Governor Chris Sununu has vetoed a plan to replace all state cars and trucks with zero-emissions vehicles within about a decade.
The bill would have required the state to stop buying new conventional vehicles by 2026.
State agencies would have had to replace their existing fleets with carbon-free technologies by the year 2041.
It would have cost an estimated $28 million, not including the cost of new charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Sununu cited those costs as a primary reason for vetoing the bill.
It passed the legislature on roughly party lines, and did not earn enough votes to guarantee that legislators could override the veto.
The transportation sector is New Hampshire’s top source of the carbon emissions that drive climate change.