BURLINGTON — Vermont’s renewable energy trade association has set a new renewable energy goal for the state as lawmakers struggle to find revenue to implement existing goals.
The board of directors of Renewable Energy Vermont (REV) called for the state to meet 20 percent of its total energy consumption with renewable energy, conservation, and efficiency by 2020 during the organization’s annual conference and expo in Burlington on Tuesday.
During a legislative panel at the conference, Sen. Tim Ashe, D/P-Burlington, said the state cannot provide its share of funding toward weatherization and thermal efficiency projects without more revenue.
Without this revenue, the state’s progression toward meeting these goals would be slowed, he said.
Ashe, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said Gov. Peter Shumlin’s “lack of appetite” to implement “broad-based” taxes, some of which would include taxes on fuel, will make it difficult for the state to finance these projects, which are partly paid for with private investments.
Included is the state’s goal to weatherize 80,000 homes by 2020, of which about 25 percent have been weatherized, he said.
“If we are serious about weatherizing homes and really pushing thermal efficiency, people have to be willing to bring in more revenue, it’s just that simple,” Ashe said. “But it’s very hard, frankly, when the person occupying the Fifth Floor, no matter which governor it is, rules out the most rational of funding sources for that.”
In addition to new taxes, Ashe said, some programs would have to be cut in order to provide funding. This is a decision many lawmakers would not likely support, he said.
“It’s been five years of cut, cut, cut on many programs that have caused real burden, whether it’s to low-income people, senior citizens or others,” he said. “That’s the financial mix we’re in.”
However, he said, State Treasurer Beth Pearce has made millions of dollars available to homeowners for home efficiency improvements, suggesting that finding revenue is not entirely hopeless.
Vermont’s Comprehensive Energy Plan aims to have 90 percent of the state’s energy met by renewable sources by 2050. Until recently, the state’s energy policy has been largely theoretical, lawmakers said, and the state now needs to implement those policies.
“Times have changed,” said Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier. “It’s not going to be easy anymore.”
Klein, who chairs the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said he plans to introduce legislation this winter that would use existing revenue to fund low-income weatherization projects.
The bill would take $2 million to $3 million from the $18 million the state collects in taxes on heating fuel used by businesses and put it toward low-income weatherization projects. This $18 million currently goes directly into the General Fund, he said.
Klein also plans to introduce a bill that calls for a tax on carbon. Such a bill would never pass the Legislature, he said, but it would start an educational debate on how the state should go about obtaining new revenue for renewable energy and thermal efficiency projects.
