Missed the 10/3 CHS Town Hall event?
Wow! What an event! Rob Roper presented a clear and concise picture of the gravity of the Clean Heat Standard (CHS) as passed by overriding Governor Scott’s veto and the impacts it will have on Vermonters if implemented as the current Public Utilities Commission (PUC) NV5 report directs. Even though FPF cancelled our postings there were still about 30 people in attendance including Senator Chris Bray who sponsored the bill. Any fears that FPF or anyone else projected that this would be a one-sided discussion of misinformation were clearly false. As part of the open public discourse, Senator Bray was given the floor to defend his law as passed now called Act 18.
Chris’ defense included claiming that there is no “impending trigger coming in 2025” that would cause any adverse effects on Vermonters. He said that the law only required a study to be performed and we’re still waiting on the results. He also stated that the law doesn’t require a tax or fees. It uses “credits”. He claimed that we don’t really know how much this plan would cost, despite the clear statements in the NV5 report and Efficiency Vermont’s comments on it. Incumbent Vergennes area Representative Matt Birong also attended and provided a written statement about Act 18 which is full of logical fallacies and thus his conclusion is invalid.
The source information from the PUC, NV5, Efficiency Vermont, and the Technical and Equity Advisory Groups to the PUC were presented to the audience by Rob Roper and clearly understood. Comments from attendees toward Chris and his Act 18 included statements such as: “I’m on a fixed income. My taxes have just gone up tremendously. I do everything I can to live as ecologically friendly as possible. And now you want to increase my heating fuel prices to force me to switch to electric heat. I can’t afford things already. I’m not going to be able to afford that!” Another said “With all these tax and costs increases, we have no alternative. As soon as I retire, we are moving out of this state! And this legislature is to blame.”
Rob Roper’s presentation made it clear:
1) Act 18 “established a clean heat standard as law”. It’s not just a study. This law commits the state to a number of very complex things including having a clean heat credit market. What is required to be voted on sometime after January 2025 is the rules that will govern the “established” program. They put the cart before the horse. And committed to buying the horse and the cart before they knew what it would cost (or if the program would even work).
2) Vermonters are not helped by increasing the cost of fossil fuels (which are currently decreasing) by adding a significant surcharge, fee, tax, whatever you want to call the cost of “credits” on top of the existing cost of fossil fuels.
3) The 70 cents/gal figure came from an estimate made by Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore back in Jan 2023 based on data compiled mostly from The Cadmus Group for the Vermont Climate Council as they drafted the Climate Action Plan. Moore’s analysis includes federal support and tax credits. The NV5 study was completed in September of this year, and it estimates a $10 billion total cost for the CHS to achieve the thermal sector mandates laid out by the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA). This translates into an added cost of $1.79-$4.03 for oil and kerosene, and $0.95-$2.12 for propane per the NV5 Table 28 applying the simple conversions from MBTU to gallon of fuel.
4) Exchanging oil for electric in an attempt to achieve lower cost and more stability is absurd. The primary renewable electric sources, solar and wind, are the two most expensive and unreliable sources of energy. Fossil fuels are consistently less expensive and reliable.
Please contact me if you have any other questions about the Clean Heat Standard or what was discussed on 10/3.
VOTE for ROB NORTH for STATE REPRESENTATIVE for a CHANGE.
