By Rob Roper
It has been nearly a year since the multi-state, New England/Mid Atlantic Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI-P) collapsed due to only one of the thirteen states (MA) actually signing onto the program, the rest taking a hard pass or offering a polite maybe later. TCI-P was a carbon tax scheme on gasoline and diesel motor fuels designed to increase the cost of those products, discouraging their use, while simultaneously extracting hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from drivers for the participating states to spend.
Joining TCI-P was a key plank in the Climate Action Plan (CAP) put forward by the Climate Council in order to meet the greenhouse gas (ghg) emission reduction mandates under the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA). When it failed, the Council’s task was to come up with something to replace it. They still haven’t, and it doesn’t look like they will or even can.
Speaking to the Council’s Transportation Task Force on October 17, 2022, Jane Lazorchak, the Director of Global Warming Solutions Act at the Agency of Natural Resources, stated what has been obvious to many observers for a long time, the kinds of programs necessary to curb emissions from Vermont’s transportation sector to the degree required by the law are “unviable” and “impossible”…….
Read more at Ethan Allen Institute blog
The author is a Stowe resident and member of the board of directors of the Ethan Allen Institute.