New Hampshire is set to receive $3 million to revise its climate change mitigation plan, which was first created in 2009 and hasn’t been updated since.
The money comes from President Biden’s major climate spending legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act. If New Hampshire completes a primary climate plan by March, state officials can apply for additional funding – out of $4.6 billion available nationally – to implement policies and programs included in the plan.
Mike Fitzgerald from New Hampshire’s Department of Environmental Services, which applied for the funding through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, says the heat, flooding, wildfire smoke, and other natural disasters in the country this summer have highlighted the need to plan for climate change.
“Everybody is seeing the impacts now," he said. "This year has been extremely significant. And it just sort of highly emphasized the need for addressing this issue."
The next step for updating the state’s climate plan is for Gov. Chris Sununu and the Executive Council to approve a contract with the University of New Hampshire, which is going to help state regulators do outreach about the plan.
The Department of Environmental Services also expects to hire three new employees to help with the creation of the plan, and expects to do extensive stakeholder engagement throughout the process.
Fitzgerald called the timeline “extremely compressed,” but, he said, it’s important to get the plan finished by March so the state can have access to the pot of money the Biden administration has made available for climate change projects.
“They're putting their money where their mouth is,” he said. “But in order to access that, we have to get our plan in place.”
While the climate action plan due in March, referred to as the “priority climate action plan,” is the key to that funding, states are also expected to submit a “comprehensive climate action plan” in 2025.
The priority plan can focus on a particular sector, and should include “near-term, high-priority, implementation ready measures,” according to the EPA’s guidance. It is expected to include a greenhouse gas emissions inventory, measures that could reduce emissions, and an analysis of benefits to low-income and disadvantaged communities.
Fitzgerald said the state’s 2009 plan didn’t address environmental justice, and developing a plan around that would be part of the forthcoming process.
The plan must also include a review of the state’s authority to implement measures in the plan.
“At some point the legislature will need to weigh in and determine what authorities they think would be necessary to implement this plan,” Fitzgerald said. “Then it would be up to the legislature to decide whether or not to grant that authority.”
The comprehensive plan, due in 2025, is expected to include greenhouse gas reduction targets, in addition to strategies to achieve those goals. Those plans will also include benefits analyses for low-income and disadvantaged communities, as well as for the full population covered by the plan.
In a statement, the EPA said it will not require greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets to be met in a particular way.
“The grant guidance provides states with flexibility in determining the collection of specific measures and programs they intend to deploy to reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions and meet the near term and long-term targets they establish,” a spokesperson said. “Each state has a unique mix of sources and sectors contributing to climate pollution, and it is expected that each state will have a unique set of strategies for meeting their targets.”
New Hampshire has been slower than its neighbors to address climate change, and is the only New England state without a statutory greenhouse gas reduction goal. For at least the past four years, lawmakers have put forward bills to establish greenhouse gas reductions goals and establish a climate action plan, but each of those efforts has been shot down.
Rep. Kat McGhee, a Democrat on the House Science, Technology and Energy committee, said the federal money could mark a turning point.
“It's well overdue,” said McGhee, who also served on a 2020 emissions commission. “I'm glad that it's here, because the sort of impetus hasn't been coming from within the state. So having an incentive to finally make this real and get back on track I think is a good thing.”
