By Rob Roper
The Global Warming Solutions Act sets out ambitious mandates for greenhouse gas reduction by 2025, 2030 and 2050. Some say the mandates are impossible to meet, and would place unacceptable burdens on Vermonters if implemented.
This increasingly undeniable reality came into focus for one lawmaker who personally experienced the financial and logistical hardships that come with trying to comply with the spirit of the law — providing a cautionary tale for making this the letter of the law through S.5.
“When you talk about the look-back [provision in the bill] and review and the deadlines,” Sen. Richard Westman, R-Lamoille, warned his colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, “as someone who has a wood furnace that I purchased — environmentally the cleanest piece of equipment that I could purchase — it’s been almost twenty months to install. You can come and look at the furnace in my yard because I haven’t been able to get anyone to install it.
“And I’m afraid as I look at what our community action agencies and weatherization [organizations], and I spent the last two years on Natural Resources [& Energy Committee] and we worked a great deal about getting people into the business. The ambitious nature of this can not go forth without the people to do it.”
VIDEO: Westman tells his story
Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, noted that labor shortage issue are pervasive throughout every sector of our economy: “It’s in childcare. It’s in healthcare. it’s in education. It is pervasive in the trades, certainly.” This is not just true for government programs, but for private industry as well.
Senator Anne Watson, D-Washington, tried to defend the bill by saying that the incentives for “obligated” fuel dealers could spur them to divert some of their labor force away from delivering fossil fuels into the business of installing heat pumps and weatherization.
Even according to research done by the Energy Action Network, an advocacy organization pushing for adoption of the Clean Heat Standard and meeting the goals of the Global Warming Solutions Act, there are only 700 trained workers in Vermont capable of doing the work necessary to meet those goals, and 5,000 will be necessary by 2025.
There are about 2,300 people employed in the heating fuel delivery business across Vermont today. So even if all of them switched to installing heat pumps tomorrow — which obviously can’t happen because households that continue to heat with fossil fuels still need to be serviced — the GWSA required labor force would still be forty percent short of what is required.
Westman, aware of this, shot down Watson: “That’s not going to happen, [I say] as someone who just bought a piece of equipment twenty months ago for $22,000 and it’s still sitting in my yard.”
But finding someone to install a new heating system isn’t the only issue. Once installed, it may not work in Vermont’s climate.
In early February, Rob Stenger of Simple Energy, a company that installs heat pumps in addition to dealing fossil fuels, testified before the Senate Natural Resources and Energy committee, saying, “There are very few examples where with profound — I mean profound big dollar investment in weatherization, new construction, and the most sophisticated, expensive heat pump technology — you can’t heat the average home in the Northeast with electricity.”
“On the coldest days the design temps, the heat loss … simply will not support it,” Stenger said. “They not only lose their efficiency, but the very best cold climate heat pumps that can be retrofit into existing construction stop performing on days like today. And as we approach zero degrees and beyond, it’s not a linear equation when you look at the efficiency of these things. It drops precipitously and they become enormously expensive to operate.”
This warning was backed up by a letter writer to VTDigger (2/26/23), who shared his experience with a heat pumps:
My household recently decided to be good citizens and invest in heat pumps to move away from dirty and expensive heating oil. Unfortunately, the economics are not good.
We were charged $7,500 for the installation of a mini split unit rated at 1.8 ton. You need around 3 tons for a 2,000-square-foot home, so we had to get two.
The good news is the units did reduce our oil usage quite a bit, probably 75-80%. However, our monthly electricity bill increased by over $300! With the astronomical installation costs, we won’t even break even on these units until long after our kids have graduated from college in 17 years.
So maybe Sen. Westman is better off just leaving his $22,000 system sitting in the yard. If the clean heat standard becomes law, many Vermonters will be pushed into buying equipment that they can’t afford, might not be able to have installed, and, if it is installed, may not even work to keep them warm in winter.
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.
My 90 year old aunt put in a brand new high efficiency oil system 2 years ago. Now she will have to pay a penalty for operating it? Or she’ll have to retrofit heat pumps? I suppose she could become one of the new army of installers they’ll need. Vermonters can’t be the only ones saving the world. It’s not a brave little state anymore…it’s becoming a police state. This is idiocy at the highest level
Have you all gone crazy in Montpelier! Are any of you in touch with reality? Your not taking away my woodstove! You’ve gone far enough with your inspection laws, you all simply are outta touch with the life of the average working Vermonter!
Laura Stone your exactly spot on with your comments!
Ann Watson open your eyes to the real world the rest of us live in day to day!
Not every Vermonter has a golden spoon!
Zero though has gone into this abomination of a bill. The climate nazis only concern is getting it passed by hook or crook regardless if it’s feasible or not. Like all leftist commies any concern they have is for the agenda NOT the citizen getting stuck with it. I too had to wait for a new oil burner instillation 5 years ago, for me it was 3 weeks during a cold November so the instillation’s are getting worse time wise. In this business UN-friendly state it isn’t going to get any better . With the talk of driving out heat dealers it’s probably going to get worse as they will have to look for greener pastures to do business. Thanks NOT you stupid voters for sticking us with these incompetent ijits.
My very dear aunt’s dad was in charge of HVAC for the Empire State Building in New York. A tough old German-American from Bayonne. I would love to hear him let loose on that woman vis-a-vis her opinions on cross-training HVAC people. You know that this is really about gentrification. The belief that working people are all-of-a-kind and lack specialized skills worthy of respect is a dead giveaway. I plan to have a new burner installed on my propane furnace and then top off the tank as I wait for this sick bill to die an embarrassing death.
Wow, these people are embarrassing.
Have they not talked to an oil truck driver before?
There are truck drivers and then there are people that work on boilers and heating equipment.
There are people that design all this stuff.. they are all entirely different skill sets and require different physical abilities.
Everyone does what they want to do- or can do- for work.
Do these people not understand that they can’t just demand what people do for work?
Installing heating equipment is physically demanding, it’s crawling around in dirty cold basements for some 60 hours a week. Who wants to do that? it’s easy to see why there is a shortage of them.
It’s hard on the body, there is risk factors. You breath in crappy air all day full of dust and fumes.
How about Ann Watson give it a try.. as a lesson in reality.
Every oil truck driver I’ve was older and couldn’t do back busting work anymore.
These people are so out of touch with reality- I mean at a very basic and human level.
Do they even know any working class people?
We’re not being led by the best and brightest at all- and that is a whole lot of the problems.
Exactly right Laura, they are clueless! I spent 20 years hauling a tanker. All parts of the companies had divisions. There was very little crossover.
What will be the measure of success? There has been zero warming the last 8 yrs., even 18 yrs. can be argued, while CO2 levels are up 10-14%! How will they parse out any effect?
They cannot isolate Vermont’s CO2 emissions from the rest of the world.
They can’t measure the minuscule effects on temperature that might result.
They won’t even tell us what their projected impact or effect might be Vermont temperatures. (Obviously they cannot, because CO2 is not the driver of the world’s warming.)
Pure virtue signaling.
These climate cult progressive act before they think. Damn the consequences. They are not rational.
God help us.
Ann Watson would have you believe that tradesmen in the fuel oil business can become the installers of heat pump systems in time to relieve the labor shortage. She speaks from total ignorance. Who elected this woman, oops, PERSON?
Ann Watson is also still under the impression that children need to get ‘jabbed’ so that grandma won’t get sick. I know this, because she responded to my email in stating, “As science learns more about Covid over time, we may find that the cumulative effects of getting the virus more than once even at a young age has detrimental effects. For that reason, and for the sake of stopping the spread, I am in favor of vaccinating children.” It’s scary to think that someone like her seems pleasant enough, but may very well be a misanthrope.
Ann Watson breathes her own exhaust all day and collects bacteria in her mask, but she knows how to install a heat pump. She thinks she knows everything from her ridiculous comment. She went from Mount Stupid Mayor to Vermont Senator. She so intelligent that she knows more than the 120 studies that prove wearing a mask is dangerous for your health and severely dangerous for children. And to push an emergency, non-approved gene therapy to jab small children when the dangers are known to hurt their immune systems proves that this person is a danger to us all.
To answer your question who elected this person, Montpelier moon bats. The same voters who elected Connor Casey who has the same intelligence as a rock. The once great little city is now known as Mount Stupid, and it’s administered by solid progressive moon bats. Their mission is to make you live however they say.
Two years ago when my plumber said better get a back-up in case my 40- year old tarm wood boiler breaks down. I talked with representaives from our town’s energy committee about heat pumps. They were in favor of them but said I would need another source of heat for really cold days.
Like many Vermonters I can not afford to put in two new heating system and chose to go with a highy efficient Amrican made propane boiler to guarentee should something happen, that my wife and I could stay warm. Unfortuantely this affordable act is not affordable for lower and middle income Vermonters who will end up subsidizing those with the means to make the changes this law demands.
Senator Ann Watson (All Masked up) throws in her two cents and that’s what it was worth. What does she know about any of this to sit there and pontificate BS like she knows about the workforce in the heating industry. What has Ann Watson or any of them on the committee done to contribute to society other than to talk. Obviously, she hasn’t seen the 120 studies that prove mask are worthless. That says a lot about her.
Damn the facts ! Full speed ahead.