I took some time last week to work through the photo book of registered lobbyists at the Vermont State House, with a particular eye for the number of them announced as working for “climate change” legislation.
If President Donald Trump replaces the deceased Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a conservative stalwart, then attempts to pull back on the president’s environmental regulatory rollbacks through the courts could be thwarted, some academics and legal experts say.
Two leading policy experts in California, a state that passed its Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006, are calling Vermont’s pursuit of similar legislation a big mistake.
While the GWSA appears to reflect the sense of urgency so many of us feel, the actual process established is unwieldy and does not provide my agency – the Agency of Natural Resources – with the tools needed to accomplish the work.
Governor Phil Scott on Tuesday vetoed H.688, An act relating to addressing climate change, but provided a path forward to pass a bill that achieves the stated goals without the harmful impacts of the current bill.
Barring a course correction, no one should be surprised if the Northeast sees winter reliability and cost problems on par with California’s and Texas’ summer challenges.
The analogy they trotted out on the floor and in the media in support of moving forward anyway is giving blood. Giving a pint of blood, they argue, doesn’t solve a problem by itself, but if everybody gives a pint of blood it makes a difference. The GWSA is Vermont’s pint of blood.
Vermont Republicans stand opposed to the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA), not because we are opposed to a clean and resilient environment, but because this is a bad bill being proposed at the worst possible time.
“The fires across the West Coast are just the latest examples of the very real ways our changing climate is changing our communities,” Obama wrote in a tweet that included pictures of how soot and ash from the wildfires are turning San Francisco’s sky bright orange.
House lawmakers on Wednesday passed the Global Warming Solutions Act, advancing legislation that would turn state carbon emission reduction goals into mandates and allow individuals to sue Vermont if targets are missed.
Vermont’s attorney general TJ Donovan has joined a band of Democrat attorneys general to sue the Trump administration over environmental deregulations. All 21 attorneys general involved in the lawsuit are Democrats.
This week the House will accept the minor Senate amendments and vote to send the bill to the governor. He can sign it, let it become law without his signature, or veto it. Gov. Scott has powerful grounds for a veto.