The Clean Heat Standard

Friends -
Last week the Vermont House advanced the Clean Heat Standard (H.715) to regulate Vermont’s thermal sector, which accounts for 30% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, and to support us in moving us away from fossil fuels and toward renewable sources of energy.

The Clean Heat Standard was a major recommendation of the Climate Action Plan put into place by the Global Warming Solutions Act. Without it, Vermont will not have a path forward to meet its emissions reduction targets. House Progressives supported this legislation, which has the potential to transform Vermont’s heating sector and its reliance on fossil fuels, while providing important benefits to low and moderate income Vermonters. 

That said, we want to see the legislation improve as it makes its way through the Senate and ultimately through the Public Utilities Commission, where the standard will be finalized. While the bill does provide specific targets for supporting low and moderate income Vermonters to reduce fossil fuel use and increase efficiency in how they heat their homes, we want to make sure that equity is centered and strengthened in the bill as it moves to the Senate, and then onto the Public Utility Commission for implementation.

“The new clean heat standard has the potential to help Vermonters heat their homes in ways that are both more sustainable and more affordable. While the bill improved significantly in the House, we want to see a stronger definition of sustainability in the standard. The bill now includes significant equity provisions—we will continue to ensure that this is not a regressive policy for those who have been most impacted by the climate crisis and can least afford to subsidize Vermont’s transition.”

-Rep. Selene Colburn (Chittenden 6-4)

We also want to make sure that biofuels are not replacing fossil fuels in a way that would trade one unsustainable fuel source for another. Biofuels can create more emissions than fossil fuels, and take precious agricultural soil out of use for food production. 

“A robust clean heat standard must be just one part of a host of transformative policies that move us away from an extractive economy to a regenerative one. To me, that means ensuring that we are not supporting a system of monocropped agriculture, in the name of “cleaner energy.” Biofuels should play a minimal role, and instead, the focus should be on large-scale weatherization efforts that benefit those most in need, a revision of the state’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES), investments in sustainable agriculture, and vehicle electrification alongside walk, bike, and public transit infrastructure. In all this work, we must commit seriously to a just transition, using the guiding principles developed by the state’s climate council.”

-Rep Heather Surprenant (Windsor 4-1)

While policies like the Clean Heat Standard can make a real and significant difference in reducing Vermont’s emissions and reliance on fossil fuels, there is still so much work to be done to bring about the kind of bold and transformational change that is needed - across all sectors of society and levels of government - to address, reverse, and mitigate climate change, and to bring about a just transition off of fossil fuels.

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