Latest news with #TimMcGough
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Senate pulls a U-turn on bill to get rid of auto inspections
The state Senate took a sharp U-turn Thursday, kicking back to committee a controversial bill that would eliminate mandatory safety inspections for all cars and trucks in New Hampshire. Keeping leaders of groups on both sides of the issue in suspense for five hours, Sen. Dan Innis, R-Bradford, the lead senator on the issue, declared at day's end that he lacked support for his compromise program. 'I am going to make a motion to re-refer this bill (HB 649), much to my dismay,' said Innis, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee. Innis said the state Department of Environmental Services weighed in late in the process, saying that it still had problems with the language of his proposal. 'I think it is better to re-refer and revisit it when we come back' in 2026, Innis said. A clearly frustrated Sen. Tim McGough, R-Merrimack, said he had worked with both sides on his own proposal to seek a middle ground and thought he had found it. Senate takes U-turn, punts repeal of inspections bill back to committee State Sen. Tim McGough, R-Merrimack, standing at left, was one of only three senators who opposed the move to kick back to committee the House-passed bill to eliminate annual safety inspections for all cars and trucks. 'After months of work on this with many stakeholders, countless thousands of emails, we all expected an 'ought to pass' on this and to get real progress down the road to get rid of this onerous inspection process,' McGough said. 'This ongoing yearly parade into the mechanic to try and chase problems with your check engine light — people want action now. They need action now.' Sen. Howard Pearl, R-Loudon, said he also wanted to vote on the bill, but he agreed with Innis. 'When a bill isn't ready, it isn't ready, and that's the hard part. We have to make that hard decision to slow things down a bit,' Pearl said. 'It was a disappointment to me as well. We don't have an agreement within the 24 of us in this room that we have a positive path forward.' The re-referral vote was 19-3, with Sens. Keith Murphy and Victoria Sullivan, both R-Manchester, and McGough the lone opponents. Sen. Kevin Avard, R-Nashua, was absent Thursday. Gov. Kelly Ayotte has avoided taking a position on the bill. Innis's compromise would require inspections only every other year for new cars and to eliminate the unpopular annual emissions tests for most vehicles. That plan deadlocked, 3-3, before Innis's committee. While the legislation has been a popular topic for debate, previous efforts have failed to get far due to the opposition of the New Hampshire Auto Dealers Association lobbying group and the New Hampshire Municipal Association. House Deputy Speaker Steven Smith, R-Charlestown, became a convert after he changed the law to reduce inspection failures due to rust only to have state officials and the auto industry restore it in agency rules. The House passed the full-repeal bill overwhelmingly, 212-143. This does not end the debate. The trailer bill to the House-approved state budget would get rid of all the jobs in the Division of Motor Vehicles and Department of Safety related to the inspection program. What's Next: The Senate Finance Committee is expected to strike changes to vehicle inspections from its version of the budget trailer bill. Prospects: Thanks to the House's state budget trigger, the issue will only be resolved when the Legislature and Gov. Ayotte come together on a compromise two-year spending plan. klandrigan@
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
New Hampshire Senate halts cryptocurrency deregulation bill, hoping to return to it next year
The New Hampshire Senate in session, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Photo by Ethan DeWitt/New Hampshire Bulletin) A bill aiming to deregulate cryptocurrency mining in New Hampshire and forbid local officials and state agencies from placing limits on the practice was set for a final vote Thursday before state senators sent it back to committee to give supporters time to work on it and whip up more votes. 'I think the bill's ready to go, but I understand we need more time to convince all of my colleagues,' Sen. Tim McGough, a Merrimack Republican and supporter of the bill, said on the Senate floor Thursday. 'And we'll take that time over the summer.' If enacted, House Bill 639 would forbid New Hampshire state agencies and local officials from banning cryptocurrency mining in their city, town, or elsewhere in the state. Under this bill, they also couldn't regulate cryptocurrency mining based on sound, electric use, or as an investment vehicle. They'd also be unable to prevent or impair people from using cryptocurrency to buy or sell goods and services. McGough likened the current moment with cryptocurrency to the 1990s, when the internet was in its infancy and people were trying to understand it. He said he was 'a little bit afraid' of some aspects of the internet, such as 'putting all your personal information online.' However, he's glad he listened to a friend who told him to adopt the internet. 'Can you imagine if we prohibited internet servers and data centers as we know them today,' he said. 'Running powerful computers to solve equations that end in blockchain currency wealth will not end the world, will not be bad for our economy.' Cryptocurrency mining is how people generate digital assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Dogecoin. Miners use high-energy supercomputers to attempt to solve a puzzle through trial and error and unlock the cryptocurrency from what is known as a blockchain. These virtual assets can be bought and sold for U.S. dollars or other currencies, making them lucrative. Proponents of crypto argue it could one day be used as a regular currency and some buyers and sellers have already adopted it in this way. The bill was written using model legislation created by a crypto industry group called Satoshi Action Fund. Satoshi Action Fund also consulted with the Commission on Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets, which provided lawmakers with policy recommendations. The group works to promote cryptocurrency nationwide and boasts on its website that its model legislation has been implemented in four states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, and Oklahoma. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Keith Ammon, a Goffstown Republican, has portrayed the bill as antidiscriminatory legislation, arguing cryptocurrency mining needed to be protected from moratoriums similar to those that have happened in other states. He's also dismissed environmental concerns about the practice as misinformation. Environmentalists opposed to this bill, including the New Hampshire Sierra Club and the National Coalition Against Cryptomining, are concerned about the carbon emissions these supercomputers are responsible for producing and their impact on the state's electric grid. (The electrical energy consumption of one Bitcoin transaction is equivalent to what an average U.S. household over 45.60 days consumes, as of May 2025, according to one analysis done by a Dutch doctoral student.) They're also concerned about the noise for neighbors of the facilities. Cryptocurrency mines in New York, Arkansas, and other states have generated uproar and noise complaints among their neighbors. Arkansas went so far as to repeal deregulatory legislation it passed that was very similar to this bill over these complaints, though that is now tied up in the courts. At least one New York community has put a moratorium on cryptocurrency mining. Regulators, including with the state Bureau of Securities Regulation, are concerned that provisions in the bill to preclude cryptocurrency mining from being considered a security or investment contract are concerned it could hamper their ability to protect New Hampshire investors from bad actors falsely offering services. If the Senate eventually passes the bill, Gov. Kelly Ayotte will decide whether to sign or veto the bill. She recently signed pro-cryptocurrency legislation into law when she approved House Bill 302, which allows the state treasurer to invest state funds in cryptocurrency and precious metals as an investment vehicle. She subsequently boasted on social media that New Hampshire was 'First in the Nation' to do so. Still, in this law, the state treasurer is limited to placing 5% of state assets in Bitcoin and gold, and she is not required to do so but simply allowed to. However, speaking to reporters last week, Ayotte said she was in favor of the cryptocurrency industry operating in New Hampshire, but she didn't signal support for a completely self-regulated industry. 'Having opportunities for economic development with crypto, certainly we would welcome that,' she said. 'But you have to have, obviously, guardrails in place, because we have had examples. Because it's not regulated federally, there would have to be regulatory measures put in place to make sure that's done responsibly, like we would with any kind of issue like this.'
