Concerns about the carbon credits industry in Coos County and forest owners locking up trees

Concerns about the carbon credits industry in Coos County and forest owners locking up trees to let them grow for carbon sequestration and the sale of carbon credits has led to legislation that drew support at a statehouse hearing on Monday. House Bill 123, sponsored by a group of Coos lawmakers and going to a public hearing before the New Hampshire House of Representatives Municipal and County Government Committee, seeks to allow municipalities to collect a tax on standing wood or timber on land enrolled in the carbon sequestration registry. The catalyst for the bills is the 146,000-acre Connecticut Lakes Headwaters Working Forest in Pittsburg, Clarksville, and Stewartstown, which has been owned since 2022 by Aurora Sustainable Lands LLC, which is selling carbon credits to companies in California who are required to buy them through that state’s carbon compliance market to offset their greenhouse gas emissions.