How toxic is it?

by Rob Roper

It’s been a very bad week for Vermont’s climate warriors.

Let’s start with the equally sad, infuriating, and hilarious news story about Green Mountain Transit’s electric busses, too big to even be useful as doorstops. Electrifying our public transportation system has long been a priority for Vermont’s Net Zero agenda, and it was with great fanfare that GMT touted the purchase of five electric buses for a grand total of $8 million – that’s $1.6 million apiece. A reliable diesel bus, says Google AI, you can get for around $530,000.

Well, all five electric busses are out of action. Why? Because the busses won’t charge in temperatures under 40 degrees, and anyone who’s walked outside at any point over the past month knows Vermont is not experiencing temperatures even approaching 40 degrees — not unexpected in January; a fun fact the purchasers of these busses might have considered! So, why not bring the busses into a heated garage and charge them there? Turns out the batteries in these mega-expensive bombs (figuratively and it turns out literally) are a fire hazard and can’t safely be brought inside. But could, theoretically, if charged be safely packed with 88 human lives? Hmmm. Anyway, big oops.

It gets better! Or worse. Another key priority for the carbon-cutters is getting folks to forsake cars for mass transit, a.k.a. busses. But now GMT is facing a significant budget deficit of, according to WCAX, $940,000, which is expected to grow to $2 million by FY2028. This, along with the fact that it is down five busses, is necessitating a major reduction in services amounting to 20 percent fewer rides. And, yes, this is all because they wasted $8 million on a virtue signaling, vanity purchase of utterly worthless electric buses.

The GMT bus fiasco is the perfect example of and metaphor for the Left’s entire Vermont climate agenda: ideologically driven, ill-thought out, totally impractical, absolutely unaffordable, and ultimately counterproductive to the ostensible cause.

Moving on in the news, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) gave a final middle finger to the legislature over the Clean Heat Standard – the carbon tax scheme on home heating fuels – that is/was the cornerstone policy of the Global Warming Solutions Act. When the Democrats’ supermajorities overrode Phil Scott’s veto of the Clean Heat Standard, the PUC was charged with writing rules to govern the program to be voted on in January 2025. But after losing 19 house seats and 6 senate seats in large part over their shockingly unpopular championing of a massive “tax” on a commodity a majority of Vermonters need to survive winter, House and Senate Democrats have turned the Clean Heat Standard into their own Voldemort: that thing that shall not be named! And certainly not discussed, let alone voted upon.

So, the PUC said in an official memo, if you’re not going to work on your Clean Heat Standard, neither are we. Take your rule making process and stick it where the sun don’t shine on solar panels. It was a clear message of put up or shut up, and the Democrats opted for shut up, demonstrating in rather cowardly fashion that they regard the preservation of their pathetic little political careers as way more important than the fate of the planet.

More bad news, electric vehicle sales numbers are out, dashing any hopes that the Global Warming Solutions Act targets for the transportation sector will be met – ever. Battery electric vehicle sales were down 20 percent in 2025 over 2024 and plug in hybrids dropped 28 percent despite the incentive to get in on purchasing one while federal subsidies were still in place. This is a good indication that the market for these kinds of vehicles is saturated. Everybody who wants one already has one, most everybody doesn’t want one, and a bunch of those who have one apparently don’t want another.

And, the most interesting thing regarding all of this is how utterly silent the usual suspects such as VPIRG, the Vermont Natural Resources Council, the Energy Action Network, et al have been regarding – how shall I put this – the rather embarrassingly complete implosion of their grand agenda.

In fact, when VPIRG dragged their army of trained seals out of school and into the State House for Youth Lobby Day on January 29^th (and we wonder why our students’ test scores have dropped below those of Mississippi!) their press conference mentioned not a word about the Clean Heat Standard, Clean Cars, the Cap & Invest tax on gasoline and diesel, or any major climate related initiative that might have an impact on greenhouse gas reduction before the next Global Warming Solutions Act deadline in 2030. Funny how these kids who lobbied so passionately for these programs in years past could give a rat’s tail that they’ve been completely abandoned by the same legislators they’re on stage cheering on. Yup. Read script, get fish, under no circumstances engage brain.

And what are the adult advocates up to? Their big victory lap this week, and likely this year, is over a four-page bill, S.202, that unanimously passed the Senate. What it does is make it easier for folks to purchase and install portable “balcony” plug-in solar panels, a product that is available in Europe but not so much in the United States. It is, I chuckle as a write this, a rather capitalist oriented DEREGULATION measure. The bill doesn’t even call for taxpayers to subsidize these things, which, again according to Google AI, cost anywhere from $300 to $2000, not including any electrical work necessary to accommodate them.

Whether or not there’s a market for the hideous devices I don’t know. Time will tell. But I applaud VPIRG and VNRC and the gang for supporting giving consumers a greater opportunity to choose how they want to spend their own money. I hope this trend continues. It’s a big improvement over the heady days of saving the planet by banning internal combustion engines, taxing fossil fuel companies out of existence, replacing all of our furnaces with heat pumps, and all the other stuff that’s happily going about as far a Green Mountain Transit electric bus. At least so long as Republicans keep winning elections.

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