Reply #13: Well

[Nicholas_J]

It seems that those on th left AND right are not terribly happy with Deans environmental record. Quite a feat.


Former Vermont governor Howard Dean has sided most closely with the Bush administration, endorsing the National Governors Association policy, which opposed the Kyoto Protocol unless it included mandatory emissions cuts for developing countries. The policy recommended that the United States "not sign or ratify any agreement that would result in serious harm to the U.S. economy."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0610-01.htm


Dean replacing critics on environmental advisory panel

April 8, 2001

(from the Regional news section)

By JOHN DILLON

Staff Writer

MONTPELIER - A leading environmentalist was asked to leave Gov. Howard Dean's council of environmental advisers after she criticized the governor's short-lived proposal for a coal-fired power plant in Vermont.

Elizabeth Courtney, executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council, was one of 20 members of the governor's environmental council, which meets about once every three months with the governor.

But after Courtney wrote a newspaper opinion piece faulting Dean for his brief advocacy of a coal plant, she learned she was no longer welcome on the council. David Rocchio, the governor's legal counsel, wrote her late last month to say she will be replaced on the council by VNRC's board chairman. The move came after she had written the governor on energy issues and showed his staff her draft newspaper piece, Courtney said.

"From the tone of your letter (to the governor), the content of your (newspaper) essay, and your rejection of the concerns we have raised with you in conversation, it appears that you do not seek a dialogue," Rocchio wrote to Courtney and to VNRC's board. "The governor sees little point in continuing to try to discuss these issues with you."

http://timesargus.nybor.com/Archive/Articles/Article/23996


Dean’s environmental record rests more on his efforts at land conservation than on strict attention to regulatory enforcement. He pushed conservation through his support for the Housing and Conservation Trust Fund and through the Champion land deal in the Northeast Kingdom. He has been less inclined to hold business to a hard line with regard to state regulations, preferring to find compromises that would be less onerous for entrepreneurs. That’s why he has never won the hearts of some of the main environmental advocacy groups.

He has frequently mentioned, however, that the permanent easements and long- term deals designed to protect lands scattered widely across the state will be a legacy that will last long after his administration is forgotten.

http://timesargus.nybor.com/Archive/Articles/Article/33318

Governor talks about coal-fired power plant

By Nancy Bazilchuk
Free Press Staff Writer
Vermont ought to consider building new electric power plants in the northwestern part of the state, even a coal-fired power plant, Gov. Howard Dean said Tuesday.
"We need (electric) generating capacity in northwestern Vermont, and we are overly dependent on natural gas," Dean said. "This is not a proposal, but this is intended to spur discussion. The whole point is to get Vermonters to think about having a power plant in their back yard. We are going to have to have one."
Dean's comments came in reaction to the rolling blackouts that hit California on Tuesday. He says Vermont is in no immediate danger of such problems but policymakers need to face the future.
In the next 15 years, the state's two biggest long-term sources of power, the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, and hydroelectric power from Hydro-Quebec, will cease to supply the state with power.
Vermont Yankee is licensed to operate until 2012, and Hydro-Quebec is under contract to sell power to Vermont until 2015. The two energy sources account for about two-thirds of the 1,000 megawatts of electricity Vermont needs.
Dean said he doesn't want to import dirty coal-fired power plants from the Midwest to solve Vermont's problems, but he thinks new technology is available to build coal plants that could provide power with a minimum of pollution.
Dean's comments sent shudders through the environmental and energy conservation communities. Vermont has a long-standing history of battling with Midwestern coal plants over the pollutants that bring acid rain to Vermont.
Vermont also vigorously opposed a modern coal-fired power plant proposed in the early 1990s for a small town outside Albany, N.Y. The state argued that even the diminished emissions from a clean coal plant would hurt Vermont's air quality. The argument helped defeat the proposal in 1994.
Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan, adopted in 1998, cautions against clean coal technology because it cannot eliminate carbon dioxide pollution, a substance that's one of the chief culprits in global climate change.
David Blittersdorf, a wind energy expert and chief executive officer of NRG Systems in Hinesburg, said he was deeply troubled to hear that Dean was even saying the word "coal."
"That is absolutely wrong," he said. "We have been trying real hard to get the governor and the state to become aware of what renewables can do. I think people don't want to listen."

http://www.vtce.org/coal.html

In March, 2000, the Governor of Vermont, Howard Dean, said "I give up. The pipeline route is dead. At some point you have to listen to the voters."
In response, the pipeline company indicated they are disappointed in the governor's statement but do not intend to give up on the route through private property. Power plant developers say the reason they have not filed is because they have not lined up the financing. They are still looking for $800,000,000, and say they plan to file by the fall of 2000, or perhaps in 12 to 18 months. It is likely that investors have seen the opposition and are putting their money into projects that are not so strenuously opposed.

http://www.vtce.org/power.html

Elizabeth Courtney, executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council, applauds the land purchases, but adds, ''Gov. Dean has put too many of his environmental eggs in the land-acquisition basket.''

"What we have lacked over the last 10 years is leadership on the tough issues of growth management,'' Courtney said. ''There has not been an overarching vision to resolve the differences on economic and environmental issues.''

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/specialnews/dean/12.htm

O.K. Yeah! your right....Vermonters LOVE Deans environmental record.