Committee Chair Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, told the presenters of the bill, Sens. Chris Bray, D-Addison, and Anne Watson, D-Washington, that she and others have “been the beneficiaries of a lot of communications — many, many communications — and phone calls.”
There is no chance that this transition occurs quickly and efficiently due to the lack of a labor force. The old heart will be removed, but no surgeon is on call to put the new one in. The patient will die on the table — or more literally by freezing to death in their home one cold winter night.
More than a dozen House Republicans are looking to repeal the Global Warming Solutions Act and scrap the Vermont Climate Council.
Senator McCormack and other legislators may end up owing a public apology to Mr. Goldberg for attempting to trade on his good name and his complex functioning creations by equating their efforts with his successful ones.
This $5 billion cost to provide weatherization, heat pumps, and heat pump water heaters, will mostly be borne by low and moderate income Vermonters. The Affordable Heat act will be the largest and most expensive social program ever paid for by Vermonters.
The question now is whether or not the members of the Appropriations Committee — a money committee —will raise the critical questions about what financial impact this bill will do to people trying to survive Vermont winters.
Given how much high-minded rhetoric has been dedicated to “a just transition” away from fossil fuels, the committee’s failure to even consider reaching out to Vermont’s director of Racial Equity except as an afterthought was revealing.
Senate Bill 5, the Affordable Heating Act, was approved unanimously by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Friday morning. The bill is a reprise of the clean heat standard the Legislature passed last year only to be vetoed by Gov. Phil Scott.
Meeting the requirements of the Global Warming Solutions Act will funnel billions of dollars into the pockets of that diverse network of non-profits, businesses, etc. So, yes, they are most definitely here to help with that process.
“I get it that what we’re essentially doing is directing the PUC (Public Utilities Commission) to put together a kind of a ‘Rube Goldberg,'” Sen. Dick McCormack said. “I don’t see how this works.”
Sen. Chris Bray wants to have the clean heat standard bill out of his committee by the middle of this month. Committee members are getting push back from some unexpected quarters, which has led to some testy exchanges between lawmakers and witnesses.
Social justice, equity, and income sensitivities may sound nice, but when these ideals come into conflict with political patronage and rent-seeking from influential players they’re quickly dismissed and their sincere advocates stifled.