New Hampshire Legislature Overrides Governor on Biomass Bill

 

According to reporting late this past week by The Valley News (Lebanon, N.H, USA) after heavy lobbying from both sides, state of New Hampshire lawmakers this past Thursday (Sept. 13, 2018) overrode Gov. Chris Sununu’s veto of a biomass bill that supporters argue will save thousands of jobs and help prop up the forestry and wood-chip industry.

The State House rallied just enough votes to meet the two-thirds threshold needed to override the veto on a 226-113 vote. The override had an easier time in the Senate, where it passed, 21-3.

"I’m feeling relieved for the men and women in the forest industry, and I was proud to stand with the men and women in forestry and fight this good fight," said Tom Thomson, an Orford tree farmer and son of the late Gov. Mel Thomson.

Thomson helped organize foresters and supporters of the bill, which would require utilities to purchase a portion of their electricity from the state’s wood-burning power plants. Dozens of loggers and landowners came to the Statehouse holding signs in support of both the biomass bill and a measure that sought to expand large-scale solar projects in the Granite State. He said it’s their hard work that likely carried the day.

"They rolled up their sleeves, they called their legislators and they told them what it was going to do for business," he said.

Supporters of the bill, including the state’s six "independent" chip-burning plants, warned that Sununu’s veto would make it difficult to continue operations without the assured income. In the wake of the veto, four out of six biomass companies either closed or partially closed.

Sununu argued the bill would amount to a subsidy that could cost bill payers $25 million annually over the legislation’s three-year lifespan. That number has been disputed by industry experts. However, Sununu reiterated on Sept. 13 that the veto was an attempt to keep electric bills from rising.

"I think the only message is this was never about biomass, this was never about the timber owners. It was always about the ratepayers — the 1.3 million ratepayers in the state that get affected by these bills," he said. "There has to be a better way to do this. There has to be a better way to pass legislation that doesn’t keep letting politics drive rates up and up and up on families that just can’t afford it and businesses that can’t afford it."