There was a brief exchange during the September 25 meeting of the Vermont Climate Council that went unnoticed at the time. But it seemed a clear signal that the Scott administration isn’t all that concerned about meeting the emission reduction targets for the year 2025 as established in state law by the Global Warming Solutions Act.

“Established in state law” as in “legally mandated.” But hey, what’s the rush?

The upshot, since it’ll take me a while to get there: The administration is, at best, slow-waking the process even though time is running painfully short to achieve our 2025 targets. If you check your calendar, I think you’ll find that 2025 is coming our way right quick.

Of course, Gov. Phil Scott and Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore have previously opined that the 2025 and 2030 targets are no big deal, so maybe this shouldn’t be a surprise. But still, we’re talking about an eyes-wide-open flouting of state law. And that’s kind of a big deal.

Near the end of the 9/25 meeting, the Council discussed its work plan for the coming months. Council member Jared Duval, executive director of the Energy Action Network, noted that according to his organization’s figures, Vermont is on track to achieve only about one-half of the reductions needed to meet the GWSA’s 2025 targets. He then cited paragraph 593(d) of the Act:

The [Natural Resources] Secretary shall, on or before July 1, 2024, review and, if necessary, update the rules required by subsection (b) of this section in order to ensure that the 2025 greenhouse gas emissions reduction requirement pursuant to section 578 of this title is achieved. In performing this review and update, the Secretary shall observe the requirements of subsection (c) of this section.

Subsection (c) requires the Secretary to “conduct public hearings across the State” on any proposed new rules. Duval observed that July 1 is uncomfortably close, and that there’s no time to waste. (Rulemaking is a long, painstaking process, as it should be. Nine months is pretty much the bare minimum, and climate-related issues are going to be politically charged.) He asked if the administration had a plan to achieve that legally required goal.

Jane Lazorchak, Climate Action Director for the Agency of Natural Resources, replied in the Zoom chat that “We have a very different legal opinion from our general counsel on this provision in the Global Warming Solutions Act.”

No further explanation was offered. Anything more, Lazorchak said, would have to come from Secretary Julie Moore, who had already left the meeting.

Nobody else in the media noticed the exchange. In fact, the Climate Council meeting was pretty much ignored by the Vermont political media. The only related story I saw was produced by Pat Bradley of Albany, NY-based WAMC/Northeast Public Radio, and she focused on the Council’s discussion of biomass energy. (Which, as a measure of the Council’s forward momentum, was less than encouraging.)

Anyway, I reached out to ANR for further explanation, and Lazorchak got back to me with a rather convoluted, lawyerly deferral of responsibility. She referred to paragraph 593(b), which requires the ANR Secretary to implement rules on or before December 1, 2022 as needed to achieve the 2025 targets. And in fact, last year the Secretary adopted rules regarding low- or zero-emissions vehicles.

In Lazorchak’s interpretation, that’s the only action “explicitly required of ANR” under the GWSA.

From ANR’s perspective, this immediate and very narrow discussion [of 593(d)] only involves the meaning of one provision of the GWSA; the larger and more important issue is what are the next steps that should be taken. The Climate Council is currently developing a work plan and ANR will continue to stay engaged in that discussion.

As required by subsection (d), ANR will develop a process for reviewing rules adopted pursuant to the Plan in the coming months which will involve a public process.

I guess it’s not a complete kissoff, but really now. “ANR will develop a process… in the coming months” is not a serious effort to meet the July 1, 2024 deadline for further rulemaking. It will be all but impossible to draft, review, promulgate, amend, and enact new rules in whatever time is left after “the coming months,” whatever that means.

Duval, speaking for himself as a Council member and not as head of EAN, was dismayed at Lazorchak’s stance. “We cannot have confidence that we’ll meet our legal obligations until or unless additional action is taken at the policy and regulatory level,” he said, and pointed to the clear language of paragraph 593(d), “where it says ‘the Secretary shall’ — not ‘may’ but ‘shall'” enact rules by July 1, 2024.

“There are a large number of initiatives, programs, and strategies in the state’s Climate Action Plan that can be advanced through rulemaking,” Duval continued. “Knowing how long a process [rulemaking] is, my question is, ‘What is the administration going to do to follow the law and ensure we meet our legal requirements?'”

The answer, it seems, will roll out at some point “in the coming months,” which is almost certainly too late to meet the July 1 deadline for rulemaking. Which would put us on track to miss our 2025 targets.

There may well be room for differing interpretations of the GWSA which, as Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee chair Christopher Bray reminded me, was passed in rather a hurry in a summertime 2020 session designed to catch up on essential work that had been left hanging by the Covid pandemic. But whether or not the administration has a legal leg to stand on, a hermeneutical dispute over rulemaking will make it almost impossible to meet our — again, legally mandated — 2025 emissions targets.

The GWSA includes a provision allowing for individuals or groups to sue the state of Vermont if it fails to meet any of the Act’s targets. There are many in environmental circles who are convinced that the administration isn’t serious about the targets, and some who already expect to file suit. The ANR’s stance on rulemaking is another piece of evidence that those people are right.