His Excellency was crooning about the great job the Sununu administration has done at keeping electric rates comparatively lower than other New England States. But put in proper context, this only means that given all the choices, New Hampshires sucked the least.
When Gov. Chris Sununu was first sworn in as governor in January 2017, New Hampshire residents were paying 18.42 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. After seven years in office — February 2024 — the rate was 23.76 cents per kwh. That 29 percent increase in ratepayer costs was lower than every New England state except Vermont.
The math is simple. During Sununu’s administration, rates increased more in Maine (70 percent), Massachusetts (83 percent), Connecticut (94 percent), and Rhode Island (127 percent) than in the Granite State, according to data from the Information Administration (EIA) “Electric Power Monthly” report.
I’m not applauding a 30% hike in the cost of electricity simply because the state laboratories that surround us created bigger monsters than we did. We were paying too much before Chris Sununu got elected, and we’re paying too much plus 30% as he prepares to leave the office. A wake into which we have a major offshore wind project that will make electricity into the New England Grid even more expensive—a pricey capacity (assuming it gets built) that is onshored in the Granite State but not a planned part of our mix. We lost two coal plants. Se brook should be building/upscaling to a second reactor (if carbon-free energy is so vital), not plotting its eventual demise (however many years that is down the road). Hydro has not been tapped adequately. We need better LNG infrastructure from Portsmouth to the north country.
Sununu’s record on energy price and security isn’t great—it’s not even good. It is just better than the bigger losers surrounding us.
Wind continues to get more expensive thanks to higher demand and the lousy national and global economy. So, while New Hampshire’s rising rates will continue to look better compared to places like Massachusetts and Maine, it is a least worst-case scenario we shouldn’t even be in. And maybe that’s part of the reason for all the support these whale-killing wind machine projects have garnered. What if that’s the secret ingredient? Democrats want it because they have a mental illness, and Sununu Republicans like it because until we do, other states rising rates will rise faster than our own.
Whatever the scheme, none of it is sustainable. It is not good business to plan to be appealing by being less undesirable than your neighbors. There are plenty of places for businesses and industries to go that have significantly lower fixed energy costs than New Hampshire. And when the price gets high enough to make moving look cheap, they will leave—not for ME, MA, VT, CT, NY, or RI, but south and west, taking jobs, GDP, and tax revenue.
It is also worth noting that there are no Demcorats running to replace Sununu who don’t want to screw us as hard and as fast as possible with the albatross of climate alarmism. “Prices would necessarily skyrocket,” to paraphrase a rare honest Obama moment, Kelly Ayotte supported Barry Obama’s destructive climate plans as a US Senator. That leaves Chuck Morse, who is running to the right but might like Sununu’s bragging rights on electricity rates—the least worst example of what is supposed to be best for us.
None of it looks great from where I’m sitting.