Gov. Chris Sununu is leaving the highest office in the state after eight years, a period during which the effects of climate change and efforts to address them have only grown more intense.
Sununu’s tenure has been marked by a market-driven approach to energy and environmental issues and a focus on affordability. New Hampshire has been an outlier in the region, staying away from the methods its neighboring states have used to speed along the transition away from fossil fuels.
But across New England, the energy transition is gaining momentum, new technology is proliferating, and the electric grid is changing. The region is getting hotter and wetter, with extreme heat, flooding, and sea level rise becoming bigger threats.
And with a slate of new gubernatorial candidates, New Hampshire’s climate policies could also be in for big changes.
An eight-year legacy
Ideologically, Sununu has shifted over time on the issue of climate change. When he first ran for governor, he cast doubt on established climate science showing that human activities have caused global warming. By the time he was running for reelection two years later, he was clear that humans have contributed to climate change.
He centered much of his focus on energy affordability. It’s difficult to measure exactly what effect state policy has had on costs, but New Hampshire’s rates have by and large been lower than New England’s average for much of his time in office, though they’ve been consistently higher than rates in Vermont.
Under his leadership, the state’s strategy has focused on making energy more affordable by using a market-based approach. That basically means avoiding preferences for different technologies and staying away from mandates and subsidy programs used by other states.
According to the New England electric grid operator, New Hampshire has seen less growth in the solar industry than other states in the region, and it has the lowest ranking on energy efficiency. The other New England states have mandated goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly in the coming decades, which have influenced their support for renewables. New Hampshire doesn’t have those goals.
Sununu hasn’t exactly been oppositional to renewable resources and the energy transition but he has held the solar and wind industries at an arm’s length.
On solar, he vetoedmultipleefforts to expand net metering, a way that solar arrays are compensated for their power. He approved an expansion of that program for municipalities in 2021.
He’s been a vocal supporter of the potential of the offshore wind industry, and he helped initiate the creation of a task force on offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine. But while other states have made moves to support the development of those projects, New Hampshire has largely focused on studying the industry, producing reports on the potential impacts of the industry.
Sununu has also changed the structure of how energy decisions are made in the state and the people in positions of power.
He created the Department of Energy in 2021, and he made significant appointments to the state’s Public Utilities Commission. He’s expected to leave office having appointed all three commissioners on the Public Utilities Commission, who serve staggered 6 year terms. (One of the seats on the commission is currently vacant, after commissioner Carleton Simpson resigned this summer). The chair of the commission is out next summer. But the other two will serve until 2027 and 2029.
Under the leadership of Sununu’s appointees, that regulatory body has shaped the state’s energy landscape in meaningful ways – including by rejecting a proposal to expand energy efficiency programs.
Democrats with climate plans
The two main Democratic candidates for governor, Joyce Craig and Cinde Warmington, have each come out with climate plans — a way they’re already setting themselves apart from Sununu.
Their plans are relatively similar. Both put the energy transition front and center, saying they’d support things like expanding energy efficiency programs, incentives for clean heat and cooling in new housing developments, and incentives for electric vehicle customers. They both say they’d want to increase renewable energy production like wind and solar.
All of the candidates in the race — Republicans and Democrats — say they’re opposed to a controversial landfill proposal in the North Country that’s been debated for years. But Warmington has perhaps focused on trash the most.
She ran an ad saying she’d reduce trash coming into New Hampshire from other states and saying she’d ban landfills from being built next to lakes and state parks.
In July, she held a press conference next to Forest Lake, where the landfill is proposed, telling attendees, “It’s time for new leadership. It’s time to cut the trash because we’ve had enough of this garbage.”
Warmington’s plan also stands apart because it has a specific goal for New Hampshire to hit net zero carbon emissions by 2040 — an ambitious goal, but somewhat in line with goals other states have set.
Craig’s plan doesn’t mention a time-bound goal, but includes more detail about her vision for the state’s energy transition and environmental solutions.
She has more of a focus on environmental justice, and she includes planning for climate impacts like extreme heat and warming winters.
Craig has leaned on her record as mayor of Manchester, often talking about building a large municipal solar array.
“Implementing this plan will take a lot of hard work and collaboration, but I’ve done this before. As mayor of Manchester, we built what was at the time the largest municipal solar array in the state, and we would have built it even bigger if state policies at the time had allowed for larger net metering projects,” she said. “Because of that solar array and other initiatives that we put in place, we were able to cut carbon emissions in the city by 60%, saving taxpayers money by reducing our city’s energy costs.”
Craig also says she’d work with the state’s attorney general to hold industrial polluters and fossil fuel companies accountable for their contributions to health impacts and climate change.
The Republican primary
Kelly Ayotte is using similar language to Sununu on energy, focusing her statements on lowering costs for consumers and describing an “all of the above” approach – not specifically supporting or disavowing renewables. She says she’d let private markets come up with energy solutions.
Historically, Ayotte has diverged from her party on some climate issues. In a 2014 talk before a conservative nonprofit that works on clean energy solutions, she highlighted her support for energy efficiency and outlined a “pro business” approach to clean energy.
“It is not mutually exclusive to say that we can use the best technology and develop the best technology available to have energy security, energy independence for this country and responsibly develop energy while also protecting the environment,” she said. “I think that all of you in this room, myself included, have an opportunity to change this discussion in Washington. This is not an ‘either or’ proposition when it comes to ensuring that we can preserve the natural beauty of the United States of America.”
During her time as a senator, she was in a minority of Republicans who voted yes on a resolution that said human activity was driving climate change. And she supported President Obama’s Clean Power Plan at a time when most in her party opposed it. But she’s also gotten criticism for serving on the board of Bloom Energy, a fuel cell company that pitched itself as “clean tech” but has been mired in controversy.
Chuck Morse is taking a slightly different tack. He’s also used the language of an “all of the above approach,” but he’s focused more of his time on speaking out against offshore wind.
Earlier this month, he told WMUR that he’d been spending time with people in the fishing industry on the Seacoast.
“When you start talking to people, which is what government should be doing, you find out that they’re going to destroy the fishing industry, they’re going to pollute the waters off our coast,” he said. “It’s not solving anything for those people that are talking about green energy.”
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management says they use scientific studies to inform their analysis, evaluate impacts, and consider mitigations when they make decisions about offshore wind.
In the state Senate, Morse sponsored legislation to ban any mandates on the kinds of energy people can use in their homes. And he’s supported Donald Trump’s plans to expand fossil fuel use.
He’s said he’s hopeful if Trump is elected this year, he’ll drill for more oil and bring new pipelines to New Hampshire.
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Publish date : 2024-08-30 11:00:00
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