By Brent Addleman | The Center Square

A Vermont public policy group says the state’s proposed Affordable Heat Act would have an upfront cost of $5 billion.

The Ethan Allan Institute said Monday that Senate Bill 5 would become the state’s largest social program in history if signed into law. The group said the bill is “a regressive fuel surcharge” that would fall on low- and moderate-income state residents. In turn, that would force a changeover in home heating fuel to electric and also feature the installation of weatherization measures and heat pumps for thousands of Vermonters.

The group said the fuel surcharge “passed through to people” in order to fund their own improvements would lift fuel prices to at least $4 per gallon.

Myers Mermel

“There may be progress towards climate goals, but the Affordable Heat Act program will not produce any economic savings for Vermonters,” Myers Mermel, president of Ethan Allen Institute, said in a release. “Most disturbingly, legislative supporters of the Affordable Heat Act have put the wellbeing of climate over the well-being of low- and moderate-income Vermonters.”

Mermel went on to say the proposed legislation “is an immoral, regressive surcharge on the most vulnerable amount us, with no long-term economic benefit for those low- and moderate-income Vermonters who will be forced to pay for their own climate home improvements through vastly inflated fuel costs.

The proposed legislation, sponsored by Sen. Christopher Bray, D-Addison, would establish a Clean Heat Standard aimed at reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions in the thermal sector.

If enacted, the state’s Public Utilities Commission would handle the program, with some assistance from the Clean Heat Standard Technical Advisory Group and Equity Advisory Group. In order to meet the greenhouse gas emissions that are required under the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2020, the state would need to transition away from carbon-intensive heating practices and switch to lower-carbon alternatives.

The bill, if enacted, would establish a commission to adopt a system of tradeable clean heat credits that would be earned from the delivery of clean heat that measurably reduces greenhouse gas emissions, according to the bill.

Those credits would be retired each calendar year, and the size of an annual requirement would be used to set he pact for the thermal sector to achieve lifecycle carbon dioxide equivalent emission reductions.

Ethan Allen said the legislation would require significant investments for 60% of the state’s households and the overall cost would be “likely over $5 billion,” or more than twice the $2 billion estimate by the state’s Agency of Natural Resources and Vermont Climate Council.

“There may be progress towards climate goals, but the Affordable Heat Act program will not produce any economic savings for Vermonters,” Mermel said in a release.