Common Sense Radio: Energy and Climate Policy and Vermont Affordability with Matt Cota
Friday, October 2, 2026, on Common Sense Radio, with Bill Sayre, weekdays, 11 o’clock till Noon.
Matt Cota — Meadow Hill Consulting, Adjunct Prof. of Business at University of Vermont, and member of the Vermont Climate Council — joins Bill to review government policies (actual and proposed) affecting energy and climate, and the implications of such policies for affordability for Vermont families and businesses. As time allows, Matt and also will consider the unintended consequences of proposed new taxes on Vermont’s most successful entrepreneurs; and the proposed tax on second homes.
Potential Questions and Issues
Remind us of how the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) changed Carbon Dioxide emission goals into legal requirements. What was the rationale for that change? What might have been the unintended consequences? In measuring climate policy s it better to focus on emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) or concentrations of GHG in the atmosphere? If the latter, should we not be focusing, in public policy and in goal setting, on net emissions, not gross emission?
How has the increase in oil prices affected affordability for Vermont families and Vermont businesses? Home heating fuel, gasoline for transportation, diesel for truck transportation, and for equipment and machinery on working farms and forests, and on construiction projects.
Is wood a renewable resource? And is wood energy a renewable source of energy?
What about nuclear energy? Why do some — such as James Hanson, who Al Gore considered the father of Global Warming theory. And Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace — consider nuclear energy essential if we are to both sustain our economy, while reducing our Carbon Footprint?
What improvements in nuclear energy technology have been made in the last quarter century — safety, recycling, efficiency? What can we learn from the experience of nuclear submarines?
What should we know about the Vermont Climate Council, and their recommendations for reducing our Carbon footprint? How would these measures affect affordability? Is it possible that some of these measures could be imposed by mandate, through Court order? How might that happen?
Why might it be a mistake make Vermont’s energy and climate legislation and regulation copy California’s energy and climate legislation and regulation? What are some examples — Sales of electric trucks and cars. What are the differences between Vermont and California that might warrant us being more cautious before copying their environmental legislation?
What should we know about Vermont’s Greenhouse Inventory? What are the goals? How are emissions measured? What is the current estimate for converting methane into a Carbon Dioxide equivalent? Some have said that methane dissipates more quickly than Carbon Dioxide and therefore should have a lower multiple for converting into CO2 equivalents. Does that seem reasonable to you?
How is Artificial, now Superficial Intelligence affecting Energy and Climate policy?
Were we reducing our Greenhouse Gas Emission goals before they became mandates? What are the consequences for costly litigation, and the possibility of Court Ordered, but perhaps misguided, actions, of not meeting our Greenhouse Gas goals/mandates? What are some practical limitations on measuring emissions, particularly in the year to which a target applies?
What should we know about Renewable Energy Standards, and their role in Energy Policy?
What is a private right of action, an example of which is included in the Global Warming Solutions Act, and why does it raise concerns about the separation of powers, and the role of an Administration in executing public policy? Is there a parallel with the theory of the Unified Executive, under debate in the nation’s capitol?
Returning to the issue of net emissions and how do we measure them, do we have estimates of how much CO2 are forests, particularly our working forests, absorb and store. And the products made from our working forests — homes, furniture, flooring, framing lumber, cardboard products that can be recycled, and mass timber as a substitute for steel and concrete in multi-story buildings meeting all structural and safety standards. Also wood energy. Is wood energy a renewable energy? How would we decide.
Are there better ways to accomplish energy and climate goals, just as effectively, but at lower cost? While also accomplishing other social and environmental public policy goals?
What should we know about the renewable energy standards?
What role can or should nuclear energy play in reducing emissions, and reducing our Carbon Footprint. James Hanson and Patrick Moore.
How is economic growth, and rising standards of living, connected to the availability of reliable, affordable, and usually Carbon intensive energy? For example, the Industrial Revolution in England, the invention of the steam engine, and coal mining.
Are there examples in history of a prospering economy without affordable, abundant, reliable energy?
What is the purpose of the Fuel Registry, if not as a precursor for a Carbon Tax, direct or indirect? To what uses of hydrocarbon fuels will the Fuel Registry apply?
Similarly what should we know about the history of attempts to create Carbon Tax, either directly, or indirectly through a complex, cumbersome, and costly set of regulations that increase the cost of hydrocarbon fuels? What did the Department of Public Service conclude about the Clean Heat Standard and a Carbon Tax? Are there counterparts to home heating fuel regulation, in transportation? Why was it easier to impose controls on fuels used by utilities, than for home heating and for automobiles?
How is it likely that rural business enterprises, and the families who depend upon them — particularly in the agriculture and forest products industries — will be disproportionately affected by increases in the cost of hydrocarbon fuels. Fuel oil for homes, transportation for groceries, school children, or work in villages or other more urban areas? And for rural businesses —diesel fuel for tractors, harvesting machinery, skidders, log trucks. And for value added manufacturing of farm and food products, and of forest products? And in the transpiration of finished products to customers, both urban and rural? And construction equipment? With the proposals to close small, rural schools and the misguided, now repealed, Road Rule and Tier 3, land use regulation. Along with proposals for the State to own more land, and to not manage the land the State does own, along with 30 by 30, and 50 by 50, can we begin to understand why many, particularly in rural areas, feel that State policy, whether intended or not, has the effect of depopulating rural areas? Why might this policy have unintended consequences, and be a mistake?
What can we learn about the effects of a Carbon Tax, or its equivalent, by the effects on hydrocarbon prices from military action in Iran? What is the difference, in the effect on the economy, particularly on rural families and businesses, between the higher prices caused by a Carbon Tax and higher prices caused by supply restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz?
How much of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions are produced in Vermont? What is the difference between gross emissions and net emissions? How does Vermont compare in these two measures greenhouse gas emissions, as a proportion of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions? Why is greenhouse gas emissions correlated, over time, with economic activity, and economic growth? Do nations with the least economic activity almost always have the lowest greenhouse gas emissions? If the Vermont economy disappeared, how much would greenhouse gas emissions decline? Why do almost public policy decisions involve a balancing of priorities? Why is affordability a priority that should be considered in this balancing process? Along with goals for education, health care, housing, energy, food, public safety? Why it important for Vermont’s tax burden to be competitive with that in other States?
What should we know about proposals to return a portion or all of the purchase and use tax to the Transportation Fund? And about the proposals to tax the use of our roads via a mileage tas?
Is there a parallel between the history of State Aid to Towns for road repair and maintenance, and what will become the history of State Aid to School Districts based on the Foundation Formula? Namely in how the weights are determined on miles of road in particular Classes of Road, and how the weights are determined on numbers of students in particular categories of State Aid, such as English Language Learners, Low and Moderate Income, and Special Needs.
How do Vermont’s tax burdens compare with those in other States of the Nation? Property Taxes, Income Taxes, Sales Taxes, Transportation Taxes? What tax proposals were under consider in the Vermont legislature last Session? A surtax on high income earners? And on capital gains, and investment income? And a special tax on second homes? How are these proposals connected to the politics of envy? What do such proposals assume about how people react to changes in regulation and taxes? How is America’s long term economic growth and prosperity connected to this issue, and to our federalist system of government? What, therefore, will be the unintended consequences of such policies? What has been the effect in other States who have experiment with such policies.
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