Also on today’s menu:
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Court Sides With State On Electric Subsidies
The Week In Review
Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen defended New Hampshire’s First-In-The-Nation Primary before her colleagues at a Zoom meeting with the National Democratic Committee, saying the party may pay a price at the polls if the national party does not preserve that tradition. Pointing out that the Republican Party plans to keep its presidential selection calendar unchanged, Shaheen said Democrats could be blamed for jeopardizing New Hampshire’s status.
DNC members questioned Shaheen and other New Hampshire Democrats about the potential impact of the new voting restrictions passed by state Republicans and a changing of the guard at the Secretary of State’s office, also asking what party leaders are doing to communicate with the state’s growing Latino population.
NPR reported that Maria Cardona, a DNC member from Washington, D.C., expressed the belief that putting states with greater diversity ahead of New Hampshire would not harm the party’s chances as much as Shaheen was suggesting.
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Court Sides With State On Electric Subsidies
A federal appeals court has agreed with the state of New Hampshire and other petitioners who took issue with a provision of the Inventoried Energy Program, meant to improve the reliability of the electric grid during the winter, that would pay electricity generators extra money to keep three days’ worth of fuel on hand.
The challengers pointed out that electric power generators using coal, nuclear, biomass, and hydropower already keep three days’ worth of fuel on site. ISO-New England would be paying those generators an extra $40 million a year for doing what they already do, the petitioners argued.
ISO-New England, the organization in charge of keeping the region’s electric supply stable, established the Inventoried Energy Program as part of its efforts to ensure long-term reliability while moving away from fossil fuels that contribute to climate change.
The Week In Review
This week saw another police shooting in Manchester where a man involved in domestic violence refused to surrender to police, leading to an hour-and-a-half standoff which ended when six officers, including two State Police troopers, discharged their weapons, killing him. The man, Adnan Husejnovic, had been arrested in a similar situation a year ago. At that time, he also remained in his car when police responded to a complaint of him breaking the side mirror on his wife’s car. Although police arrested him, the charges were dropped when his wife did not show up in court.
Christopher Butler, 36, of South Berwick, Maine, was arrested on felony charges after allegedly threatening a New Hampshire judge whose decision Butler did not support.
We reported our escape to the North Country where, instead of seeing heavy traffic and bad behavior, we enjoyed peace and quiet and observations of ducklings, loons, herons, and bullfrogs.
And we reported on Governor Chris Sununu’s plan to grant $100 credits to electric ratepayers in the wake of huge rate increases approved or pending with the Public Utilities Commission.
The big national news was the two hearings this week on former president Donald Trump’s efforts to hold onto power by spreading lies about the integrity of the 2020 election and bullying election officials and the Department of Justice in hopes of getting them to agree that the election was stolen so he could have supporters submit alternate slates of electors to overturn the election results in his favor.
Perhaps there will be better news to report next week.
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