Bill would incentivize instate solar, wind generation, sponsor says
By Guy Page
Hydro-electric power from Canada should not be considered ‘renewable’ because it disincentivizes development on instate wind and solar, H395 sponsor Jim Masland (D-Thetford) said this week.
Vermont currently contracts with Hydro-Quebec for about 20% of the state’s total power load. HQ power is carbon-free, relatively low-cost, and delivered on-demand.
The bill would reduce the amount of energy from large hydroelectric plants that is considered renewable by 10 percent per year until none of that energy is considered renewable energy. Masland told VDC this week the state renewable energy standards are meant to incentivize instate power production.
Other bills recently introduced into the House include:
H457, sponsored by Rep. John O-Brien (D-Tunbridge), imposes taxes on food depending on how far food travels from place of origin. It would inform customers purchasing food of the carbon and climate change effects of the transit of agricultural commodities by establishing a tax on the mileage an agricultural commodity travels before retail sale in Vermont.” O’Brien is a farmer and filmmaker, directing “The Man with a Plan” movie about farmer Fred Tuttle running for the U.S. Senate.
H450, sponsored by Rep. Mary Howard (D-Rutland), gives supplemental income, health insurance, retirement benefits to legislators. The bill would “provide supplemental income during the legislative session to members of the General Assembly whose total monthly household income is less than the statewide median monthly income if the shortfall is attributable to the member’s service in the General Assembly.”
H447, sponsored by Rep. Mike Mrowicki (D-Putney), bans paramilitary group training and open-carry of semi-automatic weapons (with exceptions for police, etc.).
H445, sponsored by Rep. Brian Cina (P-Burlington), places a moratorium on developing a new correctional facility. Gov. Scott has proposed development of a new facility to replace the women’s prison in South Burlington. Cina also has introduced H438, decarceration of Vermont inmates.
H444, sponsored by Rep. Dan Noyes (D-Wolcott), establishes a trust fund to pay for long-term care. This bill reprises a perennial bill introduced by former Morristown Rep. David Yacovone to study the creation of a statewide fund for longterm (nursing home) care. At present, Vermont nursing home reimbursements are underfunded. The funding and worker shortage crises have caused some nursing homes to close. Industry representatives say the state’s longterm care is in danger of completely imploding.
H440, sponsored by Rep. Tom Burditt (R-Rutland Town), requires safety belts on new Type 1 schoolbuses.
H435, sponsored by Cina and Rep. Amy Sheldon (D-Middlebury) and others, radically overhauls Vermont’s economy to be ecologically friendly. It would require the state to “develop a plan for a regenerative economy by 2026….Vermont must build resiliency and create a roadmap for a just transition from an extractive economy to a new economy that repairs and restores the Earth.”
Click here to see all House bills introduced this year.
Categories: Legislation
Ummmmm, Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas anymore, are we?
Based on all of these proposals it appears the inmates have taken over the asylum…………
Sebastianiam, you took the words right out of my mouth.
Oh Please! Please pass H.457! Yes to H.395 and Absolutely Yes to H.435!
The concept of a “regenerative economy” by 2026 should be paramount in legislators minds for the next month!
Don’t know what a regenerative economy is, but brian cina want it so it must be good!
Wait…does brian cina know what a regenerative economy is? or is he merely continuing to put forth legislation as told by his donor class handlers?
These bills are the continuation of Vermont’s spiral downward, until Vermont life resembles the dystopian Hunger Games.
If Rep. John O-Brien (D-Tunbridge) wants to impose taxes on food depending on how far it travels from place of origin, does he also harbor concerns about less essential products that come from afar and have a high carbon footprint? If distance to the source, carbon footprint and perhaps the overall lack of necessity of the product are now an issue I can think of several non-essential, feel-good and vanity products and industries that maybe should be outright banned (and see how that goes over with his democrat constituents, especially women):
-cut flowers, which are sent thousands of miles on climate-controlled freight aircraft.
-cosmetics and skin care products, especially those containing ingredients obtained from whales.
-The entire “fashion” industry, which by it’s very nature obsoletes last-year’s lines of product, burdening landfills.
-jewelry and precious stones, procured simply for vanity and as status symbols.
I’m all for local food, but this punitive social engineering is getting out of control. But you’re on the right track here, H457 is going to tax all the right people… Starting with those awful vegans & vegetarians, who live well outside the sustainable bioregional foodscape of Vermont and have to import half the year, leading to all that carbon footprint climate apocalypse stuff. Let’s do Starbucks & anything sold at Trader Joe’s next. Time to get hunting, lefties!
and anything made in china!!! take that!!
buy USA………its not easy as we have allowed all manufacturers to move on over…..
Mexico and Canada Neighbors……..I’m ok with products from there!!!
All of the bill authors clearly graduated with honors from clown university.
I needed that laugh. These brainiacs are so stupid they don’t realize it. This is the best and brightest Vermont has to offer? Right up there with Mark (I’m going to save the world) McDonald. He could be related to Ronald McDonald, from the same clown family.
Quick! Will someone please make a motion to adjourn?
Motion to adjourn, second??
Re: “Hydro-electric power from Canada should not be considered ‘renewable’ because it disincentivizes development on instate wind and solar, H395 sponsor Jim Masland (D-Thetford) said this week.”
Enough of the false dichotomies, please, Mr. Masland. Do you really think Vermonters are that stupid? Just because HQ power is less expensive doesn’t mean it’s not renewable. It’s hydro-electric after all.
GMP pays more than 20 cents per kwh for wind and solar power. HQ power is available for 7 cents per kwh. If the solar and wind power people want to develop ‘instate wind and solar’, they should make the cost competitive.
I can’t say for certain; but Mr. Masland seems to be representing those special interest groups, like SunCommon, who reap the rewards of this classic legislative cronyism. Perhaps he should disclose his political contributors.
well yeah, Vermonters are stupid. They keep reelecting the same marxist/progressive bozos, year in and year out. Definition of insanity comes to mind.
The Vermonters I’m addressing, those who take the time to read VDC, may be short-sighted. But they aren’t stupid. They may well be electing ‘bozos’. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” *
Ben Franklin predicted the potential fate of our Republic – that “…the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other.” There is, after all, nothing in the covenants of constitutional liberty and freedom prohibiting ‘stupidity’, or perhaps better put, banning ‘insanity’.
Socialism, “[t]he experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God”** … will ultimately fail – as has always been the case throughout history.
None the less, while “[t]hose who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”*** – those who know better will survive to begin anew, being more knowledgeable and prosperous for the experience.
* Mathew 15:28
** William Bradford, Governor, Plymouth Plantation, 1622
*** George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905
if allowed to this is what government becomes. they get more and more involved in things that are not their business and certainly beyond their expertise. they have no concern for the cost of living in Vermont and they just love more and more regulation. they want to tell citizens what to do and some will probably profit off their decisions
Bring Vermont Yankee back online. Put armed guards there to protect it and our porous 🧽 boarder. Bring back the town meeting.
Pray for our children. Sleep soundly.
Stupid Stupid Stupid
I think conservatives have no one to blame for the destruction of VT but themselves. Between running candidates who are at best marginal, candidates who have far out views, and not voting, the right has allowed the far left to take over and dominate. There is nothing they cannot and will not do to VT now, in order to perpetuate their insane ideology. They have a veto-proof super majority. They can and will do some serious damage. But the right has sat back for decades as they have turned VT into a state to the left of California. I see some of this craziness on comments on this site. Why for instance are conservatives not trying to get elected to the Winooski city council for example? They just sit back and snicker over the alphabet people slate but they just let it happen. You can’t tell me that the majority of people in Winooski are like that. The homeless have descended on VT as they have on other places where they are welcomed, housed and fed. Where are the people who want to stop this? Who don’t want VT to become like SF or Portland or Philly, with tent encampments everywhere? Why do you just sit back and allow it to happen? You grumble about Balint receiving huge amounts of stolen funds but haven’t risen up to force her out. You couldn’t even run a decent candidate against her. You allow the leftists to set the agenda and create the narrative. Where are the protests over the trans guys being forced on girls teams? You sit back and let people like John Helfand be forced out because he dared to speak out. You allow the leftist media here to use leftist terminology such as “people who nurse babies “ or “pregnant people “; why don’t you rise up against them? You sat back and did nothing while the unvaxed were banned from restaurants, gyms, theatres and workplaces. Precious few people stood up against it. I spoke up to individual establishments but that’s as far as it went; whole lotta good that did! Let them know it’s not acceptable. I do but I’m one of the few who does so my voice doesn’t matter.You might as well give up. VT is lost. I can’t wait to leave. And I don’t care if you don’t like what I’ve said.
is marxism as catchy as c19?
No.
C19 is caused by a virus.
Marxism is temporary insanity – a state of mental confusion – albeit sometimes a contrived legal defense to avoid personal accountability.
C19 has a 98% survival rate.
Marxism, not so much.
There is, however, a curious similarity between C19 and mental confusion.
Being vaccinated as protection against C19 has roughly the same outcome as being educated in our public-school monopoly to prevent mental confusion.
I’m curious, just how a tax on the distance food has traveled. Large quantities of food traveling long distances by train (electric) generally has a smaller ecological impact than local food, in smaller quantities traveling by truck, etc. So we tax local produced food more than food from a distance? Food is already expansive and you want to at another tax. In 1975 Ronald Reagan gave an interview in which he illustrated just how many taxes (at that time 151) were associated with a loaf of bread. And that reasoning is applicable to all the products we consume. To paraphrase an old politician “a cent here and a cent there and pretty soon you are talking real money”.
If we put money into the programs in prisons rather than just into the construction of the prison than perhaps we could release productive citizens, and not have to decarcerate criminals.
I got 2 words for you: Vermont Yankee Nuclear ☢️
Then we won’t need anything from anyone but ourselves.
Lady Day used to sing, “ God bless the child that’s got his own.”
John O-Brien is hereby nominated for
Vermont Doofus of 2023
Ooww that’s going to be a tough race..SO MANY up for the title.
One thing is evident on the Left-side of the aisle, they cannot do math and with that they will be financially wiped out in short-order. No one is coming to help them either.
…when the engineers became politicians…
Why would anyone want to reduce hydro power for VT? Insanity to replace low cost electricity with unreliable, intermittent wind and solar that costs $.40 to $.50/kWh, not including the cost of back-up energy storage.
The lack of thinking in Montpelier is astounding!