I wonder how the state will operate when the fossil fuels companies simply stop operating in the state? What happens with all the boats, planes, cars, trucks, tractors, and natural gas for heating? Or, that they simply pass the costs on to consumers and fuels costs start to look like California?
Vermont advances bill requiring fossil fuel companies pay for damage caused by climate change
The Vermont Legislature is advancing legislation requiring big fossil fuel companies pay a share of the damage caused by climate change after the state suffered catastrophic summer flooding and damage from other extreme weather.
The state Senate is expected to give final approval this week to the proposal, which would create a program that fossil fuel companies would pay into for climate change adaption projects in Vermont. It will then be considered in the House.
“In order to remedy the problems created by washed out roads, downed electrical wires, damaged crops and repeated flooding, the largest fossil fuel entities that have contributed to climate change should also contribute to fixing the problem that they caused,” Sen. Nader Hashim, a Democrat from Windham County, said to Senate colleagues on Friday.
Maryland, Massachusetts and New York are considering similar measures, but Vermont’s bill is moving quicker through the Legislature.
Critics, including Republican Gov. Phil Scott, who is up against a veto-proof Democratic majority, warn that it could be a costly legal battle for the small state to go first.
Well, yes, it would be a major legal fight, and the lawyers for the companies are surely better than those of the state. Oh, and then there’s that thing called ex post facto. And might the lawyers for the fossil fuels companies argue that the state uses a ton of fossil fuels themselves, making them liable? How else does the government in Vermont clear the roads when it snows?
It’s a polluter-pays model affecting companies engaged in the trade or business of extracting fossil fuel or refining crude oil attributable to more than 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions during the time period. The funds could be used by the state for such things as upgrading stormwater drainage systems; upgrading roads, bridges and railroads; relocating, elevating or retrofitting sewage treatment plants and making energy efficient weatherization upgrades to public and private buildings.
Yeah, well, good luck. You might not like the outcome.
Why do bank robbers rob banks? It’s where the money is. It’s about the money. It’s always about the money. Energy companies are profitable and communists always want stuff that belongs to other people.
If the State of Vermont has a few years of good weather, will they reward the energy companies for not causing the harm that was predicted? In classic tort cases, the plaintiff must show actual harm, not hypothetical harm, and base the fines on the value of that harm. So, Vermont, should be keeping records of all the repairs they currently make to infrastructure based on weather events, adjusted for inflation and not counting normal replacement and maintenance from wear, tear, corrosion and age, and only charge energy companies for the delta in new costs. Even that, needs to be audited to ensure energy companies are only paying the harm attributable to energy company carbon, and not agricultural carbon, the growth in population, and the growth of populations in Vermont from the third world (notoriously filthy polluters).
For over a decade people in eastern Vermont have been driving into New Hampshire to buy gas, heating oil and Diesel fuel. This saves them money, but severely impacts the small business fuel dealers in the area. The unelected commissars that dictate Vermont’s energy policy have been driving up prices and adding more fees to all forms of hydrocarbon-based fuels. Vermont’s “Carbon footprint”(a ludicrous concept)is non-existent, and the impact of these regulations will only serve to make the cost of living skyrocket, making the state even more unaffordable and driving more of the tax base out of the state. I left for South Carolina in 2014, and reduced my cost of living by over $1000/month.
I also escaped the People’s Republik of Vermont after putting up with the legislature (with an ever-increasing percentage of wealthy flatlanders) finding nothing but new ways to waste my money for 30 years. But I was camping at Gifford Woods from July 6th – 14th last summer. There was a normal summer afternoon heavy rain on Friday the 7th then a completely routine couple of wet days Sunday and Monday.
Waterbury, Montpelier and Barre have been spending money on everything except the well-known, long standing sanitary and stormwater control issues for as long as I can remember. Unless climate change can somehow contribute to repeated, idiotic, irresponsible municipal public utility decisions, that wasn’t the problem. Also, Route 107 between 100 and Bethel was a ticking time bomb after the shoddy rebuild job in 2012, global warming didn’t cause that wash-out either. It was a VTRANS administration that decided that having engineers run the agency was somehow a bad idea.
For a state that decided years ago that every drop of surface water and groundwater was a public resource, they don’t seem to have much interest in managing it.
Vermont State Energy Profile:
Vermont’s actual energy production is almost all ‘renewables,’ but the state consumes 3.4 times more energy than it produces.
I recommend the you tube movie Climate, the movie. Great summation of the hoax. I do hope that the oil companies pull out of the states that are suing.
So if the climate catastrophe turns out to be just nonsense (which I’m confident is the case), will the State of Vermont have to refund the money they scammed from the fossil fuel producers? There should be a clawback provision when the basis for the extortion turns out to be BS.
The State should be forced to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the bad weather they have experienced is not just within the statistical bounds of normal variability, over an extended period of time (like a couple of centuries).
If they win the lawsuit against fossil fuels then fossil fuel should be declared illegal. That means just like drugs there should be laws against the production transportation and sale of any fossil fuels or anything containing fossil fuels and those people should be arrested. Either stand by your rulings or get the hell out.