“S.5 will give people two options: pay significantly more in fuel costs or spend thousands of dollars to install electrical heating systems, when most don’t have the financial means to do either.”
The future the group envisions is one where everything runs on electricity, and all of that electricity is generated by solar farms and wind farms, mainly the former. This may seem ridiculous, and it is, when you consider that in Vermont solar electricity can only be produced about 35% of the time.
Advocates for S.5, dubbed “The Unaffordable Heat Act” by critics, continue to lament and challenge Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore’s estimate that the program will add $0.70 to each gallon of heating oil, propane, natural gas and kerosene.
With mud season just beginning, experts warn that Vermonters should stay away from high-elevation trails for now to protect natural areas from erosion and further damage.
A controversial policy overhaul that seeks to tax existing heat sources while subsidizing new technologies had its carbon-credit trading scheme reviewed on Tuesday in the House Appropriations Committee, and a top state economist warned that the policy’s costs will “likely be greater” in future budgets.
The Youth Opportunity Regional Forums begin this week, the first taking place at Oxbow High School in Bradford on this Thursday starting at 6 p.m. Organizations known to be behind politically left-wing climate and social initiatives are the primary supporters of the event.
Fitzko has served as interim commissioner of the department since January and has been employed with the department for 20 years.
The entire Biden administration has been systematically and intentionally dismantling the powerful, reliable energy system America has built over the past century, and offering in its place little more than vague promises of a “clean, renewable” system will miraculously appear to replace it.
S.5, with its multi-billion-dollar price tag that will add at least $500 a year to the average household’s annual heating bill, is just the tip of the iceberg for what legislators have in store. Once S.5 passes, the plan is to bring forward a similar carbon tax on gasoline and diesel motor fuels.
South Burlington officials want to eliminate 60% of the city’s carbon footprint by 2030, and with transportation accounting for two-thirds of that figure, the city’s climate action plan finalized last October is pushing for more electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.
The estimates are that S.5 will add somewhere between $0.70 and $4.00 to each gallon of oil, propane, natural gas, and kerosene sold in Vermont. That means it will cost Vermont sugar makers somewhere between an extra $2.80 and $16.00 to produce a gallon of syrup.
Joyce Manchester testified that one aspect of the bill would be “challenging” to live up to in reality: the social equity promises to protect low-income Vermonters from the spike in home heating fuel prices brought about by the requirement to purchase clean heat carbon credits.