Governor Approves Uber Study Committee Bill

Gov. Maggie Hassan, D-Exeter, issued the following statement after today signing Senate Bill 254, establishing a committee to study the provision of services to the public by Uber and existing taxi services:

“As we work to attract and retain more of the young workers who are essential to innovative economic growth in the 21st century, we must engage in the emerging technologies and services that younger generations increasingly embrace. Ridesharing services such as Uber are an integral part of the shared economy and can help make our state more attractive for students, young professionals and entrepreneurs to live, work and do business, so that our families, businesses and economy continue to grow and thrive.

“By creating a study committee to look more closely at Uber and existing taxi regulations, Senate Bill 254 begins the important work of looking at ways to regulate fundamentally new and different technologies when existing regulatory requirements can also vary greatly by municipality. I believe creating a modern, uniform statewide regulatory standard for ridesharing is appropriate, something that 21 states have already adopted. I applaud Senator Fuller Clark and the legislators from both parties who worked to pass this bipartisan bill, and I look forward to continuing to work together on this issue next year.”

The signing comes just as a Seacoast attorney that represents a taxi company is calling on the city of Portsmouth to shut down Uber.

“The influx of an unlimited amount of UBER X drivers into the small Portsmouth market, by not having to comply with the same regulations, has threatened the survival of Great Bay Taxi and the entire taxi industry in the City of Portsmouth,” he said in a post on Portsmouth NH Patch. “GBT (Great Bay Taxi) has lost enough revenue from weekend fares that it has been required to remove two vehicles from its fleet because they can no longer afford to pay the commercial insurance for those vehicles.”