Guest editorial: Climate bill doesn’t make legislature accountable

As Governor, I believe we must make Vermont more affordable by helping Vermonters keep more of what they earn, while we simultaneously make transformative, strategic investments in important areas like community revitalization, climate action, housing, childcare, clean water, and broadband.

The reality is: for both people and the planet, business as usual doesn’t work.

I want to focus on just one aspect of the bill: the assignment of clean heat credits to various measures that are proposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heating buildings. 

At the Legislative Breakfast on March 27, Representative Joe Andriano made a strong statement in opposition to S. 5, the Affordable Heat Act. I hope he can be persuaded to change his position.

I would encourage anyone who is interested in gaining an accurate understanding of the bill to go online and look up the text of the bill itself.

I’ve spent a lot of money for my small contribution to address climate change. But, can you afford to?

Vermont’s contribution to easing the climate crisis may be tiny. But acting collaboratively with other states and countries can produce positive results.

In reading the back-and-forth comments about the Affordable Heat Act, S.5, I hear the frustrations of many voices.

Bill S.5 the “Unaffordable Heat Act” is an insidious way for the Legislature to force us to use green power, i.e. by making other forms of energy too expensive.

I read with dismay in the most recent edition of the Independent that the Affordable Heating Act, S.5, has been put on hold, and will become another study for the two years, of what to do to address climate change.

Vermonters are facing a heating emergency. 

Faced with widespread concerns about potential costs to Vermonters, authors of the proposed Affordable Heat Act have decided to pump the brakes on the sweeping bill.

As a physics teacher, I used to give an assignment that asked students to do an informal energy assessment of their own homes using resources from Efficiency Vermont.

Clearly it is a tax that will hit middle- and lower-income people hardest. In addition, it will place an unfair burden on the local fuel dealers, mostly long-established family businesses.

State lawmakers are getting ready to discuss a bill that would establish an “Affordable Heat Act,” or AHA, aimed at reducing Vermonters’ heating bills and steering them toward alternatives to fossil fuels.