by Don Keelan
Vermont’s U.S. Senator, George Aiken, made a wise statement in 1966 in response to the President Johnson Administration’s Vietnam troop build-up. To paraphrase the Republican Senator, “We have won, it is time to begin withdrawing the troops.”
Efficiency Vermont, the wholly owned division of the 40-year-old Winooski, Vermont nonprofit, Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, has done a remarkable job over the past 25 years. Let us accept this and repurpose its funding from Vermont’s electric rate-payers.
According to the EVT’s website, between the years 2000 and 2024, it has removed from the Vermont environment a cumulative total of 14.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, or an average of 700 thousand tons per year. This was accomplished by assisting homeowners, renters, businesses, and nonprofit organizations with weatherization and adopting new heating and cooling equipment. And more recently, convincing motorists to switch to electric vehicles.
To place this achievement in perspective, and according to the international data firm, Statista Research, the average annual worldwide output of CO2 is approximately 32 billion metric tons or approximately 768 billion tons between 2000 and 2024. I suppose every little bit helps?
EVT also reports that what it has accomplished in the 24-year period is the equivalent of removing all Vermont cars from the roads for five years, a notable achievement. Unfortunately, the State of Vermont tourism department recently reported its good news for 2024. The agency noted that Vermont had over 16 million visitors. Could it be that most of them toured Vermont in electric vehicles?
How has EVT accomplished the above and how was it funded? According to correspondence received from Green Mountain Power for the year 2025, GMP forwarded $ 37.5 million to EVT. This was the amount the electric utility collected monthly from its rate-payers. Correspondence from VEIC noted that in 2024, from all of Vermont’s electric utilities, it collected $48.15 million. An amount that is quite substantial.
EVT is only part of a larger organization, VEIC, which reported over $130 million in revenue on its 2024 IRS Form 990. Fees from Vermont electric ratepayers make up one of its largest single sources of revenue. VEIC’s operations span Vermont, 12 other states, and the UK.
To carry out this national and international energy-saving operation, over 426 employees are required. In addition, there are 11 senior executives at levels of compensation not often seen in Vermont nonprofits: CEO, $413,194; Chief People Officer, $288,573; Chief Growth & Impact Officer, $261,294; and the CFO, $289,063. The other seven each received annual compensation in excess of $195,000, according to Part II of the 2024 Form 990.
In 2024, The Governor of Vermont was compensated somewhere between $200,000 and $225,000. From a compensation perspective, his duties and responsibilities must not be commensurate with those of VEIC executives.
EVT’s success has been such that it is attempting to reach the remaining few who might need sealing and insulation, heating, cooling, water heating, electric vehicles, appliances, lighting, electrical consultation, and rebates. Locally, EVT promoted the above on January 16, 2026, with full-page ads in the Manchester Journal and The Bennington Banner.
The first repurposing option might be to eliminate the monthly charge that ratepayers have been paying each month. If adopted, this will be of great help as electric bills continue to be a major monthly cost with a 7.5% increase request by GMP presently before the Vt. Public Utility Commission.
If not the above, then have the funds sent to the Agency of Transportation to assist with the funding of the ever-increasing deferred maintenance of Vermont’s roads, bridges, culverts, and flood resilience work.
Or, the $50 MM (in excess of half a billion dollars over the next 10 years) could be used for grants to build the wastewater, portable water systems, and other site infrastructure critical to jumpstart workforce and senior housing projects within many Vermont communities.
No one denies that there are places in Vermont where weatherization assistance and energy-efficient appliances might be needed, but not at a cost of $50 million per year. I am not delusional to think that a nonprofit will voluntarily surrender such a substantial annual stream of revenue.
Therefore, policymakers in Montpelier, take note: Efficiency Vermont, after 25 years and hundreds of millions of dollars, has arrived at the finish line. Cease funding its Vermont operations and redirect its monthly compulsory extraction as noted above. The alternative, continued misallocation and the deepening crisis elsewhere in the State, is unacceptable. Vermont’s survival depends on putting people first, not the lobbyists VEIC paid $108,667 to in 2024.