Conservation Law Foundation plans to sue state over alleged failure to comply with climate law

The Conservation Law Foundation announced plans Tuesday morning to sue the state of Vermont, alleging that the Agency of Natural Resources has failed to comply with a law that requires Vermont to reduce climate emissions.

In 2020, Vermont enacted the Global Warming Solutions Act, which legally requires the state to implement programs that cut greenhouse gas emissions in specific amounts by 2025, 2030 and 2050. The bill became law after the Legislature overrode Gov. Phil Scott’s veto .

The Conservation Law Foundation is planning to use a pathway included in the law allowing organizations or individuals to sue the secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, Julie Moore, to force compliance if evidence shows the state is not on track to meet those benchmarks.

Under the law, the entity suing the state must give the agency 60 days’ notice before filing a lawsuit. The Conservation Law Foundation provided that warning on Tuesday, sending Moore a notice of alleged violation “for failing to meet her legal responsibilities set by the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA), ensuring the State is on track to reduce climate-damaging emissions.”

Specifically, the organization alleges that the agency has used faulty modeling to assert that the state is on track to meet the law’s first deadline, on Jan. 1, 2025.  The Conservation Law Foundation conducted its own analysis, according to Elena Mihaly, vice president and director of Conservation Law Foundation Vermont, and said that analysis shows the state is not likely to meet the deadline.

“A sufficient review, based on a proper model, fairly interpreted, could only conclude that the State was not on track to achieve the 2025 Reduction Requirement, which, pursuant to statute, should prompt the swift adoption of one or more new rules and/or amendment of one or more existing rules,” the organization’s lawyers wrote in the notice.

It’s not the first time the criticism has surfaced: Last January, Jared Duval, executive director of the Energy Action Network, raised concerns about the same data after the agency presented it to state lawmakers in the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee.

The data in question comes from work completed by the Energy Futures Group, a consulting firm based in Hinesburg that the state hired to determine whether various policies and rules would effectively help Vermont meet the Global Warming Solutions Act’s requirements.

That model wasn’t created to assess whether Vermont is on track to meet the law’s deadlines and shouldn’t be used that way, according to the Conservation Law Foundation. Instead, the group argued, the state should rely on methods it uses to calculate emissions for Vermont’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory and Forecast, which uses recent information from state agencies to calculate actual emissions.

In an interview Tuesday, Moore said the agency followed up with the Energy Futures Group after Duval expressed his concerns in January. The agency “fully investigated those concerns and remained confident with the analysis that had been conducted,” she said.

The agency chose to use the data, in part, because it’s the same data used by the state’s Public Service Department in its Comprehensive Energy Plan, which guides energy policy in Vermont, according to Moore.

“It allows the state to have a consistent approach in both of those spaces,” Moore said.

The state used the data both in January during its report to lawmakers and more recently, on July 1, when the agency was required to deliver a report to the Vermont Climate Council about the status of Vermont’s emission reduction work, according to the Conservation Law Foundation.

Mihaly said it’s important that the “state is using honest math and accounting in these reviews” so that lawmakers and state officials know “whether we’ve done enough or if we have to do more.”

Though the agency is planning to review the Conservation Law Foundation’s notice in detail and “consider the arguments they’re advancing,” Moore said, “I think many of the issues they’re raising, frankly, I feel have been asked and answered.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Conservation Law Foundation plans to sue state over alleged failure to comply with climate law .