Editor’s note: This commentary is by Paul Burns, the executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
[I]f, after decades of definitive research linking cigarettes to cancer, your doctor doesn’t think that smoking causes cancer, then it’s time for a new doctor. They’re either a quack, on the payroll of the tobacco companies, or both.
If, after decades of definitive research linking fossil fuels to climate change, your local “think tank” continues to deny scientific consensus, then it’s time reconsider their legitimacy as thinkers. They’re either hopelessly nutty, on the payroll of the fossil fuel industry, or both.
Yet, for years, John McClaughry and Rob Roper of the Ethan Allen Institute have been offering up their brand of climate denier snake oil to anyone who will listen. They can be an entertaining pair but don’t count on their nostrums solving what ails you.
The latest bee in their bonnet is the thoughtful plan proposed by Vermont business and community leaders to strengthen the Vermont economy and meet the climate goals that Govs. Jim Douglas, Peter Shumlin and Phil Scott have embraced, but have failed to meet.
To speed strategic electrification of Vermont’s heating and transportation sectors – a key solution to reducing carbon pollution, the ESSEX Plan proposes lowering electricity bills by 25-30 percent for residential ratepayers and businesses. Rural and low-income Vermonters would receive additional rebates. This would give Vermonters who want to transition to cleaner heating and transportation options a financial incentive to do so.
ESSEX discourages the use of dirty fossil fuels and invests in low-carbon electricity. Under the plan, there is no net change in energy spending: Vermonters will collectively save a dollar on low-carbon electricity for every additional dollar they pay for polluting fossil fuels. Further, the plan is revenue neutral – meaning there is no change in state government spending.
The ESSEX Plan harnesses the power of the market to reduce carbon pollution and help the state meet its climate and clean energy goals. There are no mandates from on high. It’s true that the wealthiest and large corporations would pay their fair share as Vermont’s biggest polluters – while low- to moderate-income Vermonters would save money. And it’s true that all Vermonters would save money by choosing lower-cost, lower carbon alternatives, if they want. But ultimately — it’s all voluntary. State government isn’t responsible for picking winners or losers.
One might think that a limited government, free market solution to the climate crisis like the ESSEX Plan would appeal to the free market advocates at the Ethan Allen Institute. Perhaps they would join with noted conservatives recommending a price on the pollution that causes global warming, including former Reagan and Bush Cabinet Secretaries James Baker, George Schultz and Henry Paulson. But no. Roper and McClaughry are set in their act, and they apparently can’t evolve.
Like Donald Trump, they think climate change is a hoax, and this mindset pollutes their analysis. Take, for example, a recent commentary by Roper attacking Ben & Jerry’s for supporting the ESSEX Plan because it would be …. wait for it … good for business. Or their contention that by reducing Vermonters’ electricity bills by hundreds of millions of dollars a year that electricity rates will … rise. Or, their argument that even though the ESSEX Plan will create jobs, “providing more jobs is not an economic ‘benefit’” to Vermont.
The Ethan Allen Institute’s economic analysis of climate policy is hopelessly entangled in its purely political motives. McClaughry claims that “there is no detectable evidence that human greenhouse gas emissions are having any detectable effect on long run climate change” and Roper typically peddles the line that we simply have no responsibility or capacity to take action against it.
I understand that these false arguments are finding traction in the White House these days, but Vermont can and must to better.