September 20, 2025

Hello Friends,

So much is going on in the world! Where to start? Later in the fall I will comment on the implications for Vermont of the big bill congress passed a few months ago – namely, food, heat and healthcare assistance cuts for our most vulnerable neighbors and the large hole these policies will put in the state budget. Lean times ahead.  

Right now, I am a bit overwhelmed by the brazen, successful take down of our first amendment by the President and his minions at the SEC and elsewhere. It is staggering. Despite my many disagreements with the President, I took solace in the fact that we had constitutional protections to bolster our civil society. Now that is threatened. Trump said on Thursday that networks that air content that is critical of the President, “should have their license revoked.” And ABC/Disney capitulated and are complicit in this dangerous degradation of our government institutions and our media ecosystem. I wish George Carlin were alive to comment. These are dangerous times.

What I had planned on discussing, given my assignment on the Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee, is federal energy policy and its impact on Vermont energy prices. This administration is irrationally against so-called “alternative” energy. 92% of the new energy coming online last year in the US was from “alternative” energy. Why? Because it is the least cost, cleanest, quickest and easiest to deploy. The President is waging a war on solar and wind in favor of fossil fuels, even to the point of shutting down an offshore wind farm in Connecticut that is 80% built with billions already invested. There is no economic argument for this – it is purely ideological. This decision will cost New England ratepayers an estimated $500 million annually!  (Source here). This one decision will raise your electric rates in the coming years (because VT regularly buys electricity from the New England pool).

After decades of flat overall electricity demand due to increasing efficiency of appliances and lighting, we are now seeing significant demand growth into the future due to data centers, AI and the overall electrification of the economy (cars, water heaters, heat pumps, etc.). So, from a policy perspective, we need to be doubling down on the least-cost options to quickly deploy more generation. Instead, the administration is promoting expensive, dirty and slow to deploy generation options such as coal and gas. This will raise your electricity prices for years to come.

The macro perspective on this is that just as the USA was beginning to develop a robust group of solar, wind and battery companies, with many tens of thousands of good jobs, these actions are undermining US competitiveness and ceding the solar and battery industries to China. (For a quick article on China’s approach to energy, click here.) This will undermine our competitiveness for many years.

I haven’t even brought up climate change yet… The world needs a massive transition to carbon free energy sources to slow the progression of disruptive weather. Looking to the sky for some rain? This is not abstract; due to the wet spring and the severe drought since then the apple crop in VT is expected to be half its usual yield. (Digger article on this here).  Our farmers are hurting.

Remember the big Paris climate deal reached 10 years ago to limit global warming to just 1.5 degrees Celsius? We are at 1.5 degrees now! And global emissions continue their incessant rise…

I apologize for my gloomy mood, but I hope I was able to help show the implications of abstract federal policies on VT and on your cost of energy going forward. Needless to say, there is work to do!

That said, it is more important than ever that we take time for gratitude, joy and celebration of the small and big things in our lives which are good. We live in a great state, and we can make it even better!

Keep in touch,

Representative Chris Morrow

morrowforvt@gmail.com