Global Warming Bill Enters Home Stretch
Last night the conference committee on H.520 finished its work and the Vermont Senate gave the improved bill their final approval. Now there’s less than 24 hours to call your house rep and tell them to VOTE YES. This one is going to be close, so call now and make sure your legislators knows you care!
The Senate vote happened so fast, if you weren’t listening closely to the debate you might have missed it. There was a discernable chuckle in the chamber in fact. Several Senators later complained that they hadn’t had a chance to get back into the chamber and offer their "Aye" vote, though since the vote was on voice, instead of by roll call it would not have made much difference.
If you’ve been following the news in the Free Press, Times Argus or other outlets you’ve also no doubt heard about the new spin on the tax on Vermont Yankee that funds that expanded efficiency Vermont. Initially, legislators considered taxing Vermont Yankee's windfall profits. Over the next 4 years they will make over $100 million in unanticipated profits because the price of oil has gone up and changes in the New England electricity market have all of us paying a little more to energy companies like them.
But when legislators were researching this idea, they discovered that Vermont Yankee has been paying a lower property tax rate than other businesses and power generators - like wind farms, for example - will be required to pay. So they decided simply to require Vermont Yankee to pay its fair share. In the bill that came out of the conference committee and was passed by the Senate, Vermont Yankee has to pay the same tax rate as wind farms in Vermont -.003 cents/kWh, to be exact.
Now, as a general rule, VPIRG believes that polluting power sources like Vermont Yankee should pay HIGHER taxes than clean, safe and affordable alternatives like wind power. But in a year that’s been dominated by calls for property tax fairness and relief for Vermonters, we're willing to accept a bill that at least levels the playing field between polluters and clean power.
Vermont Yankee is not. In a desperate attempt to change the subject from tax-fairness and clean power to … well, anything else, several lawmakers held a press conference yesterday attacking VPIRG. It got ignored or pushed to the end of most stories except the Brattleboro Reformer’s, but some folks are claiming VPIRG tried to hide our involvement in a series of ads that ran in 8 newspapers and on several radio stations.
The ads encouraged Vermonters to contact their legislators because we believe decisions about Vermont’s energy future should be made by Vermonters, not Entergy lobbyists. Anyone who thinks we were trying to hide our involvement needed to look no farther than our homepage at http://www.vpirg.org/ to see that we were proud of our involvement. We’re also not the only ones responsible, and we didn't want to take all the credit when there were a number of people who helped make these ads happen.
With less than 24 hours to go, you can bet we are NOT distracted. We’ll be on the phones again tonight, and back in tomorrow’s paper if you read the Times Argus, so stay tuned, stay engaged and call now to stop global warming!
The Senate vote happened so fast, if you weren’t listening closely to the debate you might have missed it. There was a discernable chuckle in the chamber in fact. Several Senators later complained that they hadn’t had a chance to get back into the chamber and offer their "Aye" vote, though since the vote was on voice, instead of by roll call it would not have made much difference.
If you’ve been following the news in the Free Press, Times Argus or other outlets you’ve also no doubt heard about the new spin on the tax on Vermont Yankee that funds that expanded efficiency Vermont. Initially, legislators considered taxing Vermont Yankee's windfall profits. Over the next 4 years they will make over $100 million in unanticipated profits because the price of oil has gone up and changes in the New England electricity market have all of us paying a little more to energy companies like them.
But when legislators were researching this idea, they discovered that Vermont Yankee has been paying a lower property tax rate than other businesses and power generators - like wind farms, for example - will be required to pay. So they decided simply to require Vermont Yankee to pay its fair share. In the bill that came out of the conference committee and was passed by the Senate, Vermont Yankee has to pay the same tax rate as wind farms in Vermont -.003 cents/kWh, to be exact.
Now, as a general rule, VPIRG believes that polluting power sources like Vermont Yankee should pay HIGHER taxes than clean, safe and affordable alternatives like wind power. But in a year that’s been dominated by calls for property tax fairness and relief for Vermonters, we're willing to accept a bill that at least levels the playing field between polluters and clean power.
Vermont Yankee is not. In a desperate attempt to change the subject from tax-fairness and clean power to … well, anything else, several lawmakers held a press conference yesterday attacking VPIRG. It got ignored or pushed to the end of most stories except the Brattleboro Reformer’s, but some folks are claiming VPIRG tried to hide our involvement in a series of ads that ran in 8 newspapers and on several radio stations.
The ads encouraged Vermonters to contact their legislators because we believe decisions about Vermont’s energy future should be made by Vermonters, not Entergy lobbyists. Anyone who thinks we were trying to hide our involvement needed to look no farther than our homepage at http://www.vpirg.org/ to see that we were proud of our involvement. We’re also not the only ones responsible, and we didn't want to take all the credit when there were a number of people who helped make these ads happen.
With less than 24 hours to go, you can bet we are NOT distracted. We’ll be on the phones again tonight, and back in tomorrow’s paper if you read the Times Argus, so stay tuned, stay engaged and call now to stop global warming!
Labels: environment, global warming, legislation, Vermont Yankee
2 Comments:
I am curious who the other Vermonter's involved in the add campaign are.
Damon
Damon,
Sorry took me a while to get around to posting a reply. Lots of groups contributed to getting H.520 passed. If you're a regular reader here, you'll already know that we've been working closely all session with Safe Power Vermont- a pro-renewable, anti-nuclear power coalition that includes the Sierra Club, Nuclear Free Vermont, Citizens Awareness Network and others. We’re also a founder and member of the Vermont Sustainable Energy Coalition – which includes groups like VNRC, Sustainable Energy Resource Group and Renewable Energy Vermont that are committed to renewable energy. Finally, this session we helped convene and steer a working group dedicated to improving the thermal efficiency of our buildings that included VBSR and many local Community Action partnerships.
So it’s been a big team effort all along. The ad campaign came together at the end of the session as Entergy pulled out all the stops to oppose the global warming bill. We teamed up with the climate change group and invested our own member-funds in the ads because we thought it was important Vermonters hear that a $10 Billion+/year corporation was pressuring their legislature not to take action on global warming. Fortunately, the calls and emails we helped to generate worked and the legislature passed the bill 85-61. Unfortunately, Governor Douglas is ever-more certain to veto the bill. It’s short-sighted and disappointing, but it’s not unexpected. You can help by asking him to reconsider at our action center. And stay tuned, if he DOES veto the bill, we’re expecting an override session in July!
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