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By Michael Bielawski
The Public Utilities Commission is tasked with setting up the Clean Heat Standard, a tax on heating fuel from regional providers to subsidize experimental electric heating technologies. After one year on the task, they appear to be waving a white flag on a complex carbon credit trading scheme, but they are still recommending a simple carbon tax.
The PUC is the state’s regulating body for all utilities and energy producers. To access the full PUC document requires setting up an account at epuc.vermont.gov and searching for “23-2220-rule”.
The CHS has been panned by critics over the past month since the Commission estimated a public price tag as high as $17 billion for the small Green Mountain State for the next 25 years.
The report continues that it requires setting up a costly new bureaucracy. It says this is “likely to be a costly credit platform.” The credit system would also create “potential for fraud and market manipulation.”
The report lists more logistical challenges that result in costs not previously considered. It also notes that this legislation sets a new precedent by regulating a sector “not currently or historically regulated by the Commission.”
Credit system dead on arrival?
The Commission’s report continues to imply that the credit system cannot work realistically. Political commentator Rob Roper likened their statements to a “eulogy” of the Standard’s credit system.
The Commission’s report states, “Our work over the past year and a half on the Clean Heat Standard demonstrates that it does not make sense for Vermont, as a lone small state, to develop a clean heat credit market and the associated clean heat credit trading system to register, sell, transfer, and trade credits.”
“thermal energy benefit charge”
The Commission suggests a simpler model that simply applies a charge to heating fuels to subsidize the electric heat technology and other carbon-mitigation efforts.
“Because the Clean Heat Standard introduces these additional regulatory hurdles and costs, the Commission is considering other options to achieve Vermont’s greenhouse gas emission reduction goals for the thermal sector,” it states.
The solution proposed by the Commission is they apply a simple “thermal energy benefit charge” to heating fuels. It would still be a carbon tax on heating fuels to subsidize competing technologies.
“The funds raised could be spent directly on fossil-fuel-reduction projects such as weatherization and electrification, avoiding the complexity and high administrative costs of a thermal credit market in which only Vermont participates,” it states.
Roper offered such sentiment in his analysis.
“A straightforward carbon tax on home heating fuels,” he wrote. “Strip away the Rube Goldberg Carbon Credit contraption, and that’s what you’re left with: a direct charge on your oil, propane, and kerosene home heating bill. And to “sufficiently fund” the number of clean heat measures necessary to meet the Global Warming Solutions Act mandates, that carbon tax will necessarily be massive. In the billions massive.”
The Commission notes another option, expanding the use of biofuels. It states, “For example, discussion regarding the Clean Heat Standard has illuminated one area where existing programs may need to be augmented — expanding the use of biofuels, which is likely to be one of the more cost-effective strategies to meet the requirements of the Global Warming Solutions Act.”
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Categories: Energy
Fools Running Around Under Darkness. FRAUD, and who is going to investigate
all the damage this has done??????????
Fraud in a Government program ???? The dickens you say !
Could not agree more with the opinion that the credit scheme is nothing but costly complexity designed to hide the cost of this nightmare from the people paying for it.
Gee, yo8u think?
Isn’t senator Welch’s wife on the PUC Board? A Grifter’s got to grift. All I can say is follow the money…
The Global Warming Solutions Act? I looked it up. It was passed in 2006 in California. Does vermont have the same thing? I did not see it anywhere. California is much cleaner now, but it was also the world’s 12 largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. California is huge. Like from Maine to North Carolina huge.
What act (s) was passed in Vermont to mandate lowering greenhouse gases?
2020, i think.
The Global Warming Solutions Act was passed (by over riding the Governor’s veto) in 2020 while everyone was distracted by the Covid panic. It mandates that VT reduce it’s greenhouse gases by 2025 to a level 26% below 2005 and further greater reductions by 2030 and 2050. What’s not broadly known, if levels are not reduced, it provides that anyone can sue the state (and the taxpayers). Lawsuits have already been filed by “climate change warriors” who want our money.
The GWSA needs to be amended to provide for reduction “goals”, not reduction mandates. Remember in November…..the Dems and Progressives did this to us.
Amazing! Passed by the super-majority legislature, vetoed and over-ridden by same in the Covid manipulations of 2020- and Vermont’s own GWSA is News in 2024? Hang on to your wallet, because ms. west- you’re gonna pay dearly for the GWSA thru lawsuits, carbon taxes,trading schemes, increased tax and fees-and the assured economic destruction promised in this legislation.
The carbon gauntlet has begun, legislative repeal is the only way to stop the destruction. All for the benefit of no measureable reduction in CO2.
Gotta hand it to the liberals, the gaslighting was complete-
Ms. West is one of tens of thousands who knew nothing of this.
If there’s an opportunity for fraud you know they’re going to take it. Nobody is that invested in saving the planet unless they get something from it..
Also it’s transportation that is the biggest polluter
2020, 27% of the GHG emissions of the United States were from transportation, 25% from electricity, 24% from industry, 13% from commercial and residential buildings and 11% from agriculture.
especially true in Vermont
Why should the people have to subsidize competing green energy technology especially people 65 and older. Most of us can barely get by now. We are taxed to death. We can’t even buy anything online without paying a tax to the Vermont government so they can dream up some other progressive boondoggle to justify their existence as legislators. If they want to justify themselves, they should devote a legislative session to eliminating deadwood programs, ridiculous restrictions and all these fees on our phones, internet and the expensive vehicle inspection that drove 300 garages out of the vehicle inspection business.
These people (the legislators and their liberal supporters) are insane and consumed with control the people attitude. We even have to pay for other people’s kids in daycare and feed them at school after raising our children on our own. But wow, the liberals keep voting for these people so they can be seen as virtuous in their circle of other liberals while they starve and freeze the elderly who choose between heat or food in the winter.
Republicans haven’t done this to the people, liberals and old-time democrats have. The evidence shows that you can’t fix stupid or make people see what they are doing to hurt others and themselves with their votes. They live in a bubble and an echo chamber! Another tax, a carbon tax, just to stay warm in your house or apartment. These people should be shamed for what they do, and they should be voted out of office this November. It’s the only way to stop the totalitarian overlords who take your money for their never ending need to feel good about themselves. Wake up, they are destroying life in Vermont as we once knew it.
speaking of eliminating deadwood programs, particularly ones that were specifically set up to deal with COVID, the free motel room program should be axed immediately.
Hey legislators, remember IT WAS A COVID PROGRAM, and someone needs to let them know that the pandemic is OVER.
Another scheme unearthed out of the North Carolina disaster zone. Broadband and Starlink. Seems Federal funds earmarked for “connecting” the rural areas were funnelled to fiber-optic companies and the FCC banned Starlink (they don’t like Elon allegedly.) What is happening now years later? Starlink is being delivered by citizen volunteers to the disaster zone so first responders can communicate. I guess we know why Vermont has spent millions upon millions and still many have little or no service.
So, Federal funds are the trough the hogs feed from and it doesn’t matter what the People need. It matters not what the People need to survive. The disaster in the Southeast is being blamed on climate change. How convenient! How are those solar panels working out washing down the watershed or stoved up under a bridge?
Do those EV’s serve as a floatation device so you can ride the waves down into the Atlantic? Dispicible thieves and their scams – seems they have a whole playbook full to weaponize against us all – they want us dead or compliant – bent down or bent over. I’d say the line is in the sand, drawn by mountains of debris and lawfare warfare.
Expanding biofuels? Are these people brain dead? They just can’t seem to get their lies straight. Even the climate zealots say “Biofuels are a greenwashed, business-as-usual solution from the very perpetrators of our climate crisis: the fossil fuel industry. These fuels distract us from our target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.”
The word biofuel is the left’s “New Speak” for burning wood or wood chips. Burlington’s Biofuel electric plant burns wood for electricity power generation. Have they measured the air quality damage from that plant yet? Welcome to 1984! Bad for you to burn wood for heat, good for Burlington to make electricity. When will people see through the BS these liberals pull off by changing the names of commonly used items, like wood from trees. Biofuel sounds so technological it makes enviros feel better rather than saying wood.