Vermont environmental and low income advocacy groups hope legislative wins by “pro-climate” candidates will kickstart investments in projects that will reduce emissions and create jobs.
The thirteen groups that signed onto the platform Thursday hope a recent United Nations report will catalyze legislators to pass policies, like carbon pricing, that languished in legislative committees last session.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that current national greenhouse gas emissions targets will not be enough to keep the planet from warming more than 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.
Audubon Vermont, Capstone Community Action, Sierra Club and Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility were among the groups that endorsed the platform.
Vermont Conservation Voters announced the day after Election Day that “pro-environment” candidates won 28 out of 33 contested races.
Democrats picked up enough seats to have enough House members, if combined with Progressives, to override a Scott veto. The Vermont Senate was already overwhelmingly controlled by Democrats.
“I think the reason there was a blue wave is because people are outraged at what’s happening federally,” said Lauren Hierl, VCV executive director, of the Vermont results. “Climate change and our backpedaling at the federal level is one of the things that people are rightly upset about.”
Hierl said it was difficult to identify which campaign messages had caused Republicans to lose ground in the Vermont House, but said there were indications that campaigning on climate change action resonated with voters. Hierl pointed to Kathleen James, who listed “fighting climate change while building a green economy” as one of her campaign tenets, and who unseated Republican incumbent Rep. Brian Keefe in Manchester, as an example.
The groups are requesting lawmakers, at a minimum:
— Double funding for low income weatherization.
— Direct the $3.6 million from the VW settlement currently slated for the general fund to a low and moderate income electric vehicle program.
— Prohibit the expansion of large-scale fossil fuel infrastructure, such as pipelines.
— Expand local renewable energy generation.
— Review the Joint Fiscal Office’s forthcoming study of carbon pricing policies and implement the recommended policy.
Some of the proposals, such as increasing weatherization funding and creating an electric vehicle incentive, were recommended by the governor’s climate action commission this summer. On Town Meeting Day, residents of 35 towns passed resolutions urging the state to halt construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure and double-down on Vermont’s renewable energy commitments.
Johanna Miller, climate and energy program director for Vermont Natural Resources Council, said that while the groups hope the platform will launch more detailed policy discussions this session, the steps are “woefully insufficient” to drastically curb emissions.
“This is a fundamental first step, but it’s not enough,” she said.
By law, Vermont is required by 2028 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent of what emissions were in 1990. But emissions have increased in recent years, with the most recent data from 2015 showing emissions 16 percent higher than they were in 1990. Most of the state’s emissions come from fuel used for heating and transportation.
Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden, said the uptick in recent greenhouse gas emissions prompted the need for action.
“We need to really challenge ourselves to put a cap on the emissions we’re making,” she said.
Despite the vocal opposition to the “carbon tax” last session from Gov. Phil Scott and others, the final budget included funding for the Joint Fiscal Office to hire a consultant to study carbon pricing and tax mechanisms including cap and trade programs and and the ESSEX Plan.
Resources for the Future, a D.C. economic research firm, was selected to analyze policies that would lower Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions while promoting economic development.
Miller said she hopes that there will a “fair conversation” about the economists’ policy recommendations when the report comes out in January. She added members of the Western Climate Initiative, like neighboring Quebec, have seen declining greenhouses gas emissions and a growing GDP — showing that climate action and economic growth are not mutually exclusive.
Joining the Western Climate Initiative, or working with fellow members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to add transportation fuels to the existing cap and trade program, may be more politically palatable than a carbon tax, said Lyons. RGGI currently regulates emissions from power generation for nine New England and Mid-Atlantic states.
“If we can work as quickly as we did on RGGI and build a system across multiple states, it gives comfort to people who don’t feel like their gasoline bills are going to be targeted,” she said.
Lyons added that “differing perspectives” within both chambers will make any climate change related proposal subject to give and take regardless of the supermajority held by Democrats.
“I think the good news is that this will put some pressure on the administration and the governor to be engaged in that conversation while it’s going on,” she said. “We didn’t see that a whole lot last session.”
Rebecca Kelley, communications director for Gov. Scott, said that the governor “remains committed to working to mitigate the impacts of climate change, and achieving the state’s emissions goals.”
She said the governor and his administration are still in the process of putting together climate change proposals, which they will unveil in January. Scott still opposes a carbon tax, she said, and will wait to weigh in on other carbon pricing mechanisms until the Joint Fiscal Office’s consultant’s report comes out in January.
