Attorney General T.J. Donovan’s decision to challenge a rollback of California’s greenhouse gas emission and fuel economy standards by the Trump administration has prompted a rebuke from Vermont activists.
On Monday night, members of the Vermont Climate Solutions Caucus met to discuss upcoming legislative efforts to push green energy policy on Vermont.
The seventh annual Municipal Day workshop is touring the state to encourage employees at various levels of government to work together and use more efficient tactics — and to think about climate change.
The 51-acre Coventry landfill has long been a focus of environmental activists for alleged leakage of dangerous materials, but now the landfill’s management is responding to those criticisms, and reminding the public that the company plays a critical role in maintaining a clean environment in Vermont.
Is it true the membership of the VPIRG board of directors shows a close affiliation with renewable energy industry and environmental special interests?
I was gratified to read in John Greenberg’s comment to a VTDigger story that he finds a fatal flaw in the latest carbon tax scheme, the Transportation Climate Initiative, that I wrote about last January.
If the multi-state, regional Transportation & Climate Initiative takes effect, and if Vermonters pay the 36 cents per gallon that Californians will pay under their similar “cap and trade” program, Vermont drivers could pay an extra $137 million per year.
For Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, there is no legitimate debate to be had that the earth is facing imminent peril from man-made global warming. Anyone who dares question that orthodoxy is a climate science “denier.”
Massachusetts and New Hampshire blocked financing in 2016 for the $3 billion Access Northeast Pipeline, a gas line that would have helped the state weather an energy crunch in 2018. The state’s decision to rely on green energy instead hiked gas prices and forced it turn to Russian imports.
California has the highest gas taxes in the nation at an average of 57.8 cents a gallon — more than one-eighth of the total price of the gas. The tax was raised most recently by 5.6 cents per gallon July 1. California imposed a 12 cents-a-gallon tax increase in 2017.
Rebecca Ohler, who heads the DES climate and energy program, said that state officials are looking at the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) to help reduce such emissions. It would be similar to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
The TCI is a “stealth” carbon tax because it would raise the cost of gasoline for all Vermonters and would give climate activists in the Vermont Legislature the carbon emissions revenue they seek — all without actually having to vote on the record for a carbon tax.