It was neatly summed up by TAG member Christopher Trombly’s revelation, “We’re taxing the poor so that the rich can benefit.”
Roper: “Clean” heat mess gets even messier
Evaluating a new rainbow trout strain for Vermont
State Fisheries Biologist Lee Simard: “We are evaluating the new Eagle Lake strain of rainbow trout against our traditionally stocked Erwin-Arlee strain…”
Newport wastewater plant dumps 100K gallons of untreated sludge
Untreated sludge overflows can pose risks to public health and aquatic life due to the high levels of bacteria, nutrients, and other pollutants present.
Vermont wildlife officials urge proactive measures to prevent bear conflicts
Bears have begun emerging from their dens earlier than usual this spring.
Biz on the hook for fixing PCBs in schools
The bill says companies that distribute PCBs must pay for the testing and removal of the chemicals in Vermont’s schools.
Bald eagles are back, but great blue herons paid the price
Researchers have concerns about the relation between the bald eagles’ rise and a receding blue heron population in the state.
Roper: Clean Heat Standard too complicated to implement
Nearly a year after passage the most basic concepts around “the plan” remain unaddressed.
Malone: EPA threatens locally produced beef
Mission Creep: Proposed EPA rule shuts down small meat producers
Page: Exchanging tailpipes for smokestacks
The true environmental damage from EV mandates.
Satcowitz: Updating Act 250 to meet the changing times
This cherished landscape is going away. We are blotting it out bit by bit, and once those bits are gone, we can’t get them back
Fish & Wildlife creates ‘Pleistocene Park’ in NEK
50 years ago Vermont reintroduced turkeys to the Vermont wild. Now Fish & Wildlife is seeing early success at reintroducing another large bird – this one with ancestors from Vermont’s Pleistocene era.
Klar: Let’s get cows, and our food supply system, right-side-up
Curiously, the cow-concerned want to exterminate cows from the planet, and humanity’s only shot at preventing desertification and starvation along with them.
Bill would require net gain of state-managed wetlands
A bill to guarantee increased wetlands under state management will cost at least $1 million next year, if it passes.
Paying you for your opinion about 50% conserved land by 2050
An environmental group is offering to pay $75 to ‘conservation advocates’ who will advance the U.N.-based State of Vermont plan for 50% conservation of total land area by 2050.
MacDonald: A green revolution or all about that Green?
A wealth transfer from poor to rich that doesn’t reduce emissions.
Galfetti: The cost of Renewable Energy Credits
The Floor Report: 03/21/2024.
Roper: House passes Renewable Energy Standard amidst cloud of baloney
Sponsoring Rep. deploys word salad to avoid stating truths about the bill.
Klar: Renewables threaten the US power grid
The crisis has regulators scrambling.
Page: Aral Sea catastrophe a warning for geoengineering
A cautionary tale against climate engineering.
Some cliff tops and overlooks closed to protect nesting Peregrines
Also, be alert for frogs and salamanders while driving.
Bears are becoming active earlier in the spring
Vermonters need to take steps now to prevent bear conflicts.
Klar: Fur trapping to save the planet!
A recent study concludes that explosive repopulation of Arctic terrain by beavers is thawing large areas of tundra and releasing climate-destroying methane.
“United Nations” references in VT Senate committee include $200 billion/year from U.S.
Like its counterpart committee in the House, the Vermont Senate committee on the environment is rife with references to policies promoted by the United Nations.
PFA project leaks leachate at Coventry landfill
Nearly 9,000 gallons released.
Thurston: Adding insult to insanity
The dark side of H.289, 100% renewable electricity by 2030: when all else fails, Dem’s resort to renewables-shaming
Stormwater regs will put county fairs out of business, Senate told
Stormwater permit compliance will cost up to $1 million per county fair. “You just can’t make that kind of money up at the fairground,” Folsom said.
Birding to change the world
UVM’s Trish O’Kane on her new book and how birds saved her soul.
Roper: Plastic bag ban backfires on environment
“The road to this plastic misfire was paved with green intentions—untempered by any serious cost-benefit analysis.”
Klar: More cows needed to reverse climate change, experts say
Scientists are speaking up for beef.
Avian Flu crosses species, kills Vermont bobcat
A Vermont mammal has died of the highly pathogenic avian flu.
Wall Street Journal says geoengineering is really happening
“Scientists are resorting to once unthinkable techniques to cool the planet because global efforts to check greenhouse gas emissions are failing,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Roper: Already the State can’t afford the clean heat standard
No funding to pay people to design the program, let alone run it!
Despathy: BTW Vermonters -You are all a bunch of NIMBYs
Renewable Energy Vermont, Sen. White, and industry lawyers like Wilschek are determined to clear the path for their profit-driven renewable energy projects, including removing us “NIMBY” Vermonters.
Smith: Renewable power industry exploits poorest towns
Sen. White has turned this situation upside down. Aesthetics has nothing to do with it. Poor towns have been targeted because they are vulnerable to monetary promises.
Bill creates more protection for endangered species
Bill would require more updates to endangered species list, restrict taking species from habitats.
Klar: New ‘study’ extolling greenie redistribution unwittingly exposes toxic climate cult
The ugly head of eco-Marxism.
‘Geoengineering Resistance’ group gathers
Following a number of unusual weather events here in Vermont in the past year, more and more people are questioning the “natural” causes of these disasters.
Vermont habitat stamp raises $656,000 for conservation in 2023
Matching funds for habitat projects sponsored by the stamp have come from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program.
McCormick: Weatherization crews deserve our respect
The General Assembly (G.A.) cannot enforce us to abandon our cars or oil heaters.
Roper: Clean Heat Standard exploding on the launch pad
A perfect storm of legislative incompetence and bureaucratic bumbling.
Gorman: Energy industry bill disenfranchises Vermonters
Rather than replace wild living trees with industrial dead solar panels, rather than surrender the Biosphere and the Ethnosphere to the Technosphere, we need to start saving every wild acre left.
MacDonald: NH seeks to ban cloud seeding and other atmospheric geoengineering
If we lack any sense of transparency, limits, or regulation, we might find ourselves subject to man-caused atmospheric effects without knowledge of recourse.
Ehlers: Why does the Colchester Selectboard hate canaries (and clean water)?
Malletts Bay – proclaimed the Jewel of Lake Champlain – is degrading faster than any other section of lake, and it is because of development.
Roper: Stop forcing EVs down our throats
Soviet-style central planning does not work!
Klar: Is a nuclear renaissance on the horizon?
Proponents of climate change action are increasingly coming to terms with the factual reality that renewable energy manufacturing cannot possibly provide the baseload of power the world requires.
Banned chemicals PCBs found in East Montpelier’s U-32, remediation underway
U-32 Middle and High School in East Montpelier has joined dozens of schools in the state testing positive for the toxins, also called polychlorinated biphenyls.
Keelan: Efficiency Vermont just keeps growing
Efficiency Vermont is not different than most Vermont nonprofits that are, in effect, quasi-state agencies. They have substantial mission creep.
Roper: Sen. McCormack: “Am I so out of touch? No, it’s my constituents who are wrong.”
Democrat does his best to paraphrase Principal Skinner.
State grant could help Waterbury brewery curb its wastewater
Last month, Freak Folk Bier brewery received a grant from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation’s wastewater management program.
Miro: Vermont should follow Burlington’s lead
Burlington’s outgoing Mayor lists what he’d like to see Vermont do for energy affordability and climate,
Carbon tax on big Burlington buildings begins Jan.1
This occurs while online pundits note that the Green Mountain State seems to be following closely California’s costly green energy policies.
McClaughry: Vermont’s continuing battle to defeat the menace of climate change
The legislative majority in Montpelier seems to think that Vermonters will rejoice at their enactment of a radical agenda, even though it will have no detectable effect on the Earth’s future climate.
Dame: A new direction for natural disasters
The Democrats holding the supermajority have given Vermonters the wrong prescription for how to deal with the problems we face with these kinds of major weather events.
Roper: Report: Clean Heat Standard is “not cost effective”
Even when the books are cooked, the numbers still don’t add up. And our virtue-signaling lawmakers know it.
Nine Vermont car dealerships tell Biden: “Tap the brakes on the unrealistic government EV mandate”
The gov’t mandates to push EVs onto consumers are failing to translate into sales as EV inventory is piling up. Now 3,882 dealerships nationwide including 9 from VT are calling out the situation.
Evslin: Spend $$ on climate adaptation, not carbon reduction
It’s our job as Vermonters to mitigate the effects of climate, whatever it is and whatever it will be, here at home. We can and should think global. We must act local.
Another high school faces PCB contamination – air filters ordered
The state “Action Level” of 100 nanograms of PCBs per cubic meter is exceeded in the auditorium, dance strudio, phys. ed. office space, two rooms close to the cafeteria, two restrooms, and several storage rooms.
Klar: High Stakes Dispute Over Roundup Weed Killer
Jury finds glyphosate causes cancer.
Despathy: VPIRG is not Vermont’s voice
The “Make Big Oil Pay” hypocrisy.
Invasives remain thorny issue after State updates pesticide regs
Invasive species are a big issue in Vermont, and the debates surrounding their management often center on another contentious issue — herbicides and pesticides.
Klar: New study suggests EVs are regressive
Counting up the real cost of virtue-car EVs.
Klar: Milking cows for methane
With revolving-door regulatory oversight for corporate profit now the obvious norm in America, who on earth would drink milk tainted with chemicals that synthetically alter how cows digest grass?
Kinsley: Let’s not lose our heads
Lawmakers get tunnel visioned in their climate strategies of choice to the point of ignoring other pressing concerns.
Roper: VT Energy Policy: Saving the Planet, or Feathering Nests?
Renewable Energy Standard committee keeps the truth to themselves about favoring special interests, despite concerns and the impacts of their legislation.
Klar: Problems with Underground Carbon Storage
What incentive do companies have to keep the carbon sequestered or monitored? What is to prevent companies from discharging toxic waste as effluent?
McClaughry: Are we done with costly CO2 emissions reductions?
August 25 Speaker Krowinski made it clear that she and her House supermajority want little to do with driving up energy prices paid by Vermonters to defeat climate change.
Keelan: If hypocrisy were a gas, it would…!
There is a path to deal with what is happening in the world regarding the climate. It should be addressed without hypocrisy. We can start here in Vermont.
Vermonters’ rate affordability over emissions reduction, State survey shows
The Vermont Department of Public Service (PSD) has released a new report that presents insights into the public opinion on renewable electricity in Vermont.
Vermont mammologist recognized for endangered species conservation
The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) announced this year’s Sally Laughlin Award recipient, Dr. C. William “Bill” Kilpatrick.
Klar: NASA’s climate change metrics need fixing
Loving your lawn comes with an expensive but unseen cost.
Roper: VT Renewable Energy Standard: A “shell game” of “picking winners & losers”
Winners: major donors to the Democrat and Progressive parties and their candidates. Losers: those who may supply better, cheaper, more reliable electricity but don’t support those politicians.
Brook: Climate science is changing: it can never be “settled”
I question the whole ‘climate change’ narrative. That makes me subject to name calling…
Roper: Thar She Blows!
Hopefully the continued failure of offshore wind projects is enough to save the whales from the self-proclaimed environmentalists.
Key House lawmaker would penalize gas-guzzlers
“The priorities have been so skewed,” Brattleboro Rep. Mollie Burke said. “People think they have the God-given right to go whenever they want to go.”
Vermont has given 3,534 electric vehicle rebates since 2019
State incentives are available for new vehicle purchases or leases of eligible EVs with a base manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $50,000 or less.
Roper: PUC stands for People Utterly Clueless
None of this speaks well of the competency with which this program will be managed. And it is going to be exceedingly complicated.
Klar: Bill Gates eyes ‘friendly’ mosquitos
In seeking the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, mankind has habitually crafted machinations with destructive impacts often unforeseen.
DEC report highlights distrust, waste and water concerns in three communities
Report also describes a sense of distrust with civil services and plans for a new app to make it easier to see alerts and records and file and follow complaints.
Roper: Conflicts of interest in the Renewable Energy Standard Working Group
These are the most egregious conflicts of interest on the committee, and you can count on them to shape policy in ways that funnel money to their doners through mandates and subsidies.
Future Generations Commissioner pushes no-car society, universal basic income
Investing in EV infrastructure is not the answer at all, Howe said. “We’re all still stuck in traffic, not talking to each other, in EVs rather than our diesel vehicles.”
Roper: Are $6 per gallon gas prices coming to Vermont?
Washington State sees highest gas prices in country following carbon tax
State: Casella must remove flood control berm
Vermont’s biggest solid waste handler lacked proper permitting to build its post-flood berm in Montpelier.
Klar: The histrionic follies of volcano deniers
For the elites, net-zero emission “standards” are applied to cows, cars, and gas stoves but not to jet travel, ski chalets, and golf courses…or Nature itself.
New electric school buses lose up to 80% range in winter
New busses fall short on planned benefit to the environment and to the community.
Evslin: Maui wildfires and ‘the cricks do rise’
Maui’s flammable grasses are there because they were imported, and they’ve spread because the danger they pose has been neglected.
Elm-eating bug confirmed in Vermont
An invasive sawfly from Asia that can fully defoliate an elm tree has migrated across the Quebec border into northwestern Vermont.
Bean: Geoengineered Transhumanism influences our lives
Modifying the weather locally and “making it rain” is just a piece to the puzzle. Here’s another one: transhumanism.
NEK lake celebrates 5 years Eurasian milfoil-free
It took a lot of work, but Shadow Lake has been removed from the list of milfoil-infested Vermont lakes.
Vermont AG joins plea against ‘plastic pollution crisis’
The letter sent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants a stronger plan to dramatically reduce the production of plastic materials.
Plans to plant billions of trees threatened by massive undersupply of seedlings
US efforts to fight climate change with tree planting at risk from lack of stock and species diversity, new UVM research shows
Leave the loons alone, advocates say
Keep three school bus lengths betwixt you and them, the Loonwatchers say.
Roper: Climate Council eyes transportation carbon tax on top of S.5 home heating tax
A win/win for the politicians on both sides of the lake, but for the Taxpayers, of course, it’s lose, lose, and lose some more.
Vasilogambros: Drought hits the Midwest, threatening crops and the world’s food supply
Though “weird,” this weather pattern is not yet being connected to climate change, said Trent Ford, the Illinois state climatologist, who collects and analyzes the state’s climate data.
Lomborg: Thinking smartly about climate change
It can be easily demonstrated that climate change, however serious, is not an incoming giant meteor.
Hit or miss windstorm knocks out power / rosy maple moths / the postman and your dog
See the rosy maple moth up close…. maybe TOO up close.
Bobolinks, turtles need your help
Many turtles killed on Vermont roads are nesting females.
One Orange County copper mine cleanup gets batty, another gets potty
Expect the unexpected in the copper mine cleanup business. If it’s not bats, it’s knocked over port-a-potties.
Fairbanks Museum demos ‘mass timber’-built addition
The new addition at the Fairbanks Museum is the first in the world to use regional hemlock in cross-laminated timber construction.
Keelan: Let’s face it, we don’t care
Do we care what it takes to get us an EV or a kilowatt of electricity? Vermont has been in denial. The cost is too great for this to continue.
‘April Stools Day’ has debut scooping in South Burlington
Animal waste is a major culprit in the development of blue-green algae, a type of cyanobacteria that plagues Lake Champlain and other Vermont waterways, largely due to soil runoff into rivers, streams.
