Biomass controversy boils over in Climate Council

Charges of unethical behavior

The Vermont legislature set up the twenty-three-member Climate Council under the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA). The Council’s role was and is to come up with a plan for reducing Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions to 26% below 2005 levels by 2025, 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% below by 2050. One controversial element in this discussion is what role biomass fuels (wood chips, methane from farm animal waste, etc.) should play, especially for electricity generation.

Opponents of allowing biomass to be counted as clean, “renewable” energy – and thus able generate valuable “carbon credits” under the proposed Clean Heat Standard bill rather than be obligated to buy them – is that burning anything creates CO2 and is therefore not “clean,” that the formulae that determine biomass to be clean and renewable are highly flawed and perhaps politically motivated, and incentivizing biomass production encourages agricultural practices that have negative environmental impacts beyond emissions. They charge that calling biomass “renewable” is really just a case of “greenwashing.”  

Supporters of biomass options under the GWSA agree that it is not a perfect solution, but a necessary bridge between where we are now, burning mostly oil, natural gas, and coal to generate electricity, and a future that is entirely dominated by things like wind and solar.

To bring some resolution to this controversy, the Climate Council created a Biomass Task Group to come up with a recommended policy for the full Council to consider and, presumably, include in its recommendations to the legislature and agencies charged with carrying out GWSA policy for guidance as they do the work of meeting the greenhouse gas reduction targets.

The Task Group did its job, and recommended in its draft report:

1. New electric-led generation biomass facilities in the State of Vermont should not be used.

2. The Ryegate and McNeil facilities should not be expanded to increase the currently permitted hourly output capacity, physically or otherwise. Furthermore, the facilities should strive to use less biomass overall than they do currently.

3. The Vermont Climate Council recommends that the State plan and prepare for the phase out of wood biomass electricity generation at the McNeil and Ryegate facilities and the phase up of other energy sources, complemented with other important actions such as efficiency and consumption reduction.

This recommendation, however, is not politically popular.

In Chittenden County, home to seven state senators and over thirty state representatives, including the Speaker of the House, Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington) and the Senate President Pro Tem, Philip Baruth (D/P-Chittenden), the McNeil plant is not just a powerful constituent, but also a critical component in supplying electricity to residents and businesses. Far from considering shutting it down, Burlington is in the process of a $40 million plus expansion of the McNeil plant, running steam pipes under the streets to the UVM Medical Center, and the Intervale, and University of Vermont – the senate president’s employer.

If McNeil were shut down, it raises questions about how the Queen City and surrounding communities would keep their lights on. If McNeil’s biomass electricity generation were classified as non-renewable, and thus could neither be counted toward mandated renewable energy targets nor used to generate carbon or renewable energy “credits,” the electric bills of Burlington ratepayers would skyrocket.

Additionally, supplying wood chips for the McNeil and Ryegate plants is a financially stabilizing sideline for Vermont’s wood products industry, creating a critical market for what would otherwise be a waste product.

If the result of implementing the Global Warming Solutions Act – regardless of what the science says -- were to mean causing an electricity shortage and price spike in our most populous city/county, negatively impacting powerful, politically favored entities such as Burlington Electric, Vermont Gas, and UVM, while pushing the forestry and wood products industry into an oppositional political alliance with small heating fuel dealers, the GWSA would more than likely cease to be a viable state policy.

As such, a formal recommendation by the full Council to shutter McNeil and scratch biomass off the list of acceptable fuels would be politically disastrous for the politicians who pushed it in the first place. So, the Biomass Task Force’s recommendation, has been repeatedly, month after month, blocked from coming before the full Climate Council for review or even discussion.

Frustration by those who worked on the report, such as Judy Dow, and those who supported the Task Group’s efforts has been simmering for months and came to a boil at the March 6^th meeting of the Climate Council’s Steering Committee.

Cheryl Joy Lipton, a regular observer of Climate Council meetings, called the Council out during the public comment period. “A really big thing is the VCC [Climate Council] was supposed to discuss [the Biomass Task Group’s recommendations at the March meeting…. For many months it’s been put off. A really long time. They were supposed to be talked about in November. They were supposed to have been talked about in December, and then again in January. I can’t remember now all the different things that have happened to put them off, but when it happens over and over and over again, like four or five or six months, it starts to look not very good….”

The primary excuse for the delay in discussion has been the fact that multiple seats on the Climate Council were left unfilled by the Speaker of the House and it would be unfair to discuss a key issue without those voices represented. While there is merit to this argument, it raises the question if the Speaker’s lack of action was an intentional way to shut down discussion of the issue, at least during the legislative session. As it is now, the Biomass Task Group recommendations have been delayed again, won’t be taken up until April – if then -- and the legislature adjourns in May.

Lipton’s comments also drew attention to the impact this delay is having on policy formation and implementation, “Two legislative sessions now have gone forth saying that the Vermont Climate Council is in favor of biomass and biofuels and nobody when only there has been recommendation against, but that has been suppressed,” she said. “But now, both last year and this year in the Clean Heat Standard and the Affordable Heat Act it’s been put forth as though the VCC is in favor of all this stuff. So, that’s not right to be happening. I think what’s going on is unethical…. I don’t think it looks very good.”

Annette Smith of Vermonters for a Clean Environment responded to my request for comment, “The fundamental issue of contention is how biomass emissions are accounted.  Vermont does not include CO2 emissions from burning trees as part of GHG emissions accounting.  However, data shows that the McNeil plant annually emits CO2 emissions equivalent to most of the passenger cars in Vermont.  Since emission reduction is the only mandate contained in the GWSA, some of us are asking for an honest accounting that includes all CO2 emissions and doesn’t play games that exclude those emissions.”

But an honest accounting would mean a lot of the heavy political hitters who stand to profit by the dishonest accounting would be left out in the cold. An honest, public debate over this issue would expose the fact that this whole scheme isn’t so much about carbon reduction and saving the planet as it is about, to use Richard Cowart, author of the Clean Heat Standard’s colorful description, “diverting a river of money” into the pockets of the preferred people. So, discussion gets suppressed.

The Climate Council was supposed to provide political cover for lawmakers who didn’t want to take responsibility for policies the Council recommended. “We’re just doing what we’re told! Don’t blame us!” But at least some Council members didn’t get that memo. They think this whole thing is actually about saving the planet. Bless their hearts.

• Rob Roper is a freelance writer with twenty years experience in Vermont politics and policy.