Weatherization agencies lauded an agreement Wednesday between the Shumlin administration and the state’s largest utilities that would create $12 million in funding for their programs.
On Tuesday, the Department of Public Service released a memorandum of understanding with Green Mountain Power, Central Vermont Public Service and Gaz Metro (Green Mountain Power’s parent company) stating their agreement to spend $21 million as a result of a windfall sharing mechanism on an efficiency fund.
Part of the money would fund the state’s community action agencies, which face a 37 percent decrease in funding due to federal funding shortfalls.
The agreement appears to pit the low-income weatherization programs against the AARP, which has pushed for a direct cash payback to utility customers.
In 2001, the Vermont Public Service Board ordered utilities to pay back millions of dollars in ratepayer money that bailed them out when they were near bankruptcy due to a bad contract with Hydro-Quebec. The board required the utilities to share any profits with ratepayers up to $16 million (now $21 million adjusted for inflation).
When the Canadian utility Gaz Metro bought Green Mountain Power, AARP pushed for a direct payback to customers but settled on an efficiency fund. Now the group is pushing full bore on a media campaign to get cash payments to CVPS customers. The average payout for residential customers would be around $76 per household.
Community action agencies say investing in weatherization is a better use of the money.
“We know that this will provide the most long-lasting benefit to the people we serve, among them the elderly, the disabled and people with small children,” said Steve Geller, president of the Vermont Community Action Partnership.
Facing shortfalls in LIHEAP funding and the sunset of federal stimulus money, community action agencies expect to lay off 50 people this spring. A push in the Senate to double the gross receipts tax on heating fuels, which funds the weatherization program, failed this session.
The agencies sent a letter to the Vermont Public Service Board earlier this year, asking the board to consider ordering that the windfall money be spent on weatherization.
Hal Cohen, executive director of Central Vermont Community Action Council, said putting the money toward weatherization will save the program and help Vermonters.
“We’re investing ratepayer money to get the highest return,” Cohen said. “Clearly, this is a tremendous investment and a tremendous way to bring benefit to CVPS ratepayers.”
But some lawmakers say the deal is a sham.
Patti Komline, R-Dorset, plans to sponsor an amendment that would require the Public Service Board to condition the merger on CVPS paying ratepayers cash.
Komline said she and the three other lawmakers who initially agreed to sponsor the amendment have a list of 70 signatures of lawmakers who would support the bill, and an additional 10 would likely vote for it. She said the coalition is prepared to offer an amendment to a bill on the floor.
“The bags are packed, we’re waiting for the train to go,” Komline said.
The group of representatives, including Paul Poirier, I-Barre, Chris Pearson, P-Burlington, and Cynthia Browning, D-Arlington, tried to tack the bill on as an amendment to the energy bill this session, but House Speaker Shap Smith said it was not germane.
Komline said they have their sights on various bills, including H.718, which deals with miscellaneous issues surrounding the Public Service Board. That bill is in the House Committee on Appropriations, and it is not on the committee schedule this week.
Smith told VTDigger last week he prefers the Legislature not pass laws that would interfere with an ongoing docket where the board is hearing testimony. The Legislature has passed laws that affected open dockets in the past.
“My feeling is the Public Service Board can give this issue better justice than the legislature can in considering all the options,” Smith said on Wednesday. “If the Public Service Board decides the option of returning money to ratepayer is what will give the most value then I think that’s the right decision, but it’s theirs to make.”
Greg Marchildon, executive director of AARP Vermont, said he was sympathetic to the weatherization programs’ funding issues, but he says the state should find a way to pay for them that do not come from ratepayers.
“If it is such a big priority for the administration, it’s kind of crazy they haven’t found a way to make the program whole,” Marchildon said.
He said he is concerned this could set a trend of funding state line items through electricity rate hikes.
