I am extremely frustrated by Gov. Chris Sununu’s recent veto of the New Hampshire state budget, which is negatively affecting the reproductive health care services that many New Hampshire residents rely on.
The Trump-Pence administration’s “gag rule” has effectively dismantled Title X services nationwide. To counteract the effects of this loss in federal funding, the New Hampshire budget included contingency state funding for Title X services, which could protect reproductive health care access for more than 16,000 Granite Staters.
These funds have become a casualty of Sununu’s budget veto, threatening the accessibility of necessary services such as cancer screenings, birth control and sexually transmitted disease testing.
By vetoing the budget, Sununu demonstrated that he does not care about the reproductive health care needs of low-income Granite Staters.
He is also ignoring the financial burden placed on Planned Parenthood and other health care providers through the loss of Title X funding.
The governor must work with budget writers as quickly as possible to develop a final budget that protects these services for all New Hampshire residents.
RACHEL FLORMAN
Hanover
Hobbling the Hartford Police Department is not the answer. Naturalized citizens of the U.S. take an oath of allegiance, and every service member, peace officer, civil servant, judge and others in public office swear something similar.
They renounce fidelity to any foreign power and pledge to support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America.
To craft an ordinance, or pseudo-law, that runs counter to that oath borders on anarchy and treason.
However, sound policies regarding asylum and providing legal immigration pathways to U.S. citizenship would certainly be justified by any community.
JOE ALVIN
White River Junction
The opinion column written by the three academics denigrating Dartmouth College’s proposed biomass plant (“Dartmouth’s planned biomass plant would only make things worse,” Aug. 9) misses a few key points.
New Hampshire is the most heavily forested state in the country. It has the second-highest percentage of dedicated timberland, after Maine. Regardless of which data one finds or believes, New Hampshire does not have to worry about running out of forest. This forest has always grown back, from farm fields and clear-cuts. Various species have disappeared due to invasives, but the forest does not stop. Old-timers joke about needing a “Society for the Prevention of New Hampshire Forests.”
The overharvesting of arm-thickness sticks in Coos County is not ideal, but look instead to the thriving, professionally managed, selective logging operations in the Upper Valley. These are people who live and work here and are connected to the land. When they have sold their saw logs and cordwood, what is left can be used for energy production, or it can be left to rot and emit precisely the same amount of carbon as if it had been burned. As long as enough remains for healthy regrowth, this is a no-brainer.
Forest fires, which devastated thousands of acres in the region in the late 1800s, were as bad as they were because of the slash that was left behind, which is one reason why slash is chipped for biomass today.
I cannot believe anyone would recommend burning oil when a renewable option exists that includes the local population. Also, a wood-fired plant can be combined with increased building efficiency and better campus lifestyle habits. These are not mutually exclusive.
If climate change is to be taken seriously, it must include everyone instead of just a certain class of people sitting in ivory towers who can literally afford to play games with the rest of the population. Maybe more attention should be called to the number of Range Rovers that blast up the highway from New Jersey to Hanover and back throughout the school year.
ANGUS GORMAN
Grafton
When the Wilder Dam hydroelectric site was for sale recently, I suggested that there be an investigation to determine if the facility would provide economical power to Dartmouth College and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
In my opinion, both the college and DHMC should have considered purchasing the dam for their power needs.
ED CONDICT
Lebanon
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