McClaughry: Act 250 and the Perfect Climate-Conscious State

By John McClaughry

In January 2019 the commission to review and update Act 250 presented a well-written report. Its recommendations are now the subject of 94-page bill (H.926) to dramatically reshape the state’s land use and development act.

On the plus side, in light of its 50 years in force, Act 250 was certainly due, or overdue, for thorough reconsideration. This is especially true since the bill that became Act 250 was thrown together over one desperate weekend to “put the brakes on land development.” I know, because I was an active participant in that process in the House and voted for it.

John McClaughry

John McClaughry is vice president of the Ethan Allen Institute.

On the minus side, a brief trip through the report and bill show that the six legislators on the commission were pretty clearly chosen to bestow every imaginable policy victory upon the Vermont Natural Resources Council, the organization that has battled for stronger regulation over Vermonters’ use of land ever since the act passed.

Back then, to its acute dismay, VNRC lost its battle to enshrine “social property” in place of “freehold property,” and it gnashed its organizational teeth as the third and feeblest State Land Use Plan finally perished in the Senate in 1976. But now, with a liberal legislature eager to reward its every desire, VNRC’s fortunes have revived.

Much of the “reform” bill involves complicated legal and procedural questions, some with good arguments on both sides. Here are just eight of its key features.

First, this is now a bill to protect us from the Menace of Climate Change. It recites the previously enacted (2013) climate change mantra and of course declares CO2 emissions to be not plant food, but climate-wrecking “air pollution.” An applicant must show that his or her development would not release an “undue” amount of it, which in the view of certain regulators could often mean “none.” The report even offers the specter of desperate “climate refugees” driven to Vermont “as Northeast coastal populations are increasingly impacted by rising sea levels.”

Second, the regulatory power will now be lodged in a three-member “Natural Resources Board,” appointed like superior judges to serve like PUC members. The Super Board members must have expertise in “environmental science, natural resources law and policy, land use planning, community planning, environmental justice, or racial equity” and must also reflect “the racial, ethnic, gender, and geographical diversity of the State.” (The House Ways and Means Committee voted on Feb. 21 to delete the “Super Board.” Its fate is now uncertain.) The nine district environmental commissions will survive, barely, but will act only on minor applications and supervise compliance with permits.

Third, the VNRC gets its yearned-for regulation to protect “forest blocks” from “fragmentation.” This means no more development in rural areas where wandering wildlife might be deterred from crossing from one forest block to another. One may be forgiven for suspecting that this is motivated more by the urge to keep people’s homes from despoiling the arcadian landscape than solicitude for the wildlife.

Fourth, and similarly, the costly burden of struggling through the permit process will be eased in designated downtown centers where future residents are expected to cluster.

Fifth, the range of regulatory interest now extends to the development’s surrounding the “ecosystem.” Since everything in an ecosystem is linked to everything else, the applicant’s burden of proving no undue adverse impact will become ever more demanding.

Sixth, Act 250 now gives regulatory scrutiny to development that might adversely impact nearby public investment, like highways, airports and sewage plants. That’s fair enough, but now public “investment” will include private rural property on which the Housing and Conservation Board has a no-development easement.

Seventh, after a last minute shakedown the sponsors of the bill agreed to require permit applicants to guarantee “environmental justice.” That is defined to mean “the right to equal environmental protection under the law and the right to live, work and play in communities that are safe, healthy and free of life threatening conditions.” The bill does not deal with whether the groups who believe they might be denied this newly declared right to “environmental justice” can sue to block a development that doesn’t give them enough of it.

Finally, the bill fails to put an end to regulation by planning commission. At least three times the Supreme Court has curbed local enthusiasm for regulating developments by vague goals of a town plan. Zoning, adopted by a vote of the town, is regulatory law. Town plans are not regulatory, but aspirational. The bill gives the Super Board the power to control local and regional plans and, unconscionably, keep on using them to regulate.

In sum, the “New Act 250” is a concerted effort to make Vermont into the Perfect Little Climate-Conscious State, erecting ever greater barriers to development, and ruled from Montpelier, from whence the Super Board can best perceive the greater good.

John McClaughry is vice president of the Ethan Allen Institute.

Images courtesy of Bruce Parker/TNR and John McClaughry

9 thoughts on “McClaughry: Act 250 and the Perfect Climate-Conscious State

  1. This is a perfect illustration, demonstrating how our state is run and controlled by the most powerful LOBBYiSTS.

    We are the most corrupt state in the nation. We are from a practical standpoint no longer a republic, because we let others make our decisions for us.

    We need to be more clever than snakes and more innocent than doves in order to right this ship, we need the truth, we need a new spirit. A spirit of patience, self-control, peace, love and joy. Lord help,us.

  2. Agenda 21, embrace the mandates of the United nations, control by economic and regulatory zealotry. We know better. Only the connected will get their way, just on a grander scale now that the state has control of everything, as everything we do is based upon carbon. This is a slight of hand of epic proportions.

    Conveniently missing???? Any improvement on the environment and the life of the average Vermonter.

    They, being the state, will control, what goes in your mind, in your body, any property you may own, any business you may run, all drug dealings, lottery, alcohol, sex education, any town, any school….. And they wonder why town meetings are down, you have nothing to vote for, and suicides are epidemic, they have taken away hope.

    It’s a utopia if you never ask any questions and never more than scratch the surface. Best if you work for the collective.

  3. Keep up the good work Montpelier. In a few years you will succeed in turning Vermont over to the fish, deer, bears and forests. No more ugly people.

  4. As expected, you are my go-to observer of the philosophy surrounding the hi-jinks of Vermont’s ruling class.
    This succinct reading of the the Universal Socialist backdoor attempt to become the “Perfect Little Climate-Conscious State” once again illustrates that, for them, the philosophy of the thing is the ONLY thing. Any real-world negative consequences are either not considered or blatantly ignored and rational thought by anyone else denigrated.
    And it needs to be said over and over that no matter what little Vermont does in the name of controlling “Climate Change” at the huge cost and loss of constitutional rights that citizens would incur will have such a minuscule affect globally as to do so would be the very definition of insanity.

  5. We should never stop reminding people that plants take up carbon dioxide from the air (to be used in photosynthesis) and produce oxygen (as a by-product of that process) Thanks for doing just that!

  6. They want to protect the Arcadian view? What about the windmills and solar arrays? They detract from the bucolic view. Anyone with connections to Montpelier will get to do whatever they wish with their land.

  7. “Future residents are expected to cluster”

    Hunkered down, you say?
    Vermont a climate refugee state?

    Soon, about 2 billion people will qualify.
    Will they be on the move in caravans heading for the centers of towns in Vermont?

    Would they receive a warm welcome?
    They might want shariah law, instead of English Common Law
    Not in Vermont?
    They do have it in socialist/progressive parts of Europe.

    Good thing we are far from the rising seas.
    Otherwise there would be scare-mongering about that.

    What about heavily subsidized, 600 ft tall wind turbines, on miles of pristine ridge lines, with miles of access roads to get to the wind turbines, a la Lowell, the audacity and mendacity of which shall live in infamy forever.
    They are ok, because they save the world?

    What about square miles of solar panels to cover open spaces and meadows?
    They are ok, because they save the world?

    The best feature, not in Act 250, would be a requirement that every NEW building must meet or exceed Passivhaus standards.

    • “Good thing we are far from the rising seas.
      Otherwise there would be scare-mongering about that.”

      Don’t give the tards any ideas Willem, next you know they’ll be saying Lake Champlain rising goona flood out Burlapinton…and Woonoski

  8. Thanks John, for breaking it down. I think they have intended for it to be confusing for us, but it is just about as I thought. Your brief summary just about says it all. Same old story, with even more-“what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine”.

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