New Hampshire

<h2 class="permalink-head"></h2><div>leverage "swing" b/c 1st in nation Primary, duh, promote 2nd on jok voter suppress sununu</div><h1 class="headline" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px 0px 0.4em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">=<div class="article-text-wrap" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: -0.09px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); max-width: 1210px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><div class="article-text-grid" style="line-height: 28px; letter-spacing: -0.09px;">A modest, practically harmless October Surprise. But it’s typically down ballot where the average Project Veritas video tends to have its most pernicious effects. Less well known than O’Keefe’s blunders on the national stage are the numerous documented instances in which his stings have been cited to justify new and more onerous voter I.D. laws or other election integrity legislation in state legislatures across the country.In April 2012, Chris McDaniel, then Mississippi’s Senate elections committee chairman, cited a Project Veritas voter fraud video as evidence justifying the passage of the state’s “photo identification requirement” bill⁠, which the state’s Republican Governor Phil Bryant signed that May. Despite <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-voting-rights-act_n_5c75a48ce4b0031d9562ecee?guccounter=1" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">legal</a> <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/effects-shelby-county-v-holder" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">challenges</a>, this law is still on the books today. </div></div><div class="full-width inserted-dfp ad-container-0" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: -0.09px;"><div class="article-text-wrap" style="max-width: 1210px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><div class="article-text-grid" style="line-height: 28px; letter-spacing: -0.09px;">Also that year, a Republican Minnesota state representative, Steve Drazkowski, praised a locally shot O’Keefe video—in which Project Veritas undercover operatives requested ballot applications for their friends “Timothy Tebow and Thomas Brady”—during a floor debate for his party’s own draconian voter I.D. bill. While Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Mark Dayton vetoed a strict version of that voter I.D. legislation, and Minnesota voters backed his decision in a ballot initiative later that year, the state’s Republican Party still <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/02/27/voter-id-bill-clears-mn-senate-panel" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">plans to revisit the issue again this year</a>. (“We have had a number of studies that have been completed, there’s a lot of new data on this topic, and there are court cases that have been decided,” as Minnesota GOP State Senator Scott Newman ominously put it, “none of which we had in 2012.”) O’Keefe’s “Primary of the Living Dead” stunts during the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-uVhhIlPk0" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">New Hampshire</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptSrcNvJzBQ" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">North Carolina</a> primaries in 2012—in which his operatives requested but crucially did not actually attempt to use, the ballots of deceased primary voters—aided <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/voter-id-laws-passed-2011" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">the passage of stringent voter I.D. laws</a> in those states. After New Hampshire <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190713074751/https:/www.governor.nh.gov/news-media/press-2018/20180713-bill-signing-hb-1264.htm" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">enacted</a> a law in 2018 tightening the state’s voting statutes, partly in response to a new series of Project Veritas videos, Democratic legislators made <a href="https://www.nhpr.org/post/nh-legislators-vote-overriding-handful-sununu-vetoes%23stream/0" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">repeated</a> <a href="https://www.wmur.com/article/sununu-vetoes-democratic-passed-voting-bills-says-election-integrity-to-remain-in-place/28543142" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">attempts</a> to repeal them, only to be thwarted by Republican Governor Chris Sununu’s veto.</div></div></div>anomaly NE? v trend?<div class="views-field views-field-body" style="font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); overflow: inherit;"><div class="field-content">month New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu <a href="https://www.governor.nh.gov/news-media/press-2019/20191217-climate-initiative.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 153, 204); outline: none;">announced</a> the state would not be participating in the <a href="https://www.transportationandclimate.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 153, 204); outline: none;">Transportation and Climate Initiative</a> (TCI), a regional cap-and-trade program aimed at reducing carbon emissions from vehicles. The program is still in early stages of development, but groups tied to petroleum interests and conservative networks funded by the Koch empire are <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/11/23/transportation-climate-initiative-opposition-oil-gasoline-business" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 153, 204); outline: none;">already fighting it</a> with opposition campaigns.</div></div><div class="views-field views-field-view-node" style="font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/01/26/state-policy-network-oil-transportation-climate-initiative-northeast" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: 0px;">READ MORE</a></div>6/6/19 People For the American Way <a href="http://www.pfaw.org/press-releases/pfaw-cheers-new-hampshire-for-becoming-20th-state-urging-an-amendment-to-overturn-citizens-united/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(201, 24, 37);">PFAW Cheers New Hampshire for Becoming 20th State Urging an Amendment to Overturn Citizens United</a>am promise 619<span style="font-family: " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" color="color">Today New Hampshire is the 20TH STATE to call on Congress to pass the 28th Amendment!<br style="font-family: " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><br style="font-family: " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><span style="font-family: " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">State by state victories like this are the key to our strategy to win the amendment, and it's working!<span style="font-family: " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> With this win, New Hampshire joins Montana, Colorado, New York, Nevada and many more: So far 20 states have formally called for the amendment, more than half of the 38 states we need to ratify the amendment! <br style="font-family: " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><br style="font-family: " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" /><span style="font-family: " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Next, American Promise members are driving to put Alaska, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan and more on the board,--<span id="yiv3977203527docs-internal-guid-e188c766-43ab-b49e-f51b-5e662edd2a0e" style="" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">The 28th Amendment is winning everywhere, not just in New Mexico and New Hampshire. In Wisconsin, Citizen Leaders are pushing their legislature to put a resolution on the ballot after nearly 100 local communities passed resolutions – including one in Speaker Paul Ryan’s hometown, Janesville, WI, where it passed with <span style="font-weight: normal;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">84 percent support.</h1><h2 class="title" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.1; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/11/712457692/new-hampshire-poised-to-eliminate-death-penalty" data-metrics="{" action="action" click="Click" story="Story" title="Title" category="category" list="List" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">New Hampshire Poised To Eliminate Death Penalty</a></h2><h1 class="headline" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px 0px 0.4em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="teaser" style="font-weight: 400; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/11/712457692/new-hampshire-poised-to-eliminate-death-penalty" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><time datetime="2019-04-11" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">April 11, 2019 • </time>The state Senate passed a bill Thursday repealing capital punishment. The governor has threatened to veto it, but supporters have enough votes to override a veto.</a>=Whistleblowers: DEA attorneys went easy on McKesson, the country's largest drug distributorA 60 Minutes/Washington Post joint investigation into the DEA's response to the opioid epidemic again finds investigators who hit a brick wall in Washington
2017Dec 17CORRESPONDENTBill WhitakerFACEBOOKTWITTERREDDITFLIPBOARDIn October, we joined forces with the Washington Post and reported a disturbing story of Washington at its worst - about an act of Congress that crippled the DEA's ability to fight the worst drug crisis in American history - the opioid addiction crisis. Now, a new front of that joint investigation. It is also disturbing. It's the inside story of the biggest case the DEA ever built against a drug company: the McKesson Corporation, the country's largest drug distributor. It's also the story of a company too big to prosecute.
In 2014, after two years of painstaking inquiry by nine DEA field divisions and 12 U.S. Attorneys, investigators built a powerful case against McKesson for the company's role in the opioid crisis.
Our reporting turned up the leader of the DEA team, David Schiller, who tells for the first time how his investigators hit a brick wall in Washington when they tried to hold the powerful company accountable.
fullmain.jpg David Schiller CBS NEWSDavid Schiller: This is the best case we've ever had against a major distributor in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration. How do we not go after the number one organization? In the height of the epidemic, when people are dying everywhere, doesn't somebody have to be held accountable? McKesson needs to be held accountable. 
Holding McKesson accountable meant going after the 5th largest corporation in the country.  Headquartered in San Francisco, McKesson has 76,000 employees and earns almost $200 billion a year in revenues, about the same as Exxon Mobil. Since the 1990s, McKesson has made billions from the distribution of addictive opioids. 
David Schiller: I was with DEA for over 30 years. I was the Assistant Special Agent in Charge for the Denver Field Division.
Bill Whitaker: How many people did you supervise?
David Schiller: Approximately 100.
"They're killing people. And their motive? This is all for financial gain. That's the problem."Before he retired in August, Schiller had supervised investigations in drug trafficking and money laundering cases, but he considered the case against McKesson to be the single most important investigation of his lifetime.
Bill Whitaker: What did they do that was wrong?
David Schiller: The issue with McKesson was they were providing millions and millions and millions of pills to countless pharmacies throughout the United States, and they did not maintain any sort of due diligence. This wasn't just happening in Denver, Colorado. This was happening in Los Angeles, California. It was happening in Detroit, Michigan. It was happening in New York City. It was a national problem and nobody wanted to deal with it.
McKesson told us when it comes to the opioid crisis and pills flooding into American communities, there's plenty of blame to go around: drug makers; other distributors; doctors; pharmacies, all played a role.
But in 2008, McKesson agreed to pay $13.3 million in fines for failing to report huge orders of hydrocodone to shady internet pharmacies. After that settlement, the company promised to do a better job of monitoring shipments of controlled substances. Now, special agent Schiller and his team had caught McKesson again shipping suspicious orders of opioids. 
DEA investigators discovered that McKesson was supplying pharmacies and doctors, that were fronts for criminal drug rings and pills were ending up on the black market.
David Schiller: And everybody kept saying, "It's just a prescription drug. It's a pill. It's a liquid. What's the big deal?" And I would say, "They're killing people." And their motive? This is all for financial gain. That's the problem.
Bill Whitaker: One of the Former D.E.A. Administrators said that the McKesson Corporation has fueled the explosive prescription drug abuse problem in this country. Do you agree with that?
David Schiller: 100%. If they woulda stayed in compliance with their authority and held those that they're supplying the pills to, the epidemic would be nowhere near where it is right now. Nowhere near.
Bill Whitaker: So you decided to take a swing at a hornet's nest.
David Schiller: I knew that if we could get to the distributor, we could make a great impact for the United States citizens immediately. Immediately. 
mckessan-ext.jpg McKesson Corp. Headquarters CBS NEWSMcKesson delivers more than 1/3 of all medicines in the U.S. from a network of 30 warehouses around the country. The DEA requires drug distributors to identify, stop and report orders of unusual size or frequency to the agency - something Schiller says McKesson did not do until the company learned it was under investigation.  
David Schiller: They had hundreds of thousands of suspicious orders they should have reported, and they didn't report any. There's not a day that goes by in the pharmaceutical world, in the McKesson world, in the distribution world, where there's not something suspicious. It happens every day.
Bill Whitaker: And they had none.
David Schiller: They weren't reporting any. I mean, you have to understand that, nothing was suspicious? 
In one case, DEA investigators discovered that McKesson was shipping the same quantities of opioid pills to small-town pharmacies in Colorado's San Luis Valley as it would typically ship to large drugstores next to big city medical centers. 
Helen Kaupang: McKesson is supplying enough pills to that community to give every man woman and child a monthly dose of 30 to 60 tablets. Is that not shocking? I found it shocking.
Helen Kaupang, retired from the DEA this fall after 29 years as an investigator and supervisor. She worked with Schiller on this investigation. She says the delivery of so many pills to such small towns should have set off alarms at McKesson.
kaupang-cu.jpg Helen Kaupang CBS NEWSHelen Kaupang: There was no legitimate reason for that pharmacy in that little town in remote Colorado to be getting hundreds of thousands of pills over a several-year period. None. 
Bill Whitaker: Did McKesson know this, or should McKesson have known this--
Helen Kaupang: Absolutely. It was their customer. They were supplyin' it. It was just outrageous. They were turning a blind eye to the very problem that we were trying to address.
Kaupang said to get around reporting suspiciously large orders, at the time, McKesson would simply raise the limit a pharmacy was allowed. No order, no matter how large, was ever reported as suspicious.
Bill Whitaker: They would set a threshold. And if they surpass their own threshold--
Helen Kaupang: Yes.
Bill Whitaker: They would just bump up the threshold to meet this new higher number?
Helen Kaupang: Yes.
Bill Whitaker: So they rigged the system.
David Schiller: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Bill Whitaker: And to be clear here, we're talking addictive opioids.
David Schiller: Highly addictive, Oxycodone and Hydrocodone in particular. That's what we're talking about. The most commonly prescribed and abused controlled substance in the United States.
Bill Whitaker: McKesson would say they're just supplying the doctors and the pharmacies. They're giving them the prescriptions they are allowed to have. How are they wrong? 
David Schiller: Because they are going above and beyond those thresholds without any due diligence, with reckless regard and they don't consider any of that suspicious?
A 2014 DEA memo that outlined the investigative findings from all the field offices, obtained by 60 Minutes and the Washington Post, said McKesson, had a pattern of "dramatic increases in thresholds without justification..." And had "supplied controlled substances in support of criminal...Activities" to pharmacies.
David Schiller: I mean the president declared a public health emergency. It's on the front lines of everybody's dinner table conversation. There's not a bigger problem we have in the United States. And who led to the problem? McKesson was at the forefront.
With the opioid epidemic getting worse year by year, special agent Schiller and his team wanted to send a message to the pharmaceutical industry by hitting McKesson hard. They wanted to fine the company more than a billion dollars, revoke registrations to distribute controlled substances, and, more than anything, put a McKesson executive behind bars. But Schiller says, attorneys for the DEA and the Department of Justice retreated at the thought of going against McKesson and its high-powered legal team.
Bill Whitaker: Did a DEA attorney actually tell you that they were not going to pursue McKesson because they had lawyers who had gone to Harvard and Yale?
David Schiller: They told me those exact words, because the case would take too much time and too much effort and, by the way, "What if we lost?" I said, "What if you lost?" I go, "You-- you can't have a better case on a silver platter."
Bill Whitaker: Were they scared?
David Schiller: Yes.
Bill Whitaker: Scared of going after McKesson?
David Schiller: A better word might be "intimidated."
joe-ranazzisi-cu.jpg Joe Ranazzisi CBS NEWSThis was at the time whistleblower Joe Ranazzisi, the DEA's then deputy assistant administrator, was sounding alarms that the DEA and Congress were bending to the will of the pharmaceutical industry. In our October report, he told us Justice Department attorneys were pressing him and his investigators to take a softer approach toward the industry. 
Bill Whitaker: The summer of 2014 -- you get a request to play nice with the pharmaceutical industry.
Joe Ranazzisi: Yes.
Bill Whitaker: What do you think of that?
Joe Ranazzisi: I didn't think it was appropriate. We told 'em what they need to do. We told 'em what compliance is and how to comply with the act. We met these people over and over again. The time for meetings and reports are over. You either comply or you lose your registration.
But in the McKesson case, negotiations with company attorneys went on for more than two years. In the end, instead of the billion-dollar fine DEA investigators wanted, the company was fined $150 million. That was a record for the DEA, but Schiller called it a slap on the wrist for a fortune five company and a second-time offender. 
David Schiller: There was backdoor deals being cut that we didn't know about, I didn't know about, and I was representing DEA nationally on the investigation at the highest level. How do you settle? How do you say it's okay just, "Here, write this check this time and-- and close this place for a little bit, sign this piece of paper." How do you do that? No. Put 'em in jail. You put the people that are responsible for dealing drugs, for breaking the law, in jail. Nobody's in jail. They wrote a check. 
Bill Whitaker: Did you think McKesson was getting special treatment?
David Schiller: I don't think -- I know they were getting special treatment. They were getting treatment like I'd never seen in my 30-year career.
Getting special treatment, he said, from lawyers at his agency. In an e-mail, a member of DEA's senior leadership team, who sided with Schiller, told him she was overruled.
"David... I am totally against settling," she wrote, "but how do we hold their feet to the fire...?  Our attorneys have us over a barrel with their refusal to go to court."
David Schiller: There is not a man or woman in DEA today that's happy with the settlement and morale has been broken because of it.
Bill Whitaker: Why did you ultimately decide to sit down and talk to us?
David Schiller: I saw what's happening to our country now with this epidemic. I saw the limitations being placed on it-- on us by our own people and chief counsel fighting with our own agents and investigators. And I know I'm gonna make a lotta enemies, because people don't like to hear the truth. I'm doing it because the truth needs to be told.
walk-2.jpg David Schiller and correspondent Bill Whitaker CBS NEWSSchiller pointed out to us the $150 million fine was only about $50 million more than McKesson CEO, John Hammergren's compensation last year. He was the third-highest paid CEO in the country; only Tim Cook of Apple, and Reed Hastings of Netflix earned more. In the last earning period McKesson's revenues were up $8 billion.   
We wanted to speak to a McKesson representative on camera but they declined. But in a statement, McKesson said, "In the interest of moving beyond disagreements… The company agreed to settle with the DEA and DOJ."  And McKesson promised to do a better job flagging suspicious orders.
We asked the DEA about allegations its attorneys went easy on McKesson. A spokesperson told us the agreement was a good deal; that the priority was to get McKesson to do the right thing going forward. And now an independent monitor has been put in place to watch McKesson more closely.
Maggie Hassan: The pharmaceutical industry is doing everything it can to keep this epidemic going.
Bill Whitaker: That's pretty strong.
Maggie Hassan: Yeah. It is.
New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan has been critical of Congress for not aggressively investigating industry's role in this epidemic. New Hampshire has the second highest rate of drug overdose deaths in the country.
Bill Whitaker: What more is it going to take to convince Congress to act?
Maggie Hassan: Well, one of the things we have to do is begin to hold the pharmaceutical companies accountable for this. And right now, when you see a fine for the McKesson Company of $150 million when they make a $100 million a week in profits, that isn't gonna do it.
Bill Whitaker: What incentive do they have to change their behavior?
Maggie Hassan: Well, right now, they don't have a lot of incentives and that's something that has to be changed. This in many ways reminds me of the situation with big tobacco-- and, you know, I think it's one of the reasons you see attorneys general around the country--beginning to file lawsuits against the pharmaceutical industry--to hold them accountable for the cost of this terrible epidemic.
41 state attorneys general have banded together to sue the opioid industry. While at McKesson, John Hammergren begins his 18th year as CEO. This year, the board awarded him an additional $1.1 million performance bonus. A bonus based on ethics and accountability.
Produced by Ira Rosen and Sam Hornblower. Associate Producers, Alex J. Diamond and LaCrai Mitchell.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-new-hampshire-2531879372.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-new-hampshire-2531879372.html</a>
</h1><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; font-weight: 600; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">How One State Bridged the Cultural Divide on Climate Change</h1><h1 class="headline" style="border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; margin: 0px 0px 0.4em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2531879372" data-authors="The Conversation" data-headline="How One State Bridged the Cultural Divide on Climate Change" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description">By Cameron WakeThe year 2017 painted a grim picture of coastal storms in the eastern U.S. Hurricanes <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-harvey" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Harvey</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-irma" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Irma</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-maria" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Maria</a>were deadly and destructive harbingers of how climate change contributes to <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/hurricane-harvey-climate-change-global-warming-weather/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bigger storms with stronger winds</a>, <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa9ef2" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">greater extreme precipitation</a>, and <a href="https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/12/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">higher storm surge</a> due to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" style="text-decoration-line: none;">rising seas</a>.Unfortunately, there's a long-standing <a href="https://ssir.org/book_reviews/entry/climate_science_as_culture_war" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">cultural divide</a> around <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">climate change</a>. On a political level, this has made it difficult for coastal states to act on—or even acknowledge—the growing risk of coastal <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding" style="text-decoration-line: none;">flooding</a> from climate change.New Hampshire, however, is an exception. The state has passed legislation and made rule changes designed to better prepare the state for the damage from storm surge and rising seas. And several municipalities in coastal New Hampshire are integrating preparations for rising seas in their long-term master plans.This progress occurred despite divisive political views <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/03/05/new-hampshire-climate-denier-brother-governor-michael-chris-sununu" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">on climate change in New Hampshire</a>. As one of the scientists involved in reviewing the science related to coastal flooding, I discovered that this seemingly intractable cultural divide over climate change can be bridged—if scientists show up and build relationships with local decision-makers.Challenge for MunicipalitiesSome large coastal cities, including <a href="https://www.boston.gov/departments/environment/climate-ready-boston" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Boston</a>, <a href="http://www.rebuildbydesign.org/our-work/all-proposals/winning-projects/big-u" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">New York</a>, <a href="http://wunc.org/post/norfolk-prepares-battle-rising-sea-level#stream/0" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Norfolk</a> and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/21/the-siege-of-miami" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Miami</a>, have decided to act now to build resilience to current and future coastal flooding. Upgrades include installing flood walls, elevating roads, improving stormwater systems and expanding open space.Small coastal communities, meanwhile, tend to lack the financial and personnel resources to address the challenges presented by a changing climate, all while dealing with the cultural divide around the issue....</div></div>=http://www.unionleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20150610/NEWS0605/150619874/-1/mobile
On the same August night that Fox News hosts a much-criticized and limited Republican presidential debate in Cleveland, the Union Leader will host a New Hampshire Presidential Forum in the first primary state.  It will be televised nationally by C-SPAN, which will also broadcast it on radio. Union Leader Publisher Joseph W. McQuaid said the newspaper has been considering such a forum for some time. He said an open protest letter sent Wednesday to Fox and the Republican National Committee from 56 prominent state Republicans should be a wake-up call to everyone in New Hampshire. - See more at: http://www.unionleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20150610/NEWS0605/150619874/-1/mobile#sthash.ht5IihHj.dpufBUThttp://mediamatters.org/research/2015/09/16/the-nh-union-leader-just-hired-a-disciple-of-th/205587</div></div></h1><h1 itemprop="name" style="line-height: 21.5938px; max-width: 100%; width: 659.578px; margin-top: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The NH Union Leader Just Hired A Disciple Of The Koch Brothers To Run Its Editorial Page</h1><h5 class="dhandler-byline" style="line-height: 21.5938px;"><a class="type-research-byline" href="http://mediamatters.org/research" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">Research </a><time datetime="2015-09-16T12:37:27-04:00" itemprop="datePublished">September 16, 2015 12:37 PM EDT </time>››› DANIEL ANGSTER</h5><h1 class="headline" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.4em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.2em;"><div class="wrap content" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; width: 745.766px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-bottom: 20px !important;"><div class="bd" style="width: 730.844px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden;"><div class="bd-main item" style="width: 694.297px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; margin: 0px auto;"><div class="bd-headline left" style="width: 659.578px; margin: 0px auto;"><div itemprop="articleBody" class="item-body">The New Hampshire Union Leader has hired Grant Bosse, a former researcher at a think tank funded by the Koch brothers, to be the new editor of the paper's editorial page. In his previous role as a columnist for New Hampshire's Concord Monitor, Bosse defended the Koch brothers and once wrote that progressives who believe the billionaire industrialists are trying to control the Republican Party subscribe to a "conspiracy theory."</div></div></div></div></div></h1><h2 class="permalink-head"></h2><h2 class="permalink-head">charlie bass R  NH admits AGW?</h2>

<h2 class="permalink-head">----</h2><div>obrien tries to pull out of rggi; koch?</div><div>===</div>

<h2 class="permalink-head"><a href="http://climateprogress.org/2011/02/28/koch-tea-party-climate-denial-bill-new-hampshire-man-cow-global-warming/">Koch-Powered Tea Party pushes climate denial bill in New Hampshire: “Neither man nor cow is responsible for global warming.”</a></h2>

February 28, 2011

Fueled by the carbon pollution giant Koch Industries, Tea Party Republicans in New Hampshire are attempting to scuttle the state’s involvement in the region’s successful climate program.  Brad Johnson has <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/02/25/nh-rggi-deniers/">the story</a> — and one NH  legislator’s amazing rationale.

<a href="http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20110223-NEWS-102230381">Robocalls</a> from Koch’s Americans for Prosperity group flooded the state last weekend in support of a bill that would repeal participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which has cut greenhouse and other pollution and created 1,130 jobs as a result of energy efficiency benefits. Rep. Sandra Keans (D-Rochester), told the Nashua Telegraph that AFP’s calls were “<a href="http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/newsstatenewengland/910067-227/future-bleak-for-nhs-part-in-cap-trade.html">sleazy</a>” and deliberately false. “I have never seen such a cowardly perpetration pulled on the citizens of New Hampshire,” Keans said.

On Wednesday, the state’s overwhelmingly Republican House of Representatives voted to support HB 519 by a nearly party-line vote of <a href="http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/Roll_Calls/billstatus_rcdetails.aspx?vs=38&sy=2011&lb=H&eb=HB0519&sortoption=&txtsessionyear=2011&txtbillnumber=hb519&ddlsponsors=&q=1&lsr=475">246 to 104</a> (13 Republicans voted against, two Democrats for). The bill has to pass through the finance committee before a final house vote and consideration by the senate. Gov. John Lynch (D-NH), who has <a href="http://www.governor.nh.gov/media/news/2011/021011-rggi.htm">touted the success</a> of RGGI in making the air healthier while increasing economic prosperity, is expected to veto the bill, but Republicans hold veto-proof majorities in both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature. The bill is being championed by extreme climate deniers:

Deputy Majority Leader Shawn Jasper (R-Hudson) explained his vote: “<a href="http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/newsstatenewengland/910067-227/future-bleak-for-nhs-part-in-cap-trade.html">Neither man nor cow</a> is responsible for global warming.”

</blockquote>

Rep. James Garrity (R-Atkinson), chairman of the House’s Science Technology and Energy Committee, claimed that RGGI relies on “<a href="http://www.concordmonitor.com/blogentry/241880/nh-house-votes-to-leave-rggi">shaky climate science</a>.”

Rep. Frank Holden (R-Lyndeboro), vice chairman of the House’s Science, Technology and Energy Committee, wrote in the majority committee report that the “science of climate change is <a href="http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110224/GJNEWS02/702249682/-1/CITNEWS">far from clear</a>.”

Rep. Andrew Manuse (R-Derry): “The reasons used to promote RGGI were based in <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/24/new-hampshire-poised-to-pull-out-of-regional-cap-and-trade-system/">false, exaggerated and highly politicized science</a>.”

</blockquote>

In reality, with greenhouse pollution from fossil fuels building up in the atmosphere at an increasing rate, the world is now hotter than it has ever been in recorded history. New England is unambiguously <a href="http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004.../2004GL020574.shtml">warming</a>. Fueled by the warmer world, <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/04/07/northeast-extreme-deluge/">catastrophic rainfall is rising</a>, as “<a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/04/07/northeast-extreme-deluge/">exemplified by the ’100-year’ floods</a> that have occurred in southern New Hampshire in 2005, 2006, 2007.”

Americans for Prosperity operatives gleefully praised the vote for pollution and <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/11/27/afp-pollution-plan/">global warming denial</a>:

AFP VP for Policy Phil Kerpen hopes the vote “could <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/23/new-hampshire-smacks-down-cap-and-trade/">deal the death blow</a> to cap and trade both regionally and nationally.”

AFP-NH Executive Director Corey Lewandowski: “<a href="http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/newsstatenewengland/910067-227/future-bleak-for-nhs-part-in-cap-trade.html">We’re delighted</a> by the strong House vote for consumers.”

AFP-NJ Executive Director Steve Lonegan, an <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/10/25/afp-climate-deniers/">admitted global warming denier</a>, called the vote “a <a href="http://www.examiner.com/essex-county-conservative-in-newark/nj-activist-hails-nh-vote-to-leave-rggi">significant victory</a> for ratepayers all over the Northeast.”

</blockquote>

Lonegan is spearheading the Koch Industries effort to <a href="http://americansforprosperity.org/022311-americans-prosperity-pr-new-hampshire-strikes-major-blow-rggi-senators-sweeney-and-kean-shoul">kill RGGI</a> in New Jersey, after its multi-million-dollar campaign to <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/21/koch-brother-ab-32-proposition-23/">kill climate action in California</a> <a href="http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/11/03/prop-23-defeated-by-wide-margin/">failed miserably</a>.

Koch Industries and the politicians it supports have been making the argument that limits on carbon pollution have “always been <a href="http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/newsstatenewengland/910067-227/future-bleak-for-nhs-part-in-cap-trade.html">about the money</a>” and a plot to “collect some money from all of us to <a href="http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/241983/house-get-state-out-of-carbon-pact">redistribute that wealth</a> to a few of us.”

Of course, they fail to mention that by letting Koch Industries profit from <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/01/30/koch-carbon-footprint/">billions of tons of carbon pollution</a> for free, the government has actually allowed the Koch brothers to “collect some money from all of us to redistribute that wealth to a few of us” — namely themselves — while the lives of everyone else are put at risk. For the Kochs, it has “always been about the money.” For the rest of us, it’s simply about respect for science and the health of our planet.

– Brad Johnson, in a WonkRoom <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/02/25/nh-rggi-deniers/">cross-post</a>.

</div>

===New Hampshire Legislators Target RGGIIn 2008, New Hampshire committed to cut CO2 emissions from power plants 10% by 2018.NH was one of the founding states of the RGGI program, with its first auctions taking place in 2009. Since then, the state has awarded over $31 million to 36 different <a target="blank" class="zoom" href="http://www.rggi.org/rggi_benefits/program_investments/New_Hampshire">energy efficiency projects and programs</a>. In the 2010 elections, the <a target="blank" class="zoom" href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2010/11/03/nh_gop_tally_5_sen_almost_300_house_seats/">GOP took over the House</a>, winning 297 of 400 seats, along with 19 of the 24 Senate seats, creating a majority that has not happened since 1962 .Six New Hampshire state Representatives have signed AFP’s “No Climate Tax” pledge, designed to dissuade lawmakers from supporting legislation designed to <a target="blank" class="zoom" href="http://www.noclimatetax.com/pledge-signatories/">implement solutions to global warming</a>. Among state candidates who signed a separate “Anti-Tax Pledge,” also created by AFP, which more broadly opposed taxes and government spending, was <a target="blank" class="zoom" href="http://www.americansforprosperity.org/071910-afp-new-hampshire-anti-tax-pledge-signers">House speaker William O’Brien</a>. O’Brien then spearheaded the GOP campaign to take down the RGGI program, and on February 23, 2011 New Hampshire’s House voted to repeal RGGI with a majority that ruled out a veto by the governor. The repeal legislation received full support from AFP, with NH state director <a target="blank" class="zoom" href="http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/235423/great-opportunity-to-boost-the-economy">Corey R. Lewandowski </a>claiming in January that RGGI money “was taken by regulators from consumers in the form of higher electricity bills and then redistributed to environmental special interests friendly to the politicians in power.”The weekend before the vote, <a target="blank" class="zoom" href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/climate-change-fight-moves-to-states-20110224">Americans for Prosperity</a> paid for automated “robo calls ” across the state urging the vote against RGGI.After the vote, Lewandowski, with AFP policy director Phil Kerpen, in an opinion piece for <a target="_blank" class="zoom" href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/02/28/giant-leap-forward-new-hampshire-smacks-cap-trade/">FoxNews.com</a>, hailed the vote as “one giant leap forward”, saying it would raise the pressure against similar efforts in New Jersey.