Editor’s Note: Pat O’Neill of Westfield is a Vermont Electric Co-op member.
An open letter to David Hallquist, CEO of VEC
There have been a few absolutely true things you have said about Green Mountian Power Corp.’s proposal for the Lowell Mountains, and Vermont Electric Co-op’s connections to that project. “This will not create a lot of jobs, this will not lower you electric rates,” and to paraphrase from the information meeting in Irasburg on May 16, you concurred with Dr. Holland that VEC’s decision to partner with GMP is driven by current policy, namely the SPEED program.
Your job, as I have heard you tell it, is to keep the lights on for the best price, and that “our” job, “the people’s work,” is to deal with the policy. Inspired by that, VEC members took up the policy banner. The ‘NO’ Vote campaign is indeed ‘the people’s’ work. We cannot separate policy from the effects those policies have, good and bad.
We cannot abide making a 25-year investment when we know the economics of that investment are going to change when the cost of solar drops to market prices within the next few years. As you so carefully word it “most cost effective today,” and keeping in mind that even that calculation does not include environmental costs as Vermont statute requires.
Thank you for showing us “the way” for Vermonters to have access to more cost-effective renewable generation options. GMP’s project gave us real data, real impacts from which to consider our options. We know now we can do better than what GMP’s project has to offer. And we know how. Twenty-nine states already do it.
I don’t believe that it was the intention of the Legislature to saddle Vermonters with unnecessarily high electric rates – but that is what we get with SPEED. The “NO” vote will get the attention of legislators. It will further galvanize the growing skepticism with Vermont’s current policy for increasing our investment in renewable generation. Only then can we begin to head in a different direction. No more natural resource destruction masquerading as a “cost- effective” public good. We want people before profit. That’s a cooperative value we can all sign onto.
