Coming off a long winter with record-high gasoline and heating oil prices, this flippant comment is far from amusing. Senators who would pass laws they can’t understand seem to have little understanding or compassion for the very real economic suffering of Vermonters.
There is still time to contact your senators and ask them to table H.715 and let the $200 million they are allocating for clean energy do the real world work. Vermont does not need more gimmicks and convoluted energy policies and requirements to buy more stuff.
Yes, forcing your heating fuel distributor to buy clean heat credits will drive up the price of that fuel. And who will pay the higher price? You will. The senators now admit what I’ve been saying since early February: It’s a stealth carbon tax.
The transition to renewables will lead to higher costs for utilities which will then be passed onto consumers in the form of price hikes. Energy costs will remain elevated in the future as providers build out renewable infrastructure and electricity demand skyrockets.
All six schools in the Champlain Valley School District will soon need to meet new standards for stormwater drainage. CVSD schools are among the 70 Vermont schools and colleges that need to improve their stormwater management infrastructure under the Vermont Clean Water Act of 2015.
That last point I have hammered on before. The hidden tax on your heating fuel will be set not by your legislators, who you can hold accountable at election time, but by three unaccountable strangers who sit on the Public Utility Commission.
With some of the legislation being considered and adopted, it is as if the legislative body doesn’t know the anxiety, despair, and stress taking place throughout Vermont. Let’s just keep creating new laws is its mantra.
Our legislators are voting to make a law that will radically transform not just our economy but our entire way of life, not really knowing what it is they’re voting for. They don’t know how it works, they don’t know what it will do, they don’t know what it will cost.
The governor, along with Green Mountain Power, announced two electric buses have replaced two diesel-fueled buses in Rutland County through the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust Fund. The Marble Valley Regional Transit District is the beneficiary of the new buses.
“The legislature needs to revisit the Global Warming Solutions Act and expand the narrow priority of the emissions reduction. Any representation that the language in the Climate Action Plan is fully supported by all the Climate Council members, I don’t think is accurate,” Smith said.
Can Vermont afford the plans put forward by our legislators? What excessive costs will the green agenda rain down on Vermont inhabitants? EAI board member Rob Roper will answer those questions and more Friday during a public speaking event at the Manchester Community Library.
Democrats have concocted a “Fake Check” amendment which would allow the PUC to implement a sweeping and costly Clean Heat Standard without a roll call vote of the legislators. They think they can kill the accountable Check Back legislative vote and rally all Democrats to overturn a Scott veto.