Spews misinformation about her Party’s misleadingly named “Affordable Heat Act” fiasco.

by Rob Roper

If you are a rank-and-file Democrat in the Vermont House of Representatives – a soldier in the Supermajority – you are told by Party leadership how to vote. The majority leader will, in fact, hold up a paper sign, Yes or No, informing you how to cast your ballot on key issues. And you better do what the sign says regardless of how dumb the bill is or what the folks back home might be saying, or you will be called into Speaker of the House’s, Jill Krowinski’s (D-Burlington) office for a vicious dressing down. Threats of lost committee assignments. Primaries in the next election. You get the picture.

But now those rank-and-file sheep who dutifully if mindlessly followed orders to override Governor Scott’s vetoes of bills that will result in higher property taxes, higher electric bills, a new payroll tax, higher DMV fees, a new internet services tax are catching hell back home because, duh, who wouldn’t be ticked off at being saddled with this insane, unaffordable agenda. What tar and feather situation, Madam Speaker, have you gotten us into?

But arguably the worst veto override by the Supermajority is shaping up to be that of Act 18, the “Clean Heat Standard,” and its newly unveiled price tag of $17 BILLION (with a “B”). Sticker shock doesn’t even begin to describe it.

So, what is a Speaker to do with a message like this? Desperately search for a messenger to shoot! And being a typical leftist ideologue with little imagination, Krowinski is howling “Koch Brothers!” and “misinformation!” from the rooftops.

Starting with the fact that David Koch died half a decade ago, we’ll take apart the Speaker’s misinformation assault on an Americans for Prosperity postcard and digital media campaign that is — unlike Vermont’s largely useless press corps — informing Vermonters about what the Clean Heat Standard is, does, and what to do about it.

First, let’s look at what AFP said on its website about Act 18:

In 2022, the Vermont legislature passed S.5, known as the “clean heat standard.” This policy puts restrictions on the use of natural gas, a tax on home heating oil, and implements top down mandates which will harm Vermonters, especially the least fortunate.

Governor Phil Scott vetoed S.5 but it was overridden by a single vote in the Senate to become law. In the process to override the veto they had to include a 2-year review period by the Public Utilities Commission. After the review the legislature will have to vote again in January 2025 to decide whether to implement the law or not.

The post card in question says,

                  Can You Afford Higher Energy Bills?

Act 18 Would Drastically Increase the Cost to Heat Your Home

–              Forces severe restrictions on natural gas.

–              Gives regulators the power to create more useless red tape

–              Imposes tax on home heating oil

–              Mandates heat pump installations in homes.

Tell your legislators in Montpelier to oppose implementing Act 18!

If anything, this is pretty mild criticism. It doesn’t mention what the cost will be (seventeen freakin’ billion dollars). If any fault can be found with it, the law was passed in 2023, not 2022, and it leaves out the fact that the taxes/regulation on heating fuel include not just oil and natural gas, but also propane and kerosene. Everything else is solid fact, with some nuance around that last bullet point.

But here’s what the Speaker of the House said about it in her July 24 press release – oddly issued two full months after the AFP campaign began, but interestingly the day before the Draft Potential Study of the program announced it could cost Vermonters $17 billion to implement:

“There has been a significant and intentional misinformation campaign circulating across Vermont about the Affordable Heat Act (Act 18). Much of this information is coming from groups outside of Vermont, like Americans for Prosperity.

First, except for the incorrect dates, there’s nothing substantially wrong about the postcard’s contents. And “groups” plural? What other “outside” groups are weighing in on this issue? None that I’m aware of (though come on in the water’s warm!) Is this a little misinformational fear mongering going on here?

Krowinski says,

“I condemn the spread of this misinformation and the influence of dark money that aims to promote confusion and fear. Vermonters deserve to know the truth about legislation that affects their daily lives and the last thing they need is interference from bad actors.”

Again, (barring the insignificant issue of the passage date) there is nothing misleading or confusing about AFP’s message. As for her “dark money” and “bad actors” fearmongering, if it was so dark how does she know who’s behind it? And she has no problem with equally “dark” money from VPIRG, CLF, Energy Action Network, etc. pouring into Vermont to promote this $17 billion fiasco with, let’s be frank, a cloud of misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies like the implication that this policy will somehow curtail or stop future extreme weather events from occurring. It won’t. Not even a little bit.

Krowinski says,

“There has been much uninformed speculation about how or whether this proposed policy initiative might impact the price of heating fuel, and while there is little, I can do to stop Super-Pac-funded misinformation from flowing into our state, I can provide the facts to Vermonters…

But, again, AFP never says what it thinks the impact on the price of heating fuel will be, except that it will “drastically increase” what we’re paying now. Which is true. The $17 billion price tag translates in to roughly a $3/gallon surcharge on home heating fuels. While “drastically” is subjective, it’s safe to say a $3/gallon carbon tax for most household budgets would fall under the “drastic” category.

The “uniformed speculation” about the price impact did not – as the Speaker misinforms – come from any Super-PAC, but rather from the well-informed Vermont Secretary of Natural Resources, Julie Moore, who back in 2023 put the impact number at 70 cents per gallon, which now looks quite low.

The only other falsely labeled by the Speaker “uninformed speculation” about the price impact comes from the extremely, highly informed experts at NV5 in their months long Draft Potential Study, which speculates the program will cost, what was that number again? $17 BILLION DOLLARS! Even if this number comes down in the the final report due out this fall, does anyone realistically think this initial number is off and high by a factor of x2 let alone x8 or x10?

And, worth noting, both of these cost estimates were paid for not with “dark money,” but with Vermont taxpayers’ money.

It’s almost as if the Speaker is intentionally drumming up false fears of a boogieman and spewing misinformation about who is tallying up the cost of her Party’s flagship climate change program in order to sow confusion in the voting public. Trick people into misbelieving these cost estimates aren’t actually coming from the professional agencies charged under the law with implementing the policy but by some reanimated, Frankenstein, zombie version of David Koch’s corpse. Hmmmm….  Do ya think?

That said, voters should be wary of actual misinformation being spread about the price impact of the Clean Heat Standard? Let’s look at the Democrats’ talking points after passing Act 18, which included, “The question is: How much [will the law add to a gallon of heating fuel]? There’s been a lot of speculation. A similar program in Oregon, based on transportation fuels, resulted in higher prices at the pump of about 7-10 cents per gallon in the short term.” Yeah… no.

Vermonters should be grateful to AFP for educating the public about Clean Heat Standard and what to do about it – tell legislators and candidates to pledge to vote “no” in January 2025 when they will decide whether or not to approve the rules governing the program. (I’d add to that a pledge to repeal Act 18 outright.) Goodness knows our so-called Vermont Press Corps isn’t doing anything to educate the public as to what’s going on. One week after the $17 billion price tag for the Clean Heat Standard came out, there has not been one story in VT Digger, Seven Days, Vermont Public…. As far as  can tell, only WCAX did 63 second story on the topic. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.

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