The New Hampshire House of Representatives, the third largest legislative body in the world, voted yesterday to end the state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative cap-and-trade program. The House voted 251-108 after less than 5 minutes of debate to repeal the law under which the state joined RGGI. A number of Democrats refused to attend due to other legislation voted the same day to declare state employees to be employed at-will rather than having collective bargaining rights.
Aimed at reducing the the greenhouse gas emissions in the region, the RGGI program is a coalition of 10 northeastern US states issuing their own carbon credits under a cap and trade program. Under the program, emitters must either reduce their emissions to a specified level or purchase credits from others at auction on cap and trade markets that carry the RGGI credits. Proceeds of the auction are ostensibly used to fund energy efficiency programs, however critics have complained that electric users are funding efficiency programs that don’t directly benefit them.
Governor John Lynch, a Democrat who supports the RGGI, says repealing the law would cost the taxpayers $6 million a year, while the state forfeits $12 million a year in funding.
NH belongs to a regional power pool that dictates electric rates paid by members. If NH quites RGGI, electric rates paid by residents would still carry costs included that represent carbon credits purchased by RGGI members that belong to the pool.
New Hampshire has one of the highest levels of electric production by nuclear and renewable energy sources in the country (53.1% of Net Generated MWh):
Those wishing to support this legislative move by the state House are encouraged to contact Governor Lynch: Contact Governor Lynch: Office of the Governor State House 107 North Main Street Concord, NH 03301 (603)271-2121 (603)271-7640 (fax) |
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“We are all Maine’rs now.”
apachewhoknows says:
March 31, 2011 at 7:11 pm
“We are all Maine’rs now.”
_______________________________________________–
Just because your cat had her kittens in the oven doesn’t make’ m muffins.
Larger than the US Congress or British Parliament? I don’t think so.
Daniel H,
I see that you commented without first verifying.
“The legislature is called the General Court. It consists of the House of Representatives (400 members) and the Senate (24 members).
The General Court is the third-largest legislature in the English speaking world… There is one Representative for about every 3,300 residents.[11] In order for the U.S. Congress to have the same representation, there would need to be approximately 93,000 Representatives.”
From Wiki.
Smokey, thanks for the info, article corrected.
Smokey, I have to agree with Daniel H here. That’s a really obscure interpretation of the phrase “largest legislative body in the world”. And even your quote states it’s the third-largest, not the largest.
You could equally argue that the Tasmanian government in Australia is the “largest legislative body in the world” by using an interpretation that calculates the average area covered by each representative, since, in theory at least, Tasmania manages the Australian Antarctic Territory, and that would easily mean that each member represents the largest area.
Or, alternatively, you can look at China and calculate the number of people represented by each member of their parliament and see if that’s the largest from that point of view.
However, I think it makes a lot more sense to interpret the phrase as being the largest by number… and it’s clearly not by that common sense definition.
Using obscure definitions without explanation just confuses things.
Graeme,
We granite staters are justly proud of how “close to the people” our legislature is. Not only does it make legislators much more responsive to their respective constituents, it makes it much easier for an individual to get elected. I know most legislators here in NH rarely spend more than $1000 to get elected. The pay stinks too, we pay our legislators $200 a year for gas money, thats it, plus they get a free Fast Pass for the toll booths. So it truly is the one body that can truly be described as a “citizen legislature”. We have all sorts of bills getting considered this session, one that legalizes concealed carry without a license, another that legalizes brandishing a weapon against trespassers on one’s own property, we have a constitutional amendment reestablishing the legislature as the supreme body to determine how schools should be funded and by how much (we’ve had a long battle with the supreme court trying to order us around on that), and another one reestablishes state nullification of unconstitutional federal laws. Where most states are desperate to keep the growth in their budgets down, NH not only has the lowest state tax burden per capita, it is cutting its budget by 5% this year, not cutting an increase, cutting the budget vs last years spending.
Good news.
How did NH get away with no wind farms? Lucky them.
The fact that there may be little wind in NH is no excuse … the Brits built ’em anyway. ☺
Clive
From Wind Farm Blighted Alberta
Live Free or Die
So, NH has some “fleebaggers” too eh? Seems to be spreading.
When they get bought, they stay bought.
would love to see the folks in NH shut off power to Massachusetts from their Seabrook power plant. Lets see how many cape wind farms it would take to replace it. 😉
And yes, I live in Massachusetts.
Graeme W,
My apologies for being obscure. I should have said the largest number of “representatives per capita.”
The RGGI was a brazen snookering by MA over NH. The Democrat controlled legislature and executive over the past eight years had prostrated themselves over a large barrel while MA had its way with them. MA siphons energy from our Seabrook plant, in return for future consideration from Nantucket wind farms, that will never happen. The great irony is that these Democ-Rats have recently proposed that we get back some of that stolen electricity by buying from Quèbec! The cheek!
Great move. BTW, our legislature is the largest per capita in the world, and the third largest numerically. Senators and Representatives get paid (get this) $100 per annum!
Tasmania or UK, we luv ya man! But your systems aren’t close to the representation we have here in the Granite State. LFOD!
Gov. Lynch, don’t lynch us anymore…sign the bill.
Slowly but surly the scam that is cap and trade and global warming is dying on the vine. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) was a giant ponzi scheme they hoped would grow nation wide it was meant to bypass federal regulations or lack of them, with phony auctions with a wink and a nod that was designed take consumer on a wild and expensive ride with no benefit except to insiders or the wealthy old boys socialist/green club. New Hampshire will suffer a little pain up front, but will be well rewarded from getting rid of this lousy warmist milking scheme. It was always about cronyism and corporate welfare with states and rentseekers willing to sell their citizens souls for a slice of the money pie or some RGGI grants.
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Clive,
There are wind turbines here and there, most don’t function or were never completed cause the companies installing them failed when their pie-in-the-sky assumptions failed to pan out. NH has pretty good wind power potential, but the very same people who hug their trees and maintain their Sierra Club memberships, and believe in AGW, are also the people who have their attorneys file lawsuits against any local attempt to raise up wind turbines or cellphone towers that would despoil the view from their homes.
@Smokey
I didn’t need to verify what I already knew to be true, which is that the US Congress and British Parliament have more members than the New Hampshire legislature. It’s simple arithmetic.
@mikelorrey
The article is still incorrect. The New Hampshire House of Representatives is not the third largest legislative body in the world. The German Bundestag, the French National Assembly, the Japanese Diet, the Brazilian Congress, the Indian Parliament, et cetera, are all substantially larger. Hence, the New Hampshire House of Representatives is the third largest legislative body in the English speaking world.
Regarding the NH RGGI repeal bill, it shouldn’t be necessary to contact the governor’s office since he’s powerless to stop the repeal from being implemented. Other news articles that I’ve read have mentioned that the bill is “veto-proof” because the Republicans have a supermajority in both the state House and Senate. So contacting the governor is sort of a moot point.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/6936-nh-house-votes-to-repeal-greenhouse-gas-law
[Reply: If you had read the comments you would have seen that “the third largest body in the English speaking world” had already been posted and sourced. ~dbs, mod.]
Various comments about the news and NH politics.
This was actually the second House vote on HB 519-FN. The first vote was also “Ought to Pass” 246-104. The -FN suffix is applied to bills that may have a substantial financial impact. That first vote merely transferred the bill to the House Finance committee for review, I produced http://wermenh.com/rggiwatch/finance_notes.html and passed it out before the committee hearing. That committee passed it with a 26-6 vote. BTW, all these are pretty much party line votes, a bit disappointing. That sent it back to the full House, and now it’s off to the Senate.
There are only 24 senators and while the bill hasn’t made it on to the senate calendar, I’ve been a bit remiss in figuring out where it goes and who supports it or not. The president of the senate may be a RGGI supporter, so that’s an issue. I think the bill will go to a senate committee, then the full senate, then get vetoed by the governor, and then the veto will be overridden by the house and senate.
I live eight miles north of the state house and have a flexible enough work schedule so attending hearings and whatnot is pretty easy.
Joe D’Aleo has also been involved in testifying in favor of the bill and bringing in outside support from SPPI and elsewhere. (Joe is partially responsible for me getting involved in this sordid field when I did.)
“we pay our legislators $200 a year for gas money, thats it, plus they get a free Fast Pass for the toll booths.”
I think you’re wrong – it’s $200 for the biennium, so only $100 a year. (A common joke is that we get our money’s worth.) In addition to free tolls they also get a mileage reimbursement for the commute to Concord. I forget what that is, but for some it’s the largest component of their renumeration.
Senators get their own secretary, representatives have to share a secretary with several other reps.
The Bill of Rights in our state constitution includes the Right to Revolution. More than a right, actually, we have the duty to revolt against a government that misbehaves:
It was adopted with most of the rest on June 2, 1784 when memories of King George were still fresh in the colonials’ minds. So far it hasn’t been invoked, but we remind the legislature every so often to keep them in line.
NH is < 5% of RGGI, at least when measured by allowances; I guess we'll have to soldier on without you guys somehow.
As far as I can tell from http://www.rggi.org/docs/Investment_of_RGGI_Allowance_Proceeds.pdf, as a low-carbon energy exporter, NH was doing pretty well by RGGI, but, Live Free or Die and all that.
For what it's worth, Seabrook is 1/8 owned by MA muni utilities, and all NE generators feed the same grid; good luck cutting us Massholes off.
An aside: The town meeting in my town (Concord, MA, where the Shot Heard 'Round the World was actually fired, though we recognize and appreciate that some folks from NH did come down for the show, even though much of NH was happily loyalist because their English governor at the time, John Wentworth, was a pretty good guy, but I digress) is technically a legislative body. Our population is about 17,000, and we typically draw 1,000 for town meeting, for a 17:1 ratio; do we get a prize?
Live free or die!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Note the irony that it required a backlash to allow such back to basics reform to overwhelm politics-as-usual meandering. It was a backlash not against the left, for that already exists in the mere existence of the right. It was a libertarian movement against statism and liberalism within the right. Few skeptics seem very political actually in that there is on average an aversion to admission that the likes of Fox News have vastly amplified awareness of the founding principles of the country.
Did I mention that FN is chock full of uber hotties with law degrees instead of neurotic whiners?
Clive says:
March 31, 2011 at 8:59 pm
There are some, and there have been state house hearings fairly recently about more. We do have wind – Mt Washington claims to have “the world’s worst weather” and held held the record wind speed measured by a ground station (231 mph – 372 kph) until an Australian system managed to withstand a major typhoon.
While there must be places with worse weather, there may be no others where you can so easily go from the base of the auto road in comfortable weather and reach sub-freezing hurricane force winds blowing chunks of rime ice in the fog. The record time up the road is only 6m20.47s (that’s an average speed of 72 mph).
They’re going to start plowing the road on April 23. I don’t think it will go very quickly this year. The foot of snow they’ll get tomorrow is not the problem, lack of warm weather is.
Oh yes, wind farms. There has been some very vocal opposition to a proposed DC power line from HydroQuebec to NH (there’s already one that goes through NH to Massachusetts). I intend to refer to that debate in any future hearings about wind turbines on mountain ridges.
Getting to those ridges is expensive – the mountains are granite and unforgiving, and the winds are often too strong. Winters are worse – and long.
Ric,
Cool video. Though did you notice they had VT plates?
I’ve done the foot race up that road a couple times- a bit slower and more painful.
Oh – one last thing tonight, just for all the NH folk here (how many of us are there?)
This Saturday is the 3rd local energy conference at Merrimack Valley High School here in Penacook – walking distance for me!
http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/les2011/
$30 – includes parking, I’ll ask for a discount. 🙂
It’s mostly green energy types and Cameron Wake, the leading AGW supporter in the state will be there. Also US Congressman Charlie Bass (who would be worth $100/year, but he gets lot more than that). I’m going and will ask all the biomass burners if they’ve seen faster tree growth lately. I know some pine sapling in Nashua that have been putting on more than a foot per year, I should get photos and measurements.
And one really last note – there’s more NH stuff at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/03/july-snow-in-new-hampshire/
Hell Ric you should work for the Tourist Office. :))
New Hampshire sounds great!
The amount of money that UK politicians mangage to sequester for themselves is eye-watering; reforms were attempted last year to the Parliamentary expenses system after scandalous behaviour by MPs was made public and the voters reacted furiously – some MPs have since been convicted of various financial crimes and are now imprisoned. Subsequently, the Brit MPs have whined so loudly and effectively that those reforms have now been watered down, yet no local or government authority can afford to fix the pot-holes the bad winters have caused on the roads despite the extortinate ‘road taxes’ motorists must pay – 80% of pump prices are tax, which are currently as high as £1.40 per litre, or more than £6.00 per Imperial gallon! Despite having no money to fix pot-holes, which in some cases have done extreme damage to vehicles and cyclists, the Brits are still spending billions on wind-farms!
New Hampshire seems to be very sensibly governed indeed.
The Australian government is now in all sorts of trouble with it’s proposed carbon (sic) tax. The Aust dollar is parity with the US so when reading this article there is no need for complex conversions. The news has gone down like a concrete parachute with the online commentators.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/pms-carbon-tax-to-cost-households-1660-a-week-treasury-figures-show/comments-e6freuzr-1226032086787
BCC,
New Hampshire was most certainly NOT “happily loyalist”. We booted Governor Wentworth out before you massholes even thought about hiding your powder in Concord. John Langdon General Sullivan raided Fort William & Mary in Portsmouth harbor on December 14th, 1774, long before you guys got off your butts, took their powder and cannon, and aimed the captured cannon at the Governors House. Wentworth and his cronies took off for the Isles of Shoals to hide out until a British Navy ship picked them up weeks later. We supplied OUR cannnons and powder to *you guys*, including NH General John Stark’s crucial defense of the north flank during the Battle of Bunker Hill.
We realize that you folks in Mass think you’ve bamboozled the world into thinking the Revolution started down there, but historians all know it started in New Hampshire, and without our help, Bunker Hill would have been a disaster for you all.
Ric Werme notes (March 31, 2011 at 10:20 pm) that the NH Bill of Rights includes:
[Art.] 10. [Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection… etc..
Bask in what we of the rest of the world can only envy, Ric, even as we applaud the humanity and wisdom of those who created and adopted it
slip sliding away.
The braying jackass true believers are going to blame this on the tea party and the Koch family, for sure.
As a fellow granite-stater, Mike and Ric have pretty covered all that you need to know about NH politics. For those who would like to move here – it’s very beautiful and the taxes are reasonable (individuals pay mainly high property taxes and room and meals taxes), but the winters are long…
Heck, I’m sitting at home as I write this with a major snowstorm falling outside – on April 1st!! I probably won’t see grass in my backyard until May…
I wonder which state will be first to declare CO2 a non pollutant?
Hopefully, the Senate can manage a veto-proof vote in favor. There are 19 Republicans and they need 16 of them. Senate Pres. Peter Bragdon (R) of Milford was an original co-sponsor of the bill to join, and says he still supports it, saying “You don’t have to believe in global warming to believe RGGI is a good idea. It helps to encourage a diversity of fuel sources for our state, which I think long term, strategically for the state and the country, is a very important thing to do.” Senator Bob Odell (R), chairman of the Senate Energy and Nat. Resources Committee, from Lempster was also a co-sponsor of the bill to join. No indication where he stands now, but he’ll probably go along with what Bragdon does. So, it could be close.
If NH pulls out, it could cause a chain reaction, with the RGGI collapsing as a result. New Jersey is also considering pulling out, though I don’t know how that is going.
Yes, it’s about freedom.
Frank K. says:
April 1, 2011 at 4:56 am
You forgot to mention no sales tax (other than on tourists, e.g. 9% rooms & meals tax) and no income tax (except for that @#$! “payroll tax” that businesses but not the government has to pay). The gasoline/petrol tax is mandated by the state constitution to go to highway maintenance so it doesn’t go to the general fund to get skimmed first.
One of my more foolish coworkers already took his snow tires off his car. I’ll wait a week or two, there’s a storm next week too, but it might be rain.
“Alexander K says:
April 1, 2011 at 1:50 am
New Hampshire sounds great!”
It’s enough to make you turn green, but only in envy!
re Ric Werne above, please excuse me from breaking in on this debate about who has the biggest legislative body around. I note the comment on Biomass and thought that this item from the GWPF might be of interest.
Rgds
Peter Walsh, Dublin, Ireland
Kyodo News 15 February 2011 (and yes, we put the dates thisaway on the far side of the Atlantic!)
None of the government’s 214 biomass promotion projects — with public funding coming to ¥6.55 trillion — over the past six years has produced effective results in the struggle against global warming, according to an official report released Tuesday.
The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, which evaluates public works projects, urged the agriculture and five other ministries conducting biomass projects using sewage sludge, garbage and wood, to take corrective action.
The Administrative Evaluation Bureau found in a study of biomass projects through March 2009 that the cumulative budget totaled about ¥6.55 trillion.
The six ministries taking part in such projects, however, have yet to confirm the financial results for 92, or 44 percent, of the 214 projects, with one bureau official saying: “The figures tell everything. The ministries need to produce certain results because they are using taxpayers’ money.”
The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry spent about ¥1.6 billion on a project to produce livestock feedstuff from unsold boxed lunches from convenience stores. The project was abandoned after its management firm collapsed, the report says.
The Environment Ministry and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry were subsidizing similar projects at the same time, it said.
While the six ministries have argued that 161, or 75 percent, of the 214 projects have produced some results, the bureau concluded that none has produced results that would lead to the formation of a recycling-based society, the report says.
Kyodo News, 15 February 2011
Thanks to mikelorrey and Ric.
Send those lawyers up here. Yeah, funny how the green weenies love renewables UNTIL they could get a turbine on their front lawn. ☺ Classic NIMBY, eh?
Wind farms are sprouting up like mushrooms her … gak! We have a capacity of 777 MW with over 1,000 of the big monsters here. Bah!
They must be working though .. .we’ve had snow on the ground since early November and more on the way. ☺
Anyway…good on NH!
Clive asks how we avoided wind turbines here in NH. We haven’t. About six miles north of me sits the Lempster Mt. wind farm, a small installation of 12 turbines rated at 2mw each. It takes up a couple of miles of ridgeline, and on a good day you might see all of the blades spinning. Mostly there are at least a couple just sitting there doing nothing. I would love to see it replaced with one of the “back pocket” nukes from Hyperion, (which could actually produce the 25mw the pinwheels can only dream about) and fit inside my barn, not killing birds or bats.
“…but the very same people who hug their trees and maintain their Sierra Club memberships, and believe in AGW, are also the people who have their attorneys file lawsuits against any local attempt to raise up wind turbines or cellphone towers that would despoil the view from their homes.”
My understanding is that the modern environmental movement got its start with that kind of people blocking the planned Storm King pumped storage reservoir.
Mike Lorrey says:
April 1, 2011 at 2:36 am
Thanks, Mike. I was chompin’ at the bit to correct the Massholes who love to rewrite the history. More than half of the Bunker Hill fighters were from NH. And you are right, the Battle of Portsmouth harbor (Ft. William & Mary captured) was the First Battle of the Revolution, fought by the Newmarket (NH) militia and the Green Mountain Boys militia after consultation with, you guessed it, Paul Revere.
It was a key battle, since the Brits could no longer move troops down from Portsmouth (a nice protected harbor). They never had this route again. Their ammunition and guns were moved and used throughout the war, including at Bunker Hill.
I am sure there were some competent fighters in MA. Surely Adams and Hancock literally stuck their necks out big time. But the most dedicated fighters were the White Mountain and Green Mountain militias. It is sad to see the depths to which Vermont has plummeted, because they were some of the best. Maybe Lexington & Concord (MA) was the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” because Boston had the newspapers? So what else is new? I guess battles where one loses are more memorable, I don’t know…
To finish out our NH pride orations, NH was:
° First state to have a constitution
° First state to elect a black man (1768). Speaking of William Wentworth, the pohmmie-lover that was kicked out on his butt, this famous first black patriot was named Wentworth Cheswell. He served elected office continuously from 1768 to his death in 1817 (50 years). He was elected selectman, representative to the state’s constitutional convention, coroner, judge, historian, school superintendent, archaeologist and founder of the first library. He rode the militia alerts, alongside Paul Revere, that the “British are Coming”.He fought in the Light Horse Cavalry under Langdon at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777 (yes, another victory).
This is just to demonstrate that NH is a pacesetter and vanguard not to be dismissed. I hope this sets the tone. The big thing that proponents of RGGI are citing is the loss of a few million in federal funds. You know what the feds can do with their filthy lucre? What they don’t mention is that us NH energy ratepayers are paying a surtax on our electric bills to cover the boondoggle.
It would appear that some sense is beginning to perculate the brains of the great and the good.
Keep on poking them Antony.
Expect the warmists to shop this to one of their hand picked liberal judges, who will enjoin the state from taking action regarding RGGI and then beat it out of town.
While we are getting our facts straight:
– Yes, the Fort William & Mary happened earlier than Lexington/Concord (but after e.g. the tea party), and I also agree that it’s largely overlooked outside NH. But does it count as a proper battle if you overwhelm a force of, what, 6 men? The British force that retreated from Concord, MA under fire was ~1700 men. And what happened in Portsmouth when the Scarborough sailed into harbor? Didn’t colonists only take over the fort for good after the British bailed out August 1775?
– My loyalist comment was driven by e.g. Wentworth, 1770: “[o]ur province is quiet yet, and the only one, but will, I fear, soon enter. If they do, they’ll exceed all the rest in zeal.” Which proved right. Just late-starters.
– “It is an unshakable, but probably mistaken, Granite State tradition that the powder taken from Fort William and Mary in December of 1774 was transported in bulk by Major John Demeritt to the New Hampshire militia in Massachusetts in time for use against the King’s troops at Bunker Hill. ” – Thomas Kehr
– Careful on the timing. Wentworth fled his home permanently in June 1775, after Lexington/Concord.
– What’s striking about those days was the amount of cooperation between MA/NH. I think it’s poor sport to keep sniping at each other. My snark (I plead guilty) was motivated in response to Ms. Bachmann’s errors re: Concord, MA, my hometown. Where, contrary to her assertion, we are still quite proud of our Revolutionary history. I hope that y’all will come down for the Patriots’ Day festivities.
– I respect NH a lot for walking the walk, as well as talking the talk. Your state+local tax burden is 8.0% if income, rank 44, while MA is 10.0%, rank 11. (source PDF) . I don’t know that 2 cents on the dollar really spells the difference between “live free” and “Taxachusetts”, but it’s a discernible gap.
Bruce Cobb says:
April 1, 2011 at 5:43 am
This is a part of the letter I wrote to Chairman Bob Odell:
This time, I implore you to vote to overturn the RGGI.
I know at the time that you co-sponsored it. To me at the time, as a scientist, it seemed like a good thing also. The benefit of retrospective analysis has shown me unequivocally that the premises that undergirded the original RGGI bill were fallacious. The RGGI was part of a major power grab, and so-called disinterested scientists advocating it have shown themselves to be the ones to profit with status and grants monies from it.
We had no way to know all the facts at the time. Now we can see the unintended consequences. Our taxpayers have become burdened with energy surtaxes from the RGGI. This will have to be addressed next. More of our Seabrook grid energy has become additionally siphoned into Massachusetts. The promise that we would benefit from off shore wind farm energy? It will never happen—it was a false predicate. NIMBY is a strong animal! Even so, the ratio of Seabrook existing output to putative wind energy, even if it were to come to fruition, is paltry. Also, the residents of NH next to Seabrook, who entertain the risks inherent in nuclear power, should reap the benefits, and have the lowest rates. Next all of NH ratepayers. Salisbury and Amesbury, MA, likewise. But not the entire grid.
It is always difficult to reverse a position. As a scientist, when I develop an hypothesis, and later evidence disproves it, I have to move on. I don’t even think about it, knowing that I can’t out think Nature. It is not a reversal, but a reformulation based on new facts.
I am convinced the warm-earth hypothesis, that mankind is responsible, is fatally flawed. Man’s incremental culpability is small compared with other causality.
I am all for alternate energy, especially natural gas and nuclear. But these should stand on its own merits, or not stand at all. NH has a great and proud history of being first to stand against the establishment when the powers-that-be were oppressive, beginning with the Battle of Portsmouth and lasting to the present day. New Hampshirites will appreciate your vote to repeal the RGGI initiative.
BCC says:
April 1, 2011 at 10:54 am
Well said.
That is why I said that NH was the vanguard, not the lion’s share of the fight. Wentworth was a benevolent despot, but when he was given a chance to repent and did not, he was driven out.
Paul Revere and Cheswell did ride up and down the borders, drumming up and alerting response. The militiamen from NH and VT were poor dirt farmers, not the ones like Hancock with the wealth to drive a proper battle engine.
The Fort was lightly defended at the time, ’tis true, but that was a result of good scouting and intelligence. Thanks to revere and the lot, no controversy there.
Our taxes burden mostly the property holder. Renters do quite well, and there are a lot of beneficiaries in nursing homes, and students here that benefit. The tax increase was huge in the past 8 years or so, under Democrat control, mostly due to the mandatory kindergarten law enacted under Shaheen. This was done even though NH students routinely tested higher than neighboring states, and still do. This had a domino effect on the state deficit, and property taxes went soaring. It was not thought through to the unintended consequences.
In the interests of disclosure, I am one of the original members of the Free State Project, and helped in the campaign for NH to win the vote by its members to choose their destination. Already we have nearly 1000 members moved here to NH, getting active in politics to help restore our full measure of constitutional liberties to the citizens of this great state. Freestateproject.org was featured last week on John Stossels live show on FOX Business channel. There are over 10,800 members currently, when we reach 20,000, this will trigger the official migration, where members pledge to move to NH within 5 years of that event. Without the active involvement every day of FSP members in the political process in Concord, the Republican Liberty Alliance would not have been so successful not only in winning veto-proof majorities in both houses of the legislature, but in keeping their members fully informed on bills, proposing bills to them. If you think great things are now happening here in NH with just 1000 liberty activists, just imagine what will happen when we have 20,000 here. History has repeated, as the Second American Revolution (a peaceful one) begins in New Hampshire…
While the claim was obscure, I’m fascinated by your ability to blockquote while editing out the work “third”. Pick nits all you want, but at least get it right. It’s not like the rest of us didn’t read the article as well.
[Nah, thats how I originally wrote it, my fault for not fact checking enough, thanks to commenters who were sharper… MikeL]
Bruce Cobb says:
April 1, 2011 at 5:43 am
Indeed – Also two other senators.
http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20110301-NEWS-103010335 lists four republican senators who are in favor of RGGI:
I’ll contact my senator, see where he stands and contact some or all of the others.
I attended http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/les2011/ yesterday (it was in walking distance). It’s an annual conference put on by an organization that has received RGGI funds for things like the first conference they put on. One of the most vocal RGGI supporters (and RGGI fund recipient) was there, see http://lightec.net/R_G_G_I.html . I talked with a PSNH representative who will get me in contact with someone who knows how they came up with their monthly cost estimates to their ratepayers. [There are two estimates I’ve heard, one is $0.065 per month, the other is $0.36. I think they try to include the benefits due to RGGI projects. From a simple estimate based on RGGI disbursement to NH divided by the number of households, I get $20 per year, which is $1.67 per month.]
Other notes, taken from my FaceBook status:
Just came back from the Local Energy Solutions Conference at Merrimack Valley High School, see http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/les2011/ I was there in part because it’s close, might be interesting, and I might learn something about what that crowd has to say about RGGI, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that NH is considering withdrawing from.
I listened to one person who may be the most vocal supporter in the state (his business got $316,000 in RGGI funded work, which may certainly help). However, there were a couple people I talked to who agree we should get out of RGGI. The organization that put on the event received RGGI funds for the first event two years ago. Don’t know about this one.
Some interesting vendors, the talks weren’t that interesting. The school’s wood chip heating plant (which has received RGGI funds) was interesting.
I also talked with some folks who’ve never received RGGI funds, but I’m sure it was one of the biggest assemblies of NH RGGI recipients ever gathered.
If anyone from NH is still reading this thread, I just stumbled across this blog about Cow Hampshire.