O P I N I O N

THE SOAPBOX

Stand up. Speak up. It’s your turn.

Governor Sununu and the NH GOP have blocked critical climate legislation for years. NH is missing out on creating thousands of good jobs from building renewable energy, cleaning up pollution, and addressing the impacts of climate change in our state.

Last week made clear that the GOP-led House has no intention of addressing climate change. Without debate, they tabled HB 1506, HB 1601, HB 1621, and HB 1419. These bills contained investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency, rebates, and an advisory commission for a civilian climate corps. Last year wasn’t any better when attempts to create a climate action plan for NH failed.

Climate change is here: unusually warm days the past few months have hurt our winter sports economy and flooding on the Seacoast has increased in severity. Meanwhile, the NH House won’t even vote to make a PLAN to address climate change. HB 1419 in particular would have created an advisory commission to direct future federal dollars for a Civilian Climate Corps (CCC). The CCC (currently being debated in Congress) would fund a jobs program to put people to work doing things like building renewable energy, improving our roads and bridges, cleaning up pollution sites, and building climate-resilient infrastructure in communities facing the impacts of sea-level rise. HB 1419 would set us up to be able to receive this critical funding and implement the CCC in NH.

Tabling all of these critical bills to address the climate crisis is a terrible failure of Governor Sununu and his party. Failing to address climate change now is going to cost NH more time, money, energy, and lives down the line. We should all keep this in mind when we vote this November.

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