Our best hope now is a veto from Governor Scott who has indicated that the bill does not have his support. But after that we need to put pressure on just a few Democrats or Independents to sustain his veto of this new tax.
H.715, an act relating to the clean heat standard, passed in the State House of Representatives on May 3, 2022, by a vote of 88-37. It obligates the PUC to design the Clean Heat Standard program, and then check back with the Legislature in 2023 and 2024.
H.715, an act relating to the clean heat standard — Bray Amendment — passed in the State Senate on April 28, 2022, by a vote of 23-7.
Senate lawmakers decided against adding further amendments to the clean heat standard bill H.715 Friday morning before it passed on third reading on the Senate floor.
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.
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.
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 clean heat standard would intentionally make every kind of home heating fuel more expensive — but we just don’t know how to calculate the increase, or what the total amount will be. It’s one of those common Democrat tactics where they have to pass the bill before they can find out what it does.
“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.
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.