Thursday, February 20, 2020
Legislators favored the Global Warming Solutions Act by a vote of 105 to 37 — a strong showing for a bill that Republican Gov. Phil Scott has warned would put the state in unnecessary legal jeopardy.
Supporters praised H.688 as leverage to ensure that the state meets emission-reduction targets that it has missed for years.
“(The bill) creates a strong and effective path to cut pollution and will increase climate resilience for all of our communities,” said Majority Leader Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington).
Tags: climate change , Rep. Tim Briglin , Global Warming Solutions Act , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Senators seem to support a bill that would require electric utilities to get all of their power from renewable sources by 2030. The state’s renewable energy standard already calls for them to reach 75 percent renewable by 2032. So the new benchmark seemed manageable to members of the Senate Finance Committee.
But the bill’s call to double — from 10 percent to 20 percent — the amount of renewable energy that utilities would have to purchase from new Vermont sources like solar seemed to be a bridge too far for some senators.
Sen. Ann Cummings (D-Washington), who chairs the committee, cautioned members that the requirement was causing some utilities — and her — concern over potential cost hikes.
Tags: renewables , climate , S.267 , Sen. Chris Pearson , Web Only , Image
Thursday, February 13, 2020
The 94-page draft bill still has a long way to go to become law. But its approval by the House Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife Committee marked a significant milestone in the nearly two-year-long effort to modernize Act 250.
Even the bill’s supporters, however, acknowledged that changes to the 50-year-old law represent a compromise that won’t please everyone.
“I would do this a different way, but it’s politics. It’s the art of the possible,” said committee chair Amy Sheldon (D-Middlebury). “We have to make compromises that meet people’s needs, and that’s what we’ve done.”
She was referring largely to the decision to strip the nine volunteer district commissions of their ability to decide the fate of complex projects.
Tags: Act 250 , district commissions , Web Only , Image
Monday, January 20, 2020
The Vermont Public Interest Research Group announced Saturday that it would form a separate nonprofit entity called VPIRG Votes to back candidates who share its members' concerns about the climate crisis.
“We’re getting off the sidelines,” VPIRG executive director Paul Burns said Monday in an interview with Seven Days. “The board just felt that we were no longer doing the best service for our members by voluntarily sitting out the [electoral] process.”
That’s a departure for a nonprofit organization founded in 1972 that has limited itself to lobbying lawmakers on consumer and environmental issues important to its 50,000 members, such as reducing water pollution, shifting to renewable energy and encouraging open government.
Tags: climate , elections , VPIRG , Paul Burns , PAC , Web Only , Image
Thursday, January 9, 2020
“I’m here because I’m afraid I’m going to die!” two dozen people yelled in unison, disrupting Scott’s State of the State speech Thursday afternoon.
Wearing red shirts and holding “Climate Action Now!” banners, the protesters listened to Scott for less than a minute before they stood and began shouting slogans about the importance of responding to climate change.
“Climate change means famine in Vermont!” the protesters screamed from the back of the House chamber.
Scott, who was aware the protesters were likely to disrupt the speech, stood patiently at the dais. He attempted to break in after five minutes or so, but the protesters continued.
Tags: State of the State , protest , Phil Scott , climate , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, January 8, 2020
The Senate Judiciary Committee informally voted 3-2 Wednesday to recommend that the Senate override Scott’s June veto of the controversial legislation.
Committee chair Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington) said the protections in the bill are informed by the experiences of the hundreds of residents of his district who for years unwittingly drank groundwater contaminated by PFOA compounds from a former fabric coating plant.
“I want to make sure Vermonters don’t have to go through what the people are Bennington went through and are still going though,” Sears said after the vote.
Tags: PFOA , veto , override , Phil Scott , medical monitoring , Web Only , Image
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan announced the charges Thursday against the Berkshire-based Pleasant Valley Farms for work at its Lumbra Farm in Enosburg Falls.
The dairy, owned by Mark and Amanda St. Pierre, has more than 5,000 cows at several properties in Franklin County. The farms are located in the Missisquoi River Basin, which drains into Missisquoi Bay, one of the most polluted sections of Lake Champlain.
"We have a long and proud tradition of farming, agriculture and environmental stewardship in Vermont," Donovan said in a statement. "We need to continue to support our farmers while also protecting water quality and the environment by applying these rules across the board."
Tags: Pleasant Valley Farms , violations , Vermont , dairy , milk , cows , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
That’s the conclusion of a report released Tuesday by the Transportation and Climate Initiative, a group of Northeast and mid-Atlantic states working to create a “cap-and-invest” program for gasoline and diesel fuel suppliers.
“This program would lead to significant progress in meeting Vermont’s emission-reduction commitments,” said Peter Walke, deputy secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.
There are 52 million registered vehicles in the District of Columbia and the 12 states exploring such a program. Transportation accounts for 44 percent of the region's carbon dioxide emissions, according to the group.
Tags: climate , fuel , Transportation Climate Initiative , Peter Walke , Web Only , Image
Monday, November 25, 2019
The court on Friday upheld a decision by the state Agency of Natural Resources to require Morrisville Water & Light to operate three dams on the Lamoille and Green rivers in a way that made more water available for trout and other species.
The five justices rejected a lower environmental court’s attempt to balance the needs for better fish habitat with the power company’s desire to keep the long-standing dams economically viable.
“This is a really clear and strong decision that I think will be cited across the country,” Jon Groveman, policy and water director for the Vermont Natural Resources Council, said in an interview Monday.
Tags: hydro power , Vermont Supreme Court , dams , Web Only , Image
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Gov. Phil Scott on Thursday announced the latest round of grants in the state’s Vermont Phosphorus Innovation Challenge, which was launched in 2018 as an XPrize-style competition.
The goal is to harness the power of the private sector to help find innovative solutions to problems created by too much phosphorus in the watershed, such as the dangerous algae blooms that close beaches in the summer and keep tourists at bay.
“The bottom line is, we have more phosphorus going into our watersheds than we take out, resulting in excessive phosphorus in our environments,” Scott said.
Tags: Pollution , phosphorus , dairy , Julie Moore , Phil Scott , governor , clean water , Web Only , Image