[G]ov. Phil Scott announced Wednesday a plan for spending $18.6 million from an historic settlement with German automaker VW over fraudulent “clean diesel” emissions claims.
The proposal offers few details on how the Scott administration intends to spend the money.
Peter Walke, the deputy secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, says the administration will take comments on the plan for the next 45 days.
Lawmakers and environmentalists had hoped the money would go toward electric school buses, and feared the Scott administration would use it to simply subsidize “clean diesel” purchases.
A press conference on the settlement held Wednesday did little to assuage those concerns. Walke and others offered so little information that multiple reporters asked what in the plan wasn’t already known.
“It’s really about trying to alert the general public that we want feedback, and we want to initiate this as soon as possible,” Scott said. “We’re just looking to get moving on this initiative.”
Environmental advocates said the administration didn’t offer the public a lot of information to comment upon.
“I was hoping for more detail than what was provided,” said Vermont Public Interest Research Group’s Sarah Wolfe.
The Agency of Natural Resources plans to use 15 percent of the money for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The rest of the money would be used to upgrade diesel equipment, or to replace existing diesel equipment with electric vehicles. The monies would be allocated among the following broad categories of vehicles: 43 percent would go to upgrading or replacing old on-road heavy-duty diesel trucks; 31 percent would be spent to upgrade or replace non-road diesel equipment; and 11 percent would be used to upgrade or replace diesel-powered locomotive and marine vessel equipment.
According to the plan, the VW settlement funds will be used to “demonstrate market viability of all-electric or other … alternatively-fueled heavy-duty and transit vehicles” while reducing certain pollutants “in the most cost-effective way possible.”
Scott said he doesn’t consider electric school buses cost-effective.
“I just want to caution everyone … we’re talking $19 million, which is a lot of money, but the buses in particular are very expensive — hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece,” he said. “When you do the math, and you start to figure out how many buses we actually have in Vermont, it won’t go far, so we have to be cautious as we move forward and be sure to spread it around as best we can.”
Olivia Campbell Anderson, the director of Renewable Energy Vermont, said electric buses are on par with diesel buses when long-term costs such as maintenance and fuel are factored into the price.
Lawmakers tried unsuccessfully last year to pass a resolution directing Scott’s administration to spend the settlement funds on electric transit buses or electric school buses, and they’re considering similar legislation this year.
But the Agency of Natural Resources gets to decide, in the end, how the money is spent, according to the terms of the settlement.
“We’ve obviously had lots of conversations with the Legislature about what they’re interested in, but in terms of a specific role, I don’t see one they play” in the decision, Walke said.
Vermont is currently “nowhere near” achieving its air-pollution reduction goals, according to state officials.
The Scott administration’s Climate Action Committee has also been criticized by environmental advocates for not recognizing public support for a controversial carbon tax. The governor ruled out a carbon tax when he ran for office in 2016.
