H.520 Stopped, for Now Anyway… 
By Mark Shepard 

Never satisfying their hunger for more government, this last session the legislative majority passed H.520, which had it not been vetoed by the governor, would have created a new government program funded by a new tax. In the process they disregarded what the data clearly shows and just peddled the global warming alarmists' mantra. Not long ago these alarmist types were making similar dire predictions about global cooling.

In fabricating the "bad guy" behind global warming, the Vermont legislative leadership, Al Gore and other politicians desiring to expand government completely invert the relationship between carbon levels and global temperature. Ice core data show that carbon levels change in response to, not in advance of, global temperature change and thus cannot be the cause of global warming. (See reference 1 below.) That is precisely why objective science is shifting its focus away from carbon and toward solar activity, which does in fact precede global temperature changes, as the primary contributing factor. (See reference 2 below.)

But this is not news to these folks. Clearly if they really thought carbon emissions were the source of global warming, they would not enact a new tax on energy that emits no carbon.

Levying more taxes, creating more government, increasing the cost of energy generation from Vermont's most stable source of carbon-free energy, and undermining the business environment by reneging on previous agreements continues the trend toward making Vermont too expensive for working people to live. Here was H.520 in a nutshell: Vermonters give up more earnings to taxes and energy, while our better paying jobs go elsewhere, forcing people to work multiple jobs.

Having served four years on the Senate Finance Committee, I have no illusions that the goal of this bill was ever about improving our environment or even about combating global warming. The bill's singular objective was to provide a crisis-driven vehicle for raising taxes on Vermonters and growing government. It is important to understand the mindset of the bill's sponsors and supporters, and my four years in the Senate taught me that well. They consider more government "the Ultimate Good." All resources, including money you earn, really should be controlled and distributed by the government.

In their zeal to "protect us from ourselves," H.520 proponents disregard the disasters that have resulted throughout human history whenever power is concentrated in government bureaucracies. Concentrated power is very dangerous, far more dangerous than global warming, to humanity and to our environment. Just study history.

Thanks to the governor's veto and a minority of representatives (all 49 Republicans, 11 Democrats and an independent) H.520 was stopped, at least for this year. These legislators all deserve our thanks!

If recent history teaches us anything, this is merely a delay in such policy becoming law in Vermont. Those who embrace big government are very persistent and, if re-elected to a majority again, they will pass another bill that like H.520 will raise taxes on Vermonters and grow government. Like H.520 it will be based on the false premise that human-produced carbon is a major cause of global warming and human-produced carbon must be stopped at any cost.

Moreover with the governor agreeing with the basis of H.520, that carbon, and specifically human-produced carbon is a major contributor to global warming and that government must enact policies to limit human-produced carbon, he has as much as invited the majority to hand him another very similar bill. His stated problems with H.520 are merely the particular tax and the structure of the new government program. By agreeing with H.520's politically popular, yet fraudulent theory on global warming, the governor cannot continually reject the "solutions" sent to his desk.

A look at the governor's past actions in similar situations demonstrates the problems with not challenging the basis of a bill when that basis is flawed. Two such examples are health care reform and gender identification legislation, where he vetoed bills one term and signed very similar bills into law the next term. Just as with H.520, in those cases the governor did not disagree with the basis of the bills he vetoed, but merely certain aspects of the bill.

Clearly to keep costly legislation at bay, we need a change in the make up of the legislature so bills like H.520 never even make it to the governor's desk. The Vermont legislature needs people who believe in empowering people, not government bureaucracies.

A major key to getting such candidates is having shorter sessions so regular working people can afford to serve and their real issues will begin to take center stage. Shorter sessions would also limit the legislature's time making is more difficult to use our State House and tax dollars to advance all sorts of outlandish agendas.

References:

(1) PowerPoint ® by Geologist, Dr. Lee Gerhard of Kansas Geological Survey at Kansas University

(2) From U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works website 

Mark Shepard
North Bennington
Member of the Vermont Senate, 2003-2006.
447-7322