By GARRY RAYNO, Distant Dome
Sometimes you have to wonder who is serving who in the legislature and the political system in New Hampshire.
Voters trust the people they elect to make informed decisions to determine what is ultimately in the state’s best interest.
Partisan considerations play a more important role today than they did 20 years ago, but you hope they can put that aside when a major issue confronts the state, although that is wishful thinking these days.
Today’s legislature spends more time fighting culture wars than it does addressing the pressing issues facing the state such as housing, healthcare accessibility and cost, stagnant wages, hunger, homelessness and an aging population while young people flee the state for better opportunities and social life elsewhere.
Other issues include solid waste disposal, water and air pollution, electric rates and the growing concern over AI’s impact on that and water pollution, school choice and the threatened political violence that reared its ugly head recently.
And there are the day-to-day concerns that affect us all like the transfer station no longer takes paper products, battery disposal under the threat of fires from lithium batteries and what to do with all those old half-empty paint cans.
When you see bills like House Bill 451, which establishes a “paint stewardship” program, and House Bill 1602, a battery recycling and material reclamation program, neither one seeking state tax money, you would think they would be no brainers that help dispose of toxic and otherwise dangerous products responsibly without being a draw on either the state’s beleaguered general fund or the state’s preferred go-to tax, the local property tax.
Somewhat surprisingly that is not the case.
In both instances, industry-developed programs would spread the cost across the state for the paint recycling program and the country for the battery program.
Both bills are supported by organizations like the Business and Industry Association, New Hampshire Municipal Association, the state’s waste management companies, conservation and environmental protection groups, as well as in the case of the battery recycling bill, the state fire marshal, the Professional Fire Fighters of NH and the NH Association of Fire Chiefs.
There was one prominent group opposing both bills, the Koch Foundation’s Americans for Prosperity, and following its lead, the Free Stater jihad led by House Majority Leader Jason Osborne.
One large Nevada battery recycling business, Redwood Materials, that accepts lithium and nickel metal hydride or rechargeable batteries for individuals and reuses the critical materials for their own battery production, opposed the battery stewardship program. They charge a fee in New Hampshire. (see correction)
However, the support from businesses to conservation groups was not enough to prevent Gov. Kelly Ayotte from vetoing HB 451, using a trick from the Sununu days of writing in red ink on the bill itself VETO and “No Sales Tax.”
The program did not use a tax of any kind because in order to be a tax, it needs to go into government coffers and the per can charge for the paint recycling program goes to a non-profit established by the paint industry to cover the costs.
But Ayotte took her cue from Americans for Prosperity who put out a press release calling it a “paint tax,” although it is not.
Besides the political expediency of the fear the word “tax” provokes, the Koch brothers made their billions initially in the fossil fuel industry and there is still a fair amount of oil-based paint sold today if you are looking for motivation.
The words were echoed by the other Koch mouthpiece in New Hampshire, the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy and its president Drew Cline.
For Ayotte the motivation looks more like political expediency and ambition during an election year.
On the other hand most homeowners have unused paint hanging around taking up space and eventually needing to be disposed of, which means waiting for the hazardous waste collection day once a year if you’re town does it at all, and millions of dollars that cities and towns pay each year to properly dispose of the waste so it does not end up in a landfill and the chemicals eventually leach into the groundwater.
HB 451 came out of the House Environment and Agriculture Committee ought to pass with an amendment, 17-0, and passed on a voice vote on the House floor.
Americans for Prosperity checked in when the bill was before the Senate where it ultimately passed on a 13-11 vote, with five Republican senators — Timothy Lang, Mark McConkey, Howard Pearl, Denise Ricciardi and David Rochefort — joining the eight Democrats to pass the bill.
Ayotte’s veto with the “No Sales Tax” inscription kind of throws those five senators under the bus.
Like the paint recycling bill, House Bill 1602’s genesis was from the Solid Waste Working Group and both bills were sponsored by the group’s chair Rep. Karen Ebel, D-New London.
The bill came out of the House Environment and Agriculture Committee on a 14-0 vote, ought to pass with an amendment and was put on the consent calendar. It was pulled off and passed on a 264-72 vote and referred to the House Finance Committee although, like the paint bill, there is no state or local money involved and no taxes.
But in Finance Americans for Prosperity and the Free State jihad reared their heads again and the bill is now recommended for interim study, a polite death in the second year of a two-year term on a partisan 13-11 vote.
The leader of the Free Stater jihad in House Finance, Dan McGuire, R-Epsom, wrote in the majority report, “This bill would have New Hampshire join an international cartel of battery manufacturers, in exchange for a battery recycling program.”
Interesting choice of words for an industry that seeks to address some of the issues raised by batteries, particularly lithium batteries which if punctured can explode and cause fires like the one at the Turnkey Landfill in Rochester that destroyed the company’s recycling building.
The battery companies want to be able to reuse the lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper which are in batteries in consumer electronics as well as alkaline and rechargeable batteries that would be collected under the stewardship program that already exists in 20 states including Vermont and Maine and batteries purchased in New Hampshire have those other states’ charges built in whether the Granite State approves the program or not. In other words you will pay for the program, the only question is if you will have access to it.
“There’s no state-imposed or industry-imposed state specific fee,” Ebel wrote in her minority report on the bill. “All recycling costs are borne by the battery manufacturers, which support the nationwide effort to recoup valuable critical minerals from enhanced battery collection.”
The state last year banned lithium battery disposal although many people continue to throw them in the trash.
A letter from the Business and Industry Association noted the solid waste companies in the state have suffered millions of dollars in damages from the improper disposal of the lithium batteries causing fires at landfills, incinerators and hauling trucks. “HB 1602 proposes an industry-led channel for battery recycling, which we believe will increase uptake of recycling of lithium batteries, decreasing the risk of intense, lithium-fueled fires at solid waste landfills, incinerators, and on hauling trucks, saving the waste disposal industry significant dollars each year,” wrote Natch Greyes, BIA Vice President of Public Policy.
China currently holds 80 percent of the world’s processing capacity for the critical minerals needed to make batteries and many in the industry worry the country could put a choke hold on the materials.
But the Americans for Prosperity see recycling as the dreaded word, tax.
In a letter to representatives last week the group wrote, “This bill forces battery companies into a government-run ‘stewardship’ program and makes them cover all the cost. Those costs don’t disappear, they get passed straight to us through higher prices on batteries, toys, tools, flashlights, and countless other products,” the group claims. “Please stand up for New Hampshire taxpayers and vote against HB 1602. Keep our prices down and our government limited.”
There is no government run program, the prices already include the costs of other states’ programs and no taxpayers are involved, but that doesn’t matter if you have an oligarch’s fortune to spread around electing Free Staters and Libertarians to the New Hampshire legislature.
At one time, groups like the BIA, the NH Municipal Association and the firefighters unions had a good amount of sway with lawmakers not to mention the people who elected them.
But today, the oligarch’s outside money convinces the vast majority of elected GOP lawmakers, including the governor, to ignore the broad coalition of local and national interests that support both bills to kill the bills.
At some point, when will the coalitions say they have had enough and it is time to end the culture wars and legislation as political video games and instead help people find housing and healthcare, convince young people to stay in New Hampshire, and yes to recycle paint and batteries.
Correction: A previous version should have said Redwood Materials, that accepts lithium and nickel metal hydride or rechargeable batteries for individuals and reuses the critical materials for their own battery production, charges a fee in New Hampshire.
Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.
Distant Dome by veteran journalist Garry Rayno explores a broader perspective on the State House and state happenings for InDepthNH.org. Over his three-decade career, Rayno covered the NH State House for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Foster’s Daily Democrat. During his career, his coverage spanned the news spectrum, from local planning, school and select boards, to national issues such as electric industry deregulation and Presidential primaries. Rayno lives with his wife Carolyn in New London.