Eric Hoffman: Bottom line is that increased energy costs are driving economy woes

To The Daily Sun,

This election, there is a lot of discussion about our skyrocketing energy costs and a lot of finger pointing. I’ve seen some blame the president, blame the failure of Northern Pass, blame the decision to cancel pipelines, and all manner of other irrelevant factors. The bottom line is the reason electricity costs are rising is that the cost of natural gas has skyrocketed. The primary causes for this are the war in Ukraine and increased demand worldwide as the economy continues to recover from a global pandemic.

Driven by the increased cost of natural gas, the price of electricity has doubled for much of the state. While the blame for rising natural gas prices lies outside of New Hampshire, blame for our reliance on fossil fuels lies in Concord. The Republican Party controls the state House, Senate and governor’s office, and at every opportunity they have blocked legislation that would diversify our energy generation. I count 23 bills blocked or vetoed in the last four years alone.

I won't pretend that we can flip a switch and green energy will magically fix our energy prices, but an investment in renewable sources of energy would hedge against fluctuations in fossil fuel prices as well as decrease our dependence on imported sources of energy. We do not have natural gas deposits in New Hampshire. It all has to come from somewhere else. The more energy we can create in NH, the more stability we can create, and increases like the one we have just seen can be avoided. Vote blue on Nov. 8. Vote for candidates like myself, who want to create an energy future for NH that plans for the long term, not for the next fiscal quarter or the next election.

Eric Hoffman

Laconia