On Town Meeting Day, at least 23 Vermont towns will ask their residents to vote on a petition to keep oil from Canadian tar sands out of the Green Mountain State.
According to the climate change group 350 Vermont, which is affiliated with 350.org, those are the towns where at least 5 percent of registered voters have agreed to consider the issue on March 5, whether it comes in front of the open floor or it is taken up via Australian ballot. Additionally, 350.org’s Andrew Simon said Grand Isle’s selectboard already passed the resolution and did not warn it in its Town Meeting Day agenda.
What catalyzed this petition is the potential for Canada’s Enbridge Oil to pipe tar sands oil through a more-than 50-year-old pipeline in the Northeast Kingdom that connects Montreal with Portland, Maine. Although the company has a request pending with the Canadian government to pipe oil to Montreal refineries, the company has repeatedly denied that it has plans to send this oil the other direction through Vermont to Portland for export.
Despite these assurances, many organizations and lawmakers are taking precautions. Legislators recently introduced two bills aimed at regulating such a tar sands proposal, and environmental groups and residents asked a state land-use commission to determine whether such a proposal would fall under its jurisdiction.
350.org Vermont was a party to the request, and it also spearheaded the petition that towns are taking up.
Under 350.org’s standard petition, which is available on its website, townspeople would be asked to take a strong stance against piping this fossil fuel through Vermont, and they would encourage their local, state and federal governments to enact a range of measures that would make it near impossible to do any sort of business with tar sands-related enterprises in Vermont.
The towns considering this tar sands petition are:
• Burlington
• Cabot
• Calais
• Charlotte
• Chittenden
• Cornwall
• Craftsbury
• Fairfield
• Fayston
• Grand Isle (passed by selectboard but not on Town Meeting agenda)
• Greensboro
• Hinesburg
• Marshfield
• Middlebury
• Middlesex
• Montpelier
• Moretown
• Plainfield
• Putney
• Ripton
• Waitsfield
• Walden
• Warren
• Woodbury
Clarification: 350 Vermont is closely affiliated with the global group 350.org, but it is not the “Vermont branch of the climate change group 350.org” as was originally reported. 350 Vermont staff say the distinction lies in the Vermont group’s independent fundraising efforts and independent leadership council.