Lawmakers can’t open $ million-plus spigot to pay for hopeless lawsuit.

by Rob Roper

While it’s true a majority of Vermonters love the hypothetical (and fantastical) notion of our little state saving the planet from climate change by going “net zero” or some such thing, it’s also true that an even larger majority has absolutely net zero interest in paying for (or living with) the programs designed to do this.

Back in 2023 Campaign for Vermont did a poll that probed this fact. In summary, “When asked how much they were willing to pay in increased taxes to meet the Paris Accord targets, most (50%) did not want to pay anything extra. And, virtually no one (3%) was willing to pay more than an additional $100 per year [just over $8 per month].” Needless to say, this is not nearly enough to cover the multi-billion dollar plans of our erstwhile climate warriors under the Golden Dome. What to do?

The answer came in 2024 with the passage of Act 122, the “Climate Superfund Act” or, as it was hyped, “Make Big Oil Pay!” See, skinflint voters? You won’t have to pay for our absurdly expensive and utterly ineffective agenda, we’ll just pass a law that says these big, meany companies will cough up the dough. No need to pay too close attention to what we’re up to. But there’s a catch. You have to pay to make Big Oil pay.

The propagandists who came up with “Make Big Oil Pay!” got one thing correct: “make” is an active verb. Attempting to “make” Big Oil pay won’t come cheap – if they can be made to pay at all, which is doubtful. So, what the actual slogan should be is, Make Vermont Taxpayers Pay the Upfront Costs of a Dubious Years Long Legal Battle That Might Make Big Oil Give Us Some Money, but More Likely Will Fail in the Courts Leaving the Taxpayers Holding the Very Expensive Bag! It’s like your deadbeat friend telling you not to worry, he can get the money to pay off his gambling debt if you’d just stake him the cash to compete in a big online poker game. A shrewd investment? No, it is not.

So, what are Vermont taxpayers being asked to stake here? Act 122 charged the Treasurer’s Office with doing some homework to determine what costs and methodologies the state would need to plausibly make the case in court that Big Oil extractors and refiners are responsible for the damages caused by climate change over the period of 1995-2024, and to come up with a number for how much they should pay us to make things right.

This, as you might expect, is a herculean endeavor in art of shoveling bovine manure that will require the hiring of “experts” in the newly emerging field of “event attribution.” Can’t you just catch a whiff of fresh fertilizer coming off of that term! Event attribution, according to the Treasurer’s report on the Superfund,

has developed as a scientific field in the past two decades and includes scientific methods that can quantify the effects of climate change on changes in the probability or intensity of a wide variety of extreme weather events, including extreme precipitation. Recent scientific developments allow these methods to be extended to assess climate change impacts on economic losses and human health.

Scientific field? Sure. These experts are more akin to fortune tellers in reverse. They will concoct a brew of equations, measurements, graphs and charts that conclude, well, whatever the purchasers of their study want them to conclude. Just like if you pay the psychic to arrange a chat with dead uncle Harry, guess who just happens to be passing through the spiritual neighborhood the night of the séance. It’s a crock.

And are we taxpayers be told to fork over to these pseudoscientific climatological palm readers? The Treasurer’s Office say they will need “an FY26 appropriation of $700,000 for contracted support as well as a new limited-service position, with $125,000 of annual funding, to perform the Cost Assessment. ANR will need a one-time appropriation of $500,000 in FY26 for contracted support, as well as a base increase of $175,000 for a new attorney position within the ANR Office of General Counsel that can be dedicated to Climate Superfund work and related legal challenges.” This $1.23 million is all on top of $325,000 appropriated for this work last year in Act 122. And mind you, this is not to prosecute the case against Big Oil, just to come up with a story line they hope some judge will eventually buy.

Representative Michael Southworth (R-Walden) summed up the situation thus:

So, trying to wrap my head around the appropriations. You have three hundred thousand that you haven’t expended anything yet. So, you’re already coming back from asking for more when we already know that this is in litigation, and we have no idea whether it’s gonna be in our favor, but we’re looking to expend a great deal of money with potential no outcome. How can we explain that?

Deputy Treasurer Gavin Boyles responded,

Well, I think, yeah, you know, the Act 122 already requires us to do this work, and we need to do the work well partly because of that litigation. You know? It’s a lot to be able to defend it in the litigation…. And, you know, it is a program that the legislature passed. And as it currently stands, we are tasked with doing the work. And from what we know now, we think we need more resources to do the work well.”

In other words, all the Democrat Supermajority that passed Act 122 over the governor’s veto in 2024 succeeded in doing was open up up a giant, legal quagmire/money pit.

Moreover, in addition to the request for more money, the Treasurer and ANR want to extend their deadline for coming up with this plan by a year to January 2027. So, don’t expect Big Oil to be paying anything any time soon.

Or ever! Because right now the Vermont legislature has no money to spare, and it doesn’t look like ANR or the Treasurer is going to get this requested largesse. Representative Laura Sibilia (I-Dover) concluded the day’s testimony with the question, “If we fail to act on the request that you’re bringing forward, what will happen? What’s the effect?”

Boyles laid it out: “I think the effect is that we would likely be unable to do the work…. We don’t have the expertise inside the treasurer’s office to do that work. So, I think, yep, the work would not get done.” The awkward silence that followed is a strong hint that they’re not getting the cash. And so much for making Big Oil Pay! Queue up the sad trombone slide.

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