Compromising positions: Session’s tumultuous end brings out the good, the bad, and the ugly

Energy
 
Observers say Vermont lawmakers made no major strides toward meaningful energy policy this session, but a key Senate leader said they did take a leap forward in terms of public participation in the process.
 
Lawmakers this year failed to lift restrictions on net metering, the power an individual with an independent generator like solar panels or a wind turbine can feed back into the grid; they backed away from fuel efficiency incentives for automobiles; and they did nothing to promote biodiesel production or use.
 
Although the centerpiece of the sessions’ energy package, the ambitiously titled Energy Security and Reliability Act, is “a good bill,” said James Moore, clean energy advocate with the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG), “it’s very modest. It takes small steps towards creating a cleaner energy future here in Vermont. But considering the fact that two-thirds of our power contracts in the state are going to expire within the next decade, this bill did not go anywhere near far enough. It’s really moving forward at an inadequate pace to meet our pressing needs.”
 
But Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden, chairwoman of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said the measure will get Vermont towns and regional planners “thinking about what role they can play in preparing for our energy future.”
 
The legislation directs the Department of Public Service (DPS) to work with communities to identify energy needs and problems “and to help those communities understand the energy crisis that we’re facing in 2012 with the loss of Vermont Yankee and Hydro Quebec” contracts that supply about two-thirds of the state’s electricity, Lyons said.
 
As the session waned, lawmakers were still putting the final touches on the measure, but Lyons predicted no stumbling blocks, since it was crafted with the cooperation of the Douglas administration.
 
The bill authorizes, but does not require, the state’s 12 regional planning commissions to begin working with Vermont’s 250 towns on energy generation. Lyons said she envisions “an educational process that helps local citizens and towns understand what the energy issues are facing them … and then to have a dialogue” with DPS.
 
The process could help communities divided over wind farms, for example, to find a way to resolve their differences, Lyons anticipates.
 
“It’s always positive to have Vermonters more involved in the decision-making process,” agreed Moore. He predicts the priorities that emerge will be renewable energy and conservation.
 
“Vermonters have overwhelmingly said they want safe, clean, affordable energy and we should be aggressively moving toward that … we just haven’t had the leadership to aggressively move in that direction,” he said.
 
DPS came under sharp criticism two years ago for drafting a 10-year electricity plan without first holding public hearings. The department subsequently did public outreach, but the criticism stuck after the final report focused largely on conventional energy supplies.
 
Andrew Perchlik, director of Renewable Energy Vermont, said he, too, was disappointed that some of the bill’s more aggressive points were removed, such as lifting net metering restrictions.
 
“It’s a step in the right direction — a baby step,” Perchlik said of the bill. Locally generated power is key to the state’s future because it will enable Vermonters to experience the direct benefits of renewable energy — low or no power consumption from the regional grid — instead of seeing only the detractors of a something like a wind farm or biomass plant, he said.
 
“We’d like to see somebody that has a good hydro or wind site saying let’s put up a bigger generator and get 20 neighbors together,” he said.
 
That said, Perchlik added that energy issues are finally taking a higher priority in the Legislature. “I’ve been doing this the last five years. We’ve made great strides from the legislative session four years ago where energy things never got anywhere.”
 
The omnibus energy bill does allow farmers to negotiate with utilities to raise the cap on net metering, and it establishes commercial building energy standards for new construction.