According to a poll of 600 Vermonters, majorities oppose key components of environmental legislation, the recently passed Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA), and the pending Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI).
In the 22nd episode of “Travels With Charlie — Vermont Politics in Real Life,” host Charlie Papillo discusses the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) with Sen. Dick Mazza and Rep. Mike McCarthy.
TCI was a bad idea before the COVID-19 recession. Today it is absolutely unthinkable.
We all want a healthy planet, and we want our government to play an important role in protecting our environment, but what’s happening in the Vermont Legislature today has crossed the line into what amounts to an obsessive, dangerous, and unhealthy disorder.
This realization that drivers throughout the 11 remaining states still at the TCI table have no interest in paying and extra 17 cents a gallon for gasoline and diesel shouldn’t be a shocker.
Throughout January and February 2020, Vermont state officials and regional planning commission staff are hosting four public information meetings to discuss the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI).
Vermonters are more than willing to roll up our sleeves and work together on climate solutions that are sensible, affordable and that can be measured locally in the short term for accountability. But joining TCI would hobble us.
If TCI burns to the ground, our Legislature is going to feel pressure to “do something” they can spin as a positive step to solve climate change. And that “something” is likely to be the Global Warming Solutions Act.
Tens of millions of dollars are and will continue to be extracted from Vermonters in the name of climate change. Regarding how the dollars are spent, Vermonters will have no say. This is a bad precedent and only getting worse.
If New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island don’t participate in the TCI program, that would leave Massachusetts — whose governor, Charlie Baker, is probably TCI’s biggest booster — completely isolated.
The real beneficiaries of this scheme to tax Vermonters for their fuel use are the rich and powerful. State government, with an annual budget totaling over 1.5 billion and a workforce of over 8,000, will grow bigger, administering complex regulations proposed by the initiative.