Editor’s note: This commentary is by By Rep. Mike Yantachka, a Democrat who represents Charlotte in the Vermont House of Representatives. He is a member of the House Energy and Technology Committee.
[I]t is well known that John McClaughry doesn’t care about finding solutions to climate change. In a commentary published in VTDigger he attacks the ESSEX Plan, a proposal developed by business owners, low-income advocates and legislators to strengthen the Vermont economy, prioritize the most vulnerable in the transition to clean energy, and reduce the pollution causing global warming. He considers the plan pointless. In painting a negative picture of the proposal, he makes several inaccurate statements. I will quote and then correct them here.
“Half of those tax proceeds will find their way to the Public Utility Commission, which will distribute them to electric utilities to reduce electric rates for everybody, by (their estimate) at least 27 percent.”
In the ESSEX Plan as proposed none of the proceeds would go to the PUC. They would go into a special fund reserved for rebates to electric ratepayers. The utilities would draw on the funds to provide a rebate on every customer’s electric bill each month. Low-income and rural Vermonters would qualify for additional rebates, and all the rebates would be refundable so that even if your bill is zeroed out by efficiency measures or solar net metering, you would get a check from the utility instead of a bill.
“… the ESSEX Plan coalition has demanded that ‘energy independent Vermont’ reduce its reliance on HQ to force the utilities to buy more power from wind, solar and (limited) biomass.”
As a member of the “coalition” of business owners, low-income advocates and legislators that worked during the summer to develop the plan, no one to my knowledge has suggested that we cut back on Hydro-Quebec power in favor of other renewables. In fact, I have suggested that the utilities increase their use of HQ power as long as the HQ rates are competitive.
“… when first promoting the forerunner of the ESSEX Plan to legislators in 2014, the Energy Independent Vermont coalition archly observed, ‘Based on legislative priorities, carbon tax revenue could of course also be used for other purposes.'”
The ESSEX Plan is different from the 2014 proposals. This plan returns all of the proceeds to Vermont ratepayers in the form of lower electricity bills. The state auditor would be tasked with reviewing the balance sheets to assure that Vermonters receive back every additional dollar more they pay for polluting fossil fuels as a result of the carbon pollution tax in the form of rebates for low-carbon electricity. This will enable a transition to renewable energy in the transportation and heating sectors.
“… no Vermont carbon tax, however painful, will ever produce any detectable effect on climate change.”
Finally, we get to the real purpose of a carbon pricing program — reducing our dependence on fossil fuels to mitigate climate change. Vermont may be small, but we always punch above our weight. We’ve been national leaders before, and by demonstrating that bold climate action and a strong economy go hand-in-hand, we can be again. Mr. McClaughry ignores the fact that in the last 100 years carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has spiked well above the maximum concentrations measured via ice cores spanning hundreds of thousands of years. Apparently, he also chooses to ignore the mounting extreme weather events that are produced by rising global temperatures which result in more frequent storms with more energy and more water content as well as more severe oscillations of the jet stream contributing to drought and wildfires in some areas and colder, wetter weather in others. Shrinking ice caps and glaciers are part of the trend that contributes to these effects.
Vermont is not alone in increasing our use of renewable energy and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. For one thing, the proponents of the ESSEX Plan have been working with legislators from other Northeastern states to introduce bills pricing carbon pollution across the region. Our neighbors in Canada are already pricing carbon pollution – as are more than 50 other states and countries around the world.
Furthermore renewable energy is being built nationwide and globally. Texas is the biggest producer of wind energy in the U.S., with more than 22,000 megawatts of installed capacity. Iowa produced 20 billion kilowatt-hours, 37 percent of its electric energy, from wind in 2016. The Canadian province of Quebec gets almost all of its electricity from hydropower. And China is leaving the rest of the world behind as it converts its electricity generation to renewable sources. Just like a single pint of blood donated by one person will not necessarily save a life on an operating table, single pints donated by a multitude of people can save many lives. We have to be “all in” if we want to have an effect on climate change globally.
Mr. McClaughry may not care that human action is the cause of global warming. But he is out of step with most Vermonters who are worried about the impacts climate change will have on their families and communities. Unlike McClaughry, most Vermonters don’t want to contribute to the problem – they want to be part of the effort to find solutions. The ESSEX Plan is one of the solutions.
Which leads to the question: If not the ESSEX Plan, then what is a better way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels? We are open to suggestions.
