In a 19-4 vote Wednesday, the Vermont Climate Council adopted what it is calling an “Initial Climate Action Plan,” with the expectation that it will update the plan next year.

Council members struggled with an aggressive timeline set by the 2020 Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) to bring its first action plan for Vermont to fruition by Dec. 1. In addition to noting that the plan does not fully meet the law’s objectives, the council acknowledged that the development process hindered its ability to ensure a just transition for all Vermonters as required.

“This Initial Climate Action Plan represents one of the first public processes in the state of Vermont to acknowledge and try purposefully to incorporate equity and the principles of a just transition in both its development and outcome — but we know we fell short,” the council said in an introductory letter to the plan.

Council Member Abbie Corse, of the Corse Farm Dairy, said after the vote that she does not believe the council had succeeded with the plan.

“I’m not fully comfortable voting yes for this plan, but [I voted yes] because I believe in the heart, the soul and the work and effort that was put forward by those people who have shown up day after day to try to make this happen,” she said.

The plan, according to Council Member Sue Minter, is “aspirational,” and she said that worries her. Minter is executive director of Capstone Community Action.

“Part of what worries me is the cost to already energy- and income-burdened Vermonters that this transition will incur,” she said. “But if we don’t set aspirational goals and trajectories, we won’t get there, and we need to keep moving and we need to get started.”

Council Member Jared Duval, executive director of Energy Action Network, expressed confidence in the plan.

“If the recommendations of the Climate Council as outlined in this plan are followed, not only do I think we can meet our legal requirements to reduce climate pollution, I am also confident that we can strengthen the Vermont economy while saving Vermonters money and helping to equitably transition away from dependence on imported high-cost and price-volatile fossil fuels,” he said.

The plan, he added, represents the “first serious attempt” by Vermont to “act at the scale and pace necessary” to address climate change in an equitable manner.

Council members will have the opportunity to provide dissenting statements for inclusion in the plan in the coming week. And this month, the council will meet to discuss public engagement on the new plan and how to relate actions in the plan to American Rescue Plan Act funding.

Major Initiatives

The plan’s recommendations focus on the following segments:

• • • emissions reductions;
    • building resilience and adaptation in Vermont’s natural and working lands;
    • building resilience and adaptation in Vermont’s communities and built environment;
    • enhancing carbon sequestration and storage; and
    • cross-cutting pathways.

In total, the segments identify 26 pathways, 64 strategies and 230 steps for meeting the state’s emission-reduction requirements, according to the council.

Major initiatives recommended in the plan include:

• • • adopting California’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulations beginning no later than model year 2026;
    • adopting California’s Advanced Clean Trucks Rule, Low NO_x Omnibus Rule and Phase II GHG Rule for Truck Trailers beginning no later than model year 2025;
    • joining the Transportation and Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P) when regional market viability exists (See Vt. Climate Council Adjusts Course on TCI-P.);
    • developing and implementing a multiyear, statewide Weatherization at Scale initiative to weatherize 90,000 homes by 2030;
    • instituting a rental property efficiency standard and setting a target for number of units to bring into compliance by 2030;
    • adopting legislation by May 2022 authorizing the Public Utility Commission to administer a Clean Heat Standard (See Vt. Climate Council Puts Clean Heat Standard on the Table.);
    • adopting a carbon-reduction policy directing the PUC to identify, review and research as needed design parameters for a 100% carbon-free or renewable electric portfolio standard no later than 2030 (See Negotiations Stall in GlobalFoundries’ Bid for Vt. Utility Status.);
    • adopting a Refrigerant Management Program to mitigate emissions from the industrial processes sector;
    • adopting rules to reduce emissions of high global warming potential gases in GlobalFoundries’ semiconductor manufacturing processes — pending the outcome of the company’s request for utility status (21-1107-PET); and
    • considering incentives for renewable energy generation siting in the built environment and penalties for siting renewables on intact ecosystems, forests and natural lands.

Sharp Criticism

Council members appointed by Gov. Phil Scott criticized the plan in a statement on Wednesday, saying it is “overly broad.”

“Climate change is real and accelerating,” the group said in the statement. “That said, no member of the administration supports the overzealous process established by the legislature in the GWSA nor each and every action in the Climate Action Plan issued today.”

Scott vetoed the GWSA in 2020, but the legislature overrode him. The council includes eight administration appointees and 15 legislative appointees. The four votes against adoption of the plan came from administration appointees.

“As the governor noted in his initial veto message, the act rightly should have committed to the executive branch the development and implementation of specific initiatives, programs and strategies to carry out legislative policy,” the group said. “Rather, the legislature created an unelected body, unaccountable to the voters, a majority of which are its own appointees to take on this executive function.”

The GWSA directs the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources to adopt rules that are consistent with the action plan by the end of next year to achieve the act’s 2025 emission-reduction requirements. If those rules are not adopted or emission reductions are not achieved, the GWSA allows anyone to sue the ANR secretary.

Many of the plan’s recommendations also will require legislative action to move them forward.

In its statement, the group highlighted the recommendation to join TCI-P as an effort that it argued would not have a successful outcome.

“We dissent from the majority decision to recommend that the General Assembly spend time and resources during the coming session to pass legislation so that Vermont is ‘ready to act swiftly and join TCI-P as a participating jurisdiction,’” the group said. Given the recent withdrawal of three states from the TCI-P, the council members believe the recommendation would “needlessly foreclose the consideration of alternatives to TCI that may prove more conducive.”

In the plan, the council emphasized the need for legislative action that authorizes a cap-and-invest-style program, “whether it’s TCI-P or a comparable approach.”

The council committed to identifying actions that can mitigate any gap in emissions reductions that would have been realized by TCI-P, with a target to adopt alternatives by June 2022.

Climate Advocates Respond

A group of climate advocates, which included Council Member Johanna Miller, energy and climate program director at the Vermont Natural Resources Council, applauded the council’s efforts in a statement.

Adopting the plan “is an important milestone,” Miller said. “At the same time, there is even more difficult work ahead to turn this plan into the bold, just climate action the intensifying climate crisis demands.”

While Ben Edgerly Walsh, climate and energy program director for Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said the plan “falls short in some ways,” he acknowledged that its “adoption lays the foundation for Vermont to finally treat this crisis with the seriousness it demands.”

Renewable Energy Vermont is encouraged that the council acknowledged the need to move to 100% renewable energy standard, but Executive Director Peter Sterling said “further action is needed.”

“Meeting Vermont’s energy and climate targets must be consistent with the principles of additionality laid out in both the Paris accords and the Global Warming Solutions Act,” he said in a statement. “And that should require 100% of Vermont’s electricity coming from renewable resources by 2030 with much higher requirements for newly built renewables than we have today, including at least 25% of that energy coming from clean, reliable and resilience-creating in-state renewable energy sources.”