Amidst the plethora of good and bad things signed by Governor Ayotte this week were some much-needed baby steps on the matter of New Hampshire’s energy independence. The Granite State is tied to ISO New England and, by extension, the destructive green energy priorities of the surrounding states—all of them. Our already too-high electric rates will suffer further if these neo-Marxist playgrounds follow through with promises to pretend that going electric is better for the planet.
More devices would be tapping fewer and less reliable resources on a grid we currently share. To avoid being taken down with them, New Hampshire legislators have made some moves toward what could one day be a Declaration of Energy Independence. [Related:MacDonald: NH Needs to Do what It Does Best, But with Electricity]
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
It works without edits.
The region’s power grid, managed by ISO New England, has been greenwashed. Virtue-signalling leftists have embraced a program of energy poverty alongside an escalation of things like heat pumps and EVs in their misguided effort to end the comforts of Western living and economic prosperity. We don’t want to be part of that, so it is necessary for the Granite State to examine an energy NHEXIT. [Related: Renewable Mandates Will Double Energy Costs, Cause Rolling Blackouts]
The state has already advanced plans to explore Small-Scale Modular Nuclear Energy. We haven’t abandoned wind and solar, but the current leadership accepts that it drives rates up and can’t power today, let alone the future.
HB690, just signed into law, directs “the department of energy to investigate the state’s withdrawal from ISO-New England and other strategy decisions that impact ratepayers in relation to New England’s environmental policy.“
HB189 changes the words renewable energy to clean energy (half a loaf at best) but then removes the Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Energy board from decision-making for the state’s ten-year energy plan. Less green eyeshade is always good.
Nuclear energy is already considered a clean energy source in New Hampshire, so the door is open to exploring it as a centerpiece of regional energy independence.
Anything that makes rates go up needs to be kneecapped or at least sidelined, while those that could increase capacity and lower rates need to be considered and advanced.
New Hampshire already has many advantages, but it could significantly enhance its appeal, especially to job creators, if it could guarantee lower-cost, reliable energy freed from the increasing risks associated with Progolyde policy. We create an energy incentive for manufacturing and other job creators to move across the border to New Hampshire, and their employees can still live outside New Hampshire and commute.
We don’t have to house them, they get to gas up, work, buy smokes and liquor, shop here tax-free (since they are already here), and their employers enjoy potentially significant savings on the major fixed operating cost.
We could reverse the historical trend of New Hampshire residents leaving the Granite State for work every day and watch out-of-staters come here for work instead.
It’s not simple, but it ought to be a no-brainer. No other state in the Northeast is able, willing, or even interested in capitalizing on the growth and revenue potential. Few if any Democrats in the Granite State are interested either, so if we’re serious about lowering electric rates and securing a reliable supply, we need to keep them from messing it up.
There’s more work to do, but we’re pointed in the proper direction. Keeping the Demorrhoids out of power is critical to ensuring that we continue to have some and that it has a chance to be affordable again.
