It was a little more than a week ago that Gov. Phil Scott held an unpublicized-until-after-the-fact meeting with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. The only notice anyone received of the event was a post on the governor’s Facebook page, which included a bunch of photos and a brief caption. Which is all we know about the meeting, since the press apparently got no advance notice.

But yeah, you might hope that Scott’s dignity would have at least bought him a little breathing room from the Trump administration’s savage and unconstitutional cuts in federal spending, especially where Zeldin himself is concerned.

I regret to inform you that any such hopes were completely unfounded.

The Scott-Zeldin confab was on Sunday, August 3. Well, four days later, on August 7, Zeldin delivered a swift kick in the nuts to our groveling governor: The Trump administration announced a clawback of $62.5 million in already-appropriated federal funds meant for Vermont’s Solar for All program, designed to help lower-income people access the benefits of solar power. (The cut was first reported by VTDigger, um, today.) It was part of a larger, nationwide cut in the program, but that’s one hell of a lot of money we’re not going to get, that won’t help a lot of lower-income people take advantage of the Green Revolution or build out our renewable infrastructure or reduce our dependence on out-of-state fossil fuel.

Accompanying the announcement was a cheery little video message from Zeldin himself, labeling Solar for All, a brainchlld of Vermont’s own Sen. Bernie Sanders, ” as a “grift” and a “boondoggle.”

Gotta say, that’s one hell of a thank-you card to deliver to your host.

Then again, it’s patently obvious by now that neither Zeldin nor the Trump administration could give a flying fuck about Vermont or its knee-bending governor. He can make nice all he wants to, he can mute his criticism to the point where it’s naught but a fading memory, and it won’t do him a bit of good when it comes to Trump’s impact on Vermont.

I learned more about the circumstances of Zeldin’s mercifully brief Green Mountain State sojourn from his official website. Seems his Vermont visit was part of a lightning-quick tour of the Northeast, which saw him making stops in six different states in a couple of days. Seems obvious that the Vermont stop was crammed into his schedule so he could claim to have made a clean sweep of New England. And he didn’t treat his other five hosts any better than he treated Vermont or its capitulatin’ chief.

Like I said, trying to placate Our Mad King is a loser’s game. And Phil Scott is eagerly playing it.

By the way, unannounced by the governor but included in Zeldin’s account: Lt. Gov. John Rodgers attended the Vermont meeting. Well, I assume it was “John Rodgers,” but the EPA account misspelled it as “John Rogers.” Sorry about that, big guy.