The planning director for the Vermont Department of Public Service told the Senate Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday that while some estimates can be made, officials ultimately don’t know the impact a clean heat standard will have on Vermonters.
“We’re talking about regulating an industry that hasn’t been regulated in this manner, and this is a big undertaking,” TJ Poor, director of planning for the department, told committee members.
“There is no estimate of the cost. We can do an analysis of a heat pump or a weatherization project and say it’s cost effective … but we really don’t know the immediate impact of a clean heat standard on Vermont businesses and families,” he added.
TJ Poor, director of planning, Public Service Department
The proposed clean heat standard, H.715, aims to curb carbon emissions by financially incentivizing shifts to “green” non-carbon emitting heating appliances such as electric heat pumps, or by installing weatherization. The policy would subsidize green energy options through a clean heat credits system. For example, fuel sellers who don’t create enough clean heat credits through their own efforts would have to purchase credits generated by other companies and organizations to stay in business.
Richard Cowart, director of the Regulatory Assistance Project, said it’s about incentives to push Vermonters to change their heating sources.
“The whole program is to essentially change the business models of fossil fuel providers in Vermont so that they become, over time, clean heat providers,” he said. “It’s more than community fossil fuel providers, and so earning the credits through your own actions is a principal phase of delivering the objective of the statute.”
Lawmakers spent much of the meeting discussing the credits for the implementation of green energy policies, including who gets to claim such credits and what actions justify credits. H.715 states that the commission “shall establish or adopt a system of tradeable clean heat credits earned from the delivery of clean heat measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Poor said the pressure to pass H.715 during this legislative session may be unwarranted and possibly based on misinformation.
“He [Jared Duval, a member of the Vermont Climate Council] said that if the clean heat standard is not passed this session, then the Agency of Natural Resources will be forced to implement regulations. That’s simply not true,” Poor said. “If it’s not passed this session, it could be passed next session. And if it’s not passed this session ANR is not going to start its rule-making to impose regulations.”
Another issue discussed by lawmakers pertained to what the proposal does not do.
Weatherization, which is the improvement of airflow and heat containment, especially for old homes all over Vermont, has long been touted as a practical way to improve home heating. According to Poor, the bill as currently written does not identify financial resources for this cause.
“We don’t know that the clean heat standard will fund weatherization, and we could consider that in a PUC [Public Utility Commission] process and have that incorporated into the broader cost considerations,” he said.
Poor added that implementing the clean heat standard would have an impact on those who participate and those who do not, and that lawmakers need to consider those impacts on “winners and losers.”
“My point is that we should consider who those are, what happens to non-participants, people who don’t ultimately install a heat pump or don’t weatherize their home when others are — and what happens to the residual cost,” he said.
Heating and transportation sectors are being targeted by environmentalists at both the state and federal levels. One recent commentary identifies 25 policy decisions by the Biden administration that have had an impact on transportation and heating costs. These include tightening EPA rules on oil and gas, rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, and pushing a “clean electricity standard.”
In the March edition of Environment and Climate News, top energy industry executives expressed frustration that readily available and affordable energy — in particular natural gas — is routinely being blocked in the name of environmentalism.
Ed Longanecker, president of the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association, was among those to note the negative consequences of restricting access to cheap natural gas.
“Europe’s energy crisis, like that of Boston, Massachusetts, which has banned new gas pipelines, is the direct result of irrational energy policy, with both Boston and the E.U. now relying on much-dirtier Russian natural gas.”
Watch Wednesday’s Senate Natural Resources Committee discussion on YouTube.
Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.
Communism is sold on the guise of free stuff, free energy for some.
Fear of the Worls ending is as old as the Aztecs and incas for controlling the population.
These are the same old tricks used by corrupt governments very successfully, yet we fall for the same ticks all the time! They cover all these little things in the bible, if people read the bok they would see how they fall for the tricks. Watch what they do, not what they say.
The bible and God are kryptonnite for corrupt governments everywhere, just look in the book of kings, just look at countries that are not based on the truths (how are they doing?) and those countries that ban Christians and their bible. We have no idea how truly blessed we are. Thank you LORD.
In their own words (of climate emergency leaders):
“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” – Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation
”No matter if the science of global warming is all phony…climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” – Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment
“The future is to be [One] World Government with central planning by the United Nations. Fear of environmental crises – whether real or not – is expected to lead to compliance.”
– Former Washington State Democratic Governor Dixy Lee Ray
“Our aim is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to change the global economic system… This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history.” In simpler terms, replace free enterprise, entrepreneurial capitalism with UN-controlled centralized, One World government and economic control.”
– UN Climate Chief Christiana Figueres
“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. “It is not. It is actually about how “we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth.”
– IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer
I stand corrected, some are doing what they say!
Hey, how come these are not the headlines in VERMONT Digger? 350.org? VNRC? VPIRG?
Huh?
They might as well just tell the truth and say what they mean. WE DON’T CARE IF IT COST’S
MORE… it’s all about making us feel like we are doing something when in actuality we’re just
making things worse.. These boneheads are stupid enough to get jobs working in DC..
Let’s be honest with ourselves. They (the legislature and their appointees) don’t know the truth about the need for, or the effects of, these standards, any more than they know what to do if they did know the truth. They are pretending. Going through the motions “… because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”
Clearly, the only difference they make is to cost taxpayers more money. If they disappeared tomorrow, we’d barely notice… except that life would be simpler and less expensive. So… Let’s be honest with ourselves and vote for representation that gets out of the way of free markets and lets us figure stuff out on out own, as we should.
They are puppets of the United Nations and the roll out of the United nations Agenda 2030. I had to read and acknowledge to renew my license along with also confirming my gender which had more options too!
Why are they interested in my sexual fantasies? Science says xx or xy. Why would they define peolple by sexual orientation? Why would they try and confuse an entire population of their sexuality? a global rollout for that matter. Why?
What animal species has ever done this since topi me began?
How are all these seemingly disparate topics linked and happening at the same time? How come they are all being pushed by the same organizations. Why are they pushing interfamilial porn at the beginning of this pandemic and currently?
These are not coincidences but massive role outs.
What is the reason?
Continuing to legislate by emotion does nothing for Vermont’s environment or it’s residents.
It just makes grifters and environment evangelicals rich.
The following seven thoughts are are rational and revealing. Thank you all!
“We really don’t know”
That’s never stopped them before
https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-co2-temp/dont-buy-climate-alarmism/
The VT-DPS survey of 78 heat pumps at 67 sites has already proven a $4500/HP investment (turnkey, all-in capital cost), has an AVERAGE ENERGYcost saving of about $200 per year.
However, if the capital cost is amortized over 15 years, the savings becomes a $200 LOSS.
Plus, there will be expenses for parts and labor for any service callS during these 15 years.
I have three heat pumps in my house and the total saving LAST YEAR AND THIS YEAR was about $200/y.
If amortizing and parts and labor were counted, I would have a BIG FAT LOSS.
I DO NOT QUITE UNDERSTAND WHY THE VT DPS ENGINEERS CANNOT FIGURE THIS OUT.
TRUST ME, THIS IS ELEMENTARY ENGINEERING, NOT ROCKET SCIENCE
A neighbor has one large 45,000 Btu, Mitsubishi heat pump in his 2500 sq ft condo.
It heats and cools the entire condo.
It is 8 years old.
The outdoor evaporator unit had a leak.
The evaporator had to be replaced
Total cost $6500.
My neighbor was thoroughly pi..ed
We are being governed by a bunch of people who i doubt know how to think.
A bunch of people who refuse to think because they know an objective financial analysis will expose the clean heat standard for what it is……..An economic wrecking boondoggle for Vermonters that will have zero impact on mitigating climate change.
Peter,
They KNOW the economics, they just do not give a damn, because they are hell-bent to get as many cash grants and subsidies as possible for their families and friends who own installation companies.
It is all one gigantic Dem/Prog socialistic clique, holding hands, running the state economy INTO THE GROUND
We have to show up at the polls en masse and watch them 24/7 counting the legal and illegal votes.
My wife became a US citizen a few months ago.
She showed up to register with her citizenship certificate, but the Hartford Town Clerk refused to look at it, even after several requests.
I think such refusals should be illegal!!
When I registered about 30 years ago, the Hartford Town Clerk INSISTED to look at it.
What the hell is going on?
Are we still in the same country?
Is this still the US, the land of the brave and the free?
Climate Marxism:
Control the means, output and (re)distribution of production by controlling the means, output and distribution of energy.
It’s the marriage of the Degrowth Movement with Marxism.
Its also directly out of the manual that is the UN Sustainable Development Agenda 2030, built on a MODEL of LIFE and HOW WE SHOULD LIVE, determined by standards set in place by a human with biases into a computer to create a MODEL.
When we GROK that that is a SIMULATED REALITY – a literal SIM world solution – THEN we GROK that we are being played and manipulated, and only the controllers of the SIM GAME called Agenda 2030 (LITERALLY), then we MIGHT get out of this AI TRAP set for us to gaslight us for BEING HUMAN.
Oh wait.. the 2014 IPCC report did that already, justifying the AI solutions for AI created ISSUES humans created…
Pretzel logic applied to a clusterf***k yields a clusterf***k.
And never the twain shall meet (reality vs AI model).
If homes are heated solely with electric heat and a significant area experiences a long power failure (not beyond the realm of possibility – Texas had one) will existing distribution networks be able to sustain the load of all the dwellings coming on line and continuing to draw power until dwellings reach thermostat heat levels – in addition to the already existing motor-start loads of appliances? Is Vermont’s air quality so poor, its impact on global climate so great that this program – based on Progressive dogma – can be justified? Charles MacKay wrote, over a century and a half ago, a still popular work: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds. Boy, is it time for an update!
Re: ““We’re talking about regulating an industry that hasn’t been regulated in this manner, and this is a big undertaking,” TJ Poor, director of planning for the department, told committee members. There is no estimate of the cost.”
CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF VERMONT
AS ESTABLISHED JULY 9, 1793, AND AMENDED THROUGH NOVEMBER 2, 2010
CHAPTER I.
A DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE STATE OF VERMONT
Article 9. “…. previous to any law being made to raise a tax, the purpose for which it is to be raised ought to appear evident to the Legislature to be of more service to community than the money would be if not collected.”
Whatever.
Pesky little document from those whom revere republics is getting in the way of those whom love the democratic form of government that leads to oligarchies…..
“please get rid of that document! We’ve got a country to subvert!” says, Klaus Shwab
“Bring in the New World order.”….Bush
Build Back Better! So say all the little marxists, educated by Shwab……it’s not Biden’s idea it’s all the New World Order…
Own nothing and be happy! That’s what every slave master tells their slave…….