Democratic lawmakers have spent the last five years laying the groundwork for the most aggressive emissions-reduction policies Vermont has ever seen, but a political sea change after the November election has brought that work to a “standstill,” according to legislators and climate advocates.
As Vermont approaches the five-year anniversary of a landmark law that established some of the most ambitious emissions-reduction mandates in the nation, Democrats have lost the legislative supermajorities they need to enact policy that would get the state across the finish line.
The sorts of initiatives needed to achieve the steep carbon pollution reductions called for in the Global Warning Solutions Act — such as new standards for the thermal sector, or a hard cap on emissions from cars and trucks — have, for now, lost their political viability in Montpelier. And Republican Gov. Phil Scott’s decision earlier this month to postpone compliance with a California rule known as Advanced Clean Cars II — it sought to expedite the uptake of electric vehicles by imposing new mandates on car manufacturers — has at least temporarily halted one of the few sector-wide policies Vermont has managed to institute since enacting the GWSA.
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“What policies do we see moving in the Legislature this year to achieve meaningful emissions-reductions goals? There aren’t any,” said Manchester Rep. Kath James, the Democratic chair of the House Committee on Energy and Digital Infrastructure. “It’s disappointing, but it’s where we’re at right now.”
Unlike at the national level, the impasse over climate policy in Vermont isn’t a result of competing views over the legitimacy of climate change, or humans’ role in causing it.
With a (Democratic) supermajority, I think people were able to be really idealistic. And I think now we’re looking at what is more realistic.Senate Minority Leader Scott Beck
“Everybody has a shared goal … which is to reduce our carbon emissions, and keep more of our energy dollars in state,” said Senate Minority Leader Scott Beck.
Where Democrats have strayed, Beck said, is in prioritizing climate action over the economic security of residents who can’t afford the technology — EVs, for example, or cold climate heat pumps — needed to successfully transition off of fossil fuels.
“With a (Democratic) supermajority, I think people were able to be really idealistic. And I think now we’re looking at what is more realistic,” Beck said. “And I think in a lot of cases what we’re finding is that the affordable technologies that exist are not sufficient to meet the … mandates that people have set in previous legislatures.”
Windsor County Sen. Becca White acknowledges that the policies Democrats have spent the last five years teeing up require enormous upfront costs, in some cases, to implement. She said that’s made them susceptible to the politics of “affordability” that Scott and his Republican counterparts leveraged so effectively in the 2024 elections.
“I don’t think you’re going to run into many Vermonters who don’t believe that climate change is real and man-made. But you’re going to run into Vermonters who are going to say, ‘I am extremely concerned about paying my heating bill. I can’t afford a new car. So are you requiring me to make financial outlays that I can’t even do myself now?’” White said. “And that has really translated I think to … the real fear of the economic pressures that have compounded on top of the conversation that we’re having.”
White, however, said that, done properly, initiatives such as the clean heat standard, or a cap-and-invest framework for the transportation sector, could free low- and moderate-income Vermonters from the financial yoke of fossil fuels.
“It’s not because of some amorphous emissions-reduction goal. It doesn’t get me out of bed every day to think about lowering carbon emissions,” White said. “What gets me out of bed every day is how do we … support the lowest-income Vermonters getting off of extremely expensive, unclean, price-volatile fossil fuels?”
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Last year marked the third consecutive year that Vermonters spent more than $2 billion on fossil fuels, according to a recent report by the Energy Action Network, which found the average resident now spends more than $7,000 per year on gasoline, diesel, heating oil and other carbon energy sources.
Between 2022 and 2020 alone, according to the EAN report, the per-capita cost of fossil fuel consumption jumped by $1,800.
If the politics aren’t ready for big jumps forward, you can’t do it. It doesn’t matter what the science says.Pat Parenteau, law professor and former commissioner of environmental conservation
Pat Parenteau, an environmental law expert and longtime climate activist who served as former Gov. Madeleine Kunin’s commissioner of environmental conservation, said Vermonters are well-served, environmentally and economically, by policies that hasten the transition off of fossil fuels. But he said Democratic lawmakers do their constituents no favors when they attempt to move faster than the politics of the moment allow.
“I’ve had to learn over 50-plus years of environmental activism that sometimes, less is more. Sometimes you just have to start smaller, even though the science tells us we can’t afford that, and we’re going to pay a hefty price,” Parenteau said. “If the politics aren’t ready for big jumps forward, you can’t do it. It doesn’t matter what the science says. It doesn’t matter what’s 'right.' It doesn’t matter that we’re bankrupting our children’s future. None of that really matters. What matters is what can you get not just enacted, but then what can you get implemented? What can you actually do every single day?”
Manchester Rep. Kath James said there’s truth in Parenteau’s words.
“It’s discouraging,” James said. “But he’s right.”
I think most Vermonters agree that we need to do something about it, so it’s trying to get to that next rung — well, what are we going to do about it?Manchester Rep. Kath James
As the first session in the politically realigned Legislature winds to a close, James said she’s contemplating a new path that might involve “walking back” the way lawmakers approach their climate work.
“Not walk back the belief that we need to take action and not walk back a belief that this is really important work that benefits everyday Vermonters in a very real way, but instead try to strip the argument down to the bare bones and to shared values,” James said. “And I think most Vermonters agree that we need to do something about it, so it’s trying to get to that next rung — well, what are we going to do about it?”
Elena Mihaly, vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation’s Vermont office, rejects the notion that Phil Scott’s opposition to Democrats’ climate policy agenda reflects the will of the voters.
“This is a governor who’s been in office for nearly 10 years now and has dragged his feet on climate policy in ways that aren’t responsive to what Vermonters clearly are asking for,” Mihaly said. “It is imminently clear right now that the Scott administration just has failed to deliver the responsible climate action that Vermonters expect and deserve.”
One climate policy that neither Scott, nor his Republican colleagues in the Legislature, have been able to undo is the foundational law from which most emissions-reduction proposals over the past five years have sprung — the Global Warming Solutions Act. The law requires Vermont to hit emissions reduction mandates by 2025, 2030 and 2050. If it doesn’t, the statute allows for individuals and organizations to sue Vermont, and ask a judge to force the state to undertake actions that will result in the state hitting the goal.
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James, White and other influential Democrats, including Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth, say they stand ready to defend that law against repeal. And if Democrats and Republicans can’t align on a shared climate action plan, then they’re prepared to let the judicial branch force the enactment of emissions-reduction policy on elected officials’ behalf.
Scott said earlier this year that he'll present lawmakers with an alternative climate action plan in December of 2026.
He said that plan will be guided by "common sense."
"I think that we have to be practical here. Part of our DNA here in Vermont always used to be that we used common sense to address issues," Scott said earlier this month. "There’s a time when we push, and there are times when we have to say, 'We have to take a pause here.'"
