The guest opinion in Monday’s Monitor, “Biomass bill is a bad deal for New Hampshire,” by lobbyist Marc Brown and state Rep. Michael Harrington, certainly caught my attention, as it did for thousands of other forestland owners, loggers, truckers, sawmill operators and foresters throughout New Hampshire. As a New Hampshire tree farmer who has managed timberland and who has been affiliated with the forest products industry for more than 56 years, I must respond to several points in the column. The full economic story needs to be told.
For example, Brown and Harrington failed to mention that the heart of the debate over Senate Bill 129 involves two key issues: economic activity/jobs and managing our forests. Brown and Harrington refer to the supporters of SB 129 as “special interest groups,” but in fact, the market for low-grade timber (i.e. wood chips) created by our state’s biomass power plants is a critical foundation supporting our state’s entire timber economy, and those markets are vital for maintaining the health of our forests. Biomass is not just about energy, it is also about natural resource management.
Hardly a special interest group, the forest products industry is the third-largest manufacturing sector in New Hampshire, producing $1.4 billion in economic activity every year, according to the North East State Foresters Association. Our forests and the communities within them define New Hampshire. In fact, we live in the second most heavily forested state in the nation. Forests are our most valuable, most important natural resource – by far.
These forests also support the state’s largest industry – tourism. Most of the state’s forested acres are open to hiking, hunting, fishing and snowmobiling. People come to New Hampshire to recreate in our forests, and they spend a lot of money. A great example is snowmobiling (a $584 million a year industry) where New Hampshire has 7,000 miles of snowmobile trails with more than 70 percent of them on private forestland – land that is open because private landowners can afford to conduct timber harvests and manage it for forest products.
Viable markets for low-grade timber make all this possible, and those markets are what biomass energy plants provide.
A viable low-grade timber market allows me to thin my timberland of low-value trees so that lumber-quality trees have room to mature. If I can’t thin my forest, it will stagnate, lose vigor and ultimately lose value and be more apt to become something else (i.e. developed). Not only do viable low-grade timber markets make good sense economically, but environmentally as well, as all our timber is renewable. In fact, New Hampshire’s forests continue to grow faster than we harvest. To me, this is the very definition of sustainability.
Brown and Harrington call biomass power plants “old dinosaurs,” but the facts show otherwise. These plants have invested millions of dollars in state-of-the-art pollution control equipment and operational improvements so they can qualify as renewable under state law. That investment means their air emissions are lower than air emissions ordinarily allowed by law.
Brown and Harrington also bring up subsidies. They fail to mention that the entire energy industry, not just renewables, is highly regulated and financially benefits from government policies from top to bottom – i.e. federal nuclear waste disposal sites, federal and state construction of hydroelectric dams, government-subsidized off-shore drilling contracts, tax credits for coal and gas exploration, etc. The fact is, no power utility in the United States operates in a free market.
And let’s not forget that Gov. Chris Sununu and the state House and Senate leadership announced an agreement to repeal the electricity consumption tax (approximately $60 million over 10 years), which in the long-term will far exceed any estimated electricity increase attributable to SB 129 (which Brown and Harrington grossly misstate). But SB 129 is one energy policy where the state of New Hampshire actually gets more back than the policy costs. According to an economic analysis conducted by Plymouth State University in March of this year, SB 129 supports more than 900 jobs and $250 million in annual economic activity.
SB 129 is the most important piece of natural resource legislation to land on the governor’s desk this year. It is well-written, bipartisan legislation at the intersection of natural resource management and electric utility regulation, and it encourages the best of both. On behalf of the state’s forestland owners, loggers, truckers, foresters and sawmill operators who make their living in our forests and mills, and the thousands of individuals who benefit from our tradition of open recreation on private land, I urge Gov. Sununu to allow SB 129 become law.
Please call the governor at 271-2121 and ask that SB 129 be allowed into law.
(Tom Thomson of Thomson Family Tree Farm lives in Orford.)