Bill to help Burgess BioPower plant continue operations

The people of Berlin should have listened to Jon Edwards and Mel Liston. The City of Berlin was sold a bill of goods by Laidlaw. Bartoszek, the former president of Laidlaw is now selling lightbulbs in NJ after being fined $3.5 million by the SEC for his penny stock scam. How many of the town fathers in Berlin were talked into buying the stock by Bartoszek's lies.

It looks like the same subsidy that every other bio-plant in NH requested in the past. Where does it end?

As usual, lots of open hands asking for more public money.

You've got to read all the way to the bottom of the article to get to the important point. Ratepayers -- ordinary families paying our already way too high electricity bills -- have poured $100 million of subsidies into the pockets of the plant owners, the city of Berlin and the logging industry. But the first $100MM of subsidies has run out, so now they want more. Out of your pockets.

This plant would not exist if there were a free market. It's not economic. It can't produce electricity at a market rate.

Don't even think of it as an electric generator. It's just a Trojan horse -- a vehicle in disguise that's designed to take money from ordinary families and hand it to special interests.

Ask Senator Erin Hennessey: would you support a new state broadbased tax, say a state income tax or a sales tax -- that would raise $100MM and hand the money over to some plant owners, some loggers and truckers and the city of Berlin? No, of course not, she would say.

But your senator is happy to do exactly the same thing by hiding the way the money is grabbed from our families. The tax, instead of being honest, is dishonestly stuck into your electric bill. Shame.

And shame on the supposed public advocate for ratepayers. He's willing to go to war over renewable energy subsidies to keep them flowing. But he just issues some mealy-mouthed generalities when faced with this ratepayer ripoff to benefit just the few.

And don't call the chip burning plant the "savior" of North Country loggers and truckers. About half the chips come from out of state. Not New Hampshire. Most of the trucking is allocated to one single company. And ask your local loggers how they're doing. How chip prices are trending. There's no chip market that helps landowners or local loggers (prices around $1-$2/ton if you can get anything).

Shut down this dishonest, ratepayer ripoff plant.