Republican gains in state legislature may force adjustments to climate policy

Democratic leaders in the Statehouse appear open to changing or abandoning some of the climate and environmental policies they’ve championed in recent years following their party’s major losses in the recent election. 

Late last week, at the University of Vermont dairy farm in South Burlington, Jess Waterman climbed up to an opening in a large storage tank, inserted a long metal dipper, and pulled out a test tubes’ worth of raw milk. 

After years of debate, the U.S. Forest Service issued a draft plan last week for managing more than 72,000 acres of public and private land, called the Telephone Gap Project. The controversy largely focused on logging.

In April, Vermont enacted long-debated, statewide restrictions on wake boats, designed to create large wakes for recreation with a goal of preventing environmental harms. The new rule only allows wake boats in 30 of the state’s inland lakes.

A judge has found a family of Panton dairy farmers in contempt of court after they failed to stop water from coming out of a drainage system on their farm, washing over their neighbors’ property and flowing into Lake Champlain. 

The Vermont Supreme Court has denied a request from the owners of a Panton dairy farm that would have alleviated the burden of a court order issued in March 2022, which requires the farm to make expensive changes in order to stop runoff from flowing acros … (read more)

Over the last several years, a debate over how to manage wildlife has become a symbol of a broader cultural divide in Vermont. During the recently concluded legislative session, that debate culminated in S.258, a bill that would have changed the state’s w … (read more)

In the past week, three of the legislative session’s biggest climate bills passed out of their second chamber, and are likely to head to the governor’s desk soon. 

To the dismay of some anglers, state officials have proposed a plan to close a historic Vermont fish hatchery in Salisbury to cut costs within the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. 

In the days and months after the July floods that devastated much of Vermont, Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux’s inbox filled with requests. 

The bill would mandate that Vermonters pay for their heating sources’ impact on climate change, but rulemaking would take two years.

After losing their income during the COVID-19 pandemic, selling their former farm sanctuary in Benson and starting over in Middlebury this year, Erika and Mark Butel felt like they finally had their feet on the ground. 

A new program announced last week will add to a suite of incentives available to Vermonters who want to weatherproof their homes. 

The Vermont Housing and Conservation Board is offering grants as large as $40,000 to farmers for projects that help protect water quality.

State regulators are on the cusp of adopting a rule that would push Vermont’s market for new passenger cars to all-electric in a little more than a decade.