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The month of March hasn’t been good to Northern Pass and its parent company, Eversource. First, there were the conflicting media reports that its Canadian partner, Hydro-Québec (HQ), isn’t paying for any part of the hydroelectric transmission line in New Hampshire. Then, there were allegations that their Transmission Service Agreement (TSA) with HQ expired. Now, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) ruled against a petition filed by Eversource for a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with HQ, and there is a competing bid from a rival energy company that could give them a run for their money.

In June 2016, Eversource announced it had reached an agreement with HQ that would guarantee at least 100 megawatts of electric energy would be available to New Hampshire consumers at lower than the average market prices from the proposed Northern Pass project. Northern Pass is the controversial transmission project running 192 miles from Canada to Deerfield.

Under the terms of the proposed PPA, HQ would sell and Eversource would buy 100 megawatts of electricity and then resell it to the wholesale energy market, which would include any net gains or costs of its purchases and sales in its electric distribution rates.

The plan would have put the terms in writing that the Northern Pass project would benefit New Hampshire by ensuring 10 percent of the total 1,090 megawatts of energy would have stayed in the state. However, the PUC ruled Monday that the PPA would be against state law.

“That proposal, however, goes against the overriding principle of restructuring, which is to harness the power of competitive markets to reduce costs to consumers by separating the functions of generation, transmission, and distribution,” the ruling states. “Allowing Eversource to use the [Stranded Cost Recovery Charge] mechanism as a ratepayer financed ‘backstop’ for its proposed 20-year PPA would serve as an impermissible intermingling of a generation activity with distribution rates. We cannot approve such an arrangement under existing laws, and accordingly dismiss Eversource’s petition.”

It’s important to note that a PPA is not required for the Northern Pass project to receive the green light from the Site Evaluation Committee (SEC), which will make a final decision on it this fall.

“A Power Purchase Agreement is not a requirement of our permit process, but the PPA was proposed as a response to many, including business leaders and policy makers, who asked for a guarantee that New Hampshire, as host state of the Northern Pass project, will receive its fair share of energy from the project and economic benefits above and beyond those received by other New England states,” said Martin Murray, spokesman for Northern Pass, in an email to NH Journal.

Senate Bill 128 is being currently consider in the New Hampshire Senate and would make the restructuring law more flexible to allow the PPA. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the bill on Thursday.

“We know there is broad support in the Legislature to provide regulators with assurance that they have the authority to consider whether proposals like the PPA would be in the best interest of customers,” Murray said. “SB128, if passed into law, would provide that assurance.”

Opponents of the Northern Pass project applauded the decision saying it’s a risky project that could put ratepayers at risk.

WHO PAYS FOR PROJECT IS STILL MURKY

Eversource has also received criticism in the past few weeks over the confusion on who is ultimately paying for the Northern Pass project. Canadian media started a firestorm after HQ officials were quoted saying they would not “pay a penny” for the Northern Pass line in the United States.

HQ issued a statement saying it won’t abandon the project and that the Canadian reports were written in error.

However, the public relations clean up from HQ and Eversource was messy and left more questions than answers for concerned parties. Allegations came up that the two energy companies had an expired TSA, which is required by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) before the project could be approved by the SEC and it specifies the respective rights and obligations of the parties involved in the project, including the terms for recovery of costs.

In the original TSA approved by the FERC in 2010, it states that HQ would pay for initial construction costs and Eversource has repeatedly said that New Hampshire ratepayers would not foot the bill for the project.

Yet, HQ’s recent comments about not paying for the line in the United States seem to contradict what the TSA states.

“I am concerned that the means for payment and assurance of profitability sought by HQ may have effects on the quantification of benefits of the project to the people of New Hampshire,” wrote senior assistant attorney general Peter C.L. Roth in a March 20 letter on behalf of the Counsel for the Public to Eversource.

“On numerous occasions, in the Application and accompanying testimony, the Applicants have expressly stated that HQ or one of its subsidiaries would pay for the entire costs of the line,” he added.

Marvin Bellis, senior counsel for Eversource, responded to the letter on Tuesday, which was obtained by NH Journal, stating that the TSA is still in full force, but did not directly answer Roth’s questions about the cost of the project.

“To the extent you have further questions about these issues you will be free to inquire about them during cross examination when the hearings commence in April,” he wrote. “However, as noted above, the fundamental financial structure of the Project has not changed, and you, as the Counsel for the Public, are in no different a position today vis-à-vis the TSA than you were at the time the application was filed.”

The trial-like adjudicative hearings are scheduled to begin in April and run for about 40 days before the SEC makes a decision on the application by September 31.

This spring, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is expected to seek a “request for proposals” for clean energy delivered to customers. If Eversource and HQ are successful in winning the proposal bid, they will modify the current TSA agreement or add a new one. Regardless if they get the nod or not, Eversource reiterated that New Hampshire customers would not pay for the transmission line.

However, the bill could end up being paid by Massachusetts ratepayers. HQ said its expecting Massachusetts electric companies, who in turn could call on the consumers, to pay for the line.

“We know so far with certainty that it is the electricity distribution companies of Massachusetts who will be assuming the cost of this project,” HQ spokesperson Lynn St. Laurent told Canadian-media outlet The Suburban in a March 15 report. “As for the American portion of the proposed transmission line…once again, we say that [HQ] is not paying a cent for it, whether aerial or underground.”

NATIONAL GRID ADDS PROPOSAL TO MIX

To make matters even more complicated for Northern Pass, National Grid announced Tuesday that it wants to build a power transmission project from Canada to Londonderry.

Their plan, called the Granite State Power Link, would use wind and hydroelectric energy in eastern Canada and provide 1,200 megawatts to the region. It would transmit the power along 58 miles of line in Vermont, cross the Connecticut River into Littleton, N.H., and continue for 114 miles, before terminating in Londonderry.

The project has a $1 billion price tag, and would require 6 miles of new transmission lines in New Hampshire, mostly using its existing rights-of-ways in utility corridors.

Northern Pass welcomed the new project, stating it reiterates the region’s need for more renewable energy, but National Grid seemed less optimistic about both projects succeeding.

For comparison, Northern Pass is projected to cost $1.6 billion, provide 1,090 megawatts of power and be operation in late 2019 or early 2020. It would carry hydropower from Canada and new transmission lines would need to be built and some are expected to be buried.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu has not weighed in on the project yet.

WAITING FOR SUNUNU, LABOR UNION REACTIONS

On NHPR Tuesday morning, Sununu reiterated his support for Northern Pass, before news broke about National Grid. He said it’s a “good project” and a “needed project” in order to keep energy costs down in the state for residents and commercial industries.

Sununu has been courting businesses across the globe since he was inaugurated in January, as part of his “100 businesses in 100 days” campaign pledge to woo them to set up shop in New Hampshire. He told NHPR he has spoken to businesses in the United States, including Arizona, but he has also spoken to ones in China and Taiwan.

It’s not immediately clear if he would change his support for Northern Pass to the National Grid project.

However, labor unions representing construction workers have also indicated they support the Northern Pass project.

North America’s Building Trades Unions sent a priority list to President Donald Trump earlier this year, which included Northern Pass on it.

McClatchy reported Monday that the White House requested the list of projects, as it switches gears and gets ready to focus on infrastructure. They were seeking projects to approve that require little to no federal funding.

It’s also not immediately known which energy project labor unions in New Hampshire would support.

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A Democratic member of the state’s highest council is quickly becoming one of the fiercest critics of Gov. Chris Sununu’s agenda. Andru Volinsky, one of the two Democrats sitting on the five-member Executive Council, has been the most vocal about the differences in ideology between him and the governor, especially when it comes to education.

Volinsky, D-Concord, did not support Frank Edelblut’s nomination to be the next state education commissioner. During Edelblut’s nomination hearing in January, Volinsky pushed back on his background in public education and religious views.

The most tense exchange between the two men was over the fact that Edelblut sat on the board of Patrick Henry College, a private Christian liberal arts school in Virginia, and the the school had an “oath of faith” that all of its “agents” needed to sign, which included a belief in creationism over evolution.

“You will be the chief educator to whom all of the science teachers in our state will report. Do you subscribe to this such that the science teachers need to worry about whether you will require creationism to be taught alongside evolution?” Volinsky asked.

He treated his questioning of Edelblut like a court-room cross-examination, using poster board and an easel to showcase his points.

His long questioning at one point drew a rebuke from two of his Republican colleagues on the council, David Wheeler and Russell Prescott, who chastised him for taking too long and accused him of grandstanding. Edelblut, who previously made an unsuccessful bid to be the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2016, was ultimately confirmed on a 3-2 vote that fell on party lines.

Volinsky also recently criticized Edelblut for not disclosing a $1,000 donation he made to the Croydon School Board’s legal defense fund in a school choice lawsuit brought on by the N.H. Department of Education, which he now has influence over as state education commissioner.

The state education department sued to block the town of Croydon’s practice of using public funds to pay private school tuition for some of its children. The dispute helped spur legislation, known as the “Croydon bill,” that would make the tuition practice explicitly legal.

Edelblut’s disclosure came after the Valley News reported that Croydon rejected a request to reveal the names of the donors to the $23,000 fund and Edelblut, for two weeks, declined to answer questions about his role.

Volinsky emailed Edelblut earlier this month to ask that he make public whether he had contributed to Croydon and to explain why he had not disclosed the donation previously.

“I contributed $1,000 to the Croydon legal defense fund,” Edelblut said in a reply email. “The contribution was made anonymously. I prefer the focus to stay on the cause and not draw attention to myself.”

Volinsky said he doesn’t think Edelblut’s contribution was a crime, but he should be more transparent about any potential conflict of interests.

“I was troubled by the fact that Mr. Edelblut did not respond to this request for disclosure and then reading his response, I’m equally concerned because he said the reason for anonymity was that he did not want to interfere with the cause,” Volinsky told NH1 News. “Think about it. He was running for governor. And the private schools [were] part of his platform. So he was already in the middle of this, number one. And number two, he’s describing the diversion of public funds to private schools as a cause for him. That is contrary to his testimony that he was merely an implementer, and it doesn’t speak well for him being candid during his confirmation process.”

He also said that he was concerned the new commissioner was seeking to further his own “agenda” rather than implement policy created by others. He tweeted, “Ed [Commissioner] secretly helped fund Croydon to support his ’cause’ — diverting public funds to pay for private schools. #edelblutagenda #nhpolitics”

Ed Commr secretly helped fund Croydon to support his "cause"-diverting public funds to pay for private schools. #edelblutagenda #nhpolitics

— Andru Volinsky (@AndruVolinsky) March 16, 2017

It’s not surprising to see Volinsky come strongly out against Sununu’s education agenda. Volinsky is a lawyer who litigated landmark state education cases before the New Hampshire Supreme Court, and he ran for his seat on the Executive Council with the campaign promise to protect public school funding. Sununu has long been an advocate for school choice.

Volinsky’s comments about the “Edelblut agenda” have made waves in the conservative Twitter community, that sought to take his own words and discuss how the “Volinsky agenda” is bad for New Hampshire.

There is a 3-2 GOP majority on the EC.
Time for GOP Councilors to shut down the #VolinskyAgenda — EC not his personal soapbox#nhpolitics https://t.co/vbDQeJYipN

— Ed Mosca (@RealEdMosca) March 17, 2017

#VolinskyAgenda – ELITE private #schoolchoice for the wealthy; crappy public schools for the peasant children of #NH #NHPolitics

— Kimberly Morin (@Conservativeind) March 18, 2017

Volinsky then responded, reclaiming the term as his own and saying what he supports in his own education agenda.

#VolinskyAgenda-strong pub schools, basic healthcare=human rt, humans cause climate change & reduce inc inequality 2 preserve democracy

— Andru Volinsky (@AndruVolinsky) March 17, 2017

Liberals and Democrats online rallied behind Volinsky’s agenda, posting why they agree and support him.

My favorite part of the #VolinskyAgenda? Well pretty much all of it. & also that it likely comes w. evidence, facts, footnotes, & citations.

— Brittany Pye (@stillbpye) March 17, 2017

#VolinskyAgenda is: Good Schools, Climate Change, Universal Access to Healthcare and Reducing Income Inequality. I support this agenda❤️

— Sue Donnelly (@Susanhdon) March 17, 2017

Good schools with well-paid teachers who don’t worry about the security of their pensions#VolinskyAgenda

— Sherry Frost (@frostnhstaterep) March 17, 2017

Volinsky even gave a speech about his agenda at to the New Hampshire State Teachers Association on March 17.

“Every morning with coffee I read my emails and my twitter feeds come through. This morning, some troll tweeted that Edelblut did nothing wrong and my complaints were only part of the #VolinskyAgenda,” he said. “I don’t respond to these things, but thought, the #VolinskyAgenda, huh? So, yea, I have an agenda. The #VolinskyAgenda is good schools, climate change, universal access to healthcare and reducing income inequality. That’s my damned agenda.”

Although it’s only been nearly four months since Sununu’s inauguration, many people are behind Volinsky’s agenda, which could possibly set him up for support for a gubernatorial bid in 2018 if he wanted to run.

It’s not often that Executive Councilors run for the corner office. The five-member regulatory board is charged with overseeing the administrative functions of the state government. The Executive Council advises the governor and provides the check for state contracts. The council also has veto power over pardons and state agency nominations by the governor.

For the first time in recent memory, the 2016 gubernatorial nominees were both Executive Councilors. Sununu was from Newfields in District 3 and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Colin Van Ostern of Concord sat in the District 2 seat.

With the council getting more public attention, it’s possible that Granite Staters could see more Executive Councilors running for higher office, and Volinsky could potentially be the next candidate.

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A Democratic member of the Federal Election Commission isn’t going to let President Donald Trump go without providing evidence that there was voter fraud during the 2016 presidential election in New Hampshire.

In yet another letter to Trump, FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub is asking Trump to provide proof of his claim that thousands of Democratic Massachusetts residents were bused to the Granite State on election day to illegally vote against him.

“This allegation of a vast conspiracy, involving thousands of people committing felony criminal acts aimed at stealing the election, has deeply disturbed citizens throughout America,” she wrote in a Wednesday letter. “I have heard from many of them, including proud and patriotic New Englanders who are shocked by the allegation and feel that it impugns their historic role in our democracy.”

She also called on Trump in February to provide evidence for his voter fraud claim.

This latest letter adds fuel to the fire of what’s already been a heated debate between Republicans and Democrats in New Hampshire when it comes to the state’s election laws. In fact, the Senate is close to voting on a major bill that would close several of the state’s voting law loopholes, according to Republicans.

The legend of Massachusetts voters busing into the Granite State to cast a ballot in our elections is not a new tale, but here’s a quick timeline of events that led to this sweeping legislation:

• A few weeks after the election, when Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, he tweeted, “Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California — so why isn’t the media reporting on this? Serious bias — big problem!” Trump won the Electoral College, but lost New Hampshire to Clinton by about 2,700 votes.
• Before Trump’s tweet, and about a week before the election, then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Sununu, told radio host Howie Carr that Democrats abuse New Hampshire’s same-day voter registration, and “when Massachusetts elections are not very close, they’re busing them in all over the place.” Politifact rated his claim as “Pants on Fire.”
• This led to backlash from Granite State officials, including the state’s attorney general and secretary of state’s offices, who wanted to quell fears that New Hampshire elections are illegitimate.
• After the election, Sununu said he was not aware of any “specific evidence of voter fraud.”

Yet, it didn’t stop there. Trump kept talking about voter fraud even after his presidential inauguration.

• During a closed-door meeting between Trump, former N.H. Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, and 10 other senators to discuss U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, Trump reportedly started the meeting by discussing the election and voter fraud.  He claimed that he and Ayotte would have both won in the Granite State if not for the “thousands” of people who were “brought in on buses” from Massachusetts to “illegally” vote in New Hampshire.
• Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, made the claim again in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.” He said: “This issue of busing voters in to New Hampshire is widely known by anyone who’s worked in New Hampshire politics. It’s very real, it’s very serious.”
• Even recently, in a TIME Magazine interview published Thursday, Trump stood by his claim that three million undocumented people voted in the national election. He said: “Well now if you take a look at the votes, when I say that, I mean mostly they register wrong, in other words, for the votes, they register incorrectly, and or/illegally. And they then vote. You have tremendous numbers of people. In fact I’m forming a committee on it.”

Many Republicans and Democrats are upset that Trump is pushing a false narrative and is making people question the integrity of the democratic voting process. However, his statement perfectly illustrates what his supporters and several Republicans believe is the problem with election laws in New Hampshire: The current laws make it difficult to charge anyone with voter fraud because what’s legal here is usually illegal in another state.

Are there lots of illegal votes in NH? No.

Are there lot of legal votes from people who have no business voting in NH? Yes. #nhpolitics

— Greg Moore (@GregMooreNH) November 28, 2016

Hence, Senate Bill 3, which was introduced by Sen. Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead, to address a lot of those concerns. Of course, the bill is divided on party lines — it’s cheered by Republicans who say they are trying to tighten the process and ensure that those who vote in New Hampshire actually live in New Hampshire and criticized by Democrats who say the bill is a form of voter suppression.

One of the issues it focuses on is the definition of domicile, which varies from state to state, and the New Hampshire Legislature is trying to better define the difference between “domicile” and “residence” in this bill. Under current laws, the definition of domicile is “that place, to which upon temporary absence, a person has the intention of returning.” Republicans think that’s vague and allows campaign workers, who might be in the state for a month or so, to vote in New Hampshire, even if they plan on leaving after the election.

An incident occurred in the 2008 and 2012 elections when Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, D-Portsmouth, allowed Democratic staffers to live at her home. The staffers used her address to vote in the election, and since they were living in the state for at least three months before the election, the Attorney General ruled that it was legal.

Under the new bill, a person who registers to vote within 30 days of an election or on Election Day must show verification that a New Hampshire address is his or her domicile. That can be done by showing proof of residency at a college or university, driver’s license, utility bill, among other forms. Those who do not show documentation can still register and vote by filling out a domicile affidavit and registration form, and provide the documentation within 10 or 30 days of Election Day, depending on the community. Someone could get charged with voter fraud if they fail to provide a document verifying his or her domicile within that window.

A previous version of the bill called for police officer to knock on doors to verify a voter’s domicile, but that provision was taken out this week. The bill still allows municipal officials to visit those addresses or ask “agents” to do so.

The Senate Election Law Committee recommended Tuesday in favor of the bill by a 3-2 vote on party lines and it now heads to the full Senate for a vote.

Adding to the controversy, the Attorney General’s office recently said investigations into thousands of affidavit voters who cast ballots in New Hampshire without identification during the 2012 and 2014 election cycles have been dropped due to the lack of manpower and money to complete the investigations.

How can the Attorney General and Secretary of State’s office say there is no evidence of voter fraud if they aren’t investigating every potential violation? That’s what Republicans are asking.

Sununu’s budget didn’t fulfill the attorney general’s request for roughly $93,000 annually to hire a full-time elections investigator. A Senate bill would provide about $500,000 to the Attorney General’s office for with focus on elections, lobbying, and campaign finance law. That bill passed the Senate and is now in the House Finance Committee.

“No matter how you change it, there is not a problem in the state of New Hampshire,” said Senate Democratic Leader Jeff Woodburn. “There’s been a ruse of illegal voting, and Trump buses, and all of this business. This is nothing but a concerted national attempt to suppress voting and harass voters.”

“This is not national trend legislation,” Birdsell said this week. “This is homegrown here. It is something that is trying to address what some of our constituents are looking for.”

The debate on this bill, and the discussion of voter fraud in New Hampshire, is far from over.

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With about $59 million less to spend than expected, it’s natural that the House Finance Committee would trim a few items from Gov. Chris Sununu’s budget proposal. Yet, the cuts they’re making are concerning advocates who championed Sununu for including them in the first place.

On Wednesday, Republican budget writers in the House killed Sununu’s plan to spend $18 million over the biennium to expand full-day kindergarten programs. They also cut a $5 million college scholarship program.

“This is a short-sighted decision by a subcommittee of the Finance Committee,” said Mark Shriver, president of Save the Children Action Network, in a statement. “When he proposed his budget last month, Governor Sununu showed that he recognizes the importance of a full-day of kindergarten and understands the long-term economic benefits quality early learning programs can have for New Hampshire. The Republican majority in the House should stand with Governor Sununu and vote to put the full-day kindergarten funding request back into the budget.”

Full-day kindergarten isn’t the only proposal on the chopping block. The Alcohol Abuse Prevention and Treatment Fund was also cut this week.

The Alcohol Fund was created in 2000 by a bipartisan majority in the Legislature to be a funding mechanism that takes 5 percent of the gross profits from the sale of alcohol to support education, prevention, treatment, and recovery programs for alcohol and drugs. The funds would be allocated to the Governor’s Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention, Intervention, and Treatment to pay contracts for service providers in communities.

The fund has only been fully financed one time since its inception, which was in the 2003-2004 biennium. In his budget speech, Sununu proposed increasing the funds to 3.4 percent, double the 1.7 percent rate the previous budget had set.

“First, I propose we double the Alcohol Fund, increasing these important resources by more than $3 million and creating incentives to ensure that those funds are truly spent,” he said in his Thursday speech.

In several biennium budgets, the governor or Legislature would usually suspend the formula and allocate monies from the general fund to go to substance abuse prevention, treatment, and recovery.

Since there’s $59 million less in tax revenue coming in than expected when Sununu wrote his budget, Alcohol Fund advocates suspected that lawmakers would suspend the formula again. However, a more dramatic approach was taken by the House Finance Committee on Tuesday.

An amendment introduced by Rep. Neal Kurk, R-Weare, was added to the budget in House Bill 2 that would repeal the Alcohol Fund for good and it passed in a 6-4 vote on party lines.

“They’re trying to get to a number and they’re trying to come up with different avenues to do that, and some are very creative,” said Kate Frey, vice president of advocacy for New Futures, a nonprofit advocacy group that’s been one of the biggest proponents of the Alcohol Fund.

“New Futures has always been in favor of restoring the Alcohol Fund and using it as intended by the original statute to address problems for the substance abuse crisis,” she told NH Journal. “The fact that they are repealing the Alcohol Fund in its entirety is very unsettling.”

Advocates and some lawmakers like the fund because it’s non-lapsing and flexible, which is a creative and innovative solution to curb the opioid epidemic. The funds are non-restrictive, unlike some federal funds from grants that can’t be used to build brick-and-mortar recovery centers, for example.

New Hampshire is expected to receive $6 million, less than the $10 million previously anticipated by state officials, from the 21st Century Cures Act, bipartisan legislation approved by Congress and signed into law by former President Barack Obama in December, which gave $6.3 billion in funding to states hit hardest by the opioid crisis.

When Kurk introduced the amendment, advocates were also concerned because the language in the amendment appeared that he also repealed the authority of the Governor’s Commission to disperse the funds. The issue was cleared up on Wednesday, when that language was changed, giving the authority back to the Governor’s Commission to allocate funds, but still repealing the Alcohol Fund. The measure passed on a 5-4 vote on party lines, with Kurk absent.

Rep. Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua, who sits on the House Finance Committee, said the Governor’s Commission would receive $5.9 million in 2018 and $6.2 million in 2019 for alcohol and drug abuse education, prevention, treatment, and recovery, slightly less than what was allocated in the current biennium. If the elimination of the Alcohol Fund is passed, it would be up to the Legislature in each budget to allocate whatever they thought was an appropriate amount.

“Without the stability of that fund, it’s concerning to providers that are thinking about expanding their services here,” Rosenwald told NH Journal. “The flat funding for the next two years doesn’t expand access to treatment or recovery very much.”

When introducing the amendment in New Hampshire, Kurk said it was inappropriate for alcohol funds to go to the opioid crisis and that the issue the fund was originally created to solve, alcohol abuse, isn’t the main issue anymore — it’s opioids.

Advocates were quick to point out that the statute language when it was first written allowed funds to be used for alcohol and drug abuse programs. They also dismissed the idea that New Hampshire doesn’t have an alcohol problem anymore. According to a 2014 report, the Granite State’s per capita alcohol consumption is nearly twice the national average.

“I was very surprised at the elimination of the [Alcohol] Fund and I was surprised that they would suggest that somehow there is a disconnect between alcohol and our current opioid epidemic,” said Tym Rourke, chair of the Governor’s Commission, in an interview with NH Journal.

“The suggestion that New Hampshire only has an opioid problem is just false and somewhat disappointing that the Legislature would be picking one group of individuals who are suffering over another,” he added.

Previously, the Senate Finance Committee recommended passage of Senate Bill 196, which would put the Alcohol Fund at the 3.4 percent rate originally proposed by Sununu. The bill was laid on the table so lawmakers could go through the budget process before deciding on the fate of that bill.

Once the House Finance Committee signs off on the budget, it goes to the full House for a vote. The Senate will then get their turn to go line-by-line in the budget. At this point, Senate budget writers could have more money to play with since revenue estimates change throughout the year, so in theory, reinstating the Alcohol Fund and funding full-day kindergarten could see a new life. Advocates for those issues are hopeful the Senate would return them to the budget for Sununu to sign.

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Over the weekend, Northern Pass officials were trying to clean up after a bad week in the press. Opponents to the hydroelectric transmission line from Canada to Deerfield were suggesting that Eversource, parent company of Northern Pass Transmission, LLC (NPT), and its Canadian partner, Hydro-Québec (HQ), were not on the same page for the project and New Hampshire residents would ultimately pay for it.

Eversource spent the last few days trying to correct the record after various reports stated that HQ would “not pay a penny” for the Northern Pass line in the United States. The issue began earlier this month when Québec stakeholders asked why the state-owned utility company was paying to bury part of the line in New Hampshire, but refused to do the same in Québec. That led to a series of public statements where HQ said New England electricity consumers would pay for the cost of Northern Pass.

“The claim that they are making, that New Hampshire ratepayers will not be paying any of this cost, needs to be backed up with evidence that Hydro-Québec agrees to that,” Will Abbott, vice president of policy for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, told NH Journal. “It’s not clear that they produced any evidence that HQ has agreed to this as it has been proposed. It certainly seems like the Site Evaluation Committee (SEC) shouldn’t be proceeding if there is a question about that issue.”

Northern Pass has reiterated that New Hampshire residents would “not pay for any costs associated with the project.” It’s written all over their website.

However, groups opposed to the project are not convinced that’s true and they point to an “expired” Transmission Service Agreement (TSA) between Eversource and HQ as proof that the two energy companies are not seeing eye-to-eye.

On Tuesday, Will Abbott, vice president of policy for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, one of the biggest challengers of the Northern Pass project, sent a letter to U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen asking for assistance in coordinating an inquiry to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to determine the status of a TSA between the two entities.

“Northern Pass has repeatedly argued that New Hampshire ratepayers are not paying for the construction  costs of their project,” the letter states. “They repeatedly cite the TSA as the basis for their claim that Hydro-Québec is paying for the construction of the transmission line.”

The TSA is crucial to the project because it specifies the respective rights and obligations of the parties involved in the project, including the terms for recovery of costs. The FERC-approved TSA is also required before the project can be approved by the SEC.

A Caledonian Record report called into question the current status of the TSA agreement, which began in October 2010. The original agreement stated HQ would reimburse Eversource for all development costs of the now-estimated $1.6 billion Northern Pass line. In December 2013, and HQ amended the agreement, including an extension to the deadline for obtaining all regulatory approvals.

“The parties have agreed to replace the term ‘third anniversary’ with the term ‘approval deadline,’ which is defined to mean Feb. 14, 2017, or such other date to which the parties shall mutually agree in writing,” the agreement states.

In the Forest Society’s letter to Shaheen, they claim that “it has become apparent” that the TSA “has expired, without any replacement agreement.”

“As of today, there is no record that HQ and NPT have agreed on a new TSA, or that they have submitted any new TSA proposal to FERC for its review,” the letter states.

Eversource responded Friday with their own letter to Shaheen saying the Forest Society “wrongly claims” that the TSA expired on February 14.

“The Approval Deadline was, in fact, extended earlier this year by written agreement between NPT and HQ,” the letter states. “Accordingly, the extension of the Approval Deadline was fully consistent with the terms and conditions of the already approved TSA.”

Northern Pass posted Thursday on its website that the term of the TSA began on the original execution date in October 2010 and continues 40 years from the time Northern Pass begins operation, unless it is terminated earlier.

Craig Cano, a spokesman for the FERC, made it clear that the TSA between Eversource and HQ still exists and is in use.

“The TSA was accepted with a 40-year term so [it] does not need to be ‘renewed’ in 2017,” he told NH Journal. “The item…may have confused the provision that set the Feb. 14, 2017 deadline for obtaining all regulatory approvals with the agreement itself.”

That means that Eversource and HQ, back in 2014, set a February 14 deadline for regulatory approvals — state, local, provincial, or federal — that the parties must obtain for the project. The SEC, a regulatory agency, still hasn’t put their final approval on the project, and isn’t expected to make a final decision until this fall. The amended language in the TSA allows for Eversource and HQ to agree on another date for those final approvals, but it doesn’t invalidate the whole TSA, or mean that the agreement has expired.

Martin Murray, spokesman for Northern Pass, told NH Journal that Eversource and HQ agreed in writing earlier this year to extend the deadline and the extension does not need to be filed with the FERC. The extension of the agreement is until 2020 and a copy of the written agreement will be filed with the SEC this week.

Adjudicative hearings of the Northern Pass docket are expected to begin in April, with the SEC to make a final decision on the project by September 30.

Gov. Chris Sununu voiced his support for the project again when he was in Montréal on Monday, as part of his campaign tour to bring businesses to New Hampshire.

“Given our economic dynamics in New Hampshire, given our need for lower energy prices, our rich history with our manufacturing industry, there is no doubt that Northern Pass presents a great opportunity for New Hampshire, a great opportunity for Québec,” he told members of the Canadian press. “It’s a win-win on both sides. It’s a project I always said should happen, could happen, and I believe has to happen.”

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When it comes to Medicaid expansion in New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Sununu is in a tight spot. It’s not just him, actually. A lot of Republican governors across the country are having a difficult time figuring out how to balance the “repeal and replace” rhetoric on Obamacare within their party, while also seeking to protect certain provisions of the health care law, like Medicaid, that help the residents of their states.

It’s a balancing act that Sununu, the first GOP governor in the Granite State in 12 years, waded into last week. He said in its current form, he’s not “signing on” to the House Republicans’ American Health Care Act due to his concerns over Medicaid funding and coverage.

“The bill that’s been proposed in Congress gives us concerns on a lot of different levels,” Sununu said on Tuesday. “Expanded Medicaid is part of that discussion. There’s no doubt expanded Medicaid has provided [drug] recovery, treatment options for a lot of folks that otherwise may not have had that option available.”

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that $880 million less in federal money would be spent on Medicaid over the next decade. The Republican plan phases out the program by 2020 with states receiving funding for existing expansion recipients as long as they maintain continuous Medicaid coverage.

The Medicaid provisions in the Republican’s bill are reigniting a longstanding debate between conservatives and moderates of the party. Conservatives are critical of the program’s cost and performance, while moderates are worried that cuts to the program will result in a loss of funds in their state’s budget, leaving patients without help.

Sununu falls into the latter category. He has previously indicated his support for Medicaid expansion, yet doesn’t want to make the program permanent. He’s waiting to see how the Medicaid battle plays out in Congress before taking any action in the state.

New Hampshire was one of 31 states that expanded Medicaid under former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Former Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, now a U.S. senator for the state, signed the plan into law in 2014 after working with Republican legislators to approve it in two-year increments. She signed the latest expansion bill in 2016, with the program scheduled to expire at the end of 2018. New Hampshire has more than 187,000 individuals enrolled in either traditional or expanded Medicaid, according to state health officials.

During Sununu’s 2016 gubernatorial bid, he said extending the state’s Medicaid program until 2018 was “probably a good step forward,” but lawmakers shouldn’t keep doing it every two years.

“I like the idea that we’re moving forward without any tax payer burden, any tax burden on the taxpayers back,” he told NH1 News in February 2016. “We have essentially a public-private partnership helping to fund it as we move forward, and those are very positive steps. What I would like to see is a long term strategy for this state, not simply taking it in two- or four- year chunks.”

Democrats attempted to paint him as opposing Medicaid expansion because of his 2014 Executive Council vote against a $292 million state contract to implement Medicaid expansion. However, the item was added to the agenda at the last minute and he tried unsuccessfully for a two-week delay to fully understand the contract. He said the council shouldn’t vote on something that hasn’t been read thoroughly.

Yet, throughout the campaign, he was ambiguous about his plans for the future of Medicaid in New Hampshire. He didn’t indicate if he was supportive of extending past 2018 or would support an outright repeal of the program.

Those in New Hampshire who were concerned about Medicaid’s future were also not consoled by a letter Sununu sent to Congressional GOP leadership in January. With Republican President Donald Trump in the White House and GOP majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, it appeared that the repeal of Obamacare was imminent.

As a result, Sununu sent a letter to U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, urging Congress to give states as much flexibility as possible to design their own health care systems.

“We urge Congress to untie the hands of the States,” he wrote in the letter. “Let us have the flexibility to design a New Hampshire system for New Hampshire citizens.”

However, his letter left out any mention or comment on Medicaid expansion.

It wasn’t until February that Sununu became more clear on what he thinks about the program. He said “there’s no doubt that it’s [Medicaid expansion] been helpful.”

“It was a price tag of somewhere between $400 and $500 million,” he told NHPR. “We’ve been able to do it to date without a single New Hampshire taxpayer dollar. No state taxes go into it.”

Later that month, he expanded on what he wanted to see from Medicaid in the GOP’s health care plan.

“When we hear the term block grants coming out of Washington, especially with healthcare, the opportunities are tremendous for us,” he said at a meeting of the Concord Chamber of Commerce. “We spend tens of millions of dollars on the state level on things we simply don’t need. So give us a block grant.”

When Republicans initially rolled out their health care plan, block grants weren’t included. The House plan focused on paying states a fixed per-capita amount to cover their population based on their average expenses, but a Republican amendment to the bill allowed the option for states to choose a Medicaid block grant in lieu of the capped reimbursement model.

Under current health care laws, when an eligible person enrolls in Medicaid there are matching federal funds to ensure that they get care. The block grant proposal caps that federal share, letting states decide how to spend the dollars on care. However, many health care professionals say capping Medicaid funding in block grants could hurt access to quality health care for the poor, children, and elderly by cutting the amount of federal dollars available.

It’s not immediately clear if Sununu approves of the most recent, updated version of the American Health Care Act, but Sununu said he would work with Trump to to ensure that the bill gives states the opportunity to create “flexible” and “nimble” health care program.

Democrats in the state, including Hassan, believe block grants would fail to sustain the expanded Medicaid program. It’s a position that’s shared with many advocacy groups, including AARP, which released a “fact sheet” last week about how changing Medicaid to a block grant or per capita cap could hurt New Hampshire residents.

“The House bill will impact health care seriously, but what it would do to Medicaid expansion … it would in fact repeal it,” Hassan said at a press conference last week. “That [block grants] will make health insurance out of reach for thousands of Granite Staters, and it hurts the ability of those on the front lines to save lives and fight this [opioid] epidemic.”

New Hampshire has one of the highest drug overdose death rates in the country. Nearly 500 people died from drug overdoses in 2016 and approximately 6,000 Medicaid expansion recipients have accessed treatment, state health officials said.

Sununu, and other state Republican leaders, believe block grants will allow them to allocate the money to places that need it most, such as towns hardest hit by the opioid crisis. Yet, some policy experts argue that block grants will severely strain state budgets and leave states vulnerable when they have to deal with unexpected issues, like drug outbreaks that raise the average cost of treating individual patients.

Sununu said he has spoken with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence about the importance of Medicaid with treatment and recovery for the opioid crisis, and how that requirement should continue under the GOP plan.

The N.H. Senate tabled a bill Thursday, without debate, that would make Medicaid expansion permanent. The senators said they wanted to wait to see what will happen at the national level before they tackle it in the state.

As conservatives and moderates battle it out on Medicaid provisions in the GOP health care bill, it appears New Hampshire, and Sununu, will wait for the dust to settle.

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Gov. Chris Sununu pushed for right-to-work and for a repeal of a required permit to carry a concealed weapon, but he’s also advocating for an issue that’s not often discussed — improving New Hampshire’s water infrastructure.

It’s something Sununu hopes to accomplish during his two-year term, and he’s starting by focusing on safe drinking water and regulations on stormwater runoff. Yet, it’s a difficult issue to navigate. In order to tackle water infrastructure, he needs to balance U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, concerns from environmental advocacy groups, and the cost on municipalities and taxpayers.

For Sununu, a key part of water infrastructure is safe drinking water. Senate President Chuck Morse, R-Salem, introduced Wednesday an amendment that would allow for a loan from the Drinking and Groundwater Trust Fund to assist in connecting homes with contaminated water in Amherst to the public water supply.

“Clean drinking water is a top priority for all Granite Staters, and today I’ve submitted a proposal to help leverage MtBE settlement funds to ensure homes contaminated with drinking water are connected to local, clean water supply,” he said in a statement. “This legislation I’ve proposed today would make use of the trust fund resources by sending $5 million to DES [Department of Environmental Services]. These funds would be loaned to Textiles Coated International, Inc. in order to provide homes and businesses affected by PFOA [perfluorooctanoic acid] in Amherst, New Hampshire the ability to connect to the public water supply.”

The drinking water and groundwater trust fund, which has more than $250 million in it, was created last year after the state’s successful court case against Exxon-Mobil over groundwater contamination caused by the gasoline additive MtBE.

Morse’s amendment is likely to be attached to Senate Bill 57, which would make appropriations to the DES for the purposes of funding eligible drinking water and wastewater projects under the state aid grant program. The bill has been “laid on the table” in the Senate Finance Committee and is expected to be picked up again.

Sununu immediately applauded the initiative saying the Drinking Water and Groundwater Trust Fund should be used as an asset to ensure public health safety and provide funds for water infrastructure projects.

“There is no more important display of public trust than each time we, as citizens, turn on our faucets — a trust that our government has done its job in ensuring clean water for us and our children,” he said in a statement. “This is an excellent example of a prudent use of the Trust Fund, as the legislative and executive branches are working together to employ existing expertise and responsible corporate citizenship to solve a real problem.”

The Granite State has had a serious problem with high PFOA levels, especially in southern parts of the state. A recent Department of Health and Human Services report on 322 people who participated in their perfluorochemicals (PFC) blood testing program found PFOA levels that are twice as high as the national average. PFCs have been used in industrial applications and consumer products for several decades, including food wrapping, carpeting, metal plating, and firefighting foams, according to the EPA website

“At high concentrations, certain PFCs have been linked to adverse health effects in laboratory animals that may reflect associations between exposure to these chemicals and some health problems such as low birth weight, delayed puberty onset, elevated cholesterol levels and reduced immunologic responses to vaccination,” states the EPA site.

Sununu is very adamant about ensuring there is safe drinking water across the state, mentioning its importance in his budget speech. He also reiterated this in an interview with New Hampshire Public Radio after his remarks.

“We’ve seen what happened recently in Detroit; we’ve seen what’s happened in other parts of the country,” he said. “We can’t let that happen here. I’ve asked Senator Morse to lead the efforts and not just put $1 million or $2 million out but really unleash the power of the $300 million fund and start addressing this issue not tomorrow, not with more studies and blue ribbon commissions, but start unleashing this money today to look at how we address our public-water system, address the contaminated wells that we have, and really put significant dollars out there so that a slight problem of today doesn’t become a crisis of tomorrow.”

Although not directly related, Sununu has also been a strong advocate for rolling back unnecessary regulations, including environmental ones, that could have an impact on stormwater runoff for cities and towns — it’s all part his plan of working on New Hampshire’s water infrastructure.

Tom Irwin, vice president and director of Conservation Law Foundation New Hampshire, said stormwater runoff could impact drinking water, but “it’s very site specific.”

“There are communities that get their drinking water from the Merrimack River,” he told NH Journal. “There is no question that stormwater pollution flows into that river. What impact that has on the public water supply system is an important question, but also a very site specific question.”

Still, some residents are concerned about Sununu cutting back regulations and the impact that could have on drinking water and stormwater runoff. In the same NHPR interview, he responded to one of the listener’s concerns about rolling back regulations. He said his goal with that is to not have too many regulations hurting businesses in the state.

“When we talk about the regulatory burdens, we’re talking about the burdens that businesses face and issues like that — not so much with the drinking-water issues that we have,” he said. “So we have to take very careful precautions when we talk about breaking down regulations – that’s more in the business sector. We’re going to be very vigilant about making sure that we’re protecting drinking water. We’re going to unleash some funds and get people the services they need.”

Sununu is so serious about cutting regulations that he sent a letter Friday to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on the “overly burdensome” municipal storm water discharge permit that could be costly for municipalities.

The EPA’s regulations — known as the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System, or MS4, permit — fall under the authority of the federal Clean Water Act. New Hampshire is one of only four states, including Massachusetts, in which the EPA, rather than a state environmental agency, is responsible for setting and enforcing Clean Water Act stormwater rules.

The MS4 permit was updated on January 18, two days before President Donald Trump took office and Sununu said they were “more stringent and wide ranging” than the previous one.

“We rarely trust in our government as much as when we turn on the water tap expecting clean water,” Sununu wrote in the letter. “That being said additional mandates within the new MS4 will prove themselves overly burdensome and enormously expensive for many New Hampshire communities. Even if these federal mandates disappeared tomorrow, New Hampshire would not cease to keep our waters clean.”

The Trump administration, including Pruitt, has repeatedly said it wants to roll back regulations at the EPA. Pruitt has not indicated if he plans to roll back the MS4 permit regulation.

Municipalities like Dover, Portsmouth, and Rochester have said the cost of implementing the new regulations would be significant, over $1 million, and could fall on taxpayers to help pay for all of it. Rochester indicated it could spend up to $25 million on updating its city water infrastructure to comply with the regulations.

Irwin said some of these cost estimates were “unbelievable.”

“Some of the numbers we have seen are somewhat unbelievable,” he said. “I don’t know exactly how they [Rochester] got to a $25 million figure. There seems to be a case of exaggeration taking place. It’s hard to fathom how they got to some of those numbers.”

Irwin said the new regulations are an improvement on the previous one, but they are still enough to tackle all the problems with stormwater runoff pollution. He said his organization filed a petition in the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals because they believe the regulations need to go further.

“We certainly hope that the new administrator [Pruitt] does not interfere with the new permit that was issued,” he said. “It’s very concerning with a new administrator that there’s a new feeling for environmental protections to be weakened.”

Sununu asked Pruitt to visit to see how these regulations would impact New Hampshire communities.

“I know that by listening to those on the front lines, we can illustrate our desire to balance sensible regulations with local freedoms and responsibilities,” he wrote.

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Monday was supposed to be the calm before the storm, but in New Hampshire politics, the day was muddled with confusion over the legality of towns’ rights to postpone Tuesday’s elections due to the impending blizzard.

The day started with Secretary of State William Gardner saying, “We don’t have snow days in the law for elections.”

Yet, town officials throughout the state were taking matters into their own hands and postponing the annual “second Tuesday in March” elections for later in the week after the snowstorm subsided. Reasons for postponement were mostly due to ensuring the safety of residents and first responders from hazardous road conditions. Some parts of the state are expected to receive between 10 to 20 inches on Tuesday.

The secretary of state’s office maintained its position that by state law, towns are required to hold elections regardless of the snow and expected blizzard conditions. If they don’t, there could be legal consequences. Town officials say a different state law allows them to change the day of the election in an emergency situation.

“I don’t know what the consequences will be,” Paula Penney, elections assistant at the secretary of state’s office, told The Portsmouth Herald. “If they don’t have the election tomorrow, it may end up in superior court. But I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t have any indication that (the office’s) position will change.”

The two laws in question are RSA 669:1 and 40:4. RSA 669:1 is the law the secretary of state’s office was citing as requiring towns to hold the election, regardless of the snow. The law states:

“All towns shall hold an election annually for the election of town officers on the second Tuesday in March…”

RSA 40:4 is cited by the towns for giving them the flexibility to change the date of election in the event of an emergency. This law states:

“In the event a weather emergency occurs on or before the date of a deliberative session or voting day of a meeting in a town, which the moderator reasonably believes may cause the roads to be hazardous or unsafe, the moderator may, up to 2 hours prior to the scheduled session, postpone and reschedule the deliberative session or voting day of the meeting to another reasonable date, place, and time certain.”

So which interpretation is right? Some legal experts said it’s not exactly clear if that law refers to voting for races in elections or voting for budget and other town issues at traditional town hall meetings.

John Greabe, a law professor at the University of New Hampshire, told NH Journal that the specific rule would “govern over” the general rule.

“It’s not uncommon for there to be two statutes that seem to be at odds with each other,” he said. “It’s a traditional approach to the conflict of laws where there is a more specific rule and a more general rule. It’s common for courts to go with the more specific rule.”

Cordell Johnston, government affairs council with the New Hampshire Municipal Association, said the organization sides with the towns.

“I don’t think there is any inconsistency in the law,” he told NH Journal. “We believe it’s very clear that they [towns] could move the election.”

He mentioned that a group of municipal lawyers on a list-serv “overwhelmingly” agreed that the moderator has the clear authority to reschedule the election.

With significant confusion surrounding the issue, Gov. Chris Sununu weighed in on debate. He spoke with municipal leaders and Attorney General Joe Foster in a Monday afternoon conference call encouraging them to hold elections, but said the state would not mandate them to do it.

“It’s our understanding that a lot of towns have already made a choice to postpone their elections,” he told reporters. “There are some differing opinions at the state level as to whether that is a valid process for them to take. The best we can do is to strongly recommend that all towns stay open for voting tomorrow. We think that’s a very important part of the process. But given the differing opinions, I don’t think we’re in a position to mandate that towns stay open or change their direction if they choose not to.”

Sununu cautioned town officials that if they postpone Tuesday’s elections, they are doing so “at their risk,” suggesting the town could be open to lawsuits for voter suppression.

“It would create a lot of confusion if one town voted on a school issue and another town did not, and you get into an issue of do you release the results and how is that processed,” he said. “You never want someone to have their vote suppressed, or have someone not be able to participate in the process because of confusion at the local level.”

Johnston said he interpreted Sununu’s message that “the state would not challenge a town’s decision to reschedule,” but an individual voter could.

“What I imagine could happen, although unlikely, a voter who is not happy about how things played out, would go to court and claim that the moderator violated his or her authority in rescheduling the vote,” he said. “But because the law is really clear, I don’t think the challenge will go that far.”

In order to make the interpretation very clear, and to avoid confusion like this in the future, New Hampshire Democratic leaders are planning to introduce emergency legislation this week to ensure that results from any town elections postponed due to snow are enforceable.

Senate Democratic Leader Jeff Woodburn and House Democratic Leader Steve Shurtleff released a statement announcing their plan to introduce legislation Wednesday during the Senate Rules and Enrolled Bills Committee:

“As elected officials, we have a solemn duty to ensure the safety of our citizens and no election should require voters to risk their safety in order to participate. Our election workers and town moderators are well-trained and take the task of facilitating transparent and fair elections seriously. We should trust them to make the best decision for their communities and for the safety of their people. That’s why we will attempt to introduce emergency legislation at this week’s Senate Rules Committee meeting to ensure that results from any elections postponed due to public safety concerns are enforceable and so that our local officials can make the right decision for their communities without fear of a legal challenge.”

Sununu agreed that the Legislature should take action to resolve the conflicts in state law, but it’s unclear if he will support the Democrats’ bill when it is introduced.

Is your local election and town meeting postponed? Check out the rolling list here as town officials make the decision.

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It’s New Hampshire Energy Week in the Granite State. Throughout the week, lawmakers and energy policy advocates discussed some of the challenges facing the state, solutions to solve these problems, and important pieces of legislation coming up in the next two years.

Under the Republican-controlled Legislature, it’s not exactly clear what energy policy issues the GOP leadership and Gov. Chris Sununu are going to prioritize, but there are some interesting bills that could come up for a vote during Sununu’s term.

Here are two controversial energy bills in front of the Legislature this session:

REPEALING RGGI

Rep. Michael Harrington, R-Strafford, is sponsoring House Bill 592, which would end New Hampshire’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). RGGI is a cap-and-trade program where utilities pay for carbon dioxide emission allowances. This serves to control and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The funds from these allowances are used for energy efficiency projects and ratepayer rebates.  Currently, eight other states in the Northeast participate in the program. New Jersey was also a member of RGGI, but pulled out of the program in 2011.

This bill has been opposed by pro-energy and environment groups like the NH Sierra Club and the New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association (NHSEA).

“Repealing RGGI would be a mistake for New Hampshire in terms of our economy, our environment and our public health,” said Michelle McCarthy, campaign organizer of Environment New Hampshire, at a hearing on the bill in February in front of the House Science, Technology and Energy Committee.

Opponents of the bills point to an Abt Associates report that was released in January, which estimates that the state avoided $100 million in higher health care costs by reducing pollution. They claim that since RGGI’s inception in 2008, electricity prices have decreased in the participating states by 3.4 percent, while costs nationally have increased by 7.2 percent.

Supporters of pulling out of RGGI say New Hampshire still has some of the highest energy costs, especially for commercial and industrial companies. With high energy costs, businesses are looking to move or expand in other states.

“This is not rocket science, and companies like Sig Sauer are doing the math and realizing it’s cheaper to move jobs out of New Hampshire to cheaper-power states,” said Greg Moore, state director of American’s for Prosperity, at the hearing.

In December, Sig Sauer announced it was expanding its operations in Arkansas, and New Hampshire’s high electric rates was a motivating factor. The company is still retaining its offices in the Granite State, though, and it was announced this year that the company was awarded with a whopping $580 million, 10-year contract with the U.S. Army to manufacture its pistols.

A University of New Hampshire research study released Tuesday determined that New England does not need to increase energy use to continue to grow its economy.

“It is important to prevent further increases in the cost of energy and ideally to reduce the overall cost of electricity in New Hampshire, especially for customer groups adversely affected by the state’s relatively high electricity prices, including more intensive commercial and industrial users as well as low-income households that pay a greater portion of their income for energy,” the researchers noted.

Kate Epsen, a member of the NHSEA, said it’s time to quash the belief that just because of New Hampshire’s energy prices, businesses are leaving or not coming to the state.

“We hear a lot of clamor over these high rates, but the bottom line of the bills people receive is that they are the same or lower than the national averages,” she told NH Journal. “We need to weigh the risks versus rewards of a single, very large type of project or more energy efficient technologies that are more broad based and keep jobs and dollars in the state economy.”

Epsen alluded to the ever controversial Northern Pass project — the 192-mile proposed hydroelectric line from Canada to Deerfield. Proponents of the project says the power would reduce energy costs for residents and businesses, but opponents cite possible environmental issues from putting the lines underground to high towers ruining New Hampshire vistas and impacting tourism. The state’s Site Evaluation Committee (SEC) is expected to decide in the fall if the project will move forward or not.

However, Moore and supporters of RGGI agreed that perhaps the program shouldn’t be repealed, but could be made better to fit New Hampshire’s needs.

He said all the money collected should be rebated to customers, which could save homeowners $1.3 million a year and commercial and industrial customers could save $2 million.

Catherine Corkery, chapter director of the NH Sierra Club, said the program should be made better, not eliminated.

“The politically motivated repeal bills are putting the program at risk every year, making it unstable and difficult for users to rely on,” she said. “Repeated repeal threats exhaust resources and delay helping people.”

The bill has been retained in committee, meaning after working on the bill during the summer months, it could come up again for a vote in the next legislative session. A complicating factor to the debate is the federal Clean Power Plan (CPP), former President Barack Obama’s initiative to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. RGGI currently satisfies the federal requirements for the plan, yet President Donald Trump has pledged that he would dismantle CPP and could do so as early as next week.

Sununu indicated on the campaign trail that he would consider withdrawing from RGGI, but only if other states also left.

REPEALING ELECTRIC RENEWABLE PORTFOLIO STANDARD

House Bill 225 would repeal the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS), which would require 17 percent renewables to be used by the state’s utilities this year. Those renewable energy sources include wind turbines, hydroelectric dams, solar panels, and even biomass plants.

If a utility does not meet its quota for renewable energy, it must make payments to the renewable energy fund, which is then spent on grants and rebates for individuals and businesses working on renewable energy projects.

New Hampshire’s RPS sets annual targets for electricity providers, and they meet targets by earning renewable energy certificates (RECs) for selling renewable power to retail customers. They can also buy RECs from other providers to comply.

Supporters of a repeal say renewable energy is more expensive than other energy sources, so the RPS forces consumers to pay for more expensive electricity. When utilities do not buy enough renewable energy, they essentially pay to subsidize more renewable energy projects. Due to these subsidies, there is little incentive for renewable energy sources to lower their prices. The legislature has also used money from the renewable energy fund to pay for unrelated budget items in the past.

Supporters of the RPS argue the law is necessary to ensure the development of renewable energy. A shortage of natural gas in New England caused electricity rates to spike over the winter months, highlighting the need for more diverse and renewable energy sources. Grants from the renewable energy fund also contribute significantly to the North Country economy, for the biomass and forestry industries.

Rep. Bart Fromuth, R-Bedford, sponsored a similar bill in 2015, but the House tabled it. However, the bill with an amendment was passed by the House in a Thursday executive session.

The Citizens Count, NH’s Live Free or Die Alliance — a nonpartisan organization looking to give citizen’s a voice in their local government — conducted a Facebook survey of New Hampshire residents on their support for the bill in January.

Approximately 55 percent said they were opposed to repealing the RPS, compared to 45 percent who were in favor of repealing, the survey found.

Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley has been a leading voice of energy policy in New Hampshire. He said he understand the concern of high energy prices, but doesn’t believe the bills repealing RGGI and RPS will ultimately pass.

“When all is said and done, the current laws will largely stay in place,” he told the Associated Press. “What we need to do in New England is to site new sources of generation in a way that protects people’s property values and their rights. That is a tough needle to thread.”

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It’s not often where there is a war of words between a governor and a mayor of neighboring state. Yet, that’s what happened last week between New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and Mayor Daniel Rivera of Lawrence, Mass., when discussing who’s to blame for the Northeast’s growing opioid crisis.

“It’s coming from Lawrence,” Sununu said Wednesday at the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce breakfast. “Eighty-five percent of the fentanyl in this state is coming straight out of Lawrence, Massachusetts.”

He also pointed to Lawrence again in an interview later that day with Boston Herald Radio, saying the city’s status as a “sanctuary city” is causing problems for New Hampshire.

Sununu said he had a meeting with other New England governors when they met in Washington D.C. for the National Governors Association annual winter meetings.

“I sat down with [Massachusetts Gov.] Charlie Baker and all the governors from the New England regions and said we’re going to cross borders, you better get ready,” Sununu said. “I’m working with the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] in Bedford, working with the DEA in Boston, our state police, their state police.”

Sununu then vowed that “we’re going in.”

“We’re going to get tough on these guys, and I want to scare every dealer that wants to come across that border,” he said. “We’re not giving dealers nine months on parole and probation anymore. We’re putting them away for the five, 10 and 15 years that they deserve.”

Sununu’s “tough on drugs” rhetoric makes sense — albeit an interesting political move to pick a battle with a town in another state. He’s the first Republican governor in 12 years and the opioid crisis is still rampant in New Hampshire. He campaigned on the epidemic being the number one priority the state faces and depending on what he does to curb the crisis in his two-year term, could be a factor in his 2018 reelection campaign.

Despite several media reports about the subsequent back-and-forth between Sununu and Rivera, there is some legitimacy in Sununu’s claim about Lawrence being a hot bed of activity for heroin and fentanyl.

Most of the heroin coming to New England originates in Colombia and travels through Mexico, according to a 2013 report from The New York Times. Despite an increase in the number of seizures along the southern U.S. border, enough is still getting through to major distribution centers, including Philadelphia and New York, which then makes its way into northern New England, “often through Lowell, Lawerence, and Holyoke, Mass.”

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s 2014 National Drug Threat Assessment Summary, most heroin supplies in the New England region are brought in from New York along the vast interstate highway system, naming I-95 and I-93 as the major routes for New Hampshire’s heroin trafficking routes. The report also named Lawrence as a main distribution center for northern New England states.

“Massachusetts also serves as a staging area or interim transportation point for heroin being transported north,” the report states. “Lawrence and Lowell, north of Boston, are distribution centers for northern New England and Canada. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are supplied with heroin chiefly by drug groups in northeastern Massachusetts, particularly in Lawrence and Lowell.”

Western Massachusetts is one of the staging areas for distribution in Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire because drug dealers from those states who want the product have to drive to Massachusetts to get it because drug penalties in Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire are stricter in the three northern New England states.

Because Lawrence sits on the I-93 highway, police have said many drug deals occur at fast-food restaurants off the highway exits.

It is so widely known that Lawrence is a main distributor for the opioid crisis, that even Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said it to the Times in 2016.

“Massachusetts is the epicenter for the heroin/fentanyl trade,” she said. “From Lawrence, it’s being trafficked and sold all over the New England states.”

For example, undercover detectives followed a car on a heroin buying mission from Manchester to Lawrence and back on Sept. 15, 2015, which resulted in one arrest.

Still, despite these reports and former statements that show Lawrence is a main distributor of heroin and fentanyl for New England, Rivera took offense that Sununu called out his city.

“Just like the President is finding out that health care is complicated, I think that the governor is going to find out that this is a complicated issue,” Rivera said in a hastily scheduled press conference on Thursday. “I’m not sure that he meant to threaten the sovereignty of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but he did.”

One of the major problems Rivera had was with Sununu’s claim that 85 percent of the fentanyl entering New Hampshire came from Lawrence.

“I would ask you guys to ask him where he got that number from,” he charged reporters. “I don’t know if it’s a true number. I think the problem is if you think like ‘oh you snuff out what’s happening in Lawrence, it will all go away.’ I know he’s only been on the job 60 days, but the reality is it’s like water, it will find another place to go.”

Rivera and Sununu eventually spoke on Thursday afternoon, and Sununu released a statement after the call.

“The Mayor and his local law enforcement personnel have been doing a good job on this issue, but we must recognize this is a cross-border problem that requires cross-border solutions,” Sununu said. “It has no geographic boundaries and it remains incumbent upon all of us to come together and work collaboratively across our borders along with federal, state and local law enforcement.”

Sununu’s office has not offered any evidence of his “85-percent” claim, but regardless, Lawrence’s role in the opioid crisis cannot be disputed.

Baker, the Massachusetts governor, weighed in on the controversy, and said, “I do view this as a problem that affects us all and I think singling out a single community or a single state is not accurate.”

New Hampshire Senate Democratic Leader Jeff Woodburn offered his two cents.

“Instead of antagonizing key regional partners in our collective fight to combat the devastating effects of the opioid crisis, Governor Sununu should be fighting for our state’s successful Medicaid expansion program which has helped over 100,000 Granite Staters gain access to mental health and substance abuse treatment,” he said in a statement. “New Hampshire needs steady and serious leadership from the Governor’s office that focuses on a holistic approach to solving this public health crisis, not reckless, cavalier comments.”

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