The program aims to make fossil fuels expensive and inaccessible, compelling residents to heat their homes with biofuels and wood. However, numerous studies over the last decade prove that biofuels and wood release greater greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than fossil fuels.
Biden issued an emergency waiver Tuesday allowing gas stations nationwide to sell gasoline with 15% ethanol, pausing a federal environmental regulation that prohibits the corn-based biofuel mixture during the summer months to limit smog.
Assigning values to engines — “electric good, internal combustion bad” — shields the complex, real world system of electric vehicle technology from much needed scrutiny.
The question the Vermont Climate Council and legislators are attempting to answer using schemes like the CHS is not, “How do we heat homes and power cars without fossil fuels?” Rather it’s, “How do we get most Vermonters to live in smaller homes and drive fewer cars?”
The lightbulb went off over the heads of the members of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee that the Clean Heat Standard bill only deals with thermal emissions. Not transportation emissions as well. This did not go down well.
“I applauded, more than a decade ago, when the Vermont legislature voted to close the state’s old nuclear plant at the end of its working life, but I wouldn’t today.”
Vermont’s Senate has embraced an “act relating to environmental justice,” which seeks to redistribute the costs of environmental pollutants from the city mice to the country mice, while punishing white people who live where there is fresh air for the sin of country living.
Who benefits from internal combustion engine bans and electric vehicle (EV) mandates and who gets hurt? Can the government force society to give up superior forms of energy and technology? Are EVs in fact eco-friendly?
President Biden has released a budget proposal that includes 36 tax increases on families and businesses totaling $2.5 trillion over the next decade. Alarmingly, this includes 11 tax increases on the oil and gas industry.
“Anyone that sells an electron, produces an electron, counts an electron, distributes an electron or sells a device that needs electrons, they are winning, big time,” Cota said. “Who are the losers? Don’t look that far.”
How is the PUC going to be able to verify that these half a million actions take place all over the state, assign a unique credit value and shelf life to each, and broker sales, track the ownership of, and then retire those credits when they expire?
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.