State, county lands barred from carbon sequestration projects

Under a new state law, state and county-owned lands purchased with public funds in New Hampshire will not participate in “carbon sequestration” programs designed to monetize their ability to absorb greenhouse gases.

Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed House Bill 1205, “Prohibiting State and County Owned Lands from Participating in Carbon Sequestration Projects,” into law this week, according to a Friday afternoon statement from her office.

Carbon sequestration projects typically involve a contract through which a landowner is compensated for maintaining tracts of standing forest on their property. The value of the program is attached to a healthy forest’s natural ability to lock away carbon in trees and plant matter, helping absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 

The programs are billed as a way for landowners to see returns on their property without logging it, and for customers — often polluting corporations — to “offset” their environmental impact in one place by investing in healthy forests elsewhere. Globally, critics of such programs usually point to the prevalence of scams and greenwashing in the global carbon offset market. But in New Hampshire, concerns arose over whether the projects would limit the state’s forestry industry.

“The idea behind this, these lands were purchased with taxpayers’ money for specific timber purposes,” said Rep. Arnold Davis, a Milan Republican and the prime sponsor of the bill, at a Senate hearing in March.