Legislative leaders to address energy issue again
SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. --After their efforts to adopt energy-efficiency legislation went down in a political defeat last session, legislative leaders are preparing to revisit the issue next year.
They plan to hire energy consultants to come up with a way to help Vermonters reduce their energy bills and how to pay for it.
Regulatory Assistance Project, which has an office in Montpelier, is expected to report back to the Legislature by January.
The move comes after the Legislature passed a bill last session that would have expanded Efficiency Vermont to include all types of fuels, not just electricity. The governor vetoed the bill, saying the expansion would lead to an unnecessary bureaucracy and should not be paid for with an increased tax on the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon.
Virginia Lyons, D-Chittenden, the chairwoman of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee chairwoman, said she wants the Legislature to pass another version of the bill early in the session.
House Speaker Gaye Symington, D-Jericho, said she hopes the consultants will recommend ways for Vermonters to reduce their energy use and costs and how to pay for the program. An increased tax on Vermont Yankee is not an option, she said.
Symington said she hopes the consultants, who will be paid up to $27,000, will provide information about the number and type of jobs that could be created by the energy efficiency work.
Rich Cowart, a Regulatory Assistance Project principal and former Vermont Public Service Board chairman, said consultants will consider more than expanding Efficiency Vermont.
"We will be looking at a variety of options that include those discussions that took place in the Legislature and quite a number of options that were probably not included," Cowart said. "We're not focused on one structure, one funding source."
The governor said he will work with the consultants, who plan to meet with him, although he thinks they are unnecessary, spokesman Jason Gibbs said.
