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Lawmakers consider stiffer penalties to compel payment to local hazmat teams after unpaid bills
Summary
HB 179 would raise late-payment penalties for parties responsible for hazardous‑materials response costs, aiming to ensure municipal fire and hazmat teams are reimbursed for contaminated gear and cleanup expenses.
Republican Representative Mark Prew (Hillsborough 15) introduced HB 179, which would change the payment and penalty timeline for the people or businesses responsible for hazardous-material incidents. Under current law an invoice for a municipal response that is not paid can generate a fixed penalty; the bill would raise that to a daily penalty after a 90‑day grace period until the invoice — plus interest and an added percentage penalty — is paid, with collected penalties remitted to the local municipality.
Prew and public-safety witnesses said unpaid invoices create a resource shortfall for local departments. “To replace a set of turnout gear is between $700 and $1,000 per member,” Prew said, and described a case in which crews were forced to buy replacement gear out of local budgets after an insurer or responsible party did not promptly compensate them.
Don Deangelis, Epping Fire Chief and chair of the Seacoast HazMat team, said his region’s nine‑county mutual‑aid hazmat teams rely heavily on reimbursement to rebuild stocks of booms, absorbent pads and protective clothing used in spills and incidents. Deangelis said some departments went without replacements for almost a year after a recent incident because insurance or the responsible parties had not paid the bills.
William McQuillan, president of the Seacoast Chief Fire Officers mutual aid district, told the committee that many New Hampshire towns are small and must rely on mutual aid; when departments are unable to recover costs after large incidents, the district’s financial resilience is harmed. He said insurance companies often do pay, “but some don’t,” and when claims are disputed the administrative process can leave local teams waiting months for reimbursement.
Director Mike Wimsatt of DES described the technical difference between enforcement of regulatory violations and local cost recovery for municipal responses. Committee members pressed on whether homeowners or small renters could be unduly harmed by the bill; witnesses said most response bills go to insurers or identifiable responsible parties and that homeowners’ situations are often resolved by private insurance, though there are instances (for example a renter without insurance) where a municipality is left with a loss.
Several committee members suggested clarifying language to preserve proportionality (for instance a cap or an endpoint on daily penalties equal to the bill plus an agreed percentage) and to ensure homeowners are not unintentionally penalized for incidents that would normally be covered by insurance. No action was taken at the hearing. The bill will return to committee work for possible drafting changes.
