The Clean Heat Standard Public Engagement Fiasco

No public show up; person hired to explain the program admits he doesn’t understand it; reveals chaos behind the scenes.

The rhetoric surrounding the passage of the Clean Heat Carbon Tax (Act 18) was full of talk about “social justice,” a “just transition,” “engaging traditionally marginalized communities,” and “moving at the speed of trust.” Yeah, well, shocker that was a truckload of manure!

Under the law, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is required to hold a half a dozen public outreach forums to engage citizens and get feedback on the Clean Heat Carbon Tax proposal and how any potential rules might impact them/us. Two such meetings have already taken place, one in April and one in May, and the grand total from the public participating is, by my generous count, two. TWO! And neither spoke.

The first meeting, both held on Zoom, featured maybe a dozen people, three of whom were from the company hired to facilitate, the majority were from government agencies such as the PUC, Department of Public Services, Vermont Office of Economic Opportunity, plus a couple of usual suspect activist organizations. And TWO – I am giving the benefit of the doubt here -- regular people. The second meeting was scarcely better attended at a little over twenty total, but this time it was ALL bureaucrats and activists. No members of the actual general public appeared at this ostensibly public meeting!

This would be hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that when it comes time next January to for the legislature to vote on the Clean Heat Carbon Tax rules, they’re going to say, “We held these public outreach meetings per the law, and wouldn-chya-know, the public agrees with everything we’re doin’! This is a box-checking, lip-service exercise to be sure.

Hilarious also if it weren’t for the fact that we taxpayers are footing a $20,000 bill to an outfit called The Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity to run this outreach program. On its “What We Do” webpage, the company boasts that it is a “proven, effective resource that Vermont leaders turn to for assistance, support, and advocacy related to inclusion, diversity, and equity in the public sphere.” Effective? Um… no.

Its executive director, Curtiss Reed, who moderated the meetings, proclaimed, “We are excited to be part of this process of bringing information about the Clean Heat Standard to populations that typically aren’t part of this kind of conversation.” That’s what you do, huh…. Apparently not so much.

Part of the problem, and even by his own admission, is that Mr. Reed does not understand and therefore cannot explain what the Clean Heat Standard does or how it works. Making an excuse for why nobody showed up the meeting he’s being generously paid to get people to show up to, Reed said, “This energy legislation and the whole concept of energy credits is, um, beyond the reach of comprehension of just your ordinary citizen. Even for me, I’ve read through it, and I’m still scratching my head about who gets credits, how are they monetized, when – uh – do they have a – uh – what’s the lifecycle of a credit?”

While I appreciate the honesty here, and have some sympathy because this law is, in fact, unworkably complicated (a system designed by idiots for execution by… not even geniuses; magicians maybe), one has to ask how Mr. Reed thought it ethical to accept the job of explaining in plain terms and answering the public’s questions (had he succeeded in getting any into the room) a program about which he is himself utterly clueless.

And how is it that the PUC allowed this guy to move forward with a public engagement process without properly and thoroughly educating Mr. Reed and his colleagues about the law they hired him to explain, and ensuring beforehand that he did, in fact, understand the material. My guess is, they don’t have any freaking clue as to how Act 18 works either! Prove me wrong.

In a revealing hot mic moment at the end of the first session, after everyone had left the virtual space and Mr. Reed was quietly wrapping up, Geoff Wilcox from Vermont office of Economic Opportunity, who administers the statewide weatherization program, popped back on for a one-on-one chat with the moderator. Here’s how that went:

WILCOX: I have to apologize because I hadn’t really read through Act 18. And after our call, I started reading through the bill as enacted, and it’s really not what I thought it was.

REED: Oh, yeah. Everyone that I’ve spoken to – cabinet secretaries, to the folks at the Public Utilities Commission, to the Equity Advisory Group, to the Technical Advisory Group – they’re going around in circles.

WILCOX: I can imagine why! I mean, I’m looking at this and you know the operative text of the bill is that obligated parties shall reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Commission shall adopt or create a system of Clean Heat Credits earned from the delivery of Clean Heat Measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The obligated parties shall obtain the required amount of Clean Heat Credits, blah, blah, blah. The only obligated parties under this law are the fuel dealers.

REED: Right.

WILCOX: Then all it goes on to say is that the Commission shall establish a number of Clean Heat Credits that they are obligated to retire. Um, it doesn’t say amounts, percentages, or anything. It just says they will create a standard. And I’m just like –

Sadly, we will never know what Mr. Wilcox was “just like” because that’s when Mr. Reed remembered to stop recording the meeting. But a sufficient amount of shock and bewilderment came through in those last few words that we can make a good guess.

But here’s what I got out of that beyond more amusing evidence that nobody can untangle the catastrophic web of chaos and confusion our intellectually challenged lawmakers spun in Act 18: A full year after the law was passed, the Weatherization Program Administrator from the state Office of Economic Opportunity hadn’t even read the law. That’s your government hard at work looking out for you!

• Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics including three years service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free market think tank.

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Media Notes: Rob Roper will be on WVMT’s Morning Drive on Wednesday, May 29, 8 - 9 am. Tune in at 620AM, 96.3FM, or streaming HERE.

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