Also on today’s menu:
Hounsell Joins Those Questioning Merner Resignation
Hassan Breaks With Democratic Colleagues On Israel
Judge To Trump: Answer The Question
Meredith Hatfield, associate director for policy and government relations at the Nature Conservancy of New Hampshire, is among the climate and clean energy advocates who worry that defining nuclear power as clean energy could harm initiatives to promote solar and wind power in the state. “It’s just another way to reduce support for solar,” Hatfield said.
Representative Michael Vose, chair of the House Science, Technology, and Energy Committee, is drafting a bill to allow nuclear power generators such as Seabrook Station to receive payments for contributing clean energy to the grid. “The broad idea is that, long-term, we can hope and expect that that reliable source of baseload power will always be there,” Vose said. “It won’t be driven out of business by subsidized renewable power.” He explained, “Until we can have affordable, scalable battery storage, the intermittency of renewables is going to guarantee that renewables are unreliable, and if we add too many renewables to our grid, it makes the whole grid unreliable.”
Grid experts, however, say variable renewables may require different planning and system design but they are not inherently less reliable than fossil fuel generation.
Seabrook Station has a capacity of more than 1,250 megawatts, while the largest solar development in the state has a capacity of 3.3 megawatts. That means that, if a clean energy standard allows both nuclear and renewables to qualify for clean energy certificates, the price would plummet, and fewer solar developments could attract investors or turn a profit, advocates say.
“The intention of the [renewable portfolio standard] has always been about creating fuel diversity by getting new generation built, and a proposal like that would do the opposite,” said Sam Evans-Brown, executive director of nonprofit Clean Energy New Hampshire.
Hounsell Joins Those Questioning Merner Resignation
Mark Hounsell of Conway, a former member of the Newfound Area School Board who served as a Republican state senator from 1985 to 1988, as a Conway selectman, on the Conway School Board and the Conway Library Board of Trustees, and currently serves on the Conway Planning Board, has joined former Democratic state senator Peter Hoe Burling in calling for the public release of details concerning Republican Representative Troy Merner’s resignation which came after a criminal investigation by the Attorney-General’s Office. The AG found that Merner had not been living in Lancaster or anywhere in the district he was supposed to be serving.
“My question on this is, Why the Speaker [Sherman Packard] ‘urged [Merner] to resign’ from a position he had NO legitimate claims to?” Hounsell said in an email to InDepthNH.org. Hounsell said it was not simply a mistake by a legitimate member of the House. “Rather, it was a criminal act that violated the NH Constitution by an individual who knew better and violated his oath to ‘bear faith and true allegiance to the United States of America and the State of New Hampshire and will support the Constitution thereof. So help me God.’ How does one resign from an office that they never legally held?”
In his letter of resignation, Merner made no reference to his reason for leaving office.
Packard insisted he did not know about Merner’s illegal residential status until the AG’s Sept. 18 letter. “Pursuant to Part II Article 22 of the State Constitution, the House would have been charged with determining Merner’s qualifications. Rather than be removed by a vote of the House, Merner chose to remove himself,” Packard explained in a statement.
Burling’s two right-to know requests to Packard and Attorney-General John Formella were denied. The Attorney General’s Office cited its continuing criminal investigation into Merner regarding alleged wrongful voting and legislative mileage reimbursements.
Hounsell and Burling suspect that House Republicans who knew Merner was illegally sitting in the House had told him not to worry because they needed his vote. House Democratic Leader Matt Wilhelm of Manchester told InDepthNH.org last month, “Representative Merner’s illegal vote likely affected the outcome of many motions that were decided by zero- or one-vote margins and, on one bill, HB 626, his vote directly caused the bill to be killed.” HB 626 would have placed the school voucher program under the administration of the New Hampshire Department of Education.
Hassan Breaks With Democratic Colleagues On Israel
US Senator Jeanne Shaheen and a dozen other Democratic senators, including Massachusetts’ Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, Vermont’s Peter Welch, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, signed onto a statement calling for a “short-term cessation” of fighting in Gaza to allow for humanitarian aid to get through.
New Hampshire’s other senator, Maggie Hassan, did not agree, saying that, although she also wants more humanitarian aid to flow to Gaza, “Israel has a right to defend itself. Israel has a right to negotiate to get hostages back. I will continue to push for more humanitarian aid, but also for Hamas to release hostages and take other measures to help bring security and safety to the people of Israel.”
The senators were united in calling the Hamas attack on Israel “horrific” while saying that most Palestinian residents of Gaza “have often been victimized by Hamas.”
The statement in support of a pause in fighting asserted, “Based on the consensus opinion of US and international aid officials, it is nearly impossible to deliver sufficient humanitarian aid to protect civilian life in current conditions. … Thus we join President Biden in his call for a short-term cessation of hostility that pose [sic] high risk to civilians.”
Judge To Trump: Answer The Question
“I’m not a windmill person,” Donald Trump said in response to questions about his golf course in Scotland that came up during his civil fraud trial in New York. When Kevin Wallace of the Attorney-General’s Office asked about his brand’s valuation, Trump bragged, “I became president because of my brand.”
Throughout his testimony on November 6, the former president avoided direct answers to many of the questions, complaining that the prosecutors “were coming after me from 15 sides”. The Attorney-General’s Office has accused Trump, along with his top employees and his companies, of fraudulently inflating the value of their assets on statements of financial condition and on balance sheets in order to get more favorable terms on loans.
Trump boasted that his assets were worth far more than the numbers on paper, while asserting that the banks he allegedly defrauded had been paid back in full.
In an exchange with Judge Arthur Engoron, Trump said, “I’m sure the judge will rule against me because he always rules against me,” to which Ergonon said, “You can attack me, you can do whatever you want, but answer the question.”
The News Café is among the publications that are “Reader Supported” — a revolutionary approach to publishing in response to the struggle of traditional news and magazine publishers, as well as unreliable social media. Many writers were at a loss as to how to reach their readers as their jobs and publications were eliminated. With the exception of the period of the pandemic, people read less and purchase fewer books.
Substack is a platform that aims to put readers and writers into a direct relationship that is not dependent on algorithms, advertisements, and profits. In traditional publishing, the money you pay a publisher is divided between executives and shareholders, distribution outlets like Amazon and other booksellers, editors, designers, agents, marketing and sales staff, and the cost of production. When you put down $25 for a hardcover book, the author receives between $2.50 and $4. If a successful book sells about 10,000 copies, the author may receive $25,000 for something he or she has spent years writing. Most of the authors you love are not rich. If they are lucky, they are a middle-class bunch, like artists, teachers, and preachers.
With Substack publications, instead of paying a corporation, you directly support the writers you like, who receive about 85 percent of the subscription revenue. For your $50 annual fee, the author gets about $42.50.
Since losing my full-time job during the pandemic, I’ve been a freelancer without a regular salary. Through Substack, I’ve been able to supplement the freelance work and continue my craft while thinking about upcoming projects.
That is why your support through paid subscriptions to the News Café and By The Way are so important. Although News Café posts are available to all subscribers at no charge, I appreciate the financial support for the time and resources it takes to do this work. Please consider “upsubscribing” to a paid subscription.
Either way, thank you for being here.
Also see our other Substack news site, By The Way.