This commentary is by Rick Morris of Waterbury, communications leader for the Vermont Sierra Club. Originally published in Vermont Digger.
Effective on Dec. 16, 2022, Vermont’s Advanced Clean Cars and Advanced Clean Trucks rules are set to knock out 20% of our state’s emissions by 2035.
The rules target vehicle manufacturers and dealers. They’re required to produce and sell an increasing percentage of zero-emissions vehicles, starting at 35 percent in 2026, and eventually reaching 100% of new electric vehicle sales by 2035.
These new rules are a big deal. Back in 2020, our Legislature adopted the Global Warming Solutions Act to much fanfare. While we celebrated the 80% emissions reduction goal, the act’s lack of teeth and concrete plans nagged at the back of the mind of this climate activist. It’s all too easy — and common — for lofty goals to be set, only to fade after a few years’ failure to draw up implementation plans.
Just on these two rules, Vermont is projected to reduce our emissions by 20% by 2035 — which, if you’re keeping track, would account for half of our 2030 goal, all while opening up the used EV market and starting to ease the air quality burden borne by some of our state’s most vulnerable populations.
Perhaps the most significant gain is for those communities outside of Vermont. We are just the sixth state to adopt the Advanced Clean Trucks rule, following the usual suspects of California, Massachusetts, Washington and the like.
I hail from climate work in the Upper Midwest, where solutions were met with the waiting game. Proposed electric buses in southern Minnesota were stalled to see how they panned out in northern Minnesota. Northern Minnesota was waiting for the results of Denmark and Norway. So too with the Kyoto and Paris accords — why should India move when China hasn’t, and why China when the U.S. lags so far behind?
Here the Brave Little State takes a strong, rangy step past the what-ifs and the wait-buts to show that, yes, it can be done. And if it can be done here, with our mountains, our winters, and our population, well, it’s hard to make the argument that there’s anywhere it can’t be done.
This holiday season, I am celebrating Vermont’s climate leadership and the hope it marks for us all.