Public Policy Detail
For the past 17 years Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR) has sought to foster a socially responsible business ethic to encourage positive change, to protect the natural and human environments, and to resist the exploitation of our people, our state and our planet. VBSR recognizes Vermont's critical need to keep total expenditures on energy and transportation at a level that does not jeopardize the cost of doing business or the cost of living. We believe that Vermont's driving force in evaluating transportation and energy policy should be to lower the total energy and transportation costs over the long term, thereby achieving global competitive advantage for the Vermont economy. This approach requires an assertive effort to promote the most cost-effective uses of all forms of energy. Energy and transportation policy can be successful only if total cost is considered, including the long-term impacts of any decision on the health and welfare of our society and our environment. Ultimate success, for our economy and the environment, requires that we move away from a carbon-fueled energy and transportation economy and toward renewable and local sources of energy.
Conservation and Efficiency
Efficiency as well as other demand side management programs should be the cornerstone for the construction of Vermont's energy and transportation policy. Whether we consider heat and light for businesses and residences, energy needed for production processes, or energy needed for transportation, we support vigorous pursuit of strategies that enable us to accomplish more, or at least the same, with proportionately less consumption. The environmental impacts of efficiency and conservation are positive in nature. Greenhouse gases associated with other forms of energy are reduced and the planet's limited resources of water, oil, natural gas and propane are conserved by efficiency. Accordingly, VBSR strongly supports the work of Efficiency Vermont, which has been highly cost effective and of benefit to all Vermonters. Most of the money spent on these efficiency programs stays in Vermont and creates jobs for Vermonters. VBSR also supports increased funding for other energy efficiency programs, including, but not limited to, subsidization of low-income weatherization and other home heating efficiency programs, and residential and small business efficiency advisory services. Other necessary changes include development of efficiency standards for appliances, building design and operations, and automotive fuel, and the implementation of efficiency measures by public sector institutions.
Like any other power resource, efficiency and conservation require "up front" investment. History has repeatedly demonstrated the value of that investment. VBSR believes that investments in energy conservation and efficiency make sound business sense.
Transportation Planning and Efficiency
VBSR also believes that a closer look at energy consumed in transportation, and efforts to promote more efficient transportation options, constitute an opportunity for energy cost reduction that also has significant environmental benefits and promotes independence and self-sufficiency. VBSR supports the development in Vermont of an innovative transportation policy with reasonable alternatives to more highway construction. Following from the work of the Centre for Sustainable Transportation, we support a sustainable transportation system that allows the basic access needs of individuals and societies to be met safely and in a manner that limits emissions and waste while minimizing the use of land.
As the Centre for Sustainable Transportation states:
"Transportation is linked to all aspects of [our] lives. Our natural environment, economic prosperity, and social well being all depend on transportation systems that are clean, efficient, and equitable. Current transportation trends are considered unsustainable. They are threatening our environmental, economic, and social future. Altering these trends is not an easy task and requires the cooperation of all stakeholders."
VBSR recognizes that a high quality of life in Vermont does not include acres of parking lots and miles of congested roads. VBSR also believes that the development of new roads helps to encourage sprawl. The reduction in the use of the automobile as the primary mode of transit offers enormous benefits including the protection of our air quality, and reduction in the production of greenhouse gases in Vermont. We believe in the benefits of development built on a human scale and oriented towards alternative forms of transportation. VBSR supports the promotion of alternative, less auto-dependent modes of transit.
VBSR encourages the development of a state-wide transit policy, coordinated with state-wide environmental and energy policy, that outlines alternative transportation modes to improve our air quality, support our workforce, save tax dollars in road repairs, decrease auto-related run-off, promote citizen safety, reduce auto emissions that affect global warming, reduce the cost for our workers to commute to their jobs, protect Vermont's open spaces, encourage Growth Centers connected by public transit modes, and encourage healthier lifestyles for people walking and biking to work. The actions to be taken should include expansion of bus and rail transit options and park and ride facilities, development of more ride sharing programs, creation of pedestrian friendly environments, expansion of bike and pedestrian paths, provision of incentives and mandates to ensure fuel-efficient vehicles, and development of more energy efficient freight infrastructure and strict emission controls. By encouraging innovative transit modes, Vermont will see a drastic reduction in vehicle miles traveled, number of vehicle trips, and vehicle hours.
Renewable Energy
VBSR supports the rapid development of renewable energy resources both within and outside the State of Vermont. Vermont's own renewable energy resources must be systematically identified and developed for the benefit of all Vermonters. The development of such resources to date has been haphazard and without meaningful guidance by the State. We believe Vermont should embrace a goal of moving away from nuclear and coal energy generation towards cleaner and safer technology such as wind, solar, biomass, and small-scale hydro. Accordingly, VBSR supports the development of a statewide renewable energy implementation plan identifying all potential renewable resources available to Vermont together with a detailed analysis of the locations and potential of all such resources - including the retrofitting of existing facilities - that are located within Vermont. This effort would include estimates of the potential energy contribution of wind, solar, biomass, small-scale hydro, methane from biomass, composting and landfills, and the potential for production of biodiesel. VBSR also supports the establishment of realistic but aggressive near-term, midterm and long-term goals for the percentage of Vermont's power needs to be supplied from renewable resources. This will require the systematic development and ownership of in-state renewable resources and the implementation of policies to remove existing barriers to more rapid adoption of renewable-based energy production, especially in the case of wind. We believe the Governor and the legislature must make a commitment and take definitive action to ensure the implementation of increasing electrical generation from wind energy in Vermont.
It is also important that the purchase of renewable resources from outside of Vermont and the distribution of renewable power to the citizens of Vermont be facilitated and that barriers to local net-metering be eliminated. Finally, federal funding sources must be identified to support development of these alternatives.
VBSR realizes that proceedings before the Vermont Public Service Board are crucial to the realization of the goals set forth in this policy statement. Accordingly, VBSR proposes legislation to authorize Vermont's Attorney General to intervene in such proceedings before the Public Service Board that the Attorney General may determine to have significance for the State of Vermont as a whole.
Finally, Vermont needs to take aggressive action regarding climate change and should commit to being the first climate-neutral state in the country. This will involve efficiency, renewable resources and carbon offsets in sustainable forestry and local organic farming—two key carbon sequestration areas where Vermont already has competitive advantage and where we want our economy to excel.
