Vermont’s energy policies don’t adequately reach vulnerable groups, according to a recent study from scientists at the University of Vermont.
Though the Green Mountain State is “regarded as a renewable energy leader,” the results of the study show that the state’s policies still leave behind Vermonters who rent their homes, have low income or are Black, Indigenous or people of color.
Authors of the study conducted 569 surveys and 18 interviews, finding vulnerable groups are more likely than other Vermonters to report going without heat and often struggle to afford electricity.
Existing energy policies “do not equitably distribute household transition benefits,” such as community solar and weatherization, according to the study, and vulnerable groups are less likely to know about policies that could benefit them.
In their conclusion, the authors of the study suggest a bottom-up approach to energy policies that further includes the voices of people from vulnerable groups in decision-making.
The study is a piece of a larger research project conducted by a Vermont coalition called Rural Environmental Justice Opportunities Informed by Community Expertise (REJOICE), which includes the Center for Whole Communities, Community Action Works, members of Vermont Law School’s Environmental Justice Clinic and UVM scholars. It aims to answer the question, “what does environmental justice look like in Vermont?”
Environmental justice generally refers to societal norms and policies that support sustainability in a way that is fair and equitable.
“We recognize that there’s not much work on environmental justice done within the state,” said Bindu Panikkar, an author of the study and an assistant professor at UVM’s Rubenstein School for Environment and Natural Resources.
The study often refers to the work of Shalanda Baker, a senior adviser in the U.S. Department of Energy. Baker takes aim at the concept of energy “resilience,” or the ability to “bounce back” after significant change or trauma, suggesting that it may actually enforce structural inequality and worsen vulnerability.
“A hardening of existing energy infrastructure may also operate to harden existing social, economic and environmental injustices that disproportionately burden the poor and people of color,” Baker writes in a paper for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. “Such situations call for new framings beyond resilience and transition toward liberation and transformation.”
Baker advocates for this framework, which she terms “anti-resilience.”
Authors of the study — including Panikkar, Walter Keady, Ingrid Nelson and Asim Zia, all with the University of Vermont — used Baker’s anti-resilience framework to analyze policies in Vermont. Their work looks at the net metering program, weatherization and energy efficiency programs, public energy governance meetings and the renewable energy standard.
The renewable energy standard requires the state’s utilities to draw on increasing percentages of renewable energy, rather than fossil fuels. While the policy helped small-scale renewable infrastructure proliferate — which in turn benefits net metering participants, the study says — vulnerable groups were less likely to own solar panels, for example, and were therefore less likely to benefit from the policy.
Those who responded to the surveys also said the decision-making processes for siting community-scale renewable projects favored developers and wealthy interests, according to the study.
While Baker’s framework suggests that an anti-resilience model should “place people of color and the poor at the front of the line to benefit,” interviews with experts show that gaps exist in the state.
To conduct the study, the authors identified Vermont locations with “potentially elevated environmental and health vulnerabilities” and asked participants 58 questions, 10 of which focused on “energy use, desire to participate in energy transitions, and knowledge of Vermont’s transition policy.”
The team also interviewed 50 local experts — including state officials, community association members, homeowner association members, and policy advocates — and used 18 of those interviews in the energy study.
One regional field director with the Vermont Department of Health described running through allotted funds that help residents who need financial help to heat their homes in December, three months before winter ends.
Another employee said that, while weatherization programs often help low-income Vermonters who own their homes, “if you are low-income and you live in a rental unit and your landlord doesn’t want to and you’re stuck with the utility bill, there’s not much that can happen for you.”
The study found that race was “significantly associated with energy vulnerability.”
“Respondents who did not identify as white were significantly seven times more likely
to report going without heat and over two times more likely to report trouble affording electricity compared to the white respondents,” it says.
Another tenet of Baker’s framework suggests that democratic decision-making processes that focus on energy policy should include members of historically underrepresented communities.
However, the study results may reflect “a lack of diverse representation within state officials and community leaders advocating renewable transitions, as well as lack of initiatives to inform all constituents on transition policies, and lack of engagement of diverse groups in energy planning,” the authors wrote.
Data from the study suggest that the state’s policies are “resilient rather than anti-resilient,” and that state programs “do not go far enough to improve participation in the energy transition.”
“We conclude that in Vermont, these environmental and energy injustices have their roots, partially, in racial discrimination, unequal distribution of income, and homeownership,” it says.
Panikkar suggested rethinking the ownership models of energy utilities in the state and moving to a cooperative model.
“Even if Vermont is such a progressive state, and has good renewable energy policies, or was considered as a leader in it, we can see disparities even within Vermont,” she said. “It’s not really trickling down to the most underserved communities.”
Just transitions
Meanwhile, the Vermont Climate Council, which must publish its first plan to drastically curb the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and prepare the state for climate change by Dec. 1, is working to keep underrepresented groups at the forefront.
The council’s Just Transitions subcommittee is charged with ensuring that the state’s forthcoming plan gives vulnerable communities equal access to policy benefits and protection from climate change.
The subcommittee’s guiding principles address many of the disparities highlighted in the UVM study. All Vermonters should be able to participate in the creation and oversight of climate policies, for example, and “potential impacts, benefits and burdens of recommended climate actions” should be “identified and shared publicly.”
Panikkar said council members who serve on the Just Transitions subcommittee have reached out to her to ask more about the data, and she was even invited to join herself, but her schedule prohibited her from doing so.
Sue Minter, a co-chair of the subcommittee who has led the Agency of Transportation and the state’s recovery after Tropical Storm Irene, said the group is not attempting to rethink the economic system by which energy is distributed in the state. Its members are, however, looking for other ways to chip away at climate change’s disproportionate impact on overburdened populations.
The subcommittee’s guiding principles were formed through the voices of youth, members of Indigenous communities, Black Vermonters, Latino Vermonters, new Americans and union laborers, Minter said.
Engaging a wider array of Vermonters outside of the subcommittee has been a challenge, though, which Minter attributed to the climate council’s “very, very ambitious timeline.” The pandemic has also complicated outreach efforts, though the council has held several public events.
There’s a “very serious tension” surrounding climate policy work, revolving around the idea that talk hasn’t amounted to action, Minter said.
“I believe that we are making progress, that we are seeding a different way of thinking and of understanding,” she said. “I am seeing proposals that are talking about how they will affect low-income and frontline communities. That’s different. But, you know, it isn’t a complete revolutionary change.”
Minter hopes the guiding principles created by the subcommittee help steer state policy even when it isn’t related to climate.
“There is so much harm to repair,” she said. “We can’t just be narrowly focused; it has to be broadly focused.”
