Oh, those smiling happy faces. At left: Everybody’s Favorite Governor. At right: the boy genius formerly known as Phil Scott’s Financial Regulation Commissioner Mike Pieciak, now State Treasurer and presumptive future Democratic candidate for governor.

Yeah, they were chummy back in the day. Funny thing: Even though they now reside on opposite sides of the metaphorical aisle, they still seem to be awfully simpatico. Yesterday, the two of them announced something of a superhero team-up to address climate change and resiliency issues.

Talk about things that make you go hmmm. A top Democratic elected official joining up with the Republican governor to tackle an existential issue on which the Democrats are often at odds with the governor? All I can say is…

I mean, it’s one thing to indulge in photo ops with an indisputably popular political figure. It’s a whole nother thing to make common cause on an issue where there’s such a chasm between the governor and Pieciak’s party.

The joint effort even has a name, the Resilience Implementation Strategy, and a deadline, July 1, 2025. According to the press release from Scott’s office, the completion of the RIS (you can’t spell “risible” without “R-I-S”) “will coincide with an update to Vermont’s Climate Action Plan, enabling a more coordinated and balanced approach to addressing both the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate efforts to adapt to the consequences of climate change.”

Yeah, “a more coordinated and balanced approach” smells a lot like “less aggressive on climate change than the Democrats.” And the press release quotes Scott as touting the RIS as ensuring “a prioritized and cost-effective approach” to resilience and climate issues. In other words, Pieciak seems to be giving the governor a way to claim he’s fighting climate change while also resisting Democratic policies on climate change.

The bulk of the press release focuses on resiliency, not climate. To this cynical eye, this seems like a way to shift the conversation away from climate action and toward economic development for a post-carbon world —not unlike the apparent effort by the administration to conflate the housing and homelessness crises and shift the emphasis to the former and away from the latter.

It’s possible that this is a good-faith effort that’s not meant to derail Democratic priorities, but the press release certainly leaves the door open to a cynical interpretation. We don’t know anything beyond the press release because there was no in-person announcement or press conference. Curious. Were they ducking cynically-minded questions?

The timing is also curious. The release came on Day One of the new legislative session, when all the attention was focused on pomp, circumstance, and the opening of business in the Statehouse. As a likely consequence, it got precious little coverage in our sadly diminished political media. (The only story I could find was a quickie regurgitation of the press release posted by WFFF/WVNY.)

But hey, let’s hope for the best. We look forward to seeing Mike Pieciak hitting the campaign trail with great frequency and enthusiasm on behalf of whichever Democrat runs for governor this year. In the longer run, we look forward to Pieciak’s seemingly inevitable ascension to the governorship and his relentless pursuit of strong Democratic policies.

I’m trying, I really am.