Rep. scolds equity official for showing how S.5 will "force/pressure" low-income Vermonters into spending money they don’t have.

Jay Green, Racial Equity Policy and Research Analyst of the Office of Racial Equity testified before the House Energy & Environment Committee to discuss issues of concern his office has with S.5, the Clean Heat Standard bill. Green’s biggest problem was with how the bill will impact low-income Vermonters.

“We still don’t understand how this legislation will affect the cost of heating for low- and middle-income Vermonters,” said Green. “We are concerned that this legislation leaves that sort of unknown…. It is still challenging for our office to fully support the legislation without knowing fully what impacts it will have on the cost of heating for people.”

This line of discussion led to push back from Rep. Avram Patt (D-Woodbury), who questioned Green, “Since nothing in the bill requires anybody to replace an existing heating system that’s working, why would that be of significant concern?”

Green’s answer exposed a truth about the bill that advocates would rather remain obscured. “Many of the items on that list [of clean heat measures] for which clean heat credits can be created… require consumers to make an upfront investment for weatherization services or installation of a heat pump, [etc.]. What we’re trying to communicate is the upfront cost is a potential concern for people who – if you can’t afford a $400 emergency expense, how are you supposed to afford – even if it will save you money ten years in the future – how are you supposed to afford that expense right now?”

Green’s $400 figure referred to a study he shared with the committee showing that low-income households living paycheck to paycheck cannot afford to cover the cost of an emergency expense of $400. If they can’t afford that amount for an emergency, how can they be expected to come up with more than that amount to, for example, swap out their existing oil furnace for a heat pump. These upfront costs are routinely more than ten times that much just for the heat pump, not including any other modifications to the home that might be necessary to accommodate the heat pump.  

Again, Patt pulled out the talking point that there is no requirement that any specific individual adopt any specific clean heat measure. But Green pointed to the language in S.5 that does, in fact, require very specifically that 16 percent of all clean heat credits must be generated by low-income Vermonters, and another 16 percent by middle income Vermonters.

“You say no one is forced to do it,” shot back Green, “but I think that the language of the bill is clear that clean heat credits are going to have to be generated from low- and middle-income customers. So, they will be pressured to weatherize and upgrade heat systems no matter what just to meet those 16 percent targets.” Green is exactly correct.

This is when Rep. Larua Sibilia (I-Dover) sternly admonished the witness over his choice of language. “’Pressured,’ I think, when we are talking about creating a market is probably the wrong word. ‘Incentivized’ I think is the other word. And ‘incentives’ is the word we’re really thinking about when we talk about low-income folks.”

However, whether one calls it what it is, “pressure or force” or euphemistically “incentivizing” Green’s point remains undeniable that low-income Vermonters cannot afford the upfront costs of taking even the most rudimentary clean heat measures. The only way to meet the mandated low-income demographic targets in the bill are is to convince a certain percentage of low-income Vermonters to do these things. What Sibilia is suggesting is that the way we will do this is to pay them whatever amount necessary – with money forcibly taken from people who heat their homes with oil, propane, natural gas, or kerosene.

Whether he realized it or not, Green was actually supporting testimony from Julie Moore, Secretary of Natural Resources, when she asserted the day before that on average a 90 percent subsidy would be necessary to incentivize people to undertake clean heat measures — which in total would come to an estimated $2 billion. When Moore put this figure before the committee, they scoffed. But given Green’s $400 statistic, that 90 percent number is probably low. And with it, so is Moore’s estimate of just a $0.70 carbon fee per gallon of home heating fuel.

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

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