Where Is Governor Sununu?

09/28/2024

Merrimack lawmakers, activists press to override Sununu veto of PFAS bill
By Kevin Landrigan 9/28/2024

Merrimack Democratic legislators and local activists urged the Legislature next month to reject Gov. Chris Sununu’s veto and adopt a tougher limit (HB 1415) on so-called “forever chemicals” in groundwater or surface water.

Laurene Allen, the founder of Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water, accused outgoing Republican Gov. Sununu of siding with corporate polluters in rejecting bipartisan legislation that would hold property owners accountable for Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance (PFAS) contamination over 100 parts per trillion.

Sununu instead signed competing legislation (HB 1649) that set a much higher allowable limit of 10,000 parts per trillion that also exempted public drinking water and water treatment plants from having to even meet the higher limit.

“The governor has vetoed every bill that ties exposure to an outcome; that’s important to remember,” Allen said during a news conference in Weston Park that runs along the Souhegan River in town.

In his veto message last month, Sununu also objected to what he called a “broad definition” of PFAS facilities to meet these standards as it could include fire stations and other municipal buildings.

“The requirements under this bill would be inappropriate and unnecessarily burdensome to those entities,” Sununu wrote.

The Business and Industry Association had written Sununu about the conflict in PFAS limits between the two bills.

BIA President and CEO Michael Skelton had warned in his June 11 letter that the state would likely end up in court if Sununu signed them both.

“These conflicts in language have already begun to cause legal and regulatory confusion for the business community and, if they become law, will likely lead to legal challenges to resolve the discrepancy,” Skelton wrote.

The four-term governor said he’s helped keep New Hampshire on the forefront of states fighting to protect the public health from PFAS contamination.

Rep. Nancy Murphy, D-Merrimack, the vetoed bill’s prime sponsor, said she will propose similar legislation for the 2025 session that would revert back to the existing definition of PFAS facility while retaining the tougher standard.

“We need to make sure these businesses are adhering to federal limits,” Murphy said.

With this general election less than six weeks away, House and Senate GOP leaders have made no public statements critical of any of the 10 bills Sununu vetoed from the 2024 session.

Lawmakers return Oct. 10 to take up those vetoes.

Rep. Karen Ebel, D-Newbury, said her bill (HB 1649) with the lower PFAS limit that Sununu signed, starting in Jan. 1, 2027, will ban the sale of “intentionally added PFAS” in consumer products such as for items for children, carpets, cosmetics, food packaging and upholstered furniture.

The state DES would get $250,000 in this bill to enforce this future ban.

“It is time to turn off the PFAS spigot,” Ebel said.

At the Merrimack event, House Democrats celebrated other PFAS bills that became law this year.

One will require the notice of PFAS contamination prior to the sale of real estate (HB 398) and another extends for three more years a commission created to investigate public health impacts ion Merrimack, Bedford, Londonderry, Hudson and Litchfield believed linked to PFAS contamination at the former Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Plant in Merrimack (HB 1114).

Rep. Wendy Thomas, D-Merrimack, authored the real estate mandate as a cancer survivor whose family has been on bottled water for nearly five years while they wait for town lines to be extended to her neighborhood.

Allen said legislators and advocates need to continue to pressure DES and the next governor to compel Saint-Gobain officials to pay for cleanup costs that their contamination caused to these communities.

For her part, Allen maintained Gov. Sununu and GOP legislators have not done enough.

“No one is pushing back. There is a difference between the candidates with one side (Democrats) having a hands-off, anti-regulation approach and the other trying to hold polluters accountable for their actions,” Allen said.

https://www.unionleader.com/news/environment/merrimack-lawmakers-activists-press-to-override-sununu-veto-of-pfas-bill/article_a2153bdc-7cfe-11ef-a82b-275e7abc183e.html

09/15/2024

Nice mapping of election results for the September 10, 2024 NH Gubernatorial Primary...no wonder the North Country is an afterthought, except when the powerbrokers want to go on vacation!

NHPR Election Results: https://www.nhpr.org/electionresults

09/13/2024

Adam Finkel: Sununu era of waste policy is ending
9/12/2024 Union-Leader NH Voices

THE unusually acrimonious 2024 gubernatorial campaign in New Hampshire at least gives us all one “feel-good” takeaway that we should stop and savor now that the parties have chosen their nominees. While the four main gubernatorial candidates clashed about whether Planned Parenthood is a curse or a blessing, or whether we should repel “aliens” walking south from Canada, they all clearly agreed on one critical statewide environmental issue.

In interviews with WMUR’s Adam Sexton, and in a series of articles in the NH Bulletin, candidates Kelly Ayotte, Joyce Craig, Chuck Morse, and Cinde Warmington all unequivocally vowed to oppose the proposed “Granite State Landfill” in Dalton/Bethlehem if elected.

I’ve been following New Hampshire politics since the 1980s, and I’ve rarely seen such bipartisan distaste for a waste disposal project. All four candidates realize that because New Hampshire has ample landfill capacity for at least the next 30 years to bury all the in-state waste we generate, it is sheer folly to build what amounts to a giant magnet for out-of-state trash, especially locating one so far north in our state, 150 or more miles from the exporting areas.

It’s also clear that the Vermont company (Casella Waste Systems) behind this scheme has managed to find one of the geologically worst tracts of land in the state, in a super-porous sand/gravel mine, far too close to a pristine lake and the wild Ammonoosuc River.

The four candidates also (especially in a series of ads from candidate Warmington) emphasized that we shouldn’t welcome a new “circle of poison” in which every ton of trash we bring north yields up to a ton of leachate that must be trucked south to wastewater plants in and near Concord. The PFAS “forever chemicals” in this leachate are diluted, but they are not removed, and are discharged back into our Merrimack River.

Casella responded to the unanimous thumbs-down by saying that the candidates needed to “fully understand” that in exchange for this ruinous landfill up north, the company might deign to build a “state-of-the-art recycling center,” perhaps in Manchester. This, of course, is a profit center this company (or any company) could seek to build at any time, without the quid pro quo.

One way or the other, the Sununu era is ending, and these candidates all deserve kudos for so clearly setting an opposite course from his in their campaigns, with respect to our imported-trash problem. Our state is fortunate to have had four very different candidates who already “fully understand” the ploy, who exhibited independence from a special interest, and who are willing to consider ending once and for all our state’s unenviable position as the dumping ground for all of New England.

Adam M. Finkel is a clinical professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. He lives in Dalton.

https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/op-eds/adam-finkel-sununu-era-of-waste-policy-is-ending/article_dfc0390e-6eb3-11ef-b8ca-93076f2b4f4d.html

04/16/2024

"We need to treat PFAS as the health crisis that it is"-Cinde Warmington

https://youtu.be/A_aYaPuAdns?si=MlmYyztX6g58vei8&t=51

Cinde Warmington said she wants to get New Hampshire to net-zero emissions in 15 years.Subscribe to WMUR on YouTube now for more: http://bit.ly/1lOjX9CGet mo...

03/16/2023

As if we needed yet another example of why NH Governor Chris Sununu is unfit to be the next President of the USA. How can you put a price on the health and safety of the public you represent, especially when it comes to something that should know no political boundary, WATER!

Loved seeing a few of our fierce on WMUR, made my evening! State Rep. Nancy Murphy and NH Sierra Club Director Catherine Corkery have been such great role models, supporters, and friends throughout our fight to (along with so many others).

https://www.wmur.com/article/pfas-limits-epa-new-hampshire-31523/43329510

New proposed PFAS limits applauded by activists, but NH governor skeptical
EPA calls for cutting standard to 4 parts per trillion
CONCORD, N.H. —March 15, 2023

As the White House moves forward with new proposed drinking water standards for harmful contaminants, activists and environmental groups are applauding, but Gov. Chris Sununu is raising concerns.

Seven years ago this month, Merrimack became aware of perfluorochemical pollution in its drinking water, and it has been dealing with the issue ever since.

Local "water warriors," as they call themselves, such as Nancy Murphy, who is now a state representative and town councilor, are welcoming Tuesday's announcement from the Environmental Protection Agency of a proposed federal drinking water standard of 4 parts per trillion for PFAS contamination.

"It's only a step, but it's an important one," Murphy, D-Merrimack, said. "We've gone from 70 parts per trillion down to 4 based on health, so we're sort of the canary in the coal mine. We've been saying that this is a problem that exists and is being recognized by the EPA."

New Hampshire already developed its own drinking water standards for four PFAS chemicals ranging from 12 to 18 parts per trillion. Those levels would have to become more stringent if the EPA proposal is affirmed as the standard.

"They're just starting a process," Robert Scott, commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, said. "We look forward to going through that and understanding – their number's a little bit lower than ours – but we look forward to trying to understand how they get to where they are."

Environmental groups said there's a reason why scientists keep reducing the amount of PFAS they believe is acceptable in drinking water.

Sununu said he's skeptical, saying the EPA is setting the bar too high.

"Maybe they look good on paper, but they're unreasonable. They're unattainable in many ways," he said. "There's a question not just of the science behind it but the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars it would take to even try to attain the levels they're pushing."

As the White House moves forward with new proposed drinking water standards for harmful contaminants, activists and environmental groups are applauding, but Gov. Chris Sununu is raising concerns.

02/02/2023

Well we certainly found Governor Sununu in 2022...and our AWOL Governor confirmed what many suspected, that he is in the bag for Casella and its dangerous landfill project next to Forest Lake. How on earth can this guy be trusted to be President of the United States?

09/15/2022

TODAY is the day. Rally at the Capitol, 10:45AM, House convenes at 1PM, bills are then bills will be taken up in numerical order (1454 will be #6 of 8, unless "special ordered". Let's hope and pray that the veto override of HB1454 passes with a 2/3 majority, and then it would proceed over to the Senate for the same. Join us, wear blue, and say a prayer for success today. Thank you!

"The special session, known as “veto day,” is traditionally held in September every year. This year’s session carries more significance than usual: Lawmakers are planning to pass last-minute legislation to distribute $100 fuel assistance payments to New Hampshire residents, a $60 million state-funded proposal put forward by Gov. Chris Sununu in June.

The timing of the veto day means that some senators and representatives could participate despite losing their primaries two days before.

Sununu vetoed seven House bills and one Senate bill this year, including two redistricting bills, House Bill 52 and Senate Bill 200, to redraw the lines around the state’s two congressional seats. House and Senate Republicans attempted to rearrange the districts to make one lean heavily toward Republican voters and another lean heavily toward Democratic voters; Sununu rejected that approach, arguing both should stay competitive. The New Hampshire Supreme Court has since redrawn the districts itself.

Among the other bills Sununu vetoed are House Bill 275, which would limit the governor’s powers over declaring a state of emergency; House Bill 319, which would require public college and university students to pass a civics test; House Bill 1022, which would permit pharmacists to distribute ivermectin using a standing order; House Bill 1131, which would override schools’ ability to pass mask mandates; House Bill 1454, which would require stricter measures to separate landfills from bodies of water; and House Bill 1625, which would repeal the “buffer zone” prohibition that prevents protesters from standing within a certain distance of reproductive health facilities.

In order for a veto to be overridden, the bill must return to the chamber it originated in and lawmakers in that chamber must vote to override the veto with a two-thirds majority. If the vote is less than two-thirds, the veto is sustained. If the veto is overridden by that chamber, it moves to the opposite chamber, which must also override the veto by two-thirds.

Veto overrides, which require bipartisan agreement that the governor’s decision was wrong, are not common. But advocates for the stricter landfill siting bill, HB 1454, say they may have a shot. That bill passed the Senate 16-8, a veto-proof majority, and passed the House on a voice vote."'
https://newhampshirebulletin.com/briefs/house-senate-veto-day-set-for-sept-15/

House Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSDVnKZc7K0

Senate Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0qKYRcNJII

New Hampshire lawmakers will return to the State House Sept. 15 to decide whether to override Gov. Chris Sununu’s eight vetoes – just two days after the state’s Sept. 13 primaries.

09/10/2022

Survey Question: What question do you most want to ask the candidates running for governor, U.S. Senate or Congress in New Hampshire? (I included candidates for NH State House/Senate)

My Answer: Where do you stand on the controversial landfill development next to Forest Lake State Park?

Survey Question: What's the biggest problem you want New Hampshire political candidates to focus on solving, if elected?

My Answer: Our out-of-state trash problem and the unneeded, unwanted Forest Lake landfill development

https://www.nhpr.org/politics/2022-09-08/new-hampshire-voters-issues-questions-for-candidates-2022-midterm-elections-governor-senator-congress?fbclid=IwAR2-FurfYvneD8LcbQqn0X0bHHnUcvxfJuDfBGbegiKypiW4_4XWFR7QXF4

What would you ask the candidates for New Hampshire governor, U.S. Senate or Congress? What issues do you most want them to focus on solving, if elected? Let us know, and we’ll use your input to shape our upcoming general election debates.