This commentary is by Paula J. Kane, an almost retired St. Albans lawyer.
I’ve tried to make sense of the Clean Heat Standard recently passed by the Vermont House and which will soon be considered by the Vermont Senate — H.715.
I’ve concluded this is a deeply flawed bill that will cause undue hardship throughout the state. While I understand there is an urge to “do something” about climate change and to decrease carbon dioxide emissions, this bill is not going to accomplish that objective.
Basically, this bill penalizes fuel dealers (and their customers) for delivering fossil fuels and imposes increasing fines, over time, if they don’t decrease the quantity of fossil fuel they deliver. The idea is that the fuel will become progressively more expensive so it will force people to switch to a cleaner fuel.
The bill, which establishes a system of “clean heat credits,” is very complicated and will be hard to adhere to by the fuel dealers and very hard and expensive for the state to administer. It will also leave many people stranded with increasing fuel costs and no good substitutes.
Even though the legislation provides for establishment of a “Clean Heat Equity Advisory Group” to soften the impact on people with lower income, that is just another layer of complexity added to an already overly complicated scheme.
The most glaring weaknesses that I saw in the bill are in its omission of the burning of wood as contributing to carbon dioxide emissions and in not distinguishing some fossil fuels as cleaner than others. The bill defines heating fuel only as fossil-fuel based heating fuel including oil, propane, natural gas, coal and kerosene. No mention of wood.
It further provides that “Clean heat measures shall not include switching from one fossil fuel use to another fossil fuel use.” So, someone switching from fuel oil or cordwood to much cleaner natural gas would still be penalized under this legislation. Is natural gas cleaner than an electric-powered heat pump or hydroelectricity? Probably, depending on how the electricity is produced, but more importantly, it is a whole lot cleaner than even the most efficient wood stoves or fuel oil. It is also a whole lot cheaper than heating with electricity in any form.
Electricity is a very expensive heating fuel, made even higher priced by the state’s requirement that electric companies buy a certain percentage of renewable energy at a premium. (Our older hydropower plants don’t count as providing renewable energy.)
Burlington Electric burns wood chips. Renewable energy, yes, but not clean energy and it contributes to “greenhouse” gases. Under this bill, not only is wood not considered as contributing toward carbon dioxide emissions, but it is listed as one of the “clean eligible heat measures” that you can switch to, in order to earn a clean heat credit. Let’s cut down those forests and make some wood pellets!
If you really wanted to cut down on carbon emissions, you would not encourage the burning of wood while discouraging the use of cleaner fuels that pollute less, even if they are not perfect. (I get it that wood is being promoted because that is the politically expedient thing to do if you want to get reelected, not because it is a clean heating fuel.)
There is no mention of the perfect fuel solution — hydrogen — or other possible cleaner energies and certainly no plan by the state to invest in some research and technology to really see what would work and what would make the most sense.
The bill further dumps onto the Public Utility Commission the task of drafting regulations. Again, the Legislature chooses to increase the power and responsibility of an appointed, not elected, state commission. The state Senate should not approve this bill and should at least defer it for another year so that it can either be tabled or amended. If passed, Gov. Scott should veto this bill.
We are a small state that contributes little to overall climate change. The urge to “do something” should not mean doing something ill-considered which later has to be undone.
