Climate, Energy & the Environment: Blog Posts

Market based solutions are the only ones which can affordably conserve Vermont's environment, combat climate change and provide safe, reliable energy to all Vermont households.

"We still face significant conservation challenges, but in the century since Teddy Roosevelt... we’ve written a conservation story worth telling... I am optimistic about our environment and the ability of humankind to invent, collaborate, and innovate our way to conservation solutions. For the doubters and worriers, there’s one more reason to stop and smile at the state of our environment: Optimists live longer. And that means more time for all of us to enjoy our natural world."

-Brian Yablonski, Property & Environment Research Center


All Blog Posts

Costs of heat pumps- one Vermont experience

Here’s an interesting letter that appeared in the Caledonian Record a week ago, from a man who I don’t know,  Jonathan Baker of Danville. He writes this from his own experienceRead more





Nuclear Regulation's Perverse Incentives

One of my go-to guys on nuclear energy is Jack Devanney, now retired after forty years managing nuclear projects and wrestling with nuclear regulators. Here’s his latest insight:<... Read more









Heating Oil Price Crunch

Ac... Read more





Climate Censorship

The... Read more



Climate Council Finds GWSA Trickier to Sugarcoat, even with Generous Assumptions

For a couple of years now, progressives and Vermont bureaucrats have emphasized how important they believe reducing carbon emissions is. In order to sell this vision to those outs... Read more



The Costs of Producing Motor Fuel

Jim Geraghty, the energy expert at National Review, said last week that ‘U.S. refineries are running at full capacity, or just short of full capacity. This is why oil fro... Read more



Climate Council Discusses “All Economy” Carbon Tax

Why settle for new carbon taxes on just gasoline, diesel, and home heating fuels when you can apply a carbon tax to EVERYTHING! Implementing an “economy wide” “cap and invest” (wh... Read more







West Virginia v. EPA

The climate warriors are loudly bemoaning the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v Environmental Protection Agency. The case involved a sweeping bureaucratic edict... Read more



Defeating the "Clean Heat Standard" or Carbon Tax on Home Heating



PR: EAI applauds Defeat of Carbon Tax on 77% of VT Households heating with oil and gas

Vermont Climate Council’s Clean Heat Standard – a disguised carbon tax on Vermont  homeowners, renters, businesses, schools, hospitals and municipal governments, fell one vote sho... Read more







Senate Committee Contemplates Adding Motor Fuels to Clean Heat Standard

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 curren... Read more



Bill McKibben Backtracks on Nuclear

Bill M... Read more



Clean Heat Standard Moves to Senate

Deba... Read more





“Propane Protection Laws” Will Go Away When Propane Does

An article in VT Digger today trumpets, “Attorney general reminds Vermonters of propane protection laws as snow, cold continue.” In Vermont,Read more





Even Without TCI, Cap-and-Invest Still Looms Large

Last week, Jared Duval a member of the Climate Council and the Energy Action Network, testified virtually to the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee.

Read more



Matt Cota on the Climate Action Plan

Matt Cota, executive director of the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association, is a very good source of information on the consequences of implementing the Vermont Climate Council’s sweep... Read more



Climate Council Has No Idea How to Pay for their “Plan”

It is too generous to call what the Vermont Climate Council presented on December 1 a “plan.” A plan would consist of all the major and most ofRead more



Clean Heat Standard – A Stealth Tax On Heating Fuel

A key component of the Climate Action Plan just put forward by the Vermont Climate Council is a Read more



Hottest July ever recorded! (?)

                In Nature Conservancy magazine’s winter issue I read a boxed feature labelled “July 2021 was the Hottest Month Ever Recorded on Earth”. I dug online into the meani... Read more



Connecticut Governor Drops TCI

If you saw what happened in the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, you know that left-of-center politicians nationwide,Read more





Calling Out the “Lack of Realism” in Climate Plan

June Tierney of the Vermont Climate Council (also commissioner of the Department of Public Service) made a splash whenRead more



The Spectacular Decrease in Forest Fires

Last month, VT Digger reported that “the West Coast fires that have ravaged parts of California, Oregon and Washington this summer have been linked definitively to Read more



GWSA: Political Suicide Mission

For a while now, we have been reporting and commenting on how utterly unrealistic, economically irrational, logisticallyRead more





Everything’s on the table to save the planet! (Except the one thing that might work.)

At the September 2 meeting of the Cross Sector Mitigation subcommi... Read more







Another Major Leak in the TCI Boat

When the folks at the Georgetown Climate Center put forward their memorandum of understanding for thirteen New England andRead more







The Ones Who Gave Residential Solar a Price Hike

If you have solar panels connected to an electric grid in Vermont, you may have been caught off guard recently by a sizeable increase in a subtle change to the “Energy Efficiency ... Read more



The Terrors of Climate Change

  ... Read more







Climate Council says the “C” word! Carbon Tax

During the July 8th meeting of the Vermont Climate Council’s Cross-Sector Mitigation Committee, the group started to delve into some ofRead more



The Vermont Climate Council and Critical Race Theory

The debate over Critical Race Theory in Vermont has largely focused on education, policing, and with Covid, healthcare. But, in case you missedRead more







Thermal Energy Efficiency Tax Vanishes, for Now

Last week I devoted three radio broadcasts to Sen. Bray’s proposed Thermal Energy Efficiency Tax, disguised as a charge on your electric bill to raise millions of dollars to subsi... Read more



Legislators Debate Doubling and Expanding the Bottle Deposit

There is a proposal making its way through the Vermont House of Representatives toRead more





Robbing the Transportation Fund to Pay for “Green” Priorities

There is a bill currently before the House Transportation Committee, “An act relating to transportation initiatives to reduceRead more













Vermont & Mass. compete to leave taxpayers with largest climate bill

12 years before Vermont passed the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) in 2020, Massachusetts passed their own GWSA in 2008. The two policies mirror each other closely. Perhaps ir... Read more



Pro-TCI Group Accuses TCI Ally of "Anti-Regulatory" Activities

One pro-TCI group has accused another pro-TCI group of anti-regulatory activities. They both miss the mark.Read more



Cota on Burlington Gas Furnace Tax

Here’s an interesting news item from last Friday. The Bur... Read more





Burlington “Heat Fine” Shows Where GWSA Is Heading

As the Vermont legislature shepherded the Global Warming Solutions Act into law, we at the Ethan Read more



Speaker of the House: GWSA means LESS accountability to meet climate goals.

For the past two years, how many times have we had to hear from Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) advocates that Vermont’s 2005 goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions “lack te... Read more



Jon Margolis on GWSA

Vermont Digger’s liberal political columnist Jon Margolis recently weighed in on the recently enacted – over the Governor’s veto – Global Warming Solutions Act.  Here’s the intere... Read more



Global Warming Meadow Muffins

Two weeks ago, when Gov. Scott was about to veto the Global Warming Solutions Act, the media was quick to interview activists strongly opposed to the veto – but of course at least... Read more



The Superabundance of Climate Lobbyists

I took some time last week to work through the photo book of registered lobbyists at the Vermont State House, with a particular eye for the number of them announced as working for... Read more



You Don’t Give Blood When You’re Bleeding

Yesterday the Vermont House of Representatives voted in favor of the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA), sending the controversial legislation to the Governor’s desk for either h... Read more



California Heat Wave/Black Outs Highlight Flawed “Green” Policies

California is suffering a major heatwave with temperatures coming in at significantly over 100 degrees. Compounding the danger is the unfortunate reality that California’s electri... Read more



Massachusetts TCI Bill

That’s the eleven-state agreement to drive up gasoline and diesel fuel taxes to get people to stop driving internal combustion cars... Read more



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