“Can we talk about aha?”

2023-02-20

Dear friend,

I started the morning by texting a legislative colleague, "can we talk about aha?"

I thought for a moment about capitalizing the beginning of the sentence properly, as well as AHA, which stands for the Affordable Heat Act.

But I'm a slow phone typist and sometimes I don't feel like pressing the "shift" key an extra four times just to ask a friend for a chat in proper syntax. As we would say in the 1990s, "So sue me!"

Come to think of it, Vermont could be sued if we don't pass some version of the Affordable Heat Act (AHA).

Vermont's Legislature passed the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2020. That law obligates the State to take various actions to meet benchmarks reducing carbon emissions. A piece of that was addressed by a similar bill that fell just short of becoming law last year.

AHA was introduced both in the House and the Senate earlier in the new biennium. The Senate bill, S.5, has been making news for the last few weeks as the committee of jurisdiction, Natural Resources and Energy, heard testimony on it. And they have now voted it out favorably by 5-0-0 vote. That's five in favor, zero against, zero absent. All five are Democrats.

AHA proposes to "establish the Clean Heat Standard to reduce Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions from the thermal sector." The Clean Heat Standard would be administered by a the Vermont's Public Utility Commission with assistance from the Clean Heat Standard Technical Advisory Group and the Equity Advisory Group.

For a detailed breakdown of the AHA, please read the bill's 33 pages, or search the news coverage. Key phrases include:

• “the Commission shall establish or adopt a system of tradeable clean heat credits earned from the delivery of clean heat measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

• "obligated parties shall reduce greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the Vermont thermal sector by retiring required amounts of clean heat credits to meet the thermal sector portion of the greenhouse gas emission reduction obligations of the Global Warming Solutions Act."

• "At least one-half of these credits shall be from installed clean heat measures that require capital investments in homes, have measure lives of 10 years or more, and are estimated by the Technical Advisory Group to lower annual energy bills. Examples shall include weatherization improvements and installation of heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, and advanced wood heating systems."

As early as before Town Meeting break, the House committees could take up the AHA, under leading sponsorship of Rep. Gabrielle Stebbins (Burlington) and Rep. Laura Sibilia (Dover). The bill has 66 total sponsors in the House.

I've been getting more and more email from constituents on AHA, with opinions running high on both sides.

I'll report on what I'm hearing from supporters and detractors of AHA, and my own thoughts, another day.

In the meantime don't hesitate to reach out on this, or anything else.