By Michael Bielawski
A Vermont Climate Council member told lawmakers Thursday that the State of Vermont wouldn’t have received federal ‘Build Back Better’ infrastructure/jobs funding unless it first developed a carbon emissions reduction agenda.
“As you know well, the carbon reduction strategy was required by the federal government’s Infrastructure and Jobs Act for the $32 million that came into the state coffers,” said Johanna Miller, the VNRC Climate Program Director and Vermont Climate Council member to the House Transportation Committee.
$50 billion in fed funds nationwide
Miller was updating House Transportation on Vermont’s carbon-reducing efforts, which she said are not on target.
She also explained that having huge amounts of federal money incentivizing the climate agenda is not unique to Vermont.
“Every state had to create a carbon reduction plan,” she said.
The money comes from Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act, an infrastructure bill that contains billions in money for carbon-reducing projects.
According to a CNBC report, “The infrastructure bill designates $50 billion for climate resilience and weatherization, as more frequent and severe droughts, heat waves, floods, and wildfires ravage the country.”
Vermont not meeting its reduction goals
Miller continued to cover all the actions that it’s going to take if Vermont is to meet its carbon reduction goals. She mentioned that getting Vermonters to embrace electric vehicles will require some nudging.
Miller said, “The really important thing to be aware of is that we help Vermonters electrify to get where they need to go and access cleaner electric vehicles and build out the electric vehicle charging network, it really might require incentives and infrastructure to ensure that we are creating the framework for Vermonters to actually purchase those vehicles.”
She noted that on the manufacturing side, the car industry is already being pushed to comply with these goals.
“It’s great that we are obligating manufacturers to deliver vehicles but we also are probably going to have to play a partnership role with ensuring that those vehicles actually get purchased and put on the road and are replacing internal combustion engines,” Miller said.
She explained that without further action, the current expectations are that the state is on course to fall short of its reduction targets.
“Carbon reduction strategy as you’ve heard and as you know, the modeling in the carbon reduction strategy showed a gap between projected business as usual [and the expected carbon emissions] and the emission reductions required for 2030 and 2050,” she said.
‘Clean Transportation Standard’ on the horizon?
Miller noted a “cap and invest and/or Clean Transportation Standard” are going to be the key strategies to reduce reductions. That would mean limiting emissions and investing funds into non-carbon alternatives.
The controversial “Clean Heat Standard” in Vermont which eventually passed as a similar bill passed in 2023 named the “Affordable Heat Act” is an incremental carbon tax on home heating fuels intended to subsidize the adoption of higher cost non-carbon heating methods such as electric heat pumps.
She added, “We’re not on track to meet 2030 and 2050 [goals].”
Says recent weather justifies policy
Miller cited recent weather events as evidence that action must be taken.
“There’s a reason why we’re doing this,” she said. “We’re on the heels of some of the most devastating climate exasperated disasters and as like a Montpelier resident you know the cost of that coming home to our city is real.”
She continued to predict climate catastrophe if actions are not taken.
She said, “As I say to my kid all the time ‘we’ve got to plug the hole in the boat, that means you’ve got to continue focusing on reducing pollution, doing our part, everyone has to do our part in this nation and across the globe to cut pollution and the science could not be more urgent.”
Not all scientists agree, in 2022 1,200 signed a letter stating that there is “no climate emergency.”
The letter states, “Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.”
The author is a reporter for the Vermont Daily Chronicle