The Honorable David Borden, Chairman
House Science, Technology, and Energy Committee
Legislative Office Building, Room 304
Concord, NH 03301
Re: Senate Bill 245
Dear Chairman Borden and Members of the Committee:
Our organizations support Senate Bill 245. The bill provides
meaningful reform of the state body that reviews proposals for new and modified
energy facilities, the New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee (SEC), and will
help ensure that the SEC has the composition, authority, and resources to do
its work and promote the public’s interest in an efficient but rigorous
permitting process. As the region’s energy market undergoes a period of rapid
transition and the number and complexity of energy proposals are increasing, a
strong SEC is essential for New Hampshire to manage that transition, provide
greater clarity to developers, address legitimate community concerns, and
protect the state’s treasured environment and natural resources.
The bill has a strong foundation in prior legislative
efforts and the Senate Bill 99 stakeholder process that took place during the
Fall of 2013. That process confirmed that many stakeholders shared the view
that the status quo was unacceptable and that significant changes to the SEC
were necessary. The final Senate Bill 99 report identified reforms with broad
support, including making the SEC process more efficient and less cumbersome,
increasing opportunities for public and community engagement before and during
the process, and strengthening the SEC’s authority to ensure that proposed
projects benefit the public. Senate Bill 245, as passed by the Senate, includes
statutory changes that will help achieve these objectives.
Our organizations played a significant role in working with
Senators and other stakeholders to craft the bill before you. As with all major
legislation reflecting consensus among diverse parties, the specific
legislative language reflects a great deal of compromise on the part of all
participants in the discussion, including our organizations. That said, the
bill as passed by the Senate provides a reasonable and moderate set of reforms
to the SEC’s process and standards:
- The bill reduces the size
of SEC from 15 to 9 members, including 7 state agency officials and two
public members-at-large appointed by the Governor. This change in
membership and the bill’s authorizations for state agency members to
delegate their duties to senior agency staff will allow for more orderly
and timely consideration of energy proposals, while retaining state agency
expertise on the SEC and adding the fresh, independent perspectives of two
citizen members.
- The bill strengthens
public participation by requiring project information sessions in host
communities—both before and after a formal application for a project is
submitted. This change will improve the public’s ability to provide
meaningful comments on an application and should help developers
understand and address any community concerns about a project early in the
process.
- The bill provides initial
funding for a professional staff and calls for a permanent funding plan to
be developed and implemented during the next biennium, including
development of a reasonable application fee. We strongly believe that the
state gets what it pays for; for the SEC to function effectively and
professionally, it needs the support of a dedicated staff and sufficient financial
resources to do its work.
- Under the bill, all
projects must be found to “serve the public interest.” This is a crucial
reform to ensure that the SEC looks rigorously at any public benefits of a
project in the context of any adverse impacts on the state’s resources.
Ultimately, the bill is designed to improve the SEC process
for project applicants and for New Hampshire citizens. It makes fulfilling the
public interest the paramount priority of the energy facility siting process.
It makes the project review process more user friendly for the public. It
reduces the burden on state agency heads. It provides financial resources for
the SEC to conduct its work. And it retains the process’s essential features:
efficient one-stop shopping and a fair and rigorous adjudicative process.
We understand that this Committee will likely consider
certain amendments to the bill, especially with respect to the provisions
regarding funding. As Senator Bradley indicated during his presentation on
April 1, funding is a subject on which total consensus and workable details
were elusive within the timeframe of Senate discussions. Our organizations
favor adding a provision to the bill that establishes the SEC’s authority to
recover state agency costs—including the value of the considerable time that
agency members of the SEC spend reviewing applications and participating in
hearings—from developers, at least during the interim period before a permanent
funding plan and application fee is implemented. Our organizations also favor
adding a requirement that the funding plan consider the potential for a state
appropriation that could cover certain SEC costs, such as overhead and policy
development, that may not be appropriate costs to recover through an
application fee. There are also several technical improvements and corrections
that could be made during the upcoming subcommittee review of the bill, and we
would be happy to work with Committee members on such changes.
As energy markets change and mature, and as the market-based
development of energy generation and transmission facilities provide the
opportunity to meet our energy needs with innovative and cleaner resources, the
process by which New Hampshire makes the critical decisions about the siting of
such facilities must also change with the times. Public trust and confidence in
the SEC and its decisions will be well served by adopting Senate Bill 245. Our
organizations urge the Committee to recommend passage by the House.
Sincerely,
Will Abbott, Society for the Protection of NH Forests
wabbott@forestsociety.org,
224-9945, Ext 327
Susan Arnold, Appalachian Mountain Club
sarnold@outdoors.org, 664-2050
Christophe Courchesne, Conservation Law Foundation
ccourchesne@clf.org, 225-3060, Ext 3017
Jim O’Brien, The Nature Conservancy
jim_obrien@tnc.org, 224-5853, Ext 28
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