House panel schedules final vote on bill to require annual energy-transition impact report

The House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee discussed H.125 (draft 3.1) on March 12, a bill that would require the Secretary of Natural Resources, in consultation with multiple state agencies, to publish an initial “energy transition economic impacts” report on or before Dec. 15, 2025, and annually thereafter.

Representative Kathleen James, sponsor of H.125 and the committee chair, told members the committee “is hoping to vote out [the bill] tomorrow.” The draft assigns responsibility to the Secretary of Natural Resources to work with named agencies — the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets; the Department of Public Service; the Agency of Transportation; the Department of Labor; the Agency of Commerce and Community Development; and the Department of Taxes — to compile and publish the report.

Committee members spent the session defining what the report should include and debating the scope and cost. The draft calls for the initial report to provide five years of historical data and for annual updates to add the prior year’s data. Enumerated items in the draft include current and forecasted electric rates; the number of customers on electric vehicle rates; total megawatts of distributed solar (including installed capacity by county and active certificate-of-public-good applications); the number and volume of heating-fuel sellers and sales; counts of homes receiving incentivized weatherization by income quintile; gasoline and diesel sales at metered pumps; locations of refueling outlets; progress and locations of electric-vehicle supply equipment (fast-charging and Level 2); vehicle registrations by category (light, medium, heavy) and fuel type (electric, hybrid, gasoline, diesel); and fossil-fuel and electricity consumption per unit of economic output. The bill also directs the report to include “maps and graphic displays,” an analysis of compiled data, and recommendations for additional data the administration believes are necessary to illustrate impacts “by region.”

Not all members supported the proposal. Representative Michael Southworth said he “struggle[s] with the need for this report when the information is already available to us,” calling the measure burdensome and unnecessary. Representative Rick Bailey pressed for a clearer estimate of staff time or dollars required, saying, “I would like secretary to give a give us a cost to compile this report” and asking for a rough cost range rather than conjecture.

Committee staff and agency representatives responded that most items in the draft draw on existing administrative datasets and that agencies expect to transmit existing data to the Agency of Natural Resources for compilation. A staff member identified in the hearing as Jane said the administration is already developing a spatial “measuring and assessing progress” tool under the Global Warming Solutions Act and that the Climate Action Office has a roughly $400,000 planning contract to design that tool; she warned that producing high-quality maps could require additional IT or mapping services and cited potential budgetary or capacity implications for agencies.

Members debated how spatial detail should be described in the bill. Committee counsel noted that an open-ended word like “including” makes the list nonexclusive; some members recommended replacing the word “location” with “region” to make the reporting more actionable without mandating costly, detailed mapping. Representative James and others emphasized the committee’s intent that the report show how the changing energy landscape distributes benefits and burdens across Vermont regions.

Committee staff confirmed Secretary Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources) would provide written testimony on the draft later the same day. The committee did not vote on H.125; members agreed to reconvene for a final markup and possible committee vote at 9:00 a.m. the next day. If voted out of committee, the bill would proceed to the House floor under the legislature’s crossover deadlines.

The discussion repeatedly returned to two themes: (1) minimizing new data collection by relying on existing administrative sources and (2) avoiding undue new cost or staff burdens while still producing useful, regionally comparable information. Several members urged that the report be useful and actionable, not merely an “exercise,” and pledged to revisit the bill if the administrative cost or burden proved higher than anticipated.

Next steps: Secretary Moore’s written comments will be added to the committee record, staff will edit draft language (including the suggested change from “location” to “region”), and the committee scheduled a possible final vote at its 9:00 a.m. session tomorrow.