Nearly a year after passage the most basic concepts around “the plan” remain unaddressed.
by Rob Roper
The Clean Heat Standard (CHS), the “Rube Goldberg” carbon tax on home heating fuels, became law almost a year ago over the veto of Governor Scott. The Democrat/Progressive supermajority that passed the CHS did so without providing – or even considering in any significant detail – how it would work or what it would cost. Instead, they kicked that can into the laps of the Public Utilities Commission with the charge to just figure it all out – by September 2024 (fifteen months) for review before a legislative vote in January 2025.
So far, the only thing we’ve figured out is that this thing can’t be figured out. Certainly not by September 2024/January 2025 and probably not ever. Here’s some evidence for my hypothesis….
First, the PUC grabbed the reins of this project in June 2023. It took them until mid-February 2024 – seven of their fifteen months – just to establish the 15-person, volunteer Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and the 10-person Equity Advisory Group (EAG), both of which were required under the law to, as their titles imply, advise the PUC on how to implement specific aspects of the CHS. So real work couldn’t really begin on “the plan” until these councils were in place. And it didn’t. Effectively, two months later it still hasn’t.
Case in point number one: The most basic aspect of the Clean Heat Standard, which requires “obligated parties” to obtain “clean heat credits” generated by “clean heat measures” such as installing heat pumps, weatherizing buildings, or other greenhouse gas reducing activities, is who initially owns the credit when it is produced. The person or entity who paid for the measure? The business entity that did the work? This should be a quick decision, no? Seriously, if you all can’t agree within the first ten minutes, flip a coin!
Nope. it’s been two months since the TAG and EAG started meeting – now nine months into the overall timeframe – and we still don’t have an answer or even a recommendation about this first and most simple of questions.
So, doing the math, there are now just five months to go before a complete draft plan is due. The TAG and the EAG each meet twice a month. That’s ten meetings to go. Pictured below is the timeline of decisions that need to be made and tasks that need to be completed by the TAG, EAG, and PUC. Establishing who owns a credit isn’t even on this chart, and not making a decision on that point has consumed so far four full group meetings of both councils, and two sub-group meetings on the topic.
Even allowing for the probability that these groups become more efficient as they figure out how to operate, I’m willing to bet a significant sum of money that 90 percent of the stuff on this chart doesn’t get done, because almost everything on this list is far more complicated than who owns a credit.
Here’s what Justin Johnson, a public commenter at the April 4 TAG sub-group meeting who cited his own experience working with the International Emissions Trading Association, said to remind everyone of what the genuinely complicated aspects of establishing a carbon credit market truly are. “From the outset, you should treat the credit like a financial instrument. If you want to see what happens when you don’t, look at the beginnings of the European Emissions Trading System ten or twelve years ago. It was a disaster. They are a financial instrument. They are basically the same as money, so you need to track them like that. There should be a single registry for credits, and they should all have unique identifiers…. And the final thing, I’d say, is there should be an annual review of market activity. It seems like overkill on day one, but it is really important to understand what is happening in the credit market to make sure that it’s being operated above board….”
Yeah, all that. And much more. Good luck hammering out the details of how to create, track, and regulate what is essentially a new crypto-currency during a three hour Zoom meeting! This is not the fault of the TAG or the EAG, it’s the fault of the morons who passed this law with this time frame with this bureaucratic framework without doing anywhere near the due diligence necessary to determine if this were possible.
More evidence that the CHS simply isn’t happening: the first task the PUC had to accomplish was setting up a registry of fuel dealers in order to establish a list of “obligated parties” under the law. This was supposed to happen by January 31 of this year. It didn’t, so the PUC agreed to a grace period for dealers to register instead by the end of February. Well, that date came and went!
It’s now mid-April and the PUC finally posted their dealer registry. It boasts 115 registrants. Less than that if my suspicions prove correct that several entries such as “Sam’s Service Center & U-Save Fuels, Inc.” and “Sam’s Service Center and U-Save Fuels, Inc.” are actually the same company being counted twice. (If this is the level of green eyeshade oversight we can expect for this new financial marketplace we are truly screwed.)
Based on my recollection of testimony during the debate over of the Clean Heat Standard law, 115 is not anywhere close to the actual number of entities that buy and sell home heating fuels in Vermont, so, though willing to be corrected regarding that count, I’m going to chalk this one up as a “MAJOR FAIL.” If you can’t establish who the obligated parties are under the CHS, you can’t run the program.
S. 305 – An act relating to miscellaneous changes related to the Public Utility Commission is being voted out of the House Committee on Environment and Energy this week, and will likely come to the floor. It deals with changing some of the internal dates in the Clean Heat Standard. Someone should insist on changing the final deadline in the law as well. I’d suggest to “never.”
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
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Categories: Commentary, Energy, Environment, Legislation, State Government
Ahh, But the devil really is in the details-
“From the outset, you should treat the credit like a financial instrument. If you want to see what happens when you don’t, look at the beginnings of the European Emissions Trading System ten or twelve years ago. It was a disaster. They are a financial instrument. They are basically the same as money, so you need to track them like that. There should be a single registry for credits, and they should all have unique identifiers…. And the final thing, I’d say, is there should be an annual review of market activity. It seems like overkill on day one, but it is really important to understand what is happening in the credit market to make sure that it’s being operated above board….”
Surely the legislature knew what they were creating, eh?
As has been said and written thousands of times….This is about money.
It is always important to remember the ultimate goal of the “Climate Change™” promotors is not an energy system that changes the global climate. The goal of the “Climate change™” group is to create a carbon trading system; a new financial mechanism (a global tax program) to control human activity on a world-wide basis. This system also needs a digital identity in order to work.
Soon, but not quite yet Rob, You’ll be able to give it “We told you so…”
“…what is essentially a new crypto-currency during a three hour Zoom meeting…”
Haha! What a delicious irony it would be (and so typical of these big progressive virtue-signaling dummies) to actually use a new cryptocurrency to track these fantastical credits. A new crypto currency (let’s call int CleanHeatCoin/CHC) on its own blockchain, mined using electricity generated sustainably in the foothills of the Green Mountains ***
*** during times of high demand, or when the wind stops blowing, CleanHeatCoin/CHC may be mined in China using electricity generated by coal-fired power stations OR in the Congo by electricity generated by young-person dynamo miners.
Rob- in a previous episode of your clean heat series, we saw where the PUC went with empty pockets turned out, hat in hand, knocking door to door all over Montpelier to fudn operations of their planning. The actual planning phase with a due date of Jan’25, the crafters of this epic neglected to have necessary funds to actually do the planning work. Did the salesmen get their funding to complete ? If so, from whom and how much ? Further, in your estimation, how many actual Vermont dealers / businesses will be amassed marked targets in the cross hairs in the grand dirty data energy list that this law requires? This data collection fuels their financial model. And exposes in their hand it over tactics every businesses books/data and their customer lists which is private consumer data protected by consumer protection law. Sheer collection of Data sets are lucrative as saleable and tradable in the markets. Although VT also just passed a data privacy law, please explain how our new data law protects Vermonters from Vermont.
Aaaahhhh… the answer has been right under our noses the whole time. Heat Pumps!!
Welp, in my humble opinion, heat pumps aren’t worth a plug nickel in Vermont. What happens when the temperature drops below ~20 degrees? For all but the best (and most expensive) models, their efficiency drops to a point where using your regular fuel is cheaper. In fact, if you have a heat pump installed, you may have to have it wired to your furnace so it tells the furnace to kick on when the temperature and heat pump efficiency drop. But no, it never drops below 20 degrees in Vermont, does it?
But let’s say you go “all in” and purchase a “high-end” heat pump that will work below 20 degrees. Great, problem solved, right? Wrong! The high-end heat pumps run into the same problems as the above models… it just takes the temperature to drop to 0 for the same lack of efficiency to kick in, and just like that, you’re back to your furnace kicking on. So, maybe, maybe, the temperature drops below 20 regularly, but it certainly never drops below 0 in Vermont, right? Riiiight,
What about lifespan? Surely heat pumps will save money in the long run, no? Sorry again… A properly maintained oil furnace can last 30, 40, or even 50 years and still produce 85+% efficiency. You’ll be on your third or fourth heat pump by then, and electricity will probably cost 4x as much.
But, but, heat pumps also cool, right? Yep. That they do. And how often do you really “need” an air conditioner in most towns in Vermont? Let’s ballpark it at 0-2 days in the Kingdom up to maybe 10-12 days in the lower Connecticut River Valley or Chittenden county. Ten days??? You’d still be way better off scrapping the expense of installing a heat pump and buying a $150 air conditioner!
As I’ve said before, if you’re really concerned about Vermont’s miniscule carbon usage (and you shouldn’t be), plant more trees! for 100k trees more, all the so-called “extra” carbon would be soaked up, resulting in what? The “holy grail” of net zero.
Don’t want to do the labor of planting trees? Well, what about if, instead of banning gasoline vehicles, we require ALL new vehicles sold nation-wide to get a minimum of 45 MPG overall? Or higher? The technology exists, it just doesn’t benefit Big Oil, and we can’t have that. Think about how much fuel THAT would save.
Folks, we need to stop overthinking things. The great majority of the time, a “common sense” solution will bring about the desired result without spending hundreds of billions on building a whole new infrastructure. Which, by the way, would probably take more “carbon” to build than it would ever save.
Why would anyone assume the PUC wants to manage anything well? Other than managing the process of feathering their own nests, of course. Complications are program features, intended to confuse voters, just as is everything the VT Legislature does on our behalf.
My concern, now that we know the level of corruption we’re facing, is that the perpetrators can’t be stopped. They will take everything we have and then tell us to eat cake.
As is the Vermont grifters’ paradise way, the Vermont climate change initiative and Clean Heat Standard has managed to create councils, boards, advisory committees, and stand alone departments within the Natural Resources Agency, Public Service, etc. The flawed, disputed, controversial, suspect science behind the propaganda is managing to clean many pockets of greenbacks to fill the pockets of connected donors, friends, associates, and insiders. They managed to paper themselves into a corner of possible class action lawsuits all in the name of climate change! Look to our neighbors in Canada to see how the fraud and thievery is blowing up in their faces. The implosion cometh and the climate will indeed change – not to their liking or benefit – let it be so.
Propane for cooking; woodstove backup i.e. the summer kitchen.
Woodheat for heat; backup cooking.
Electricity: for all those gadgets, run the coffeemaker, the vacuum, the chargers for the computers/devices, lights (candles made of beeswax have lumens that are AWESOME!!! and can read by), EV charger, etc etc etc
Simple. Keep is simple.
KISS
Compass Vermont reports on its interview with Gov Scott and the projected .70 cents per gallon increase . “ The Affordable Heat Act is a bitterly ironic name for a new Vermont law that will have a chilling effect on Vermonters come January of 2025. ”
https://www.compassvermont.com/post/vermonters-brace-for-70-gallon-heating-fuel-jump-in-january?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3Y0DikhGq4-BSths0qlk8DB-k9M0SvmVnnbHsFHGWXoceAc60IV4zyJiI_aem_AdMcyrlCPhJUy3K5dhXuXrTehNNO6raP4wHC4dJqZqxoMiAp-xzP_-jZpppxxVVAZN0-_Z9uNfmd-CLMjnAIbB5a
I don’t think it was ever meant to be implemented, and I will be very surprised if it’s not dropped. It seems like just another way for the “Climb-It” cultists to clamber into the spotlight and scurry up the global green trellis by stepping on the backs of their fellow Vermonters: “Look what we did to those bad Mom & Pop oil companies — E for Effort.” So, shame on Fred’s Energy and the sweet former dairy farmer who came to check the water in my rental when I first moved to Vermont. Shame on said company for coming right to my house one December morning to make things right when I had no heat. I don’t know if many Vermonters have noticed, but to someone from Massachusetts it is glaringly obviously that HARDLY ANYONE LIVES IN THIS STATE, it is pretty much a wilderness where the trees absorb the carbon fumes, and therefore Vermont residents should get a free pass in terms of using as much oil and gas as they need.