By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD — The House approved a bill updating the state’s energy policy to emphasize market driven, affordable and efficient sources such as fossil fuels over renewable sources.

The House also eliminated several offshore wind energy related offices from the Department of Energy in its session Thursday.

Opponents of the two bills called the new energy policy backward looking and would lock the state out of any future wind projects in the Gulf of Maine.

House Bill 682 would remove the Office of Wind Energy from the Department of Energy, repeals the offshore wind industry workforce training center committee and the offshore and port development commission, and moves the grid modernization advisory council and the hydrogen advisory council to the office of energy innovation.

The changes are designed to align with President Trump’s recent executive order to eliminate offshore wind and turbine development, according to Rep. James Summers, R-Newton, to avoid the destruction of nearby fisheries, lobster, shellfish, and whales.

“Offshore wind is more expensive and destructive than any other renewable energy source,” he told the House.

But Rep. Wendy Thomas, D-Merrimack, said the bill “removes us from the table for any discussion of offshore wind.”
Offshore wind may be an expensive source of electricity now, she said, but in the future it will be much less expensive with new technology and much better for the environment than continuing to burn fossil fuels.

“To remove us from the discussion is to keep New Hampshire’s head in its very rocky sand,” Thomas said. “This bill hobbles us.”

The offshore wind industry would add clean energy to the grid and make energy jobs available to the state’s workforce.

The Gulf of Maine is already warming faster than 99 percent of other areas of the oceans and climate change has already impacted the fishing and shellfish industry in the Gulf of Maine because of warming temperatures.

She also refuted the stories of whales being harmed by offshore wind, citing a study finding the turbines are not the cause of whale deaths.

Thomas also noted many of Trump’s executive orders have been challenged as unconstitutional, exceed presidential authority and infringe on constitutional rights, which brought a point of order that House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, dismissed.

The bill passed on a 206-163 vote.

House Bill 504 updates the state energy policy with a more detailed plan promoting an all-of-the-above technology solutions approach with emphasis on affordability, reliability and security.

The plan ensures the state’s energy independence by removing regulatory barriers to innovation while emphasizing market driven sources, according to Rep. Lex Berezhny, R-Grafton.

“A detailed, prescriptive, energy policy would provide state energy policy with clearer goals to allow for more efficient implementation,” he said.

The goal is market driven solutions, he said. 

But opponents said the plan emphasizes fossil fuel energy sources that currently exist in the state and does not acknowledge the state is part of the regional grid with many energy sources available.

Rep. Ned Reynolds, D-Portsmouth, said current renewable energy sources displace the need to burn fossil fuels and reduce the demand for natural gas which reduces the cost of electricity for everyone.

He said the phrase “on-demand” included in the policy favors large power plants over the 21st century innovation of smaller distributive energy generation.

“We will be burning fossil fuel in New Hampshire for a long time,” he said, but over time advancement will make renewable energy sources much more prevalent, which will reduce the region’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“This policy is narrow-minded and largely backward looking,” Reynolds told the House.

The bill was approved on a 204-165 vote.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.