BURLINGTON — The City Council this week voted 8-4 to charge developers a fee for installing new fossil fuel heating systems in new buildings and some existing buildings, despite opposition from some environmentalists who contend the measure isn’t green enough.
Voters had already green-lit the measure through two ballot items — one in 2021 that allowed the city government to charge a carbon fee, and another earlier this year that defined more of the rule’s details.
The fee ordinance, which will take effect Jan. 1, applies to parties seeking permits to build new buildings or renovate existing ones. It requires builders to use low-carbon heating systems in the construction of new buildings. It also applies to developers looking to upgrade the heating systems of existing buildings that are 50,000 square feet or larger, except residential buildings and buildings on the National Historic Register.
Builders who do not use heating systems approved by the city will be charged $150 per ton of greenhouse gas emissions that the heating system is expected to emit over its lifespan. The ordinance says builders cannot install new fossil fuel heating systems unless they establish “that the cost of a renewable energy thermal energy system is unduly burdensome.”
Funds from the carbon fee will go into a Renewable Energy Fund, half of which can be used by those paying into it for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the city. The other half will provide funding to help low-income city residents with projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Mayor Miro Weinberger called the city council’s vote on Monday night “significant” and “consistent with decades of climate leadership on the part of Burlington.”
“We should be moving forward tonight with confidence and enthusiasm,” he said.
He noted that the ordinance has won the approval of environmental groups and renewable industry advocates, including the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, Vermont Natural Resources Council, Vermont Conservation Voters and Renewable Energy Vermont.
But the ordinance’s approval was met with less enthusiasm from many environmentalists in the room, who were there largely to protest a different issue: construction of a pipeline that would use steam heat from McNeil Power Generating Station, a wood-burning power plant owned by the city government, to heat the University of Vermont Medical Center.
The four councilors who voted against the carbon fee ordinance — Gene Bergman, Ali Dieng, Melo Grant and Joe Magee — expressed concern that it does not go far enough to reduce harm to the climate and environment.
Environmentalists who spoke against the ordinance asked councilors not to approve it unless they adopted amendments proposed by council member Gene Bergman. His changes would have eliminated several types of heat from the city’s list of allowed systems.
The approved version allows developers to use heat systems that are considered “clean heat measures” by the state’s clean heat standard, a law that passed in May and is being developed before being reconsidered by state legislators. Those measures include cold-climate electric heat pumps and advanced wood heating, but also “sustainably sourced biofuels” and green hydrogen.
Environmentalists have pushed against including biofuels in both the state’s clean heat standard and the city’s ordinance, saying that biofuels have emissions similar to fossil fuels over the course of their life cycle, and that some biofuels contribute to environmental problems such as deforestation and agricultural pollution.
Bergman’s amendment would have excluded biofuels and green hydrogen from the approved list of heat systems.
Connor Wertz, a community organizer with 350Vermont, was one of several speakers who urged the council to adopt Bergman’s amendments.
“You will make some important decisions today,” he said, “and I hope you will decide with an eye on the history of the arguments used in favor of these fuels our utilities are calling a climate solution today, but might become a very different legacy in the years to come.”
Councilor Ben Traverse, who chairs the city’s ordinance committee, argued in favor of keeping the state’s full list of clean heat measures. Some existing structures cannot be retrofitted to use electric systems, he said, and in those cases, it’s better for building owners or developers to use biofuels than fossil fuels.
“The only circumstances under which an applicant will be able to use any combustible fuel, whether it be a fossil fuel or a biofuel, is they are able to certify they are unable to use electric, geothermal or solar heat,” he said.
