Op-Ed: Why the Clean Heat Standard should worry every Vermonter

October 23, 2024  |  By Rep. Patricia McCoy 

How much will the Clean Heat Standard cost?  

That is the question that those of us who are concerned about this legislation’s unknown impact on Vermonters’ pocketbooks have been asking for over a year.  But in many ways, it is the wrong question.

The right question is: How many Vermonters’ financial livelihoods are we willing to sacrifice to implement the Clean Heat Standard?

This is the correct question for one key reason: The more we learn about the effects of this legislation, the harder it is to deny that it is much worse than proponents said it would be—especially for the most vulnerable Vermonters.      

Put simply, the Clean Heat Standard was a bill that requires fossil-fuel importing businesses to pay a penalty to offset the carbon emissions of home heating fuel. The law was allegedly designed to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Money collected from these penalties would, in theory, be used to help Vermonters transition to “clean” heat methods. The law directed the Public Utility Commission to come up with a framework to implement this scheme.

In fact, when Vermont Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore said the law could increase home heating fuel prices for Vermonters by about 70 cents per gallon, many legislators had a meltdown and chastised Secretary Moore for fearmongering. Addison County Sen. Chris Bray, one of the key architects of the law, said the estimate was “incomplete and inaccurate.” He suggested Secretary Moore should not have preempted the upcoming “professional studies” on the program’s cost.

Well, this past month, one of those “professional studies” was released. The verdict? The program would cost about $10 billion by 2050, or as much as $4.00 per gallon of heating fuel,  which would effectively double the current cost to keep Vermonters’ homes warm in the winter. 

Even on the low end, the added cost would be about $1.70 more per gallon. Sen. Bray, who just months earlier challenged Secretary Moore’s cost projections, suddenly found himself with a case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. Bray proclaimed, “I, for one, am not interested in building a program that adds $1.70 to a gallon of heating fuel… That would be a real problem for many Vermonters.”

Let me rephrase that: Bray, the law’s architect, is no longer interested in building the program he already passed a law to build…got it?

Bray’s attempt to walk back his earlier stance, which comes during an intense re-election battle, is exactly what those of us in the minority party have been screaming from the mountaintops for over a year—this legislation is simply irresponsible.

To be fair to Bray, it is certainly not all his fault. The blame also lies with the dozens of other majority party legislators who blindly championed this legislation. And now, after over a year of unnecessary finger-pointing, finally, proponents of the Clean Heat Standard like Bray are allegedly waking up—just in time for their November re-election!

Here is what Vermonters need to know: This proposal will come back to the legislature in January. If there is still a supermajority, this draconian and unaffordable scheme could still pass once again over the governor’s veto.

What can be done to stop it? A start would be to elect legislators who are actually concerned about Vermonters’ cost of living, and who do not push pie-in-the-sky programs without first understanding how they will impact Vermonters. The November election is the only chance Vermonters have to stop the Clean Heat Standard and other anti-affordability policies like it.

That is just my two cents—or perhaps my $4.00.

Rep. Pattie McCoy, R-Poultney, is the Vermont House Minority Leader. She represents Poultney, Ira, and a portion of Wells and serves on the House Committee on Transportation.