertising blitz against Platner, whom polls suggest would defeat Collins if the election were held today.
Semafor noted that the Senate GOP's main super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, has already reserved $42 million in fall ads, while a "sister nonprofit group, One Nation, is running a suite of ads now totaling $18 million."
"I can just tell you that we should have an all-out assault on the concept that somehow, some way, Graham Platner will squeak through," Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told Semafor. "He has to be exposed."
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