This commentary is by Alison Despathy, a resident of Danville.
Hopefully through research, awareness, working with their constituents and asking critical questions, Vermont legislators can work to identify the true nature of a bill and be hyper-vigilant that they are not enacting legislation that will bring destruction and damage to Vermont and Vermonters.
Legislators must be prepared and brave enough to say no. Further, they must be constructive in creating real solutions for Vermont that serve the people, the environment and our economy.
Bill H.715, the clean heat standard, was a prime example of dangerous industry-driven legislation that would serve corporate agendas and not Vermont or Vermonters. The clean heat standard epitomized fascist legislation and sadly, despite a massive outcry from the people of Vermont, 99 House representatives voted in support of this bill. Fortunately, it did not pass in the Legislature this year.
Many aspects of the clean heat standard stirred concerns, rage, disbelief and resistance from a high percentage of Vermonters. It was in the details, the details that were unfortunately missed by 99 representatives.
So many Vermonters absolutely love and respect the Earth and their environment and so many try hard to live lightly and do their part and more to ensure a safe, clean, healthy planet for future generations. It is easy and quite common to hear a narrative and an idea and latch on to it with high hopes for resolution, but the clean heat standard was not a real solution. This legislation was impulsive, poorly designed, would not have made any real beneficial impact for the environment and further would have resulted in massive financial stress for Vermont residents and many local businesses and thus our economy.
Many options were presented to legislators that would offer real solutions for energy-use reductions and beneficial measurable impacts without burdening Vermonters. Unfortunately, tunnel vision existed around this legislation and details were ignored as many seemingly uninformed legislators, without seeing the warning signs, charged ahead for “environmental justice.”
There are multiple ways in which this legislation was clearly impulsive, industry-driven and not a real solution, but the most important in my opinion were the problems related to the use of highly controversial biomass, specifically biofuels.
The majority of biofuels cost more energy to produce than they would actually save in use. Comprehensive energy analyses have been done on this fact. To plant, grow, spray, harvest and process biofuels — which are typically made from genetically modified soybeans, sugar beets, canola and corn — requires more fossil fuel energy than would be saved. The clean heat standard had no caps on biofuel use.
Many biofuels require massive clearing of land, often done on prime agricultural land, and also in Third World/developing countries and rainforests, which results in loss of ecosystems and diversity, and toxic chemical exposures for the people and environments in these areas. These are only some of the concerns.
Arthur Neslen, writing for The Guardian, reported, “European Union renewable energy targets may have increased greenhouse gas emissions because the dirtiest biofuels produce three times the emissions of diesel oil, according to the most complete EU analysis yet carried out. Biodiesel made from palm oil emits more than three times as much and soybean oil around twice as much, when the crops’ effects on land use are considered. …”
He also found in the European Commission’s report that “for every megajoule of energy used, the study finds that palm oil emits 231g of CO2 equivalent and soybean oil 150g/CO2e, far higher than the UN climate science panel’s estimates for any fossil fuel.”
An amendment to H.715, proposed in the Vermont Senate, would have capped biofuels at 10% but this was not accepted. To replace fossil fuels with environmentally unfriendly biofuels and not have clear guidelines around this was only one of the major issues with this proposed legislation.
In theory and on the surface, the clean heat standard sounded great; who doesn’t want to help the earth and keep the environment clean? But with regard to a real plan that actually offered what was promoted and intended — this was not the case. Moreso, this legislation came with financial attacks in the form of a disguised carbon tax on local fuel businesses and ultimately Vermont residents, which would have been devastating on many levels.
The other important aspect in this conversation is that the use of biofuels clearly feeds the biotechnology industry and heavily supports the use of genetically modified crops such as corn, soy, canola and sugar beets — all of which are intensively grown and known for their massive soil depletion, energy input demands as well as the dangers of the chemicals used in their production and processing.
In addition, support of this controversial genetic engineering technology and the risks to humans and our environment associated with use of these crops was yet another disturbing aspect to this proposed legislation.
Many Vermonters are very familiar with the concerns regarding genetically engineered crops. Vermont was the first state to pass legislation requiring the labeling of genetically modified foods back in 2014.
