Where I've Been

I’m not so naive as to think anyone really noticed the absence of a GG post for the past four weeks, especially with everything going on in the world right now.

But JUST IN CASE, and also in the interest of, you know, self-interest, I do want to share the project I was working on during much of that extended silence: a long article in Inside Climate News about Vermont’s Climate Superfund law. With my friend and colleague Dana Drugmand (check out her newsletter at One Earth Now), I was deep in the weeds of climate adaptation in Vermont and the legal fight over who will pay for it.

We learned about culverts that weren’t built to handle the increasingly intense downpours carried in by heavy, saturated air; a wastewater treatment plant that keeps flooding but has been deemed likely too expensive to move to higher ground; and a groundbreaking urban farm whose bargain of locating in a floodplain (fertile soil in exchange for the occasional springtime flood) has been radically transformed by climate change.

The Climate Superfund law would provide a new source of funds for adaptation projects and sites like these, but only if the courts let it stand. At a hearing two weeks ago on competing motions asking the judge to resolve the case, we heard the main arguments for and against that. I was there in person and it felt like witnessing history. I encourage you to check out the article to get a better understanding of those arguments and the unfolding legal drama.

I plan to return to regularly scheduled Good Govermont programming in the next few weeks. As I do, which would you rather see: updates on key, previously covered bills that made it through crossover (plug-in solar, a bill to regulate data centers, a new greenhouse gas reporting framework) and any committee amendments, or a deep dive into the uproar over Act 181, the ongoing process of reforming Vermont’s signature land-use planning law initiated in 2024?

Thanks as always for your readership and support, it means everything.