Dozens of Vermonters this week urged state regulators to eliminate a key provision in Vermont’s plan to cut emissions from homes and businesses. They argue that proposals to encourage the burning of wood products — long deemed environmentally friendly — would end up harming the environment and public health.
“Wood heat is a heating source that we should be replacing with clean heat measures in order to protect public health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as the law requires,” Ashley Adams of the Burlington-based grassroots environmental group Stop VT Biomass, told the Public Utility Commission on Wednesday. “It is both inappropriate and frankly appalling to include a heating source that harms human health, worsens the climate crisis, impairs forest health and biodiversity.”
Adams and others told regulators the state should focus on incentivizing people to weatherize their homes and electrify their heating.
Proponents of including wood fuels and liquid biofuels in Vermont’s emissions reductions plans argue that they can provide a lower carbon “bridge fuel” to cleaner heat sources in the future.
“We cannot eliminate combustion right away, and as we transition to full electrification and a cleaner grid, doesn’t it make sense to have state policy dictate the use of a lower carbon, lesser pollutant?” said Stephen Dodge of the biofuels trade group Clean Fuels Alliance America, during Wednesday’s meeting.
This week’s debate about whether to encourage the use of wood heat comes amidst intensifying controversies about Vermont’s plan to reduce carbon emissions.
The PUC, which oversees utilities in the state, is in the midst of designing a “clean heat standard.” The policy aims to reduce Vermont’s dependence on fossil heating fuels like natural gas and fuel oil. If approved by the Legislature it would force companies that import fossil fuels into Vermont to buy credits that come from helping Vermonters heat their homes in less emitting ways, like by installing a cold climate heat pump.
Wood heat is a heating source that we should be replacing with clean heat measures in order to protect public health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as the law requires.Ashley Adams, Stop VT Biomass
Proponents of the policy say it will accelerate climate-friendly projects like home weatherization and electrification, and help more low-income households save on fuel costs.
But the inclusion of wood and biofuels in the plan is provoking backlash from some environmental groups.
Critics point to growing scientific consensus that burning wood is not carbon-neutral, as governments have long assumed when tracking emissions. That’s because humans are burning carbon faster than trees can grow and remove that carbon from the atmosphere.
Analysts hired by state regulators say the policy could push lower and moderate-income households towards using more wood for heat. Why? Replacing wood stoves with more efficient models, or pellet stoves, is often cheaper than installing heat humps or weatherizing, but does less to cut climate-warming pollution. Additionally, it exposes people to wood smoke, which carries health risks.
Supporters of including wood heat argue that it is affordable and that new wood-burning appliances are less environmentally damaging overall than fossil fuel furnaces and boilers.
Vermont has committed by law to cut emissions dramatically in the coming decades. Currently, some 60% of Vermont households rely on fossil fuels as their primary source of heat. Heating homes and businesses is the second-largest source of climate-warming pollution in the state.
But low- and moderate-income households struggle to afford projects to reduce their carbon emissions without assistance.
The 2023 Affordable Heat Act, which the Democratic-controlled legislature passed over Republican Gov. Phil Scott’s veto, directs the PUC to design the credit-based marketplace, where fossil fuel companies would have to earn or buy “clean heat credits” every year.
The PUC complied with its mandate and recently released its draft rule for the clean heat standard.
We cannot eliminate combustion right away, and as we transition to full electrification and a cleaner grid, doesn’t it make sense to have state policy dictate the use of a lower carbon, lesser pollutant?Stephen Dodge, Clean Fuels Alliance America and Technical Advisory Group member
But at the same time, it also issued a separate report, saying it believes Vermont is too small to launch a program as complicated as the clean heat standard in isolation. The PUC says it plans to submit an alternative proposal to lawmakers in January.
In a statement on Wednesday, Gov. Scott — who opposes a clean heat standard and has argued for softening Vermont’s emissions goals — urged the public to make their voices heard at the PUC’s hearing.
He also quoted estimates for how much a clean heat standard could cost Vermonters to the gallon of fuel — numbers Scott’s own Department of Public Service has cautioned in the past should not be taken as a firm cost estimate. At Wednesday’s meeting, staff at the independent PUC said it’s too soon in the process to know how such a policy would affect fuel prices.
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