Vermont agency urges clearer rule language, funding and two staff to stand up H.740 greenhouse-gas reporting program

Montpelier — Officials from the Agency of Natural Resources on Wednesday told the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure committee that H.740, a bill to establish a statutory greenhouse-gas reporting program and statewide inventory, should both require rulemaking and allow the agency discretion to set de minimis thresholds.

"As drafted, I think there is concern that this would actually capture all greenhouse gas emitters, of any size and any scale," Julie Moore, secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, said during testimony. Moore said ANR will propose language that would require the secretary to "adopt a rule that at a minimum includes" specified reporting elements, which would preserve legislative intent while allowing the agency to exclude trivial sources.

Moore and Climate Action Office staff described gaps in current data collection and what a separate reporting program would add. ANR staff said DMV and the Department of Taxes currently provide fuel-volume and vehicle data used in the inventory, but those sources typically lack detail on biofuel content and do not…