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By Paul Bean
A bill to repeal the Clean Heat Standard is expected to be introduced by house Republicans in the early upcoming session as a preemptive measure to oppose the expected new version of the Clean Heat Standard.
The Clean Heat Standard is the legislature’s attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to meet the mandated goals required by the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2020.
House Minority Leader Rep. Pattie McCoy (Poultney) told Dave Soulia of FYIVT.com by email, “Vermonters sent a message loud and clear in the November elections. We need to return affordability to Vermont. Our caucus is fully behind a repeal of this legislation that was enacted by the supermajority Democrats through an override of Governor Scott’s veto in 2023.”
Last fall the Vermont Department of Public Service contracted an independent consultant and estimated the Clean Heat Standard could increase the cost of heating oil anywhere from $1.79 to $4.00 per gallon.
The latest draft report from the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) states, “It is not feasible for all Low- and Moderate-Income households to participate in the program’s early years – and those unable to participate will face higher heating costs….” House Republicans share this view.
The Clean Heat Standard, otherwise called Act 18, is set to return to the legislature in the upcoming session.
Representative Mark Higely told VDC this morning “If the Clean Heat Standard is to come through the legislature again then it will have to be addressed just as any other bill. It will have to go through committee, back on the floor, and eventually the Governor can veto it again.The report this fall from the PUC basically said we don’t recommend implementing the clean heat standard. If they’re foolish enough to go forward with the clean heat standard, or whatever it is this year, it has to come back in the form of a bill and be addressed just like all other bills. This bill is currently a draft bill.”
Draft bills have not yet been introduced, could change, and won’t have a number until it is introduced. It will likely be introduced and posted on the Legislature’s website by January 8.
“Not only do we need to start over with Act 18, we need to remain vigilant that it is not replaced with some other new carbon tax scheme,” McCoy told FYIVT.com.
Getting into the inside baseball of lawmaking, it might seem odd that Republicans are introducing a bill to repeal the Clean Heat Standard considering Act 18 will again have to go through the legislature as a new bill anyway and still has the potential to be voted down and even vetoed.
Mark Higley speculated “the reason House Republicans might want to introduce a bill to repeal Act 18 is to ensure they are out ahead of the curve and that they can point to that directly opposed to the CHS.”
One major stakeholder of the CHS, the Vermont Natural Resources Council, wrote on their website September 1 that Act 18 “will change the longstanding, profit-driven, fossil-fueled status quo – which is why Big Oil is aiming to disrupt Vermont’s effort. Americans for Prosperity – a “dark money” group founded by the billionaire Koch brothers and bankrolled by national fossil fuel interests – has entered into Vermont with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in mailers and ads clearly intended to sow misinformation and fear.”
Americans for Prosperity have sent out mail campaigns in Vermont that directly oppose measures mandated by the CHS. Speaker Jill Krowinski released a statement on July 24, she calling the campaign “misinformation and the influence of dark money that aims to promote confusion and fear…The goal of the Affordable Heat Act is to help insulate Vermonters from fossil-fuel price swings, and to make it easier and more affordable for them to transition — if they want to — to more sustainable renewable energy sources.”
The Democrat majority may seek to implement a new version of the CHS. VDC will be tracking both of these bills in the upcoming session.
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Categories: Legislation
Excuse me, i need to put more wood in my wood stove. Thanks to the loggers and their fossil fuel equipment, i now have a good supply of wood.
Yesterday PUC Commissioner Jean Tierney, who is retiring in 11 days, had some parting words for the Climate Council, leaving no question about here opinion about the Vermont supermajority’s obsession with emissions reductions:
“With all due respect as somebody who lost her home in Irene I think the emphasis of this council is completely misdirected. We need to be thinking about how we use our resources. And we should be directing those at resiliency in my opinion, and also frankly in recovery.
Because we can speak large thoughts about (CO2)emissions reductions. Our emissions at the end of the day and our reductions of them may be morally just and therefore compelling, but it is a compulsion to focus on them when the immediate needs of keeping people safe directly, knowing that we’ve got storms coming, are being sidelined or neglected in order to pursue those measures. And by that I mean every scent that goes into policies that are directed toward reductions when we need to be directing every scent toward hardening our systems and helping people survive here. I would urge this Council to rethink where it’s putting its intellectual capital because I just I cannot over emphasize how wrong I think what it is we are doing. Those are my parting words to the council, thank you.”
Thank you Commissoner Tierney, for those words. May they resonate in the House and Senate chambers in the upcoming session.
It’ll bounce off deaf ears, is my prediction, given the lies that continue to be spewed, including from Krowinski who claims the intent of the AHA is to insulate Vermonters from fluctuating fossil fuels prices. No it’s not: the intention into get Vermont off of fossil fuels altogether and on more expensive, less reliable forms of “green” energy.
I believe their intension is to drive as many Vermonters out of their homes and off of their land as possible. They have been quite successful at that.
The reason the VTGOP needs to put in a new bill to repeal Act 18 is because the bill to implement it (or not) only applies to the rules governing the clean heat standard — not the overall commitment to having a clean heat standard. Until Act 18 is fully repealed, all the mechanisms, the bureaucracy etc, for a Clean Heat Standard remain in place (and we continue paying for them) until such a time as the rules are approved by the legislature. To make an analogy, with Act 18 we bought the Clean Heat car. According to the law, the next step is to determine the rules for driving that car around the countryside. If we can’t determine those rules, the car stays in the garage until we do, but we still own the car. The VTGOP repeal bill says, no, we’re returning the car to the dealer. We don’t want it.
And Mr. Roper’s warning is what needs to be publicized, warned and shouted to both the legislature and Vermont resident.
In 2014 then governor peter shumlin pulled the plug on his dream single-payer healthcare plan. The underlying legislation remains in 2024 and we are paying for the legislature’s inaction today. Don’t repeat the mistake.
Once again we are being manipulated by people who THINK that CO2 is a bad thing, the minds of these people have been successfully manipulated by a hand full of narrative writers who have done a magnificent job of bending FEAR for an outcome that they wish. Can ANYONE anywhere please show us the data that shows that CO2 is bad? I’m waiting, have been waiting for a long time. Stop your stonewalling, please show us the data/proof that this pursuit will actually have a benefit to humanity and us TAX slaves here in VT.
carbon: the element of LIFE
climate council: the element of stupid
Repeal the “Clean Heat Standard” and disband the un-elected “Carbon Commission”.
It is high time that the overzealous Dem’s / Prog’s recognize that this is purely a political gambit that is being rebuffed by Vermont citizens.
This bill is one of the main reasons that the “Left” took such a shellacking this last election cycle. Chris Bray was literally thrown out of office for his ignorant and aloof disrespect for voters. Certainly it was his appearance of being in bed with climate activists, taking their position as fact and Vermonters be damned, that ended it for him. The idea Vermonters need to get out of the way and let the politicians do their dirty deeds uninhibited is WRONG!!!