By Guy Page
All that talking, Zooming and planning, and results-measuring to transition Vermont’s lifestyle and economy away from fossil fuels to electricity ain’t cheap. The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources plans to request a Vermont Climate Office spending of $1.9 million – and possibly more – in next year’s budget.
According to a Sept. 12 memo from Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore to the Vermont Climate Council titled “Climate Action Office, Budget Overview,” in FY 2021 the Climate Action Office spent $101,000 on staff, contracting and Climate Council per diems. In FY 2022 spending rose to $1.295 million with those expenses plus ‘one-time spending.’ The FY 2023 budget of $1.86 million is still being spent so the actual spending is undetermined.
For FY 2024, Moore wants $1.93 million in base budget and one-time spending – and possibly more if more staff is needed.
The work isn’t just about staffing Climate Council meetings anymore, Moore said. Neither is it physical implementation of weatherization, bike paths, chargers etc. – that’s all included elsewhere in the state budget. The Climate Office spending is about bureaucratic assistance and oversight for a growing number of carbon-reduction initiatives.
“Obviously, the funding profile for what is now the Climate Action Office evolved significantly over the last three fiscal years as the Agency’s focus transitioned from the work needed to support development of the initial Climate Action Plan to the current role and responsibilities of the Climate Action Office (CAO) which move beyond administrative support to the Council.”
Specifically, the Climate Office will spending its $1.1 million base budget to coordinate and provide expertise and capacity on state-led climate initiatives, and monitor, assess and track climate adaptation, mitigation, and resilience activities to evaluate progress achieving the requirements of the GWSA.
The office also needs one-time funding for these projects: “Approach for addressing RCI GHG emissions, $400,000; Initial implementation of the MVI, $150,000, and Phase 2 of the measuring and assessing progress tool, $250,000.”
How to pay for it all? Moore casts a hopeful eye at the ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ approved this summer by Congress: “Federal funding for climate action will be augmented through the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act that includes further investments in natural and working lands, energy efficiency and renewables, and EV charging infrastructure and purchase incentives.”
Categories: Energy
Fire the whole Climate Office,we cannot pay more in taxes or programs,we must pay far less!!
Oh, I know where the money will come from…. your wallet, my wallet, pretty much anyone who’s working’s wallet. Maybe there’s something to this not working nonsense.
And just for the record – CO2 is used by plants. Any excess goes into the atmosphere, where it leads to the formation of clouds. More clouds = more rain = a cooler climate with even more trees and assorted greenery. CO2 does NOT warm the climate – quite the opposite.
I’m old enough to remember the 70s, when the big threat was “global cooling” and “the coming ice age”. And if you go back a ways, the hottest decade on record was the 1930s, by far. You can look it up.
I’ll tell you my plan: When Biden’s place in Rehoboth Beach DE goes under, I’ll start believing in global warming. When Kerry’s and Hussein’s places on the Vineyard go under, I’ll believe in global warming. Till then, I guess I’ll just bide my time.
We have only documented weather information and temperatures for about 100 years. How is that enough to measure the past to predict the future?
Where is the foundational information that shows us FACTS to confirm there is a weather problem created by human behavior?
Where is the foundational information that shows us FACTS that anything we do behaviorally can change the weather?
If the Earth is 71% water and the United States is about 6.5% of the total land area, how much does our collective human behavior affect the weather? How do we know?
If we say we can predict that the fossil fuels are diminishing, so we shouldn’t use them, how do we know the blowing of the wind and the shining of the sun won’t also diminish?
FACTS! FACTS! We need to require FACTS from those who are taking away our Rights and Privileges to live, in the name of their cult of the god of climate.
They dont care about facts or science…..look at their covid response!
The same people that invest in the grifter politicians invest in the media and they pitch the proposed narrative. Lies and manipulation to promote authoritarian rule.
I didn’t realize that this “Green New Deal” was so cost effective!!!
The Green New Steal is a bunch of liberal grifters with no idea of how the Earth’s climate operates.
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/06/24/climate-scientist-says-humans-cause-less-than-0-05c-of-global-warming-and-warns-of-anarchy-from-delusional-net-zero-policies/
Climate hoax
https://t.me/TRUTHSocialQ/738
$3,155,000.00 spent to date and not a molecule of CO2 diverted, converted nor banished from the air.
Impressive.
Let’s give ’em $1,860,000.00 more to try again.
Now if we can figure out how plants and trees that rely on CO2 will fare when we finally eradicate this horrible molecule……
JUST ANOTHER HOAX PERIOD!!
WAKE UP PEOPLE WAKE UP ENOUGH IS ENOUGH PERIOD!!
How about you share the cost-benefit analysis for spending VT taxpayer money on a no value added Climate Council? Are we at a point where VT just spends money wherever the democratic legislature deems “needed”?
The so called Inflation Reduction Act has been analyzed to show spending some $400,000,000,000 will yield essentially ZERO impact on global temperatures so what is Vermont expecting to accomplish?
Maybe now the world is ready to listen to the 1,100-plus scientists and experts, led by Norwegian Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever, who signed onto the new Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL) statement that “there is no climate emergency.” The independent international foundation asserts that, “Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science.”
The just-released CLINTEL document states that natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause climate change, and everyone really knows that the Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed – with natural cold and warm phases.
Not only have IPCC-favored climate models exaggerated the effect of greenhouse gases (like carbon dioxide), they have also ignored the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 has many benefits. The fact is that CO2 is essential for all life on Earth, and that additional CO2 in the atmosphere promotes growth in global plant biomass and increases crop yields worldwide.
Moreover, said the scientists and experts, there is no statistical evidence that warming global temperatures have intensified hurricanes, floods, droughts, and such-like natural disasters, nor that they have made them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO2 mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly.
The CLINTEL signatories therefore concluded that there is no cause for panic and alarm, or for policies that harm people by increasing the scarcity and cost of goods and services. Where changes in climate do create negative impacts, the panel says, adaptation – not mitigation – works far better to address localized problems.
Criminal deception is expensive according to the illegitimate, unelected Climate Council globalist demonic nihilists. Exhibit A: 1,200 scientists and scholars: ‘There is no climate emergency” https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/
Exhibit B: “In 2020, the long-time green activist Michael Shellenberger wrote a book called “Apocalypse Never” that lamented the conversation about climate change has “spiraled out of control.”