Fresh off the veto override and passage of S.5, the Clean Heat Standard bill, the Vermont Climate Council discussed ideas for doing something similar with transportation fuels — gasoline and diesel.
The bill was cleverly designed so that most of the sticker shock does not take effect until after next year’s elections. So when one of your legislators who supported this bill and is running for reelection asks you whether you have been adversely affected by this law, don’t be fooled — the shoes start dropping in 2025.
The claim that S.5 is just another study is incorrect. This is clearly a major step to implementing a carbon tax on those businesses and households that cannot easily convert to fossil free heat.
S.5, with its multi-billion-dollar price tag that will add at least $500 a year to the average household’s annual heating bill, is just the tip of the iceberg for what legislators have in store. Once S.5 passes, the plan is to bring forward a similar carbon tax on gasoline and diesel motor fuels.
Sen. Dick McCormack, D-Windsor, suggested that the committee consider scrapping the whole thing and simply enacting a carbon tax on fossil heating fuels and use the money to fund programs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The fact is that the Unaffordable Heat Act will be twice as expensive for Vermonters as the failed Clean Heat Standard. First of all, it will pressure Vermonters to buy a brand new heating system, which could cost Vermonters an out-of-pocket expense of upwards of $20,000.
Democrats and Progressives are hoping that newly elected supermajorities in both the House and Senate, along with a new name for what is essentially a carbon tax on home heating fuels, will ensure that that the Clean Heat Standard will become law this year.
Imagine taxing all vegetables but not beef, then giving the receipts to rich people to buy hamburgers and steaks, who could then eat more meat and fewer vegetables, becoming richer and fatter.
Vermont’s so-called progressives have implemented an array of tax, electric rate, and regulatory burdens on low-income Vermonters and small businesses that benefit wealthy nonresidents and mega-corporations.
Implementing an “economy wide” “cap and invest” program is the latest curlicue fluorescent lightbulb to go off over the heads of the 23 zealots charged with totally restructuring our economy around greenhouse gas reduction.
As gasoline prices hover around record highs, the Vermont Climate Council is coming up with a plan to make the problem worse. Much worse.
Watch every Democrat candidate in the recent lieutenant governor debate voice their support for a carbon tax on home heating oil, propane, natural gas, and kerosene — and throw gasoline and diesel into the mix.