New Ham
Last week, Gov. Chris Sununu signed the state’s first law pertaining to these programs, which will fund a Department of Revenue Administration study on the potential lost timber tax revenue and require the Division of Forestry to create a registry of all carbon offset sites in the state. It was introduced in the state House of Representatives by the entire Coos County delegation.
“Our goal is not to stop anybody from selling carbon,” said Rep. Mike Ouellet, a Colebrook Republican. “Our goal is to keep the lands’ traditional uses and at the same time preserve our culture and our way of life in the North Country.”
Traditional use means timber and tourism, which are the two things the North Country relies on to make up for the lack of population density and taxable property development (see also, way of life). It has long been at odds with the rest of the Granite State in matters both subsidiary and climate-related. The Burgess Biomass Plant burned wood chips, bits, and the detritus of the logging industry, but power at that price can’t compete, so it and its employees need to be propped up with taxpayer bailouts. Employment offsets, if you like. But it would have been cheaper for taxpayers to pay employees to do nothing than to fund the bailout proposed by legislators. Oh, and environmental groups didn’t like it either. They said it is bad for the planet. But they like carbon capture, and most like taxes, which is what carbon capture is.
As the NHPR-linked article notes,
When you buy a plane ticket online, have you ever paid a few extra dollars to make up for your flight’s carbon footprint? That’s a carbon offset: a program that aims to counteract the environmental impact of a purchase.
This is often done by protecting or planting trees, which can store carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere.
Before your plane’s wheels fall off, you’re paying for the Airline’s carbon offset, and it’s not just them. All of that corporate virtue-signalling gets passed down to consumers for nothing—literally nothing. CO2 isn’t warming the planet, and paying someone not to cut trees down is a scam.
Some Restaurants Have Begun Adding a Carbon Footprint Fee to Customer’s Checks
The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.
We caught up with a similar scam in New Guinea and presume these confidence gigs are more common than not. But that’s no excuse not to find a way to tax the tax, and the bill above, signed by Governor Sununu, allows the state to look at the problem.
The new law will look into how municipalities will be impacted if carbon offset sites lead to reduced revenue from the timber tax. Ouellet said the study will evaluate if a new tax should be placed on carbon offset sites to replace the timber tax.
“Because in essence, [carbon offset companies are] selling the timber even though it’s not being cut,” he said.
The law stipulates that the Department of Revenue Administration submit a final report summarizing its findings and any recommended action to the legislature by Nov. 1, 2025.
The Burgess bailout died because the cost of bailing it out made no sense for rates, ratepayers, or the environment. But what if taxing offset revenue appears more lucrative than the timber tax? Or why not make it so prohibitive from a tax perspective that no one could profit from buying up our woodlands to bilk the customers of multinationals to pretend they are being green (which is easier than actually being green)?
My guess is someone will find a magic number—a sum that allows the scammers to pretend they are offsetting carbon while adding revenue that won’t offset rising property taxes because no one ever does that. There would be more money, but state and local governments would spend it, cry poor, and then come looking for more.
