The hectic House session days are over for 2025 and Representatives have the time off between summer and fall to attend community events, grow our knowledge of issues and solutions, check in with constituents, and work on plans for the 2026 legislative year. Every year since I’ve been in the legislature, the Speaker’s office has tried to limit the number of bills that are filed during the bill filing period. The impetus is to limit the volume of work undertaken by our all-volunteer band of legislators. New Hampshire remains one of only four states (the others being North Dakota, Nebraska, and Massachusetts) where every bill receives a public hearing.
This year, the Speaker set a short bill filing period of just five days, from Sept 15-19. And during that time, the House filed 941 bills, to be divided up by subject matter area between 24 standing committees and two special committees on Rules and Housing.
I filed four LSR’s (Legislative Service Requests – which turn into bills) as prime sponsor.
- The first gives Planning Boards the ability to request a water study prior to the building of a subdivision of four or more houses. This bill had bipartisan support last year and great support from the public, NH Dept of Environmental Services, and even the Municipal Association. This long-awaited statutory language will help ensure protection for existing wells and water supplies which is an issue of concern to everyone not connected to city or town water.
- Next is the New Hampshire Consumer Energy Protections Act (CEPA) to insulate ratepayers from the huge infrastructure and energy costs of data and crypto centers. Large-scale electric users have created problems for many of the states who are hosting them, from noise and air pollution, to drawing huge amounts of energy and creating new supply and demand challenges in local energy markets. My bill would require that the investors building these large-scale, energy intensive businesses would bear the cost, rather than commercial or residential ratepayers.
- Third is enabling net metering for energy storage and requiring the public utilities commission to set rates for dispatchable storage resources. This LSR addresses the need for a formula to assign appropriate price signals to the market for load settlement, a byproduct of dispatchable battery storage. New Hampshire energy policy has been lagging behind the region and the country in terms of defining price signals that help support the free-market investments that help the NH economy.
- My last prime sponsored LSR is requiring the Dept of Energy to add in-state capacity planning for energy by state region (southern, central, western, coastal, north country). Today, we receive an update to the 10-year energy strategy report for the state every three years. But the DOE does not provide goals or actionable data in terms of the needs of the state or the places where investment in infrastructure or new electric capacity will be needed. This bill addresses that gap.
I will also be co-sponsoring several bills, including a bipartisan bill that repeals a zoning change made last term that is prime-sponsored by Kristine Perez of Londonderry.
I was interviewed this spring by a Dartmouth graduate student, Hunter Snyder, regarding statewide impediments to addressing cleaner energy solutions. I spoke on an energy panel at the Business and Industry’s annual energy symposium on April 23, 2025, and will be speaking to Kent Street Coalition on October 21st, where the topic is NH’s environmental game plan. Rep. Barbour and I met with YMCA CEO Mike LaChance and Rob Prunier of Hollis over the summer to discuss the YMCA’s work in the community and the partnerships they pursue to uphold their mission of providing service to citizens cradle to grave.
I learned from several other energy-based events this year as well. I attended Clean Energy NH’s Local Energy Solutions Conference, the annual NH Energy Summit, and the Institute for State Policy Leaders ‘Automotive Innovations Academy’ in Detroit, MI from Sept 30-Oct 2. We toured GM’s Factory Zero plant which converted to manufacturing all electric in 2022. They produce Hummers, Chevy trucks, SUVs, and Cadillacs. On day two, we got to go hands-on at a test track where we drove over 15 models of electric vehicles. The jam-packed workshops covered everything you’d ever want to know about the state of EVs in the United States.
As always, feel free to reach out with any comments, questions or concerns. Hope you have a happy Halloween!
— — Hollis Brookline News Online
By Representative Kat McGhee, M.Ed., PMP
October 24th, 2025