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By Alison Despathy
Vermont’s fuel dealers are pushing back against a proposed Clean Heat Standard that they say is a serious threat to the survival of their small, locally-owned businesses.
“If you want to get rid of small fuel providers and eliminate the competition, this is an ideal program. But if you value local competition and companies that take care of the people in their small towns, you will recognize the clean heat standard for what it is and send it back to the legislature for further review,” Judy Taranovich, President/Owner of Proctor Gas, said in a statement to the PUC.
The Vermont Public Utilities Commission has been charged with developing regulations for the Clean Heat Standard created by Act 18, the ‘Affordable Heat Act.’ In an effort to meet legislatively-mandated carbon emission reduction goals, the Clean Heat Standard requires fuel dealers either provide eligible measures such as non-fossil fuel heating (i.e. heat pumps) and efficiency alternatives to offset fossil fuel sales or pay a surcharge. Surcharge revenue will then be diverted to subsidies for the non-fossil fuel alternatives. A recent state-commissioned study found implementing the Clean Heat Standard would cost $17 billion.
Planning the total makeover of heating homes and businesses has proven complex, costly and time-consuming, with the PUC extending the deadline for this process as a result. As part of the planning process, the PUC has solicited and received feedback from the Vermont heating fuel industry regarding their proposals. Several responses are included below, and all can be found here.
Taranovich said the draft plan for the Clean Heat Standard “ has me worried sick for business, my employees and my customers” because the draft PUC proposal demands an accurate crystal ball – or else.
“It asks us to literally forecast the weather by estimating sales volumes up to fifteen months in advance,” Taranovich said. If the fuel dealers arrive at the wrong number, they could pay two times the compliance fee. Judy wonders, “How will I even be able to open my doors if faced with a fine for not accurately predicting the weather?”
Fuel dealers across the state – Proctor Gas, Onsite Propane, Fred’s Energy, Fyles Brothers, Johnson Energy and others– submitted letters to the PUC in response to this proposal explaining how it’s both impossible and threatening to the survival of their businesses.
Paul Beauregard of Onsite Propane stated, “I’m alarmed by the nature of the proposal and how it ultimately puts my business at a disadvantage in the market. Overall it seems to discriminate against small businesses like mine and favor large national organizations.”
Beauregard urged the PUC to consider the impacts of their request on small businesses like his that employ Vermonters with a good livable wage and keep thousands of Vermonters warm and stocked with propane for their water, cooking and generator needs.
“It is clear the PUC has no working knowledge of the propane industry,” Beauregard said. “Designating and purchasing fuel is more of an art versus a science. Many factors determine how and when fuel is purchased, and they are constantly moving.
“For example, the value of the US dollar, the economy in Asia, what’s happening with the price of a barrel of oil, significant storms, railroad strikes, weather as a whole, crop drying in the Midwest. It’s basically impossible to forecast where our gallons will be purchased that far out with any accuracy.”
Manny Fletcher of Fyles Brothers stated: “If a small business like ours should be put in a situation where we are at risk of noncompliance and penalties, it would be detrimental to the survival of our company.” Not to mention their employees, their customers and the economy.
Fyles Brothers requested the PUC reconsider this proposal. “We feel that only the larger corporations will survive these recommendations. Smaller, Vermont family-owned fuel companies like Fyles Bros. Inc. would be at a disadvantage and some would be forced to sell to a larger corporation which would have a negative impact on rural and low income Vermonters by limiting the competitive market for heating fuels in the state.”
The State should just call it a tax, another dealer said. In fact, a straight tax might be preferable.
Thomas Johnson of Johnson Energy called out the crux of the problem, “The entire Clean Heat standard is nothing more than a ‘feel good’ money grab by the Vermont government simply called something other than a tax. If you intend to implement this craziness, why not deal with it like any other fuel tax and set a rate and force dealers to file tax reports post-sale like we already do? Complicating it with confusing language, fictitious heat credits and a system which the PUC can’t even design or figure out is not going to help anyone and hurt every consumer and small fuel business in Vermont.“
Johnson’s alternative suggestion of an increased fuel tax was proposed multiple times in committees. It went nowhere. Legislators who voted for this Clean Heat Standard/ Affordable Heat Act were warned of the dangerous repercussions to small businesses and the heating sector – yet appear to have ignored this reality.
The current PUC process offers a view of the inequities present in the Clean Heat Standard (Act 18) and its favoring of utilities and large companies like Vermont Gas Systems and Green Mountain Power, both of which lobbied hard for this ‘Affordable” Heat Act.
Beauregard pleaded with the PUC, “Please don’t make my job ensuring Vermonters have heat any harder than it already is. I will spend countless hours explaining how this works to my customers. The locally owned fuel providers talk to our customers; they are neighbors, we don’t have a call center in India and shareholders in Quebec. Yet this straw proposal appears to have been drafted by a utility to benefit a utility. The Legislature has asked the Public Utilities Commission to figure out how to eliminate local businesses that provide an essential commodity. On behalf of my employees and my customers, I ask you to reject that request.”
The PUC Clean Heat Standard information page can be found here.
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Categories: Energy, Legislation
This is one of the most insane things ‘the e-lites’ have ever thought of. We will be voting them ALL out this year. Green New Deal is also BS, costing Vermonters an insane amount of taxes. We now are not only working 2 full times jobs but an extra 3 part time just to pay for all this insanity and for all the WELFARE FRAUD, ppl’s kids child care, Universal Lunches. Middle finger to all of you that are responsible.
Agreed! And our family was FORCED out of our home of 24 years due to this insanity we saw coming down the pike coupled with the 14% tax increase just to mention but two of these people’s crazed, inane, lunatic bills & policies.
They will likely eventually go down in flames, (unless Harris wins in November & VT ends up being but a microcosm of the entire country at that point) but not before they continue to destroy citizen’s very lives and leave Vermonters so debilitated & the state in such an utter state of devastation that it can never be restored to what it once was and families like ours can never go home again – as Thomas Wolfe once stated. Except Literally.
‘the e-lites’ need more than the Middle Finger.
P.U.C. is the abbreviation for the “Public” Utilities Commission. This is in my opinion a misnomer as the position which the P.U.C. has taken is anything but a “service” to the public. Maybe the Public Extortion Commission, or the Forced Electrification Administration, Contrary to what the powers that be would have you believe, there is nothing here that is for the good of the public, it’s a power trip. (no pun intended) “Do as I say, not as I do.” When there are 180 charging stations on the complex, one for each legislator, there are solar panels on the roofs of all the state buildings, and there are wind turbines dotting Hubbard Park, I’ll think about it. Until then, as far as I’m concerned, they are nothing but a bunch of overpaid liberty leeches.
Vermont’s ” Affordable Heat Act “, now there’s an oxymoron, the gaggle of fools in the ” Super Majority ” are pushing their agenda that will financially devastate most Vermont families, but they don’t care, they have the look at us mentality, we matter and you don’t
You elect these clowns, this ” stupid majority ” will destroy you and the state, it’s time to vote them out !! You can call them you can write them it will not matter, they have their agenda !!
If one was following what the EU was and is doing to Europe -who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline? Who shut down the Keystone Pipeline? The funny thing about the green new deal is it does more harm to the environment and humans alike. Good luck trying to get the horse back into the barn after it has run counties away. The word “repeal” shall not be uttered or considered under the Golden Thunder Dome. The lawyers and NGOs have baked their profits into the cake = billable hours and 24/7 laundering services keeps their machine humming with impunity.
The fuel dealers’ replies to the straw poll are incredulously polite and I commend them for their restraint and patient explanation why the proposals of the so called “Affordable Heat Act” are impractical and reveal the true goal of the VT legislature which is to eliminate all heating sources for Vermonters other than electric. It reeks of iniquity.
Lot of understandable anger herein. And also noted from such articles, continuous.. The only solution is change the ,mindset in Montpelier, and it’ll take a huge flood of political change. Three choices otherwise 1) live with it, 2) mega change, 3) move. and put VT in your rear view mirror. All choices are difficult. There’s an imaginary line starting in Maine’s Belfast area straight line to the Middlebury VT area and include countries of Washington and Chittenden. South of this line and within the two counties is Liberal land, Flatlanders from states south of VT, NH & ME and New York, a bottle neck for progress.
Try to change the Liberal mindset of people within this area. Item # 2 will not happen. One way is like NH and some other states is to succeed and let VT rot on the vine. Otherwise it’s just beating your gums. I’ve seen the writing on the wall and note some others have also. I don’t have lead feet.
The Clean Heat Standard is an unworkably complex regulatory scheme created to extract millions of dollars from consumers without ever using the word “tax”. It is similar to a market-based emissions limiting system that can only work if the regulated businesses are few in number, highly sophisticated, and have lots of money to spend on economists and lawyers, such as electric utilities. Local fuel dealers do not qualify and have figured this out, unlike the Legislature and PUC.
With billions at stake here in Vermont, smaller dealers and jobbers need to be driven out. Part of the plan. The ClimateChange™ game cannot be run when sunlight exposes the con.
Already some dealers have indeed sold to larger- consolidation will happen quickly.
In the LP business, look for but two major players by 2030, those in the way will be pushed out by the PUC.
They know it’s unaffordable. That’s the point.
They think they’re “saving the planet.”
Some legislators may truly believe they need the GWSA to ‘save the planet’
Legislative leadership knows different. They require the GWSA as a condition for continued support from the donor class and grifting that abounds in the legislature.
ms. krowinski just last week launched a diatribe about the koch brothers and ‘misinformation’ regarding the clean heat standard, undoubtedly as instructed by her masters.
Corruption is rampant with these “democratic socialists”.
The VT Owned Fuel Dealers are on the side of We The People, having the common sense that is absolutely lacking in the majority of the legislature. We must Stand Together to fix this sinking ship! Legislatures have gone off their rockers to put it mildly (but there is way more to that story, as well all know); they have disregarded the well-being of their constituents and do not represent them, nor do they listen to them.
The People are totally against the Clean Heat Standard, totally. If they, the majority of the legislature, the ones who voted for this complete fiasco, love the Clean Heat Standard so much, let them pay for all the increased costs of Everyone’s Heating Bill as well as the CLF lawsuit (which is also part of the scam to the people), and pay the Clean Heat Credits themselves. Not one penny of our tax money should be funding the demise of the Vermont Population or VT Owned Fuel Dealers and any Small Businesses in Vermont.
We do NOT consent to be frozen to death, taxed to death, regulated to death. All of this is totally illegal.
Enough is Enough. No is NO! Seems like the only way is a Class Action Lawsuit.
LP Gas and Heating fuel are not currently price regulated by the PUC. Electricity and Natural Gas are regulated utilities. Interesting that the regulated utilities will benefit greatly from the clean heat standard, where the small fuel dealers will face not only crippling costs to comply, but decreased sales as a result.
Interesting also is the amount of dollars spent lobbying the legislature by GMP and VT Gas, compared to the virtually mom & pop operation the VT Fuel Dealers is.
krowinski, baruth, bray and their stooges all know what this is, and the billions at stake. Vermont’s taxpayers and ratepayers are being lied to, bigly.
Every Fuel dealer should refuse service to any legislator and their properties who voted to put this on the people. It is time for us to revolt at both the ballot box and be joined by the Fuel Dealers. Let them buy the extra blanket!
Unfortunately, refusing service to any person or group is against the law and would only hurt small dealers through costs for lawyers. I agree though, I like the idea myself.
Talk with every person you know, meet etc .VOTE these people out.
We need people to run against those who voted for this an all the other veto over rides. To many seats held by the majority party go uncontested. Run or nothing will change.
This poem was published (although without the explanatory paragraph) in the Newport Daily Express last spring.
As I’m writing this, in the wake of the Southport stabbing tragedy, England is exploding in protests because people have had enough. I hope no one dies in Vermont because of this law. Ironically, the British Government plans to cut fuel subsidies to “pensioners” (old people) this winter in order to fund a tax hike supporting mass immigration.
“When the Coltsfoot Bloomed”
If the so-called “Affordable Heat Act” (S.5) is signed into law, people will die, just as they died last winter in heat-rationed Europe. This bill has not been canceled; it has simply been put on hold while its Democrat and Progressive perpetrators commission studies that will deliver the results they want. Anyone who does not wish to see their fuel costs double should contact their elected officials and let them know how they feel about this politically motivated, possibly malicious piece of legislation (which is currently under review by the House Committee on Environment and Energy). It’s important to remember that with a Democratic supermajority in the state legislature, Governor Scott may not have the votes he needs to simply veto S.5.
By Ellin Anderson
When the coltsfoot was in bloom
On sunny banks, and on the hill
Where Nature wove on April’s loom,
They sat in peace, as white and still
And stiff as any Dresden doll:
A little family in their car —
They will not answer when you call,
However close you are.
They rested there, through every storm,
The bleak black night, the silver day —
Had they been trying to get warm,
Or just to get away?
In unrelenting northern cold,
With dead blue lips, a mother’s kiss
Is pressed on Baby’s hair of gold —
But nothing good, not even bliss
As good as gold can stay.
Or stay the hand of cruel intent
And power open to misuse.
Would pity’s warming heart relent,
Or would the cold claw of abuse
Unfold there on the sunny bank
Where the unsullied violet curled:
A little house, a propane tank
Crumpled, to save the world.
They tap upon the window — near
The marble eye, the porcelain ear
To ask forgiveness — now, they come,
But find the father deaf and dumb,
The child who only asked a crumb —
The mother and her crystal tear —
“Forgive us” — mocking or sincere,
A prayer that only God will hear.