(2)__The office in which to file a financing statement to perfect a security interest in collateral, including fixtures, of a transmitting utility is the office of the Secretary of State.__ The financing statement also constitutes a fixture filing as to the collateral indicated in the financing statement that is or is to become fixtures.

Official Comment

1. Source. Derived from former Section 9-401.

2. Where to File. Subsection (a) [Maine cite subsection (1)] indicates where in a given State a financing statement is to be filed. Former Article 9 afforded each State three alternative approaches, depending on the extent to which the State desires central filing (usually with the Secretary of State), local filing (usually with a county office), or both. As Comment 1 to former Section 9-401 observed, "The principal advantage of statewide filing is ease of access to the credit information which the files exist to provide. Consider for example the national distributor who wishes to have current information about the credit standing of the thousands of persons he sells to on credit. The more completely the files are centralized on a statewide basis, the easier and cheaper it becomes to procure credit information; the more the files are scattered in local filing units, the more burdensome and costly." Local filing increases the net costs of secured transactions also by increasing uncertainty and the number of required filings. Any benefit that local filing may have had in the 1950's is now insubstantial. Accordingly, this Article dictates central filing for most situations, while retaining local filing for real- estate-related collateral and special filing provisions for transmitting utilities.

3. Minerals and Timber. Under subsection (a)(1) [Maine cite subsection (1), paragraph (a)], a filing in the office where a record of a mortgage on the related real property would be filed will perfect a security interest in as-extracted collateral. Inasmuch as the security interest does not attach until extraction, the filing continues to be effective after extraction. A different result occurs with respect to timber to be cut, however. Unlike as-extracted collateral, standing timber may be goods before it is cut. See Section 9-102 [Maine cite section 9-1102] (defining "goods"). Once cut, however, it is no longer timber to be cut, and the filing in the real-property- mortgage office ceases to be effective. The timber