For cars, culverts and homes, climate resiliency is key to Vermont policies

Last week, I highlighted one of the critical issues presently being worked on in our House committees, education. This week: an update on House energy and transportation committees, and the Affordable Heat Act.

Energy and Environment Committees

Our committees working on energy and environmental issues are building on existing policies around climate change. Climate action is a bread-and-butter, household budget, pocketbook priority. Climate resilience means more than protecting Vermonters from severe storms and floods — it means helping them to navigate a disruptive energy transition.

Fossil fuels are not only dirty, but they are also unregulated and extremely price volatile. Fossil fuels are in a global market and subject to fluctuating supply and demand, extreme weather, and geopolitical events. For example, when Russia invaded Ukraine, the price of heating fuel shot up by $2 a gallon, which impacted many Vermont families.

When we help Vermonters to move from fossil fuels to efficient electricity, they will have more stable costs because Vermont regulates electric rates. We have the lowest electricity prices in New England and our electric grid is over 90 percent renewable.

Climate action means helping Vermonters convert to lower-cost electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles by expanding electric vehicle charging infrastructure so these lower cost vehicles can be used by everyone, including those who live in apartments or condominiums.

We must continue to support Vermonters to weatherizing drafty homes, install cold climate heat pumps or utilizing heat-pump hot-water heaters. If we don’t move forward to a clean energy future, Vermont will fall behind.

Affordable Heat Act

A lot of misinformation surrounded the Legislature’s work on energy and climate last year, especially in regard to the Affordable Heat Act and its proposed clean heat standard. For example, the Public Utility Commission’s Jan. 15 report on implementation confirmed that projected price impacts on heating fuel had been wildly overblown.

Rather than the increase of 75 cents per gallon in the first year reported by Gov. Phil Scott’s administration, the actual amount would be about 8 cents per gallon, rising to 58 cents in year 10.

Regardless, the report concluded that creating a “clean heat credit” market, like our successful renewable energy credit market, is not viable for Vermont due to our small share of the overall oil and fossil gas market. So, the Legislature is not moving forward with the clean heat standard at this time.

Transportation committee

I continue to serve on the House Committee on Transportation and want to emphasize that our transportation investments and policies also impact our critical state issues. For example, I have requested a study to review how our public transportation system can work more effectively with our educational transportation (school buses) system. Today, in some Vermont communities, student transportation needs are integrated with public transit resulting in reduced overall cost. We are asking how we can expand these smarter policies.

I have also championed an effort to find additional funding for municipalities to support them in building climate resiliency into their transportation infrastructure. This is in direct response to the flooding Hinesburg experienced last summer.

Towns like Hinesburg need critical funding to upsize culverts, modify roadways to minimize stormwater runoff (also a water quality issue), and upgrade bridge structures. We know these investments will save towns both money and economic hardship when the next climate enhanced storms visit our state.

Our committee continues making sure our transportation policies support our identified village growth areas; necessary transportation infrastructure is required to support affordable housing.

Lastly, we are addressing the diminishing revenues from our gas taxes. Those revenues are critical to funding our overall transportation systems and policies. We are working to establish a Mileage Based User Fee to capture the lost gas tax revenues from plug-in electric vehicles.

For those who are interested or curious about what the Vermont Agency of Transportation is working on, you can get up to date information on road conditions, scheduled paving projects, construction, plow locations and more at vtransparency.vermont.gov/.

I hope this gives you a look at just some of the work being done at our Statehouse. I encourage everyone to reach out anytime if you have questions about any issues, concerns with the directions we are pursuing, or have specific bills you want me to champion. It is always best to reach me at my legislative email ppouech@leg.state.vt.us. I will respond in a timely way.

Phil Pouech, a Democrat, represents Hinesburg in the Chittenden-4 House district.