All things being equal, qualified contractors who use domestic steel would get priority in bidding on state projects. That’s the deal reached by House and Senate lawmakers that will allow a bill mainly setting up a framework to regulate cryptocurrency to go forward.
In March the House passed the 19-page House Bill 1503, which adopts a national Unform Commercial Code for “Controllable Electronic Records” into state law. The bill exempts blockchains from some securities regulation in order to make the state a bit of a haven for the new technology, which some liken to a Ponzi scheme while others herald as the currency of the future.
The Senate didn’t mess with the underlying bill very much, but it did tie old and new technologies together by attaching Senate Bill 438, which mandates that state use domestic steel on contracts a $1 million or more.
House lawmakers were not pleased. During last Friday’s committee of conference, Rep. John Hunt, R-Rindge, said it was “offensive,” since it would force the state to except higher bids at the expense of taxpayers in order to prop up a declining industry.
That led to accusations that the House did the same thing by trying to attach a cosmetology bill to a steel bill.
“The Senate didn’t fire the first shot,” Sen. Sharon Carson. R-Londonderry. “What do you want to do? Do you want us to walk away?”
Both sides did walk away without…
