The Legislature is doing a wonderful job of compartmentalizing problems, so sure that partisan sleepwalking is the best strategy for all kinds of political problems.

Vermont's first-in-the-nation legislation to regulate all fossil-based home heating fuels, called the "Clean Heat Standard" (CHS), is poised to become law this month.

A bill making its way through the Vermont legislature is the latest attempt by the education establishment to limit or block parental choice in education  -  at a time when parents are  looking for affordable alternatives to what’s being taught to their kids in public schools. It’s the public school lobby’s response to court cases that have opened the door to children to escape from unsatisfactory public schools to more satisfying independent schools, including faith-based schools.

Policy analyst David Flemming was interviewed by WCAX this week, in a segment featured on Wednesday’s 6 o’clock news. EAI had recently released research suggesting that 10 Middlebury absentee ballots from the 2020 election were submitted by individuals from out of state, either by those individuals who when they no longer residents of Vermont, or who by other individuals living at those addresses.

To watch the segment, click here.

On Monday, the lightbulb went off over the heads of the members of the senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee that the Clean Heat Standard bill (H.715) that they are currently reviewing only deals with thermal – hence the definitive word “heat” in the name – emissions. Not transportation emissions as well. This did not go down well.

Bill McKibben, the climate activist at Middlebury College and the leader of 350.org, now appears to be tiptoeing away from his ardent anti-nuclear views of yesteryear. In a journal article that appeared two weeks ago, McKibben says this:

Debate over the Clean Heat Standard (CHS) bill (H.715) is now in the Senate Committee for Natural Resources & Energy, where members received their first briefings on the legislation today. The notable difference in the senate discussion compared to the house was the evident pressing by members of the Scott Administration (Ed McNamara, General Counsel, Agency of Natural Resources and TJ Poor, Director of Planning, Department of Public Service) for formalizing the need for another vote by the legislative on the final plan put forward by the Public Utilities Commission before the CHS could be implemented.

Judith Curry, longtime chair of the climate program at Georgia Tech, published an article two weeks ago that’s worth reading. Here’s an excerpt: