Climate Action Plan a Start, but Doesn't Go Far Enough

MANCHESTER, NH - Today Clean Water Action offered cautious praise for the completion of over a year's worth of work by Governor Lynch's Climate Change Task Force, which was charged with preparing a comprehensive climate change plan for the Granite State. The Climate Action Plan's intent was to set New Hampshire targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, man-made pollutants which have been shown to contribute to global warming.

Over the last year, Clean Water Action members have sent dozens of letters to the Governor in support of a strong Climate Action Plan that will also address carbon emissions from stationary sources, including the Merrimack Power Plant Station in Bow.

While the details of the Climate Action Plan have not been fully released, Clean Water Action has been working with other NH organizations to ensure that the Plan would include strong, specific regulatory and policy actions that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"By supporting clean cars, higher building code and energy efficiency standards and increased renewable energy development in a statewide plan, New Hampshire can begin to make real progress toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions," said Elise Annunziata, Clean Water Action's National Deputy Political Director, based in Manchester. "However, we are concerned that the Plan does not go far enough in reducing carbon emissions from the state's old, coal-fired power plants," Annunziata continued.

The Merrimack Station coal burning plant is the state's largest single source of carbon emissions and global warming pollution: 3.7 million tons annually which is about 20% of all carbon emitted in New Hampshire.

While PSNH is planning to go forward with the installation of scrubber technology on the coal-fired power plant in Bow, Clean Water Action joined other environmental and business groups calling on the PUC to undertake a cost-benefit analysis first, to ensure that, in 2009, this technology is in the best interest of the ratepayers and New Hampshire citizens.

"The Governor, the PUC and the NH legislature could go much farther by tackling, head on, the largest sources of carbon emissions in our state," Annunziata said. "We all need to demand a careful and thoughtful review of the costs and benefits of installing a scrubbing at Merrimack Station, which does nothing to address greenhouse gas pollution in New Hampshire," she continued.