Lawmakers review Vermont’s Global Warming Solutions Act: rule deadlines, enforcement and a lawsuit

At a House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee briefing, Ellen Tchaikovsky of the Office of Legislative Counsel gave lawmakers an overview of the Global Warming Solutions Act and the statute’s rulemaking deadlines, enforcement mechanisms and recent litigation.

The Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA), enacted as Act 153 in 2020, converts Vermont’s greenhouse‑gas reduction goals into binding requirements and assigns primary responsibility for rulemaking to the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR). Tchaikovsky told the committee the statute requires ANR to adopt rules consistent with the Vermont Climate Action Plan and to publish a factual record showing the rules are reasonably likely to achieve the greenhouse‑gas reduction requirements.

The law sets numeric reduction targets and time lines that lawmakers heard are already in play. The GWSA requires reductions of at least 26% from 2005 levels by Jan. 1, 2025; 40% from 1990 levels by Jan. 1, 2030; and 80% from 1990 levels by Jan. 1, 2050. Tchaikovsky noted the most recent state inventory available to the committee covered emissions through 2021 and placed Vermont at about 8,280,000 metric tons of carbon‑dioxide equivalent for that year, with the 2025 target at roughly 7,300,000 metric tons. She emphasized the inventory’s data lag, because each year’s inventory requires a full year of data collection and analysis.

The Climate Council, a 23‑member body created by the statute, develops the Vermont Climate Action Plan and issues recommendations for sectoral strategies (transportation, buildings/thermal, regulated utilities, industrial/commercial, agriculture and ecosystem management). Tchaikovsky explained the council’s plan is advisory: "The council itself is not empowered to act, but they...created this list of recommendations," and the plan informs both legislative proposals and ANR rulemaking.

Committee members discussed the statute’s rulemaking timeline and public‑hearing requirements. The law directed ANR to adopt rules to meet the 2025 reduction requirement by Dec. 1, 2022; to review and, if necessary, update rules by July 1, 2024; and to adopt further updates tied to the 2030 and 2050 requirements on multi‑year schedules. The statute also requires ANR to hold multiple public hearings across the state — specifically in areas with significant climate impacts and in disadvantaged, low‑income and rural communities.

Representative Graham Kleppner summarized the enforcement design as he understood it: "the law, the enforcement mechanism is that individuals and organizations in Vermont have standing to sue to compel action to meet the reductions." Tchaikovsky described how that mechanism operates in statute: a two‑part citizen‑suit scheme in section 594 that allows (1) lawsuits alleging agency failure to adopt or update rules within the statutory deadlines and (2) lawsuits alleging that adopted rules failed to achieve required reductions once the greenhouse‑gas inventory and forecast show the shortfall.

Tchaikovsky set out procedural limits in the statute: prospective plaintiffs must give ANR 60 days’ notice of an alleged violation before filing; complaints based on missed rulemaking deadlines must be filed within one year of the relevant statutory deadline; complaints based on failure to achieve reductions must be filed within one year after the inventory and forecast publication showing the missed target. Suits under this provision proceed under Rule 75 of the Vermont Rules of Civil Procedure in the Civil Division of the Superior Court (Washington County). If the court finds noncompliance, the court must order the secretary to adopt or update rules; if the secretary is taking "prompt and effective action," the court may allow a reasonable period for compliance. The statute also contemplates awards of reasonable costs and attorney fees to prevailing plaintiffs unless doing so would not serve the interests of justice, while prevailing agencies may recover fees only if the suit was frivolous or lacked reasonable basis.

Committee members were told ANR has already used the authority to adopt at least one rule under the statute: in December 2022 ANR adopted a rule aligning vehicle‑efficiency standards with California’s clean‑car rule. Tchaikovsky also said the ANR secretary issued a letter concluding an internal review found no need to update rules in July 2024; that review is the subject of a pending lawsuit. "The lawsuit has already been filed by the Conservation Law Foundation alleging that the secretary has missed the subsection d deadline," she told the committee.

Lawmakers asked for more technical and programmatic detail from the agencies that implement the plan. Tchaikovsky and the committee chair said the committee will invite the Climate Council and ANR staff to provide the agency’s analysis, the full greenhouse‑gas inventory and the secretary’s review letter to answer chart‑and‑data questions and explain the agency’s conclusions.

The committee is scheduled to receive an updated Climate Action Plan (statute calls for an update every four years), with an update due July 1, 2025. The citizen‑suit timing, the courts’ remedial role and the pending Conservation Law Foundation litigation were flagged as items the committee wants to monitor as the agency proceeds with rulemaking and as the Climate Council issues its updated plan.

Ending

The briefing framed the GWSA as a statutorily structured chain — statute to council to plan to agency rules — with explicit deadlines, public‑hearing requirements and a narrowly defined citizen‑suit enforcement path. Committee members said they will ask ANR and the Climate Council for the underlying data, the secretary’s July 2024 review letter, and the Climate Council’s forthcoming 2025 update to better evaluate whether rulemaking and implementation are keeping pace with the statute’s requirements.