The climateers on the Senate Natural Resource and Energy Committee – that would be all five of them, Democrats,  handpicked  – seem to be getting desperate that Vermont is falling behind its completely arbitrary path toward reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 70% by 2050. Already they are thinking up new ways to make Vermonters suffer to make us comply with the 2015 Paris Agreement, that practically zero other countries are complying with.

Last month Kelly Conlon arrived with her daughter's Girl Scout troop to watch a performance at Radio City Music Hall, but she abruptly was denied entry. Why? Conlon works for a law firm that Radio City’s parent company had blacklisted. Conlon was found out for an even more surprising reason: the venue's use of facial recognition technology.

Last week Gov. Phil Scott issued an executive proclamation recognizing this week as National School Choice Week. Its key clauses were “it is important for parents in Vermont to explore and identify the best education options available to their children; and research demonstrates providing children with multiple education options improves academic performance; and School Choice Week is a national celebration recognized by millions of students, parents, educators, schools and community leaders for the purpose of raising public awareness of the importance of effective education options for children.

A January 9 article in the Washington Post exemplified the sloppy reporting endemic to the debate over what the enviros and the media call “climate change.”

Montpelier – As the Vermont legislature gears up for lawmaking in 2023, a big issue in the education arena is what to do about Vermont’s 150-year-old school choice system known as “tuitioning” following the Carson v. Makin US Supreme Court decision. Makin ruled that if a state offers a school choice program, as Vermont does, it cannot discriminate against religious schools from participating in the program.

While Vermont climateers are pressing forward their broad and costly agenda here, their counterparts in New York City are well down that same road. Just before Christmas the New York City Buildings Department released the first set of final rules for a landmark climate law passed in 2019 that aims to significantly slash [carbon dioxide ] emissions from buildings that are larger than 25,000 square feet — the city’s biggest source of emissions..

For over 40 years Sen. Bobby Starr has battled to get state or federal governments to set and enforce over-order (premium) prices paid to dairy farmers. His latest bill is a “hidden milk tax” that consumers would pay, but never know why.

Last year H.715, an act relating to the Clean Heat Standard, which would have mandated that fossil-based heating fuel dealers pay a carbon-based “credit” fee for selling their products, was vetoed by Gov. Phil Scott and that veto was sustained by one vote (99-51) in the state House of Representatives. Democrats and Progressives are hoping that newly elected supermajorities in both the House and Senate, along with a new name for what is essentially a carbon tax on home heating fuels, will ensure that that the Clean Heat Standard will become law this year.

On January 4, fresh off a seventy percent reelection victory, Gov. Phil Scott gave his fourth inaugural address to the legislature and the people. As we have come to expect, it was a workmanlike address, emphasizing what is good about Vermont and what his administration has done in the past six years to restrain costly government while working to address real, continuing problems not of the governor’s making.

A report by Emma Cotton in Vermont Digger (12/14) touts the new Weatherization Repayment Assistance Program to be offered to their customers by Green Mountain Power, Vermont Gas, Burlington Electric, and other utilities. It will allow homeowners to spread the cost of weatherizing and installing electric heat pumps over years of utility bills, at an extra cost of as little as $20 per month. Says Maura Collins, executive director of the Vermont Home Financing Agency, “energy savings should more than make up for the new charge that will be on your utility bill.” To assist lower income homeowners and renters, the taxpayers are putting in $9 million.