Vermont faces lawsuit over climate change law

(The Center Square) — A regional environmental group plans to sue Vermont over a climate change law, alleging that the state isn't complying with mandates to reduce its carbon footprint.

The Conservation Law Foundation said it had sent a notice of alleged violation to Vermont’s secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources for "failing to meet the legal responsibilities" set by the Global Warming Solutions Act to reduce "climate-damaging" emissions. The legal challenge specifically names the secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, Julie Moore.

The group alleges that the agency has used faulty modeling to claim that the state is on track to meet the law’s benchmarks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. CLF said its analysis concludes that the state will not likely meet the first deadline in January 2025.

Elena Mihaly, vice president of CLF's Vermont chapter, said there is an urgent need for the state to act on climate policies, citing the impact of several years of "damaging rainstorm and flooding" as "a painful reminder of how the dangerous impacts of our overheating planet continue to harm our neighbors and our communities."

"The climate crisis is crushing Vermont, and the Agency of Natural Resources is not doing its job in the face of that crisis," Mihaly said in a statement. "Vermont must cut climate pollution to protect our future, our way of life, and our health.”

In 2020, Vermont approved the Global Warming Solutions Act, legally requiring the state to implement programs aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80% over 1990 levels by 2050.

The law allows organizations or individuals to sue the state to force compliance with the requirements of the act if the state is not on track to meet the emissions reduction benchmarks.

To be sure, Vermont has adopted some of the most aggressive environmental policies in the country and, last month, became the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by climate change.

Republican Gov. Phil Scott allowed the bill to become law without his signature, citing concerns about the costs and impact of taking on the fossil fuel industry with limited state resources allocated.

"With just $600,000 appropriated by the Legislature to complete an analysis that will need to withstand intense legal scrutiny from a well-funded defense, we are not positioning ourselves for success," Scott wrote to lawmakers. "I'm deeply concerned about both short- and long-term costs and outcomes."

The American Petroleum Institute, a trade group, blasted the new law as "bad public policy," saying it "retroactively imposes costs and liability on prior activities that were legal, violates equal protection and due process rights by holding companies responsible for the actions of society at large; and is preempted by federal law."

“This punitive new fee represents yet another step in a coordinated campaign to undermine America’s energy advantage and the economic and national security benefits it provides,” the group wrote. “Rather than work collaboratively with the industry to further our shared goal for a lower carbon future, state lawmakers opted to pass a bill designed by activists to further their own interests.”