The New Hampshire Senate has approved House Bill 417, curtailing a governor’s power during an emergency. Under the bill, the governor still could declare a 30-day state of emergency, but any renewal of the order would require legislative approval. The Executive Council would have to approve any emergency expenditures and accept any federal money that becomes available, and the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee would have to approve any expenditures higher than $100,000.
The legislation came in reaction to Governor Chris Sununu’s declaration of a state of emergency during the pandemic. Sununu claimed to have the authority to accept and spend $1.25 billion in federal CARES Act money without seeking legislative or Executive Council approval. Based on legal advice, his office cited RSA 4:45, III(e), giving the governor authority “To perform and exercise such other functions, powers, and duties as are necessary to promote and secure the safety and protection of the civilian population.” When challenged on that point, the New Hampshire Supreme Court backed the governor’s interpretation of the law.
The Senate also approved, on a 14-10 vote, a bill backed by Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley (R-Wolfeboro) to prohibit the government from requiring a person to have a COVID-19 vaccination for employment, entering a building, or receiving services. Bradley said the bill reinforces a person’s right to determine what he or she puts into his or her body.
Also on a 14-10 vote, the Senate approved House Bill 542, which would declare religious institutions and facilities to be essential services during a state of emergency, allowing them to hold worship services — a reaction to Sununu’s stay-at-home order that prohibited churches from holding services during the pandemic. Supporters of the bill argued that, if Home Depots and state liquor stores are allowed to be open during a shutdown, churches also should be allowed to open.
Dartmouth Makes Financial Aid A Priority
Dartmouth College President Philip Hanlon announced an increase in efforts to ensure access to a liberal arts education for all students, regardless of their ability to pay, on May 14. Hanlon pledged to uphold the college’s need-blind admission practices for undergraduates and to meet the full financial need of all new and continuing students.
Hanlon’s plan includes a new goal to expand the family-income threshold for a full-tuition undergraduate scholarship to $125,000, with a renewed emphasis on annual giving, creation of a special scholarship bridge fund, and an increase in Dartmouth’s endowed scholarships.
Citing the economic hardships that many families faced during the pandemic, Hanlon said, “Families from all financial backgrounds are wondering whether they can attend— or return to — Dartmouth next year without additional scholarship support and we are committed to responding to that new and urgent need…. Here, students from across the globe and from every socioeconomic background leap into a crucible of ideas, values, cultures, and beliefs often entirely different from their own. The society we become tomorrow will be led by the students we educate today.”
During his address to the college community, Hanlon also announced the establishment of the Presidential Commission on Financial Aid to study the impact of the economic crisis on higher education.
Biden Backs Trump On Oil Exploration
President Joe Biden apparently doesn’t believe that everything his predecessor did was wrong. Just — maybe — how it was done.
Yesterday we noted that Biden has called for the United States intelligence community to determine the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, after prominent researchers began arguing that it would be unwise to simply dismiss the theory that COVID-19 was the result of an experiment at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. Rather than try to blame China and, by extension, Americans of Chinese descent, as Donald Trump did, Biden is looking to see if the pandemic was the result of a laboratory accident and, if so, what can be done to prevent such accidents in the future.
Now comes word that Biden has filed a brief in the U.S. District Court for Alaska that defends the Trump administration’s approval of a drilling project in the National Petroleum Reserve. ConocoPhillips is in charge of the project which it estimates could produce as much as 100,000 barrels of oil every day for the next 30 years.
Environmental groups say the proposal did not take into account the impact that drilling would have on polar bears and caribou in north Alaska, and on global warming in general. Biden has made efforts to address climate change a major focus of his presidency, but in this case, his administration has argued that the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department believe the application “complied with the environmental rules in place at the time” of the application.
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