By Rob Roper
Just before the Vermont Climate Council voted to pass its Climate Action Plan under the Global Warming Solutions Act, member Sean Brown, who is also Commissioner Department for Children and Families, issued this dire warning for rural Vermonters:
I have a growing concern of the impact of this plan… is disproportionately going to impact rural Vermonters in ways that they don’t understand yet. When you say “no net loss of open land or working land” that hits rural Vermont. When you talk about “no new development” and focusing it [development] in downtowns, that hits rural Vermont. Transportation changes in this plan are going to hit rural Vermonters hard. Every part of this plan is going to hit rural Vermont, which is already economically disadvantaged in many ways, and also some of the changes to the UVA we discussed earlier will impact a sector that is very vibrant in rural Vermont, which is forestry. If you take out large sections of forest and have them become wild, you’re impacting the economic viability of thousands of Vermonters. It’s impact on biomass, and the forest industry. It’s a growing concern on my part that this plan is going to impact rural Vermont in ways that they don’t understand.
Indeed, the Climate Action Plan is a full scale attack on the rural Vermont way of life, and on rural Vermonters ways of making a living. Brown’s is yet another red flag that Vermonters really don’t understand what this law really is, does, and will cost in terms of money and lost liberties to massive government control, micromanaging every facet of our lives.
Get educated, folks! And then get active. Time is running out to put the breaks on this Mack Truck.
— Rob Roper is president of the Ethan Allen Institute