By: ANR Secretary Julie Moore and PSD Commissioner Kerrick Johnson
Vermont's Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) and Climate Superfund Act (Act 122) have created legal mandates, but – so far – the legislature has not provided the necessary funding for this work. Without action from the legislature in the near term, it is not clear how these laws can be implemented effectively, with potentially costly consequences. It is simply unwise to take a wait-and-see approach, as has been suggested by several legislators, knowing full well that more resources are needed to successfully execute the ambitious vision of these Acts.
In 2020, the Vermont legislature passed the Global Warming Solutions Act over Governor Scott's veto. This significant legislation created legal mandates to reduce climate pollution and established a "right of action" allowing special interests to sue state government if Vermont fails to meet these self-imposed obligations.
Over the last two years, the legislature identified two different policy approaches to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to meet the mandates of the GWSA and directed the evaluation of both: a Clean Heat Standard and a Cap and Invest framework. Unfortunately, independent, nonpartisan analyses found both schemes to be administratively complex, ill-timed, and expensive.
Given these concerns, legislative leaders have understandably been reluctant to move forward with implementing either policy. However, legislators have also not advanced – or even discussed – other approaches to supporting the work needed meet the GWSA’s mandates. A bill, H.289, would have helped with these challenges, but has not been meaningfully addressed by the legislature. In other words, the legislature is maintaining its self-imposed climate obligations while simultaneously acknowledging that their proposed solutions are both impractical and too expensive.
A similar pattern is evident with the Climate Superfund Act passed in 2024. This legislation was designed to allow Vermont to recover certain climate-related costs from oil companies. As required by the Act, the Agency of Natural Resources and State Treasurer delivered a report in January detailing the resources needed to advance this complex work: $1.2 million in contracted support and two additional staff positions dedicated to the work and anticipated legal challenges.
Governor Scott allowed Act 122 to become law without his signature and specifically acknowledged the report-back and the ability to reassess based on the feedback provided by ANR and the Treasurer’s Office. Despite receiving this report and supporting testimony, the House-backed budget did not include critical funding for this work.
It is imperative that the Legislature either prioritize the full funding to complete necessary technical studies or repeal the mandates in Act 122. To date they have done neither, perhaps believing that funding this work is somehow optional. It is not.
Failing to fund the work required by the GWSA and the Climate Superfund Act makes it more difficult to achieve the goals of the legislation. It also undermines confidence in public policy, increases climate anxiety, can lead to burnout, and diverts scarce resources from reducing climate pollution and improving resiliency to extreme weather to responding to litigation – litigation that has already begun.
We are sympathetic to the position lawmakers are in – this was a bold approach and it’s hard to acknowledge that plans pushed through over a gubernatorial veto were too ambitious in schedule and unaffordable to implement.
The principles that underpin GWSA and the Climate Superfund Act are important, and it is in the best interest of Vermonters to ensure that this work is successful. Realizing these outcomes, however, requires more than simply enacting idealistic laws – it requires working together to design achievable, properly funded initiatives rather than marching toward impractical requirements. Importantly, there are many concrete actions – including maintaining current, unprecedented levels of investments in things like weatherization and electric vehicle charging infrastructure – that can and should be undertaken this session. Action on these measures keeps Vermont at the forefront of climate action while avoiding the pitfalls of unfunded mandates, including those that leave space for unnecessary and counter-productive legal challenges.