Also on today’s menu:
Proposals For Spending Federal Money
New Standards For ‘Forever Chemicals’
Executive Councilor Ted Gatsas (R-Manchester) called the Public Utilities Commission’s 3-0 vote to increase electric rates for Liberty Utilities customers by more than 50 percent for the next six months “unacceptable” and said the commission was just “rubber-stamping” what the utility companies want.
Donald M. Kreis, the state’s consumer advocate, later said, “Councilor Gatsas is understandably upset, but there is no basis for the PUC to reject that rate hike.… It’s a pass-through” of expenses and does not mean the utility companies are making money on it.
Public Utilities Chairman Daniel C. Goldner announced the rate hike during the June 15 meeting of the Governor and Council. Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington (D-Concord) suggested that the state create its own program to help low-income consumers, similar to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that helps with home heating costs. Jared Chicoine, commissioner of the Department of Energy, noted that the state still has all of its LIHEAP funds from last year because the state was able to use American Rescue Plan Act money to help low-income consumers with their heating bills this past winter.
When Gatsas asked Governor Chris Sununu if they could open the parameters for LIHEAP heating, the governor answered, “I believe we follow the eligibility guidelines and we go to the max. … [W]e would have to set up our own state program and get a look at real numbers, how many people are eligible.”
Proposals For Spending Federal Money
The Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee will vote on Friday whether to use more than $60 million from the American Rescue Plan Act money to improve school security and refurbish county nursing homes.
The Department of Education plans to use $10.26 million to improve security at both public and private schools under the proposal from Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut.
The Governor’s Office for Emergency Relief and Recovery wants to spend $50 million on the County Nursing Home Infrastructure Program to mitigate and prevent future COVID-19 outbreaks, to enhance safety for residents and their families, and to assist with the costs of facility improvements, according to Taylor Caswell, GOFERR executive director. The counties would pay 60 percent of the costs for “shovel-ready projects” that address an identified need or are more pressing or life-threatening. The first round will be “competitive” but the second will be “noncompetitive” with a minimum grant of $1 million.
New Standards For ‘Forever Chemicals’
Responding to public pressure from scientists and others worried about the presence of the “forever chemicals” per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water, the Environmental Protection Agency on June 15 issued new, nonbinding health advisories setting the health risk thresholds for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) at near zero. Previous guidelines had allowed concentrations of the chemicals as high as 70 parts per trillion.
Studies have indicated that the two nonstick and stain-resistant compounds pose health risks even at levels so low they cannot currently be detected. PFOA and PFOS have been voluntarily phased out by U.S. manufacturers, but the chemicals that have been used in consumer products and industry since the 1940s remain in the environment because they do not degrade over time. PFAS are still found in nonstick frying pans, water-repellent sports gear, stain-resistant rugs, cosmetics, cardboard packaging, and firefighting foam.
In New Hampshire, the grassroots environmental group Working on Waste has taken the Department of Environmental Services to task for not adequately addressing the dangers of toxic substances. Katie Lajoie and John Tuthill say the DES response to their concerns demonstrates “a troubling situation that ignores four salient features of these pollutants — persistence, resistance to degradation, wide dispersion, and bioaccumulation.”
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