HB 639 puts New Hampshire ratepayers at risk
New Hampshire residents are already struggling with some of the highest electricity rates in the country. Over the past few years, residential electric bills have climbed sharply, driven by rising supply costs and higher fixed utility charges. Voters know it — frustration over electric bills is widespread and well-documented across the state. Against this backdrop, HB 639 is reckless.
The bill would prohibit state and local governments from regulating cryptocurrency mining and related digital-asset operations. These facilities are among the most energy-intensive industrial uses in existence. When large, always-on electric loads enter a constrained grid like New England’s, they don’t magically absorb the costs themselves — they push them onto everyone else.
Research from other regions hosting large crypto-mining operations shows the same pattern: higher wholesale electricity prices, grid stress, and infrastructure upgrades that are ultimately passed on to residential ratepayers. HB 639 would strip regulators and towns of the ability to manage those impacts or ensure that miners pay the true cost of the power they consume. This isn’t about innovation or free markets. It’s about cost shifting.
At a time when rising utility bills already stretch Granite Staters, HB 639 would lock in a system where households subsidize energy-hungry industries they never approved and cannot regulate. It’s time to take a pause and study the issue before committing our electrical resources.
The Senate Commerce Committee was right to recommend an Interim Study. Rather than rushing a bill with serious cost and reliability risks, the full Senate on Jan. 7 should vote to accept the committee’s recommendation and place HB 639 into Interim Study so its impacts can be fully understood.