Vermont’s Climate Action Plan, which passed Dec. 1, created the state’s first coordinated blueprint for climate action. Many of its suggested pathways require the Legislature to act as a catalyst, and lawmakers say they plan to chip away at its recommendations when the session starts Jan. 4.
Per the 2020 Global Warming Solutions Act, Vermont must reduce greenhouse gas pollution to 26% below 2005 levels by 2025, 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 or face potential legal action. The state also must protect Vermonters from the impacts of climate change, the act stipulated.
The plan, created to serve as a guide for the state to meet those mandated reductions, suggests more than 230 proposed actions that state officials, legislators and municipalities must now consider.
Legislators say they cannot take up all of the proposed actions in the four-and-a-half-month session, and some legislation would build off of climate bills introduced last session. These are the pieces they plan to prioritize.
Environmental justice
Environmental harm — such as impacts from extreme weather events and pollution — disproportionately affects low-income communities and those who are Black, Indigenous and people of color. The Climate Council was charged with ensuring that Vermonters who are among affected groups would benefit from a statewide transition to its recommended policies.
Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, introduced a bill last session that would establish an environmental justice policy in the state. Vermont is one of only several states in the country without one. Environmental justice policies are required by the federal Civil Rights Act, Ram Hinsdale said.
The bill, S.148, aligns with many of the council’s recommendations. It proposes establishing an advisory council on environmental justice within the state’s Agency of Natural Resources to be made up of state officials, members of environmental groups, social justice organizations, representatives from mobile home parks, groups affected by environmental impacts, members of Native American tribes and others.
“A good environmental justice policy doesn’t just look good on paper,” Ram Hinsdale said. “It needs to have the voices of those most impacted centered in how the policy is constructed and how we make sure it works for people.”
The council would recommend policies, determine how to incorporate environmental justice into agency procedures and develop a system for handling complaints. The bill also proposes a mapping system to “measure environmental justice impacts at the local level.”
Reactions from lawmakers have been mixed, Ram Hinsdale said.
“I just think that the committees of jurisdiction rightfully feel like they have done work similar to this in the past and are trying to wrap their arms around what a comprehensive framework looks like, and why these pieces are needed,” she said.
Still, Ram Hinsdale emphasized the need for forward movement on a specific policy.
“I do think we have so many coalition partners finally coming together in a way that’s needed to prioritize such a heavy lift,” she said.
Weatherization
Thermal energy that heats homes and buildings accounts for more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions in Vermont, according to the Climate Action Plan. More than a quarter of the state’s buildings were constructed before 1939 and a majority before 1975.
The plan poses two major suggestions for addressing this problem: The first is to dramatically scale up the pace with which the state is weatherizing homes, and the second is heating buildings without fossil fuels through a clean heat standard.
Sen. Chris Bray, D-Addison, said the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy, which he chairs, will continue work on a bill that would establish funding and structure to increase the number of homes weatherized in Vermont.
Around 30,000 homes across the state have been weatherized to date, and the Climate Action Plan calls for weatherizing 90,000 more by 2030. That means the state is looking to “double the rate and then double it again over a period of roughly three to five years, and then continue at that higher rate for at least a decade,” thus reaching about half of the homes in Vermont, Bray said.
Clean Heat Standard
Bray and Rep. Tim Briglin, D-Thetford, who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Technology, plan to consider legislation related to a clean heat standard.
In the same way that Vermont has required electric utilities to transition to renewable energy over time through the renewable energy standard, a clean heat standard would require wholesale fuel suppliers to slowly transition away from fossil fuel-based heat sources.
“It’s really a cornerstone of the Climate Action Plan, in terms of the amount of greenhouse gas emission reductions that can be obtained from that area,” Briglin said.
Over time, fuel suppliers would be required to provide clean heat options, such as electric heat pumps, biofuels, biogas, solar thermal, advanced wood heat and district thermal, according to the Climate Action Plan.
“I think starting the conversation on the clean heat standard could potentially be a game changer as far as reducing Vermonters’ use of fossil fuels, if it’s designed right,” said Peter Sterling, executive director of Renewable Energy Vermont, a renewable energy advocacy group.
Given the technical work involved with regulating fuels, Bray said, the Public Utility Commission would likely perform most of the legwork needed to stand up such a regulatory program.
Municipal resilience
Briglin said members of his committee also plan to introduce a bill related to energy efficiency and climate resilience in municipalities.
Municipalities need support, for example, to weatherize thousands of public buildings across the state and transition away from fossil fuels. Some need help coordinating responses to extreme weather events caused by climate change.
“This legislation is really going to try and focus attention on rural communities and communities that, historically, have not done as much work in areas of trying to raise their levels of resilience and lower the amount of fossil fuels that are used in managing their municipal assets,” Briglin said.
Renewable Energy Standard
While Vermont’s existing Renewable Energy Standard already requires utilities to shift away from fossil fuels, the Climate Action Plan calls for the state to make that transition more quickly.
The existing standard requires utilities to reach 75% renewable energy by 2032, and the plan recommends ramping that up to 100% by 2030, which aligns more closely with the Paris Climate Accord.
“That is going to be another major piece of what I’d like to see our committee move forward,” Bray said.
Electrifying the roads
Transportation makes up about 40% of Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions, but the Climate Council’s most impactful plan for mitigating those emissions — joining the regional Transportation Climate Initiative Program, or TCI-P — recently fell apart. It was designed to reduce emissions across the Northeast by capping tailpipe emissions and creating green transportation infrastructure from charges on suppliers of gasoline and diesel.
Vermont had not yet joined and, citing high gas prices and lack of commitment from other states, governors from Connecticut and Massachusetts recently pulled out, marking the program’s demise for the foreseeable future.
In its absence, the plan suggests swapping out cars that rely on fossil fuels for electric vehicles, and boosting incentives for Vermonters looking to purchase electric cars and e-bikes.
This session, Rep. Diane Lanpher, D-Vergennes, said the House Transportation Committee, which she chairs, will work to disincentivize fossil fuels, incentivize electrification, educate Vermonters about emission requirements in the transportation sector and identify funding streams for green transportation infrastructure.
A bill to be introduced, called the Transportation Innovation Act, likely will address those issues, she said.
She said she’s optimistic about federal funds but will use caution when counting on the amount the state can use.
“Many of us who’ve been around long enough understand that the influx can shift in a moment’s notice,” Lanpher said. “Our goal is to absolutely maximize the value for the generous moment that we’re living in.”
Conserving natural resources
The Climate Action Plan proposes managing and conserving Vermont’s natural lands to cultivate biodiversity and forest health, which in turn makes the land more resilient against the effects of climate change and sequesters carbon from the atmosphere.
Rep. Amy Sheldon, D-Middlebury, said the House Committee on Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife, which she chairs, plans to introduce a community resilience and biodiversity protection bill. It would establish a planning process so the state’s Agency of Natural Resources can assess progress toward President Joe Biden’s 30 by 30 land conservation plan and the Vermont Conservation Design plan, which sets land conservation goals, such as allowing 9% of Vermont woodlands to eventually become old growth forests.
The Climate Action Plan proposes amending the state’s use value appraisal, or “current use” program, to allow enrollment of wildlands that are not logged or managed for agriculture to help develop old growth in the state.
Several members of Gov. Phil Scott’s administration objected to this proposal, among others, in a statement released the day the plan was published. Still, Sheldon said she plans to introduce legislation that would foster a conversation about the role of current use in forever wild forest management.
“It’s an equity thing, possibly allowing landowners who have wildland easements already in place into the program, and then also allowing landowners with land that has certain characteristics to not manage for timber harvest,” she said.
“The goal is to get more old forests in Vermont,” she said.
