Supporters lobby New Hampshire to adopt climate action plan
Jan. 30—CONCORD — Supporters lobbied Monday for New Hampshire to adopt an action plan on climate change with more ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse emissions.
The plan (HB 208) calls for reaching net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050.
"Clean energy is the future and we need to find a path that is affordable," said Meredith Hatfield, associate director for policy and government relations with the Nature Conservancy.
The last state Climate Action Plan came out in 2009.
"A strategic plan needs to be updated every three years," said Joan Widmer, a health care worker from Amherst.
Rep. Will Darby, D-Nashua, said the states around New Hampshire have been moving more aggressively than the Granite State has.
"New Hampshire should join our neighboring states who have already made commitments to reduce their climate-change impacts," Darby told the House Science, Technology and Energy Committee. "These states have demonstrated the ability to simultaneously protect the environment and grow the economy."
This cause faces an uphill battle to clear the House of Representatives with its narrow, 201-197 Republican majority.
In 2021, the Democrat-controlled House passed it and the bill died in the state Senate.
In 2022, the GOP-led House put this and many other renewable energy bills on the table where they all died.
Throughout Monday's hearing, House Committee Chairman Michael Vose, R-Epping, urged speakers to address the bill's specifics and avoid making speeches about the dangers of climate change.
"Most of the predictions that have been made about climate change in the last 30 or 40 years have been incorrect," Vose said at one point.
DES: Consultant, staff needed for new plan
Michael Fitzgerald, an assistant director with the Department of Environmental Services, said the agency would have to hire a consultant to prepare a report and DES would need additional staff to process it
"We do not disagree with the premise of the bill," Fitzgerald said. "Our concern is we don't have the resources to do it."
Supporters said the state could get grants to complete the plan from either the federal infrastructure law or the Inflation Reduction Act.
"We are already seeing the economic impacts that are damaging New Hampshire's economy," said ex-state Rep. Ken Wells of Andover. "The status quo is no longer a good option."
Opponents said the fears of global warming have been overblown.
"There is no conclusive evidence for catastrophic global warming. A serious review of climate science shows it is fraught with contradictions, doublespeak, cherry-picked, manipulated data, shuffled facts, all force-fed into computer models," wrote state Rep. Julius Soti, R-Windham.
"What there is evidence for is a massive miscalculation."
Max Kalkstein of Charlestown said moving from a reliance on oil and gas to wind and solar would be disastrous for consumers.
"The earth's temperature has always and always will fluctuate. It is baked into the cake," he wrote.
"Solar and wind are both expensive, inefficient, and falsely labeled as 'Green' or 'Clean' energy. The only effect of these types of bills is to increase costs for consumers, increase government control, and ultimately place an unfair burden on the people."
The bill online attracted 175 supporters and 12 opponents.
