by Rob Roper

And then there were none.

This week, Governor Phil Scott (R-VT) signed an executive order delaying the implementation of the California Clean Cars & Trucks policies in Vermont for a year. This essentially puts an end to the last standing significant GWSA greenhouse gas reduction scheme hatched up by the Democrats and Progressives in the Vermont legislature — at least for now.

Here’s the scorecard for those keeping track at home:

• The Transportation Climate Initiative: dead.
• The Clean Heat Standard: dormant.
• Cap & Invest Carbon Tax on fossil fuels: won’t touch it.
• Clean Cars & Trucks EV mandates: flameout.

Cause of death in every case: a lethal collision with reality. It turns out that none of these policies prescribed under the umbrella law, the Global Warming Solutions Act, is practical, affordable, desirable, or even logistically possible. Who’d’a guessed that when the Democrats passed these ridiculous mandates in 2020 without any idea of what meeting them would cost or how they could be accomplished? Well, okay, some of us guessed that with uncanny precision!

In this latest case of the California Clean Cars & Trucks rule, the Governor noted at the press conference explaining why he issued an executive order suspending enforcement of the policy,

I use common sense. I’m practical, and I think we have to be practical here. I think part of our DNA here in Vermont used to use [yeah, emphasis on used to] common sense to address issues. There are times when we have to push, and there are times when we have to say we have to take a pause here, and we have to allow the technology to catch up, the infrastructure – the charging infrastructure – to catch up. It’s just that we aren’t able to do [Clean Cars & Trucks] at this point in time.

Scott cited his own personal experience with EVs as influencing his decision:

When you go to a charging station, some of them are older. Level 1, it would take twelve to sixteen hours to fully charge your vehicle. Level 2, it might be able to get done in eight to ten hours. Then you have the highest, fastest charging and that still takes hours…. You have to plan ahead. You can’t rely on that if you’re going to be travelling in Vermont. On a cold winter day, your range might be about two hundred miles. So, if you’ve got to go to Brattleboro and back, you’re challenged.

I’ve experienced it over the last three years. We have an electric vehicle, and we have a long way to go to catch up. We need more charging. We need more fast charging… in order to attract more people to EVs. And the cold climate doesn’t help. So, everything coupled together, we wanted to make sure we weren’t [negatively] impacting our economy, and I think we are.

And because of these inconvenient limitations in the technology, customers don’t want these cars and trucks at nearly the levels required by the California rule. As the Governor again notes,

Hearing from the manufacturers and what they’re doing to the dealers. Because they are forcing the dealers to take some of the EVs and the dealers aren’t able to sell them. And they’re using them for leverage. You have to take the electric vehicles, the heavy duty electric vehicles, and then you aren’t able to receive the vehicles you need that are on order until you sell the EVs that are on the lot.

Yup. EVs and the infrastructure necessary to serve them just aren’t up to meeting the California standards in time for the 2026 vehicle model year in Vermont. But a just a one-year delay in enforcement until the 2027 model year? Does Scott really believe the technology is going to “catch up” given and extra twelve months? Something tells me when this executive order expires, we’re going to find ourselves in exactly the same place we are today, with a lack of infrastructure to make moving forward practical, and a lack of demand for the vehicles to make the policy desirable.

Why do I think this? Because federal funding of EV infrastructure policies is being cut back significantly, potentially to zero (Vermont is estimated to lose $16 million in such funding), so we won’t see much if any change between now and 2027 in that respect. So too are federal $7,500 tax credits for EV purchases up for elimination in the current budget bill, which likely means demand for EVs will drop below the 14% of sales it is today and not move toward (let alone meet) the 35% the rule requires. I mean, how can we expect people to, you know, pay for their own freakin’ cars. Oh, the outrage!

So, why a mere one-year kick of the can down the road when it’s pretty clear that good old Vermont common sense the governor referred to indicates the only practical solution is to sever Vermont from the California vehicle standards, repeal the impractical and unaffordable GWSA mandates, and let Vermonters buy the kinds of vehicles they want and need for those trips to Brattleboro on cold winter days? Could it be that the 2027 vehicle model year actually begins in the fall of 2026 – smack in the middle of an election season? Come to think of it, maybe that is a better time to discuss a permanent solution to this unnecessary and unpopular problem — and the politicians trying to foist it upon us.

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• Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics including three years service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free market think tank.

MEDIA NOTE: Exciting news! Starting Tuesday, May 27th I will be serving as the regular Tuesday host of WDEV’s Vermont Viewpoint from 9-11 am. If you have suggestions for topics and guests you’d like to hear me interview, please let me know.