Senators are getting an earful from constituents about the ‘Unaffordable’ Heat Act

By Rob Roper

In a hastily scheduled hearing on Thursday, Feb. 23, that did not appear on the committee’s schedule until less than two hours before the meeting took place, the Senate Appropriations Committee took up S.5, dubbed by critics as the ‘Un-Affordable’ Heat Act.

Why the stealth announcement? One possible answer came from committee Chair Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, who told the presenters of the bill, Sens. Chris Bray, D-Addison, and Anne Watson, D-Washington, that she and others have “been the beneficiaries of a lot of communications — many, many communications — and phone calls.”

state of Vermont

Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia

“I even have this,” Kitchel said, holding up a novelty dollar featuring a picture of the author of the Clean Heat Standard, Richard Cowart, with the caption “Paid by Vermonters on their Fuel Bills.”

Kitchel went on to explain that the bill has created “worry and consternation” throughout the population.

“Some of the calls we’re getting are from senior citizens and people who are very low income who are not wealthy, and they become very, very fearful of what’s going to happen to them immediately,” she said. “…It’s unfortunate that we’ve created so much anxiety on the part of people who really are very vulnerable. ‘I can’t even afford a computer,’ one person told me. ‘How am I going to afford to do all this?’”

VIDEO: Sen. Jane Kitchel on angry constituents

By not announcing the meeting in advance, the senators deprived opponents of the bill time to organize and, as the U.S. Constitution puts it in the First Amendment, “to peaceably assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Kitchel was clearly rattled by the outpouring of negative public sentiment, but indicated she believes the fears of her constituents are unfounded.

But Sen. Bobby Starr, D-Orleans, disagreed, and accused the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee of “slopping lies” about the true costs of the bill.

In one instance, Starr called out Bray for trying to create the misleading impression that only importers of fossil fuels would be paying the costs of a clean heat standard.

“We do not have any oil wells in Vermont, so every drop of oil has to be imported,” Starr said. “Say it like it is. Don’t slop lies. … Say oil is going to have a surcharge on it if it’s transported into the state. It doesn’t matter if I’m the little oil dealer with one peddle truck, but I have to buy it from you because you own the transport truck. You’re [the transport truck] being assessed — that means you’re going to assess me, the little guy who peddles the oil to the senior citizen.”

And, of course, the cost will ultimately be passed along to the consumer.

VIDEO: Sen. Bobby Starr tells lawmakers ‘Don’t slop lies!’

Opponents of S.5 are keeping up the pressure before a vote of the full Senate some time next week. The Vermont Fuel Dealers and its members are reaching out to Vermonters through social media, with radio ads and a television ad.

The “Fuel Line” newsletter reports, “Thousands of messages have been generated inside the statehouse as more Vermonters learn more about Senate Bill #5. The Vermont Senate could vote as early as Wednesday. Encourage your customers to contact the statehouse today and again on Tuesday morning. Have them call 802-828-2228 and leave a message with their state Senator: Vote No on Senate Bill #5.”

Supporters of the bill, such as VPIRG, the Vermont Natural Resources Council, Vermont Conservation Voters, and the Energy Action Network — which claims over 200 non-profit entities as members — are trying just as hard to activate their voters.

While it is unlikely that even the most robust public outcry against S.5 will convince a majority of ideologically driven Democrats and Progressives in either chamber of the Legislature to vote against the bill, the seven Republican senators need only four Democrats to join them in sustaining a potential veto by Gov. Phil Scott.

Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. © Copyright True North Reports 2023. All rights reserved.

Image courtesy of state of Vermont

28 thoughts on “Senators are getting an earful from constituents about the ‘Unaffordable’ Heat Act

  1. This is the hubris climate zealots display with a super majority in the State House. They are willing to sacrifice the old and low income to achieve their goal that in reality amounts to a @#%$ in a windstorm all while patting themselves on the back.

  2. A sponsor of this bill plainly stated in her explanation to our selectboard meeting that this bill is not about climate change. It was presented as saving Vermonters from the high prices of fossil fuels….by make the prices even higher so we would be forced out of using them! That’s the kind of mindset that is writing our laws.

  3. The climate change liberal activists/Marxists who want to control all of our lives “for the greater good” as they see it never mention God in this whole discussion. Do they really think we puny humans can actually destroy the planet? That climate change is not part of a natural cycle that has been going on for thousands of years? How do they explain the ice sheets that covered North America 15,000 years ago melting? There were no gasoline powered cars or fossil fuel burning machinery then. So why did that happen? Natural weather cycle! Humans can never destroy the planet. Only God can do that — and He will in the Last Days when He creates a new heaven and a new earth. But until then, what hubris to think we can play God and rule His creation! The Bible does say to be very wary of people who worship the creation instead of the Creator. That’s who these climate activists are. They worship creation and completely ignore God and what His Word says will actually happen. They have made a god out of nature.

  4. This entire idea of climate change is true but not because of human causes. We are warming because we are coming out of the last ice age, but these government liberals fund scientific research that only benefits the liberal narrative. At least five major ice ages have occurred throughout Earth’s history: the earliest was over 2 billion years ago, and the most recent one began approximately 3 million years ago and continues today (yes, we live in an ice age!). Currently, we are in a warm interglacial that began about 11,000 years ago. Scientists have recorded five significant ice ages throughout the Earth’s history: the Huronian (2.4-2.1 billion years ago), Cryogenian (850-635 million years ago), Andean-Saharan (460-430 mya), Karoo (360-260 mya) and Quaternary (2.6 mya-present). Who was burning fossil fuels 3 million years ago anyway. Along with solar radiation levels, it is believed that global warming and cooling is connected to plate tectonic activity. The shifting of the Earth’s plates creates large-scale changes to continental masses, which impacts ocean and atmospheric currents, and triggers volcanic activity that releases carbon dioxide into the air. What theses liberals won’t press to gain control over the people.

  5. What is the matter with these morons anyway? We can’t afford to heat our homes now. These idiots need to be replaced.

  6. Those who fight to reverse climate change are TRUE BELIEVERS. They aren’t evil …they have been completely convinced that disaster is looming on us; that we caused this; and that we can change this.
    Issue is they have been totally brainwashed along with millions of others. I doubt the minds if any can be changed,,,
    I am vehemently opposed to this bill!!!! I am looking to relocate because of it…I switched to Biofuel…will still be penalized. Propane will be next…my whole house Generac saved me thru 7+ days of no power recently.
    I have been unwilling to support most republican candidates…what they say appalls me! But this Green New Deal is
    Based on fraudulent info
    Will take VT down to its knees…

    • Instead of trying to control Mother Earth and her infinite ways of healing the planet without man’s intervention – perhaps look up at the sky and find out why clouds have criss-cross patterns. Perhaps start understanding, logically, how the clothes you wear, the vehicle you drive, the cellphone you text on, the food you eat, and how solar panels and wind turbines are actually made and transported. Do you ever question why your climate alarmist leaders fund and support wars in Ukraine, Africa, and Syria and how that effects those climates? Please think with logic – the mind is a terrible thing to waste on emotional, fear-based, mind control tactics.

  7. The problem is that you all are not speaking the language that these Leftists hear.

    A city or two should be burned down, paint something on the streets like “Socialism Kills”
    fly some flags, what have you got for monuments that need to go?
    You need some mostly peaceful riots, cause some traffic jams, and go protest in this woman’s front yard.
    Chase them out of the restaurants, start a Defund movement, and do all this wearing some kind of a costume.

    The Democrats have been showing you how to get things done, haven’t you been paying attention?

      • Your naive remark appalls me Alexandra- you are apparently untethered from the reality of how your own state operates.

      • Sounds like sarcasm to me. Republicans don’t actually do those things. We also don’t call people racist, hateful or deplorable.

        But like she said up there…. We really should since it seems to be a language progressive democrats might actually understand.

  8. These people blame mankind but never mention the multitude of active volcanoes that spew out more carbon in 1 second then I do in my lifetime or the methane bubbling up in the arctic ocean. It’s pretty arrogant for mankind to think that we can control the climate and all the money in the world won’t change a thing.

  9. Vermont Republicans should be proud and rejoicing the bills their legislators are advancing, which they indirectly voted for by running candidates that stood for something. Instead of being resentful, they should happily accept the new taxes, the new gun laws, and the further deterioration of their schools. At least we stood for something and now we stand on the steps of the Capitol peering in through the windows.

    Primaries and Elections have consequences.

    • It’s time for you to speak some reality. You are the one who commented time after time to support the fraud Liam while running for congress. You appear to be a recovering liberal because that’s what Liam was and probably is. We have enough RINOs in government already. In fact, I bet you are fairly young and believe what you say, but many here like me have been around or decades since the liberal invasion started the destruction of Vermont. We need real republicans to turn this around. Until that happens, nothing will change. RINOs are republican in name only and voting for them is just like voting for a democrat light. There are very few republicans in office, and we have a few who are what they say they are

  10. These progressive socialist climate cultists are nothing more than tyrants. Revolutions have been fought in the past because of governments like the one they have created it VT. But they have no understanding of history so they are oblivious to the fact that history can repeat itself for those that do not learn from it. There is no reasoning with these cultist tyrants. Our only hope is that Scott will veto this bill. And pray that his veto will not be overridden.

  11. Kitchel:

    I thank all the naive people who voted for me to get me elected.
    I have, as usual, your best interests at heart
    I am going to do what is good for you, as I have promised
    I am going to stop climate change.

    Right now it is 0F.
    But it will soon get warmer or even colder
    God knows

    I voted for a tax credit for you to buy a wool blanket.
    The tax credit applies to all Vermonters, rich and poor.

    Why weatherized a whole house for $10,000 to $20,000, when just a wool blanket would suffice?

    I will vote for the idiotic new heating standard, which very few legislators understand, because that is what the Democrat party demands of me

    I know this is going to hit your pocket book for DECADES, but so be it

    I know this will enrich Canadian GMP, so what else is new?

    I know Efficient Vermont will come to your house with a search warrant to verify, if you toe the line regarding the government’s energy diktats

    I know you have no idea what us Legislators are up to next, but remember it’s is all for your good, even though it does not feel that way at all

  12. Same question, who asked for this?… Give us names, dollar amounts donated, I, as a person who really sees thru this garbage, am just curious as to how this can be justified by any sane person. Mr Bray does NOT represent me or anyone I know even though we live in Addison County.

    • Not only does he not represent you he could care less about you or what you think. My guess is his pockets are getting lined here!

  13. The climate nazi’s should be beat over the head with the idiot stick until they realize, like the other New England commie states did, that this foolish gwsa is a unnecessary burden to the middle class and poor trying to stay warm during the frozen winter. The saving of CO2 are minuscule in the world scheme a mere fart in the whirlwind which would be overridden by China and India in a day…Vermont CAN’T save the world no matter what the commie loons under the golden dome think.

  14. What happened to this lady in England due to skyrocketing fuel prices is going to happen to your mother, your grandmother, and your cheerful elderly neighbor if this is made law. I have never witnessed such a grotesque display of unmanliness as can be seen among these Prog/Dems, Bobby Starr excepted, of course.

    https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2023-01-26/woman-87-who-could-not-afford-heating-died-from-hypothermia

    Woman, 87, who died of hypothermia ‘could not afford to heat her home’

    An elderly woman who said she could not afford to heat her home died after developing hypothermia, an inquest has heard. Barbara Bolton, 87, was admitted to Fairfield General Hospital in Bury on 11 December 2022 with the condition, as well as a chest infection. Her inquest was opened at Rochdale Coroners’ Court.

    Ms Bolton, who was from Bury, was taken to hospital by paramedics after an ambulance was called. It is understood that hospital notes indicate her illness was linked to the fact she could not afford to put her heating on. On 5 January, a decision was made at the hospital in conjunction with Ms Bolton’s family, to place her on end of life care. The inquest heard she was a mother and a widow and had previously worked as a pharmacy assistant.

  15. In England the subject of rationing to control climate change has already been brought up. How long before the climate change fanatics and zealots start discussing rationing here? Just think how much progress they could make in their Quixote quest if they limit how much food, fuel, clothing, etc you could purchase. Of course these limitations would only apply to the peasants and not to the elites. Vermont is a major disgrace and should be ashamed for voting for these communist/socialist lunatics.

    • My family will go to Canada
      We will illegally enter Vermont, with no documents

      The government will put us up in a nicely heated and cooled, 2-star hotel, such as the Woodstock Inn and Resort, with rooms and meals for free, plus we get to play games in their game room and watch TV, and swim in their swimming pool, and ski on their ski slope or cross country course.

      Vermont does not have 5-star hotels, as far as I know

      The government will give each of us a cell phone, so we can call our loved ones all over the world and tell them to do the same, courtesy of demented, open borders, Biden, who wants to run for another 4-y term

      The government will give us free English lessons, and free training for a job, and free health care, paid for by the bankrupt Medicare/Medicaid system

      You get the picture

  16. The lack of transparency is appalling – not adding S5 to the agenda until the last minute.
    If this bill passes, it will be the last legislative session for all who vote yes. We can celebrate once we replace these Marxist puppets and repeal it immediately in 2025.

  17. Has a rational discussion with dogmatic religious zealots ever been possible? They are never, ever wrong. Heretics will be persecuted. Sacrifices must be made – although sacrifices made since prehistory have failed to control weather, the AGW cabal knows they’re on the right track this time.

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