A very small step for the state will be a huge leap for individual students if the legislature decides to adopt a modest school choice scholarship act today. Despite misleading accusations flying around from people who resist any change, the debate comes down to whether you want to provide hundreds of poorer students greater choice with little impact on the current system.

The program is simple. Businesses who chose could if they wished receive a tax credit for donations to a scholarship organization. That non-profit would give scholcarships averaging $2500 to students from poorer families (the cut off is roughly the bottom half of New Hampshire households).

The total program would amount, in the first year, to less than one-tenth of 1% of education spending in New Hampshire (hardly a financial shift). The state budget would actually save a few hundred thousands of dollars each year.

The non-profit public interest law firm examined fees, education requirements, and licensing exams for 102 low and medium income jobs across the nation in its new report License to Work. The Institute concluded that New Hampshire places fewer burdens than most states, but there are a few areas where getting a job in the Granite State is harder than it ought to be.

Lisa Knepper is Director of Strategic Research at the Institute for Justice, and co-author of License to Work. She says her firm concentrated on jobs towards the bottom of the economic ladder rather than highly regulated occupations like doctors and lawyers because they were most interested in finding out how state regulations impacts those on the lower rungs. Knepper says occupational licensing is a substantial barrier for those trying to find work.

“That’s a lot of time and effort spent earning a license instead of earning a living,” Knepper adds.

For instance, in New Hampshire, would-be cosmetologists and barbers have to pay a fee, go through months of training, and take two exams before they can cut or style a customer’s hair. But EMTs pay smaller fees and have less experience before they can start their jobs. Nationwide, 66 occupations require more stringent qualifications than EMT. Knepper says that disparity shows that licenses aren’t set up to protect the public.

“When you make it harder to enter an occupation, people who already have a license face less competition and can charge higher prices,” Knepper says.

And New Hampshire is just one of five states that requiring a license to shampoo. Before anyone can touch your soapy head in New Hampshire, they have to pay a $25 fee to the state and sit through 35 hours of training. Knepper says most states get along very well without state regulation of shampooers.

“You can look at these licensing regimes and ask why is it that if people are practicing these professions in other states, and why do we make it so hard here?” Knepper asks.

But the Live Free or Die State puts up fewer barriers than most states. New Hampshire licenses just 34 of the 102 occupations tracked in License to Work, and ranks 43rd in terms of licensing burdens nationwide. Knepper says that’s a pretty good record when people are looking for jobs, but there’s always room for improvement. She supports every state reforming its occupations licensing requirements to make sure the rules truly protect public safety and don’t just protect industries from competition.

“The key thing to keep in mind is that the burden of proof for a licensing scheme should be on those who want to license,” Knepper concludes. “If you think there should be a license, prove it.”

She points to research from University of Minnesota Professor Morris Kleiner.

“Licensing doesn’t have much of an impact on quality at all,” Knepper explains. “What it does is raise prices for consumers and reduceopportunities for workers.”

The Institute for Justice also release d a video accompanying the report, which you can view below.

With so much partisan sniping in modern politics, it’s heartening to find an issue where Republicans and Democrats in the New Hampshire Legislature agree. They don’t think your electric rates are high enough.

In 2007, when Democrats ruled the Earth, or at least every corner of the State House, New Hampshire started the Renewable Portfolio Standards program. RPS mandates that a growing percentage of New Hampshire’s electricity comes from renewable sources, like sun, wind, wood and water. By 2025, RPS will require 23.8 percent of all the state’s electricity to come from renewable sources, just short of Gov. John Lynch’s 2006 goal of 25 percent by ’25.

But not all renewable are created equal. RPS splits power sources into four narrow classes.

Class I includes new sources not online before 2006 and increased production from previously existed generators. These yet-to-be-built power plants make up the bulk of the RPS mandates, growing by 1 percent a year to a total of 16 percent of all New Hampshire electricity by 2025. The wind farm in Lempster and wood-to-energy plant in Berlin are part of Class I.

Class II is new solar generation, and tops at just 0.3 percent of the total RPS mandate.

Class III, existing biomass, covers a half-dozen wood-to-energy plans spread across the North Country. Two turbines powered by landfill methane in New York also qualify. The Class III mandates quickly increase to 6.5 percent of the grid.

Class IV covers small hydro-electric dams that each produce less than 5 megawatts a year, provided they also comply with the Clean Water Act and have fish ladders to help repopulate New Hampshire’s rivers, and would top out 1 percent.

Under this new regime, power distributors such as PSNH don’t actually have to get their electricity from renewable sources. They have to purchase Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) from those power plants, or pay Alternative Compliance Payments (ACPs) to the Public Utilities Commission. Renewable power plants end up creating two parallel but entirely separate products: the electricity they generate and the

RECs they sell to utilities.

Last year, New Hampshire utilities produced just over 11 million megawatts of power, and the total RPS mandate was just under 10 percent, creating a market for about a million RECs. Utilities don’t have to show compliance with last year’s mandates until this summer. Over the program’s first three years, New Hampshire utilities paid just under $47 million for RECs and ACPs. Those costs are passed onto ratepayers, and means that every kilowatt of electricity costs about one-sixth of a cent more. That’s five times the rate impact of the far more controversial RGGI program. And keep in mind that the RPS mandates, and their costs, will more than double over the next decade.

Republican Sen. Jeb Bradley has a plan to expand RPS even further. Senate Bill 218 would increase Class III from 6.5 to 9 percent, a move cheered by North Country timberland owners who want to sell the waste wood that used to go to our idle paper mills.

Bradley would also eliminate methane as a Class III competitor, and ease fish ladder requirements for small hydro.

The House Science Committee last week approved an amendment crafted by Chairman Jim Garrity scaling back Bradley’s expansion a bit, and reducing ACP payments to ensure that the worst-case scenario for ratepayers would be no more expensive than current law.

Garrity was an original co-sponsor of RPS back in 2007, seeing it as a way to diversify New Hampshire’s energy grid. But he’s seen the program devolve as power generators try to tweak the system to maximize the subsidies that ratepayers give them.

The bill faces its toughest test in the House this week, where the Republican supermajority is bound to be skeptical of a program that benefits a small group of businesses by increasing our electric bills. Garrity hopes to convince his colleagues that his amendment does less to pick winners and losers, at least among renewable energy suppliers, without increasing the risk to ratepayers.

Manchester Democratic Rep. Nick Levasseur is also skeptical of what the program has become. “I’m not sure we need an RPS, but if we do, let’s make sure it works,” Levasseur told the committee this week. He prefers Bradley’s bill to Garrity’s substitute, but thinks either would improve on the current program.

RPS isn’t the first or last time that New Hampshire lawmakers have attempted to micromanage the state’s electric industry, which helps explain why we pay among the highest electric rates in the nation.

Grant Bosse is lead investigator for the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank based in Concord.

The Senate did change the House-passed bill to say anyone challenging a government or public agency action, has to have his or her personal rights affected. The change was meant to make it clear the right to challenge is not open-ended. The amendment was pushed by the New Hampshire Municipal Association.

But Sen. Matthew Houde, D-Lebanon, told the Senate simply passing the bill would have significant fiscal impact for the court system, cities and towns, the attorney general and companies doing business with government on all levels.

“You underestimate the fiscal implications of this bill at your own peril,” Houde said.

Sen. Fenton Groen, R-Rochester, said there would be limitations, noting taxpayers would have to live in the district in order to have standing.

“This path (to the courts) was available until 2010 and there was not a rash of cases back then,” Groen said. “There is no reason to believe there would be a rash of cases now.”

Ted Seifer reports on the House and Senate feuding over a bill that would either transfer money to the Rainy Day Fund or prevent the DRA from collecting taxes on internet access.

The Senate transformed HB 1652, which would have moved most of the surplus from the last biennium to the rainy day fund, into a bill that would prevent the state from collecting pending taxes on Internet access. House lawmakers criticized the move ahead of the vote on Wednesday. “As a (bill) sponsor, I’m very disappointed in the Senate’s actions,” said Rep. Franklin Sterling, R-Jaffrey. “The whole point of this is to shore up the rainy day fund.”

The House not only voted to reject the bill, but also against referring it to a conference committee that would have worked to reconcile the differences in the House and Senate bills.

Senate leaders promptly criticized the House vote.

“The Senate remains committed to being on the side of taxpayers, making sure they never have to pay tax on their Internet access,” said Sen. Chuck Morse, R-Salem, the chairman of the Finance Committee, in a statement.

House Republican leaders, who strongly pushed for transferring the surplus to the rainy day fund as an act of fiscal responsibility, fired back.

“Obviously, we would prefer having a responsible dialogue with the Senate, but they seem more interested in using inflammatory rhetoric more consistent with political campaigns than actual governing,” said House Speaker William O’Brien, R-Mont Vernon, in a statement.

Siefer also writes up the House approving the Ten Year Highway Plan.

The state’s latest 10-year transportation funding plan is headed to the governor after the House on Wednesday approved the Senate’s version of House Bill 1716. The plan would spend around $2 billion on the state’s highways and bridges over the next decade, with the completion of the Interstate 93 expansion from Salem to Manchester the top priority. The I-93 expansion is funded based on the assumption the state will get the same $143 million a year in federal highway money as it currently receives.

The bill would attempt to address a $250 million shortfall for the project by issuing “federal highway grant anticipation bonds” or GARVEE bonds.

The highway plan adds a new Exit 4A on I-93 near Londonderry.

New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein reports on the Executive Council approving a contract for Managed Care of the state’s Medicaid program.

On a 3-2 vote, the Council approved a $2.3 billion deal to overhaul the state’s Medicaid program.

State officials say the move is essential to preserving a program that provides health and social services to about 10% of the state’s neediest residents.

Critics worry the shift to managed Medicaid could lead to less care, compounding severe hardships.

The ‘Above and Beyond’ awards recognize those individuals who have gone the extra mile and demonstrated an extraordinary willingness and commitment to helping the organization be successful and work to further its legislative and regulatory priorities,” said BIA President Jim Roche. “Their contributions have really helped New Hampshire’s business community, and we appreciate the tremendous amount of time and energy they have devoted to BIA in the past year.

“It’s very nice of the Business and Industry Association to recognize the hard work that we do at the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy,” Arlinghaus said in accepting the award.

Both liberal and conservative-oriented groups are raising concerns about the bill, HB 1704, which a Senate committee amended earlier this month to include the expanded reporting requirements.

The bill would expand the definition of a political committee in current campaign finance statutes to include tax-exempt corporations, specifically identifying 501(c)(4)s, 501(c)(5)s, and 501(c)(6)s, which include social advocacy groups, labor unions and business associations, among others.

The 501(c)(4) groups have generated controversy recently — particularly in the wake of Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision — as a means for donors to anonymously funnel contributions to so- called Super PACs.

Groups whose “receipts or expenditures in support of a candidate, measure, or political party” exceed $2,500 would be required to file reports with the Secretary of State’s Office, starting 12 weeks before a primary election, following the same schedule as party and candidate committees.

Meanwhile, the Union Leader’s editorial writers take issue with a section of the bill that singles out critics of incumbents.

The worst of the Senate committee amendments was the introduction of a new section titled “Reports of Spending on Information Critical of General Court Members.” It’s as chilling as its title suggests. The section states that any political committee that spends $500 or more on “distribution of information critical of a member of the general court…shall file an itemized statement with the secretary of state not later than 24 hours after such spending.” That statement must include the name of the legislator targeted, the name and address of the person paid, and the purpose of the payment.

It is a clear attempt to chill political speech critical of incumbent legislators. Such burdensome requirements would not apply to any committee spending money in praise of a member of the Legislature or engaging in any other political speech.