ANR proposes annual indicators for H.25 to track Vermont clean-energy transition

Secretary Julie Moore of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources told the House Committee on Energy and Digital Infrastructure on Feb. 26 that her agency can produce an annual report for H.25 that combines leading and lagging indicators and five-year trend data to track Vermont’s clean-energy transition.

Moore said the proposed indicator set would include current and forecast electric rates, distributed solar installed and projects in the Certificate of Public Good process, heating fuel sales, home weatherization trends broken out by income, thermal-sector firms and workers, transportation fuel sales, progress toward EV charging goals from the Comprehensive Energy Plan and Climate Action Plan, and vehicle registrations by weight class. She also proposed trying to include an economic indicator—“fossil fuel consumption per unit of economic output”—if data availability can be confirmed. "What we are proposing is a combination of of sort of leading and lagging indicators, as well as a bit of trend data, looking at 5 year trends over time," Moore said.

The request to include geographic detail surfaced repeatedly. Representative Sebelia, who said she sponsored H.25, urged the committee to track variation across places in Vermont so the report will highlight regions and communities experiencing different costs or burdens from the energy transition. "My intent with this bill is to understand specific places in Vermont that may be … We know that everyone is not experiencing the costs associated with the energy transition the same," Sebelia said.

Committee members pressed staff on data scope and limits. Representative Kleffner asked whether the weatherization metric would capture privately funded work; Moore confirmed it would not. "Someone who receives no incentive payments would not be reflected in that data," she said. Kleffner also asked whether a fossil-fuel-per-output metric is intended to show efficiency gains in a growing economy; Moore agreed that is the intent and noted the need to normalize heating fuel sales to heating-degree days to control for weather variation.

Representatives and staff discussed report cadence and presentation. Committee members favored producing an initial annual report that presents the previous five years of data, then updates the series each year by adding the latest year and retaining the historical series. Moore said the agency could display all available data and recommended starting with existing datasets rather than launching new collections. "At least in this first round of this, we focus on already available data," Moore said, noting that new data collection would require additional resources.

On EV and charging metrics, members asked about level-2 and fast-charger counts and whether electric-rate data could show residential or EV-specific rates and enrollment. Moore said the Department of Public Service could be queried on what is tracked and that some items (for example, customers who enroll in EV rates) would only show people who have taken steps to enroll. Committee members also discussed adding the Agency of Agriculture’s metered pump data or the number and locations of gas stations to reflect local fuel access.

Moore told the committee the agency is working on a “measuring and assessing progress” tool required by the Global Warming Solutions Act and can align the H.25 report with that work; she said a consultant is assisting on a related indicator set. She offered to provide a link to the Clean Water Performance Report as a point of reference for format and presentation and agreed to consult Commerce and Labor on economic indicators.

Committee staff member Ellen Chukowski (drafting support) will incorporate the committee’s discussion and Moore’s recommendations into a revised draft, with a target to circulate a new draft by 11 a.m. Friday; the committee hopes to vote on the bill after the town meeting break. Committee members noted the Agency of Natural Resources’ climate office will lead the effort on the measuring-and-assessing tool and that staff will send Moore the draft and the Clean Water Performance Report link for review. "We will talk to you again," a committee member said at the close of the meeting.

The discussion did not include a formal motion or vote on H.25 during the Feb. 26 meeting; the committee directed staff and ANR to refine indicator definitions, check dataset geographic granularity, and return with an updated draft and recommendations by Dec. 15 (first-report target) and with interim updates during the next year.

Ending: The committee session closed after about 20 minutes of discussion and procedural planning; no formal action was taken at the Feb. 26 meeting.