New Hampshire’s plan to take action on climate change is getting its first update since 2009. State officials are highlighting incentives and support for electric vehicles, public transportation, energy efficiency, heat pumps and workforce development as top priorities.
The state’s Department of Environmental Services this week released a draft of issues they’ll include in the Priority Climate Action Plan, which is due to the federal government on March 1.
New Hampshire’s priorities focus on reducing emissions in transportation and residential buildings — the sources of the majority of the state’s climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
State officials are using funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to create the plan. When it’s complete, it will allow the state to apply for more federal money to help with reducing emissions and air pollution.
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The federal government is expected to prioritize projects that benefit lower-income communities and those that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Almost half of the climate-warming emissions New Hampshire puts into the atmosphere come from transportation: cars, trucks, buses, airplanes and the like. To address that, officials are hoping to incentivize residents to buy electric vehicles by reducing their upfront costs with rebates, making EV charging more accessible, and increasing access to public transportation.
The second-biggest contributor to New Hampshire’s emissions are residential buildings, which often have heating systems that run on fossil fuels.
State regulators reported that a 70% reduction in emissions from electricity generation accounted for the vast majority of emissions cuts in New Hampshire between 2005 and 2021 — but emissions from the residential and transportation sectors only fell about 13%.
State officials hope to address residential emissions by scaling up programs that would get homes across the state weatherized — making heating and cooling systems more energy efficient or adding things like insulation to keep inclement weather outside. The state also wants to focus on helping lower-income households make repairs necessary to start the weatherization process in the first place.
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The state’s draft priorities also include expanding the adoption of heat pumps, which can heat and cool homes using electricity.
Workforce development initiatives for trades that would help with making transportation and buildings more climate friendly are also included in the plan.
The state’s Priority Climate Action Plan is due on March 1, and applications for funding to implement the measures are due April 1.
A longer-term climate action plan called a Comprehensive Climate Action Plan is due in 2025, and is expected to include greenhouse gas reduction targets and strategies to achieve those goals.
The state’s 2009 climate plan was prepared by members of former Gov. John Lynch’s Climate Change Policy Task Force with input from hundreds of people over the course of about two years, according to that document.
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The latest Priority Climate Action Plan, in contrast, has gone through a much quicker and smaller process. It’s being developed in response to federal — rather than state — policy. Officials have met with residents and stakeholders across the state to get input, but only had about six months to create the plan.
People can share their feedback on the draft of the climate priorities until Feb. 20. Written comments can be emailed to cprg@des.nh.gov or mailed to Kurt Yuengling at the Department of Environmental Services’ Air Resources Division, P.O. Box 95; Concord, NH 03301-0095.
CONCORD, N.H. – New Hampshire lawmakers have moved to reject a Republican-backed proposal to launch an impeachment inquiry into the lone Democrat on the state’s five-member Executive Council.
On Friday, a key committee of lawmakers delivered a unanimous 17-0 vote against an impeachment inquiry into Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill of Lebanon, N.H.
The vote on House Resolution 41 followed an abbreviated public hearing, after the bill’s sponsor withdrew his support for the proposal and instead asked lawmakers on the committee to recommend killing it.
The push for Liot Hill’s impeachment was led by Representative Joe Sweeney, a Salem Republican and the deputy majority leader in the New Hampshire House.
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At issue were several emails Liot Hill had sent from her official account to help a partisan law firm identify voters impacted by a new state law. The law tightened voter ID requirements for absentee ballots.
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Sweeney had previously called Liot Hill’s correspondence “political lawfare run out of a taxpayer-funded inbox.” In December, a review by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office found that Liot Hill’s conduct was not illegal and did not constitute a misuse of office, clearing the complaint against her.
Reached by the Globe on Friday, Sweeney, who was not present at the public hearing, said in a statement he preferred to let voters decide whether Liot Hill should continue to serve in the upcoming November election.
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“After reviewing the matter and hearing the discussion, I believe the appropriate course is to move forward and allow the voters and the political process to do their work,” he said.
“The purpose of filing the resolution was to ensure that the constitutional questions raised were addressed seriously and transparently,” he said, noting that he stands by the process and the decision to recommend killing the resolution.
In an interview, Liot Hill said she was pleased with the unanimous vote from the House Judiciary Committee.
“The committee vote, I think, sends the message that there was no merit to this,” she said.
The proposal now heads to the full House of Representatives, which has the power to approve the committee’s recommendation to reject it.
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Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.
A woman has been arrested in connection with the death of her baby whose body was found in a pond in Manchester, New Hampshire last year. Hepay Juma, 26, of Manchester, is now charged with reckless second-degree murder.
The New Hampshire Attorney General said Juma was arrested for “causing the death of Baby Jane “Grace” Doe, her child, under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life.”
On March 27, 2025, the baby’s body was found floating in the water at Pine Island Park in Manchester. The baby’s death was treated as suspicious following an autopsy.
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Investigators have not released any information about how they made the arrest or how the baby died.
Hepay Juma, 26, of Manchester, NH, is charged in connection with the death of her baby.
Manchester, NH police
At the time, Manchester Police Chief Peter Marr said the baby’s death was “extremely tragic.”
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Police asked the public for help after the baby’s body was discovered. They wanted to know if anyone saw someone discarding anything in the water in the previous 14 days, or if anyone knew a pregnant woman who gave birth during that time who needed medical help.
A funeral was held for baby Grace Doe last May, and the public was invited to pay their respects. “The way she was discarded is heartbreaking, and it is important that we give her a proper farewell,” Chief Marr said last year.
The baby was named Grace by police “to celebrate the kindness extended to her by those who refuse to let her life go unrecognized.”
Juma is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday in Manchester District Court.
