Vermont has a statutory fee on its electric rates that funnels money into something called Efficiency Vermont. It takes tens of millions of dollars out of the economy every year with the goal of using it on things that will ultimately reduce consumption and save more than that cost.
- Government instead of people
- Biomass and California emissions standards
- Consumption and cost
- RGGI and other interventions
- The actual goal- get used to using less
- Change and conclusion
The government decided that Vermonters were too lazy or disinterested to do this on their own. The government also saddled them with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. This carbon tax adds 8-12$ per megawatt-hour to the cost of electricity. Its premise is to make electricity more expensive so you’ll use less, which will lower emissions. The money extracted is supposed to be used for the same sorts of things as Efficiency Vermont’s statutory line item.
Vermont also uses Biomass to produce electricity, with at least two plants, one of which is the state’s largest power producer and emitter. Both get to operate free of state mandates that other generators must comply with (including mandates that increase electricity costs). Biomass is also dirtier but exempted. Its significant (remarkably less efficient) emissions are not included in the state’s inventory. To “lower” emissions, they ignore the biggest emitter because they fancy the idea that those emissions shouldn’t be counted. [Related: MACDONALD: The Left’s War On Coal Made Electricity Unaffordable]
“Green” Papal Dispensations.
Vermont adopted the California emissions mandates. Emulating policies meant to make electricity cost more. Everyone is supposed to get out of their combustion-powered vehicles and into electric ones [by some moving target date]. One estimate suggested the state would see a 30% increase in electricity demand with EVs, especially during peak charging times.
Efficiency Vermont has had 25 1/2 years to do its magic, but Vermont’s total consumption hasn’t changed much, and you can argue that much of that decline comes from industry abandoning its high tax and regulatory re-incentivization.
And how much have ratepayers spent over twenty-five years on Efficiency Vermont to reduce consumption and save on electricity? It’s a lot. 800 million to one billion (ish). Sources are speculative. I’m open to more accurate numbers; I had trouble coming up with those guesstimates.
I couldn’t get exact figures on staffing and payroll. How much does it cost Vermonters to pay them (salary and benefits) to do whatever it is they do to claim they’ve saved you money? Non-productive overhead.
Was it the best use of that money? I don’t think it was.
During the same 25-year period, the cost of electricity has almost doubled from 12.3 cents to 23.7 cents. That increases the cost of living not just at home but also in goods and services, and in the cost of government (which has a growing carbon footprint in Vermont). None of that is likely calculated in any of their savings estimates. And it adds up, but the people making bank at Efficiency Vermont and their water carriers in and out of government argue that Vermont would have spent 3 to 4 billion more on electricity without them.
How many billions more do you cost them annually if we include everything affected by the nearly doubled price of electricity?
What I can say is that Vermonters could save a lot of money, and not just on electricity, if it got rid of RGGI, Efficiency Vermont, and any other funded agencies or organizations that only exist to profit on the tax and rate costs made available by environmental fearmongering – who then reward Democrats in elected office to keep the scam growing.
You could have more cheap clean coal (up to 150% cleaner per unit of energy than biomass, by the way), natural gas, and be on the fast track to small-scale nuclear instead of view-wrecking, bird-killing, land-sucking, not even all that green wind and solar. Take out the carbon taxes, all-electric initiatives, poor grid and infrastructure decisions, and incentivize individuals with rate and rebate incentives instead of charging them to finance an “efficiency” cartel, and you’d likely save even more.
And then there’s this cold, hard truth. If you wanted to use less electricity to save money, you would. If you need it for something, you want it then, and you’ll pay for it. But they don’t want you to have it. They need you to use less, and policy drives up costs to that end and no other.
If electricity is cheap, you’ll use more on what matters to you, and for some reason they can’t stand that. It is what prompted the whole warming emissions narrative in the first place. How do we get them to let us control the economy and, by extension, their lifestyles?
Fear. Climate fear.
The agenda is to systematize scarcity. To get you used to rationing, to having less, because that is where their policy decisions lead. Not growth but decline, while second- and third-world countries spew more emissions in a heartbeat than you could save in a lifetime. But they don’t go there to badger, tax, and charge them; they do that to you.
And if you’ve looked around Vermont lately, their plan is working. Vermont is in all kinds of decline.
It doesn’t have to, but you have to show up and vote for something else.
If you’d like some Efficiency Vermont analysis without my hyperbolic bomb throwing, this is a great piece.
