A regional environmental advocacy group is suing Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources, alleging the agency has failed to keep Vermont on track to meet a key deadline to reduce climate warming greenhouse gas emissions.
The environmental advocates say this raises questions about the agency’s ability to enforce the law in the future, if it’s not corrected.
In 2020, Vermont’s Legislature overrode Gov. Phil Scott’s veto to pass the Global Warming Solutions Act. In doing so, they committed the state by law to reduce its emissions dramatically by 2030 and 2050, with the first deadline looming in 2025.
The law requires Vermont to reduce emissions to:
- 26% below 2005 levels by 2025
- 40% below 1990 levels by 2030
- 80% below 1990 levels by 2050
The law tasks ANR with keeping track of Vermont’s progress, and with intervening at various points if it appears Vermont isn’t likely to meet a deadline. The first check-in called for by the law was July 1 of this year.
In July, ANR Secretary Julie Moore shared a letter with the Vermont Climate Council, saying she believes the state is on track to meet its first deadline in 2025 — if just barely, coming in at 13,000 metric tons below the requirement.
But Conservation Law Foundation and others have argued the state used a model that relied on incomplete data and wasn’t properly calibrated to make that call.
This is a situation where, essentially, the state is putting their thumb on the scale.Elena Mihaly, vice president of Conservation Law Foundation
“This is a situation where, essentially, the state is putting their thumb on the scale,” said Elena Mihaly, who leads the Conservation Law Foundation in Vermont.
Jared Duval with the data analysis nonprofit Energy Action Network told regulators earlier this summer he believes ANR’s assessment of Vermont’s progress could be substantially off, and that Vermont is on track to miss the 2025 deadline by about 542,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
More from Vermont Public’s Out There: Taking stock of Vermont’s emissions
That’s about as much climate warming pollution as 130,000 gas powered cars emit in a year, or how much roughly 70,000 homes emit during the same period.
A consulting firm hired by Conservation Law Foundation further refined that estimate, estimating Vermont is on track to surpass the January deadline by closer to 307,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent — the carbon emitted by roughly 73,000 cars in a year.
CLF is calling for ANR to refine its modeling and propose ways to keep Vermont on track — like, for example, proposing new regulations similar to those in other states that phase out the sale of certain appliances that burn fossil fuels, like propane hot water heaters.
“We know that there is no rule that could be introduced, even if it was an emergency rule, that would have an impact on our calendar year 2024 emissions … but that doesn’t mean that we should just give up and walk away and move on to 2030,” Mihaly said. “These 2025 emissions reduction requirements are there for a reason.”
Additionally, the nonprofit said in the future, there should be more transparency around how state regulators decide whether Vermont is on track to meet deadlines to reduce emissions.
Moore said the agency has hired a consultant to help them refine their model, but that she stands by her staff’s prediction that Vermont is on track to meet the 2025 requirement.
Further, Moore said expecting ANR to course correct the state within six months of an emissions deadline is unrealistic and a flaw in the legislation.
“Frankly, our rulemaking process often takes longer than six months, and certainly any impact of a rulemaking like that generally accrues over a period of years,” Moore said. “So I can’t envision anything that we could have done had my July 1 determination been to the contrary, that would have appreciably changed where we will inevitably find ourselves on Jan. 1.”
I can’t envision anything that we could have done had my July 1 determination been to the contrary, that would have appreciably changed where we will inevitably find ourselves on Jan. 1.Julie Moore, Vermont Natural Resources secretary
Moore defended the transparency of ANR’s accounting, saying Vermonters have had ample opportunity to participate and share feedback at meetings of the state’s Climate Council.
Mihaly, with CLF, said she’s still hopeful they can arrive at a settlement with ANR. Moore confirmed the agency has declined to meet with advocates about their modeling process to date.
“I genuinely think that we could get a long way towards resolving the issues that we’re raising if we were able to sit down with agency staff and their modeling experts, to just roll up our sleeves and talk through the differences that we see and hear from them,” Mihaly said.
But Moore said she doesn’t see a meeting like that being a good use of staff time, and said a lawsuit will further detract from the work of figuring out how to comply with the next and bigger 2030 deadline — which all parties agree Vermont is not on track to meet.
“We have provided regular updates and opportunities for review and comments through the very public process of the Climate Council and its subcommittees,” Moore said. “[We] felt as if having a one-off conversation wasn’t particularly important, given the strong public engagement we have offered to all Vermonters throughout our work.”
The lawsuit has been filed in state court and ANR has the opportunity to respond there.
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