Scofflaws Off the Hook?
By Steve Crowley, VT Sierra Energy Chair
Observers of Tuesday’s Climate Council meeting witnessed a deft effort by our state’s utilities and state administration in once again dodging legal requirements set in place more than a decade ago.
At issue was a proposal from the Science & Data team and Cross-Sector Mitigation teams for how to approach the legal requirement for incorporating out-of-state life-cycle emissions from our energy use into the Vermont Greenhouse Gas Inventory. The language in the law states, “Vermont shall reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from within the geographical boundaries of the State and those emissions outside the boundaries of the State that are caused by the use of energy in Vermont…“ Our current inventory protocol is limited to in-state emissions, with the exception of those from electric power plants, mainly natural gas, from which we import electricity. Since that law’s passage, our Agency of Natural Resources has failed to follow this requirement.
The law also specifically calls out emissions from biomass energy. This came about following a major investigation, including a very well attended series of public forums, sponsored by Sierra Club, Biomass Energy Resource Center, and several other groups. I attended one of these sessions in Montpelier, which drew about 60 people into a crowded room. There were well-facilitated breakouts, robust discussion, and several crucial agreements emerged. One of the clearest was that science is firm that burning biomass for energy is a major net producer of greenhouse gas, and it was time to address this in regulation. This public mandate found its way into law. But again, ANR has refused to honor this law and has chosen to go its own way regardless of clear instructions from the legislature.
There are a couple of other important sectors of GHG emissions that are also ignored under the current inventory and would be recognized under proper life cycle accounting.
- Emissions from large hydro projects, particularly those with vast reservoirs such as the Hydro-Quebec system where we get almost 25% of our electricity. These projects, when accounting for reservoir emissions of CO2 and methane, and the lost sequestration from the removed forest, are on a par with natural gas electricity, and in some cases, coal-fired power plants.
- The natural gas we use, whether in heating buildings here in VT, or in producing electricity that we import, is associated with a system of fracking, pumping, storing, and transmission. Scientific assessments have shown time and again that a significant amount of methane escapes from that system. With methane’s very high global warming potential, 86 times that of CO2 over 20 years, this doubles or triples the global warming equivalency of natural gas. This is also a major component of the electricity we use in VT.
One more feature of the law is the requirement for ANR to establish regulations for the protocols for the GHG Inventory. It may not be obvious to all, but rule-making involves a set of important steps, including filing relevant science with the Secretary of State, holding a public hearing and comment period, and a responsiveness summary. In other words, rulemaking involves rationale and transparency. Once again, ANR has refused for over a decade to follow this clear provision of VT law.
To be clear, this law has been in effect under three separate administrations, so this is not just about our current governor.
So, on Tuesday, as we watched GMP’s Liz Miller, ANR Secretary Julie Moore, and Secretary of Administration Susanne Young all express concern that the proposal to conduct this life cycle assessment is moving too fast, well, we just had to roll our eyes. The Council was drawn into this evasion. But they do not have the authority to let the scofflaw agency off the hook.
We are confident that in the upcoming series of public listening sessions, the Council will hear loud and clear that this full and honest assessment of greenhouse gases needs to be part of the accountability targets under the Global Warming Solutions Act.
