Significant Dollars in Diverse, Needed Programs Provide a Foundation Upon Which to Build The Vermont Legislature crafted and Governor Phil Scott recently signed the FY23 budget, H.740, committing to unprecedented investments in climate action and resilience and setting the stage to help Vermonters reduce their energy costs, their reliance on expensive and polluting fossil fuels, …
The Legislature crafted and yesterday Governor Phil Scott signed H.518, the Municipal Energy Resilience Initiatives Bill into law, setting the stage for $45 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds to support municipalities with technical assistance, energy assessments and municipal weatherization, fuel switching and other potential cost- and carbon-cutting …
New Program Creates Cost- and Carbon-Cutting Opportunities for Vermont Municipalities Read More »
Will address environmental harms disproportionately affecting many communities A diverse coalition of environmental justice leaders celebrated the enactment of the state’s first-ever environmental justice law, which earned Vermont Governor Phil Scott’s signature on Tuesday. The bill, S.148, passed with strong tri-partisan supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature before arriving at his desk. This law …
Community Leaders Hail Enactment of VT’s First Environmental Justice Law Read More »
The Vermont state Senate gave its final approval today to legislation that would update and substantially expand the scope of the state’s beverage redemption program, commonly known as the Bottle Bill. The vote in favor of H.175 was 17-13 and the bill now must return to the House for possible concurrence before it can go …
Senate Backs Legislation to Modernize Bottle Bill Read More »
A Win For Big Oil And Keeping Vermonters Tethered To Polluting & Costly Heating Systems After the Vermont House narrowly failed to override the Governor’s veto of the Clean Heat Standard (H.715) on a 99-51 vote, Vermont has once again delayed essential climate progress. The Clean Heat Standard – a performance-based approach that would require …
Governor Scott And A Minority Of Lawmakers Stymie Climate Progress Read More »
Governor Scott’s veto of the Clean Heat Standard (H.715) disregards years of hard work to design an approach to strategically and equitably transform the fossil fuel heating sector.
Today, the Vermont Senate followed in the footsteps of the House of Representatives in adopting legislation to ban sales of 4-foot linear fluorescent light bulbs starting January 1, 2024.
Today, community leaders and legislators gathered in Montpelier to call for passage of the state’s first comprehensive Environmental Justice bill, S.148. Leaders discussed environmental justice issues in Vermont, and the actions being taken to remedy known inequities among impacted populations. Vermont is one of only a handful of states that lacks an environmental justice policy, …
Community Leaders & Lawmakers Call for Passage of Environmental Justice Bill Read More »
Today, the Vermont House of Representatives gave final passage to legislation to ban sales of 4-foot linear fluorescent tubes starting January 1, 2024, a move that would cover about 90 percent of fluorescent tube installations. The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration there. Read the full release below:
Compared to America as a whole, Vermonters are substantially more concerned about climate change, yet only a small percentage are currently taking political action to address the issue. Those are the findings of a new poll conducted by the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) and FM3 Research, and the basis of a new climate …
