Lawmakers’ arrogance, stubbornness, and fiscal irresponsibility on full display with H.125

by Rob Roper

You’d think that with everything happening in the realm of energy policy – the need to do something about the trainwreck Clean Heat Standard, the failure to meet the first Global Warming Solutions Act mandate for 2025, the lawsuit resulting from that, the projection that we’ll miss the 2030 deadline as well, the threatened cuts to federal funding for clean energy projects, and more — the House committee dedicated to these issues would be in full swing tackling those challenges. Nope. Just whistlin’ a happy tune!

Instead, the Committee on Energy & Digital Infrastructure has spent weeks and a majority of their time kicking around this legislative Hacky Sack, H.125 – An act relating to reporting on the energy transition. The primary raison d’etre for this bill was to create an evolving map of all the gasoline and EV charging stations throughout the state to see if there are “fuel deserts” emerging (there are not) from the supposed “global energy transition.” The Agency of Natural Resources would be tasked with haranguing all the other state agencies to gather the relevant existing data to create said map. But….

As Representative Richard Bailey (R-Hyde Park) pointed out, “We also got from an outside source… the AAA actually has a Triptik app that shows all that. I looked at it and, it showed where every gas station was, every charging station with what was available at each one… Isn’t that what you were originally trying to get to with where all the gas stations are and where all the charging stations?”

Full disclosure, the “outside source” was me :-). And if you go to the app, specify a route you want to explore, and click on the gas pump icon, you will see all the gas and charging stations that exist. Click on each one of those and you can see the brand of gas or type of EV charger and the price. Click “Details” for the street address and phone number. There you go!

Now, you’d think this committee would be thrilled that they could save several state agencies otherwise wasted time – and thus taxpayers money – by availing themselves of a free app on a website that provides pretty much exactly the information they want. You’d think that, but you would be wrong.

Laura Sibilia (I-Dover), the lead sponsor of the bill, immediately dismissed this resource, responding to my email to the committee sharing the link with, “Thanks for the useless tip,” along with some other unflattering terminology. (Really now!) Her response in committee to Rep. Bailey was, “I don’t know if AAA makes their data publicly available.” Ummm… it’s a FREE app.

Equally dismissive was the committee chair, Kathleen James (D-Manchester) who snidely chimed in, “I think relying on the datasets that are available from our state government feels a lot more reliable to me than, like, a Triptik.” To which Sibilia added, “That [state government datasets] is probably what Triptik is based on.”

So, couple things. First, if AAA’s maps were based on the same data that the committee is asking ANR to track down, collate, and turn into maps, then wouldn’t these existing AAA maps be every bit – dare I say exactly – as reliable as the wheel H.125 is asking ANR et al to recreate? Yes, yes, they would. BUT….

Sibilia, somewhat on brand for her, was wrong about where AAA gets its data. In fact, AAA’s app “…is updated daily by Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) with average national, state and local prices for gasoline, diesel and E-85. Every day up to 120,000 stations are surveyed in cooperation with WEX, Inc. for unmatched statistical reliability.” So, unless someone at ANR is going to track down the location, find contact information for, and contact on a daily basis every gas and charging station in Vermont, it’s safe to say that the results of a part time side project from an already overburdened staff of state bureaucrats thrown together over the next nine months will not be nearly as reliable as the FREE APP available today offered by the national non-profit organization that’s done this stuff professionally 24/7/365 for the past 123 years. Just sayin’.

And, if Rep. Sibilia or Rep. James was unsure about where AAA gets its data, what more they have, or how reliable it may be, or if and how it can be shared with the state, why not make a phone call and ask? AAA has a long history of working with state and federal agencies on transportation issues and policies, many concerned with environmental impacts. How do I know this? Ten minutes worth of internet search. Not hard work!

Oh, and final kicker on this point, the committee learned after weeks of testimony on the day before they voted out the bill that ANR is not capable of doing any mapping in house, and there is no budget to hire outside help – so there will be no map at the end of this boondoggle to even look at let alone to compare with the free one from AAA.

I keep mentioning that the AAA app is free. But how much will this H.125’s mapless mapping project cost Vermont taxpayers? We don’t know, and Chair James doesn’t want to know.

Rep. Bailey requested, “I would like Secretary Moore [at ANR] to give us a cost [estimate] to compile this report. It doesn’t need to be in detail. It costs us a million dollars to do this. It costs half a million dollars to do this. It costs a hundred thousand dollars. I mean you’ve already said these agencies are already stretched and short staffed…. And we’re we’re talking about affordability here. We’re trying to keep things under control.” Sounds reasonable. Kind of responsible actually.

Nope! Chair James shot down the request for a cost estimate of the project. “Yeah. So, getting to the cost, Rep. Bailey. I am not a fan of kind of guesstimates…” she said. “So, asking Secretary Moore, I think, to try to guesstimate ahead of time whether it’s gonna take the EOL a day or two days and whether it’s gonna take her folks, you know, a week is not appropriate because it’s gonna be a guess, and guesses are never good.” Not appropriate? Never good? How deep is the water? Let’s not guesstimate, just jump! That is perhaps the dumbest – but maybe most illuminating – thing I think I’ve ever heard in the State House. And, sorry for noticing, but isn’t green lighting a project without first doing any cost benefit analysis itself a “guesstimate” (uneducated at that) on James’ part that the thing can be done cost effectively? Excuse me while a scream into a pillow.

I feel sorry for the three Republicans on this committee who are trying to inject some measure of common sense, fiscal responsibility, and respect for their constituents into policy making only to bang their heads full force over and over into this wall arrogance, ignorance and incompetence.

And I confess I even feel sorry to a degree for the two Democrat freshman, Reps. Bram Kleppner (D-Burlington) and Chris Morrow (D-Weston) who I’m sure thought when the ran for office and got elected that they would be doing important work on key issues. Instead, they’re spending their days in committee doing this useless busy work making more useless busy work for others to do while being deferential to people they clearly think are fools.

Rep. Morrow exhibited this sad frustration when he voted Yes to moving this bill to the full floor with all the enthusiasm of someone forced to pick up a used Kleenex off a public bathroom floor at the height of flu season. “I think we spent an inordinate amount of time on this, and there might be more pressing matters we can be addressing. I think the data may or may not be useful. It’s hard to tell right now. It does seem burdensome on the staff. They have a lot of other analysis going on that might be highly relevant, and a part of me wants to delay to see what the ANR climate office comes out with. It will be useful to us. And then if that’s not sufficient, we could revisit this. So, I have concerns, but … I would vote yea at this point just to get that potential data, but I think it’s an imperfect situation.”

An imperfect situation, but a perfect example of everything wrong with state government. The majority party leaders of the committee are pushing obviously bad legislation. Their rank-and-file members are pressured to go along against their better judgement – and they do. And the minority members who actually have a clue and a sense of responsibility aren’t given the time of day.

H.125 will head to the full House floor in the next week or so in the circus of dumb things done in the dumbest possible way. Stay tuned!

Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com