By Michael Bielawski
Burlington’s carbon tax on buildings that don’t follow the city’s carbon-free energy goals for heating takes effect on Jan. 1.
The “carbon pollution impact fee” applies to developers seeking permits to work on new or existing buildings of 50,000 square feet or larger, with an exception for existing housing and historic buildings. The fee is set to be $150 per ton of emissions.
This occurs while online pundits note that the Green Mountain State seems to be following closely California’s costly green energy policies. The Essex GOP noted the trend on X (formerly Twitter.)
“What do you think? Will Vermont learn from the mistakes of others or will we just do it ‘better’?” Essex GOP wrote.
Californians paying 27% more for energy
The Essex GOP was commenting on a The Washington Examiner story headlined, “California admits its reckless renewable energy dream is failing.” Zachary Faria wrote that as the true costs of carbon-free energy came to light when state energy regulators recently voted to extend the life of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant until 2030.
Faria wrote, “The renewable energy dreams that Democrats are selling are frauds, and even California Democrats have shown that to be the case now. The rapid transition to unreliable forms of energy is not possible in its current, dreamed time frames.”
According to a report by EnergySage.com, Californians pay $2,712 per year on electricity, about 27% above the national average of $2,141. Energy affordability has become so serious that the state is planning to redistribute the cost based on income.
Short on megawatts?
Vermont similarly shut down 620 megawatts of nuclear power when it closed up Vermont Yankee in 2014. To put that power into perspective, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, all five of Vermont’s wind farms combined today for 150 megawatts. All of Vermont’s solar capacity currently combines for 288 megawatts
The true cost of all these turbines and panels is sometimes underestimated because they receive massive state and federal subsidies. A report by the Institute for Energy Research indicates that in 2022 energy sources considered renewable by the state got $15.6 billion, while much more widely used carbon-based production only got $3.2 billion.
City counselor wants higher tax
Even before the tax has been implemented, Gene Bergman, P-Burlington City Council, wants the carbon tax to be higher.
“Everybody has got to do their share. This is a share that we can do,” he said to WCAX.
He wants the tax to go up another 35% to $234 per ton of carbon and he also wants to expand the number of buildings that would be held to this requirement.
Vermont’s green ambitions unattainable?
Vermont’s Climate Council, an unelected body of policymakers tasked with coming up with a plan on how to reduce carbon emissions by various checkpoints in the coming decades, may have failed to achieve this goal.
According to commentator Rob Roper of Behind the Lines at Substack.com, rather than come up with a tangible and measured plan to achieve these reductions, they rather came up with a laundry list of unrealistic suggestions.
“It was/is an a la cart menu of pretty much every climate-related boondoggle policy they could think of dropped into an Excel file with no cost analysis, timeline for implementation of programs, etc. Not a plan,” Roper wrote.
Lawmakers getting cold feet?
The economic reality of converting all of Vermont’s energy into carbon-free sources of energy has prompted lawmakers to make reviewing the state’s Renewable Energy Standard a priority for this legislative session.
All this is to try and have Vermont get 75% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2032, with 10% from in-state, with more benchmarks to be sought in the decades to follow.
For homeowners, to achieve these goals home heating is largely expected to switch over to highly subsidized cold-climate heat pumps. Similarly, drivers are expected to switch over to EVs, despite a recent study showing that the true cost of a new electric car is nearly $50,000.
The author is a reporter for the Vermont Daily Chronicle