On its 50th anniversary Vermont’s Act 250 is being updated to propel the people of the state into the new era of menacing climate change. The new bill tightens the regulatory grip over rural areas, expands the jurisdictional threshold, creates a three-person Super Board, and even requires applicants to assure “environmental justice”, whatever that may mean.

The 2020 legislature is racing ahead on a new course: pushing forward with three sweeping measures to defeat the Menace of Climate Change: Transportation and Climate Initiative, Global Warming Solutions Act, and injecting a climate change criterion into Act 250 development permits. What would Vermont’s economy look like after five years of this program?

The Global Warming solutions Act (H.688) purports to combat the Menace of Climate Change by authorizing unaccountable bureaucrats to regulate any and everything to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to impossible levels. The bill gives the Conservation Law Foundation standing to sue the bureaucrats for not oppressing people fat enough – at taxpayer’s expense if the plaintiff “substantially prevails.” It would shred democracy by exempting every legislator from ever having to vote on the results.