Week Two - January 23, 2009

With the 2009 legislative session in Concord now underway, it's time for the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce to start delivering to you its weekly legislative update known as The Advocate. You will receive this electronic update every Friday afternoon, and can use it to review what has happened in Concord that week, read about our Chamber's lobbying efforts relating to those activities, and preview what we are doing on behalf of our Chamber members in the coming week.

This weekly update is made possible by the generous support of Devine Millimet & Branch, one of the state’s top law firms and our Chamber’s contracted representative in Concord. If your business has a legislative or local issue that needs strategic consulting and attention, they are a valuable resource that can help navigate you through both local and state processes.

This weekly update is designed and maintained by our friends at ActiveEdge, and we thank them for their help in delivering this piece to your inbox every Friday!

This Week’s Update

What an exciting week this has been for our country and our state! As we all watched the inauguration of our 44th President, we were reminded of how very important New Hampshire is in the process of electing a President. The State House was extremely quiet on Inauguration Day as many of our elected officials were in D.C., participating in the ceremonies. However, once the inauguration was over, our lawmakers went into full swing this past Wednesday, holding hearings and briefings from dawn to dusk.

HB94: Affordable Housing

The Chamber had an active week on your behalf. We began by supporting HB 94, a bill to create a commission to study (again) workforce housing issues. As those of you who have followed our advocacy efforts over the years know, workforce housing has been an issue of great concern to the Chamber. It will continue to be an important issue as we advocate for HB 94, as well as other pieces of legislation that will help New Hampshire tackle our workforce housing issues. Maybe this Commission, if the bill passes, can make some real progress.

HB 212: Municipal Impact Fees

HB 212, which permits a municipality to assess impact fees for improvements on a portion of a state highway located within the municipality, lasted hours longer than the newly-formed House Local and Regulated Revenues Committee expected as there were plenty of people at the hearing on both sides of the issue. The bill is supported by the regional planning commissions and opposed by the realtors; however, groups like the contractors are generally okay with the bill in principle. The bill would require that improvements to state highways occasioned by local development would have to be placed in the DOT capital improvement plan to be accomplished in 6 years. The impact fees can only be used for improvement costs that are demonstrably related to the capital needs created by the development.

The background of all this? It looks like this bill arises from local planning commission concerns that the state is falling back on state road improvements because of the empty coffers of the cash-strapped highway fund. NH DOT did not come to the hearing which is a clear sign that they do not want to be dragged into the middle of the controversy.

HB246: Preservation Easements

We are going to keep a close eye on HB 246, which enables a town to grant a preservation easement to historic structures. Currently, discretionary preservation easements may be granted to historical agricultural structures. The reason to follow this legislation is that the committee is going to review 79-E, the community revitalization tax relief incentive, a statute promoted by the Chamber and a tool for economic development by the city.

HB30: State Budget Cuts

On Thursday, a unanimous House Finance Committee (don’t expect to hear those words again any time soon) voted to pass HB 30, which is the first major legislative action of this session directed toward cutting the FY 2009 budget. HB 30 is predicted to save the State approximately $16 million. The most significant part of the bill is a limit on Medicaid fees that can be charged by hospitals. This comes on the heels of hospital Medicaid cuts of almost $30 million made by Governor Lynch through an Executive Order back in November. Although we applaud the State’s attempt to address the budget crisis, we are troubled by the fact that the State keeps targeting the hospitals. In effect, this is simply having someone other than the State pay for the care of people who are on Medicaid and who, by definition, are the responsibility of the State. Where is the fairness in asking hospitals to provide Medicaid care for even less money than the hospitals were previously receiving?

The Weeks Ahead

Stay tuned, as this and other issues continue to develop in the coming weeks…

If you have questions about this update, or comments to share with us about other issues in Concord, please email Chris Williams at cwilliams@nashuachamber.com. We want to be sure we're representing you to the best of our ability, so do not hesitate to reach out to us!

J. Christopher Williams
President & CEO
Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce
151 Main St.
Nashua, NH 03060
Phone: 603.881.8333
Fax: 603.881.7323