Epiphany in Vermont Climate Council: The Climate Action Plan isn’t realistic.

Neither labor nor money exists to do the work.

At the February 16 meeting of the Climate Council’s subcommittee on Cross Sector Mitigation, TJ Poor, an administration appointee to the Council from the Public Service Department, asked the assembled group an awkward if critical question about the thermal sector mandates under the Global Warming Solutions Act. “We have this 120 thousand goal [of total of homes weatherized by 2030], 90 thousand new in the CAP (Climate Action Plan), and, um, is that even technically possible?... The challenges we’re seeing, is it even time to say, hey, we want to do as much as we can, but we should be realistic here. We’re not going to get 90,000.”

The two principal challenges Poor was referring to are an acute labor shortage and a severe lack of long-term funding.

Sarah Phillips, who runs the state’s Home Weatherization Assistance Program (HWAP), replied to the question, “Can we get it done? Is it realistic? I’m not sure that it is. I think we see it as sort of a moon shot and we’re going for it, but we’ve been honest all along the way that we’re not sure we can accomplish these goals.”

As one of the presenters at the meeting, Philips shared statistics from her organizations work in 2022, which included spending $13 million on weatherization projects. This led to 1033 units weatherized at an average cost of $10,036 per unit. This was 279 weatherization jobs short of HWAP’s goal for the year – a twenty-two percent shortfall.

Efficiency Vermont also presented statistics on their weatherization work, which amounted to an average of 800 units weatherized annually between 2018 and 2022 (work described as a “high cost, low savings program”). Kelly Lucci of Efficiency Vermont also cited labor issues as a major problem, noting that this was “the first time I’ve seen it this bad across all of the programs…. There’s just a broader dearth of folks in the trades.”

So, between Efficiency Vermont and the Home Weatherization Assistance Program, two of the largest purveyors of this work, less than 2000 Vermont homes are weatherized each year. In order for the state to meet its mandated goals under the Global Warming Solutions Act, that number has to increase to over 11,000 – which isn’t going to happen because Vermont’s skilled, trained labor force in this sector is already maxed out.

And these are the salad days for these programs with hundreds of millions in federal dollars pouring into Vermont from ARPA and the Inflation Reduction Act. However, this money goes away after 2026, and, as the Council and their guests noted, there is no revenue source currently identified to replace it. There is a cliff after 2026 where the expected annual work output drops by over half.

This is a deadly dangerous scenario our politicians are setting Vermonters up for with the UnAffordable Heat Act (S.5), which just passed out of the Natural Resources & Energy Committee 5-0 and is on its way to the full senate.

Their logic (highly flawed as it is) is that Vermonters will ultimately save money by transitioning away from fossil fuel heating sources and onto electricity-based alternatives. In order to affect this transition, they plan on jacking up the price of fossil heating fuels through the “carbon credit” system established in S.5, which is a de facto excise tax on oil, propane, natural gas, and kerosene. Estimates of this tax range from 70 cents per gallon to over $4.00, with the higher estimate the more likely. This will, by design, make heating with fossil based fuels unaffordable, hammering low income Vermonters the hardest.

The only chance this scheme could ever have at being successful is if the transition away from fossil fuels occurs broadly, quickly, and efficiently. This is like a statewide energy version of a heart transplant. You’ve got a few minutes to get the old heart out and the new heart in place or the patient will die for lack of oxygen to the vital organs. And, as we have seen above, there is no chance that this transition occurs quickly and efficiently due to the lack of a labor force to do the work required. The old heart will be removed, but no surgeon is on call to put the new one in. The patient will die on the table – or more literally by freezing to death in their home one cold winter night.

What will happen if the UnAffordable Heat Act becomes law is this: Fossil fuel prices will skyrocket as a result of the “carbon credit” mandates. Over three quarters of Vermont homes – the overwhelming majority -- currently use fossil fuels for heat. This majority of folks’ heating bills will go through the roof. A few Vermonters will be lucky enough to have the government direct the money taken from fossil fuel heating customers to pay to weatherize their homes, purchase and install a heat-pump system, etc. But most Vermonters will be stuck paying higher fossil fuel heating bills whether they want to or not.

Waiting lists for weatherization and heat pump installation will be years long, and for low-income Vermonters who require subsidies for projects that can routinely cost in excess of $20,000 and $30,000, getting on a waiting list will follow a lengthy and intrusive application process. Who knows how long that will take? Meanwhile, during all this time, those least able to overcome the many obstacles — logistical and financial — to transitioning off fossil fuels will have to shoulder the financial burden of subsidizing everyone else. This is what Vermont’s Director of Equity meant when she pointed out S.5 “doesn’t meet the mark.” This is a cruel, callous, and inhuman policy and the willing lack of forethought that has gone into it should be considered an act of criminal negligence.

But, as Senator Mark MacDonald admitted during debate over S.5, "We don't do things based on helping poor people. We do things to save the world." And if Granny has to freeze to death after a last meal of discount cat food to satisfy MacDonald’s and his colleagues’ God complexes, so be it.

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