Gov. Phil Scott’s Thursday press conference was meant to deflect attention from his administration’s painfully slow approach to emissions reductions. The governor opted for his favorite diversionary tactic: Finding a straw man to punch. But the bigger takeaway from the event is his steadfast refusal to consider new policies — or even a drive up I-89 — in response to Vermont’s opioids crisis.
Let’s tackle climate first. Scott and Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore (she of the excessively deliberate “progress” toward meeting our legally mandated 2025 emissions targets) asserted that an emissions-focused policy was wrongheaded. Instead, they said, there needs to be a balance between cutting greenhouse gases and making Vermont more resilient in the face of future climate disasters.
Scott backhanded “those who didn’t want us to focus on resiliency work” in the Legislature and claimed that “there’s been some pushback” on resiliency in the Vermont Climate Council.
I’d like some names, please.
There might be different opinions on the balance, but there is no one in the Legislature “who didn’t want us to focus on resiliency work.” As for the Climate Council, it was created by the Global Warming Solutions Act to further its statutory emissions targets. Resiliency isn’t the Council’s job. It’s like accusing FEMA of failing to enact permitting reform.
Enough of that. Now back to Burlington.
Earlier in the week, the Burlington City Council approved a resolution declaring that the drug crisis is the top public health and safety issue facing the city. One of the resolution’s many provisions was a seemingly innocuous request that lawmakers and the governor walk the streets of Burlington to get a firsthand sense of the situation.
Scott’s response? Nah.
“I do visit Burlington,” he said, sidestepping the question. “It’s part of Vermont, and an integral part of Vermont. We’re all in this together. Pointing fingers at each other isn’t going to solve the problem.”
Again with the finger pointing. Is it really “finger pointing” to ask for some personal attention? Why the hell not walk the streets? Sometimes I think the governor just instinctively rejects any idea that comes from anywhere outside his own office.
And shockingly, his admonition against finger pointing didn’t stop him from pointing his own fingers in other directions.
Scott’s approach to a problem that has reached historic dimensions? Stay the course. “The principles of how we’re choosing to attack this problem remains [sic] the same,” he said. “It really is about prevention, treatment, recovery and enforcement” — the legendary four legs of his drug policy stool.
Yep, the same stuff he’s been flogging since becoming governor. Never mind that the crisis has gotten much worse since 2017 — that as of late July, Burlington was on track to more than double the number of overdose incidents compared to 2022’s record high total.
Cue the finger pointing. The situation, Scott said, “has been exacerbated by many, many different things. The flooding for one, pandemic another, I think fentanyl and xylazine has complicated things because that’s a border issue, so we have to, ah, we have to get help from the federal government to secure borders, cut off the supply so to speak.”
Ah, yes. The problem isn’t a rapidly increasing demand for opioids. It’s the supply. As if cutting off the flow of drugs has (a) ever actually been accomplished or (b) decreased demand.
Remember the good old days when we thought that over-prescribing of painkillers was the cause of the crisis? We’ve significantly reined in that part of the problem, but hey, what do you know, it didn’t affect demand one single little bit. It only diverted the market to other substances.
If the federal government somehow managed to absolutely lock down the border, which will never happen because that’s not how borders work, the market forces driving the opioids crisis would remain the same. Honestly, the feds are doing a pretty good job of enforcement, as reflected in the record quantities of drug seizures at the border.
But they’re up against a marketplace that generates big profits for manufacture, trafficking, and sale of opioids. As long as that’s true, no government will ever intercept 100% of the traffic. If Scott intends to wait for the Hell-freezes-over moment of a complete border lockdown, he’s going to be waiting until, ahem, Hell freezes over.
Meanwhile, no indication that he’s even considering a change in the policy that’s failed since 2017. No one asked him about safe injection sites, probably because he’s made his opposition crystal clear. Besides, he ruled out any newfangled ideas by insisting he would stick to the same old game plan.
And he’s not going to make a special trip to Burlington. Because, I guess, it might be seen as an indication of weakness? I don’t know. But as he has so often does, Scott is refusing to meet the moment.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
Here are some names:
Climate Council Member Chris Campany, Executive Director of the Windham Regional Commission, pointed out more than once to subcommittees and the full climate council that the Council should go back to the legislature and ask them to revise the Global Warming Solutions Act to address resiliency and not just emissions. He noted that Vermont could eliminate all emissions in the state and he would still be dealing with the big rain events and flooding resulting from climate change. He left the Climate Council to do his real world work.
The pushback has repeatedly come from Jared Duval whose sole mantra is “emissions reductions”. He never misses an opportunity to tell his fellow councillors that their only mandate is emissions reductions. He has not supported Chris’s suggestion to the council to ask the legislature to revise the GWSA.
The GWSA was set up to fail, as its emission reduction goals are unrealistic and the focus on emissions reductions in terms of addressing climate change in Vermont is all wrong.
Makes one wonder what Duval has to lose by not taking Cris Campony’s way forward.
While Communist China and India and Russia etc. scoff at the very notion of reducing emissions, our deluded Progressive climate alarmists in the Vermont legislature are mandating that their own small population surrender their Constitutional rights and freedoms, and accept massive intrusions into their lives, to satisfy a liberal globalist climate change agenda, while at the same time refusing to let dissenting scientific voices be heard. There are at least three explanations for the current climate change we are experiencing on the planet, but the only one our politicians in VT will allow into the “debate” is that humans caused it, so we must suffer and surrender to “save the planet”. We are being governed by a Progressive, globalist political agenda and not by real science. When real science is allowed unfettered access to debate and exploration and the ability to challenge and question, THAT is when science occurs. When one side quashes the debate and refuses to allow other opinions free reign, even from qualified scientists, you have political climate tyranny from with a political agenda, not science.
Uh… this post has nothing to do with climate change.
Uh . . . John, read the second and fourth larger paragraphs in your own essay above.