Nearly a year after catastrophic flooding struck Vermont, the city of Barre confronts the overwhelming task of steeling itself for the next climate disaster.
Vermont
Vermont Financial Regulator Mike Pieciak to Step Down Next Month
![Vermont Financial Regulator Mike Pieciak to Step Down Next Month](https://media1.fdncms.com/sevendaysvt/imager/u/slideshow/35443023/money1-1-b05f76c84b99f7a3.jpg)
Mike Pieciak, the commissioner of Vermont’s Division of Monetary Regulation who grew to become a family title whereas presenting COVID-19 information at pandemic press briefings, is stepping down from his job on Might 16.
Pieciak mentioned on Wednesday that he’ll take a while to contemplate different alternatives, though he did not say what these are. He has no plans to depart Vermont.
“I am involved in public service, and I am additionally involved in exploring different choices which might be on the market,” he mentioned in an interview. “Now that the announcement is on the market, there’s a chance to take a beat with a transparent eye and take into consideration which a kind of makes essentially the most sense.”
Vermontâs Pandemic Modeler Is Returning to His Monetary Regulation Duties
Vermontâs Pandemic Modeler Is Returning to His Monetary Regulation Duties
By Colin Flanders
Schooling
Seven Days profiled Pieciak in March. He’s a licensed lawyer who lives in Winooski together with his associate, Will Holder. He entered the Division of Monetary Regulation in 2014, when then-governor Peter Shumlin appointed him deputy commissioner of the securities division. Pieciak stayed on after Gov. Phil Scott, who was elected in 2016, appointed him commissioner in 2017.
Pieciak performed a comparatively low-profile function in state authorities till the pandemic started, when Scott requested him to guide Vermontâs COVID-19 modeling. Pieciak grew to become a well-known presence throughout his common televised briefings in regards to the state’s virus case numbers and response. The Division of Monetary Regulation additionally administered hazard pay grants to front-line employees within the early months of the pandemic.
Pieciak mentioned that the information of the announcement was emotional for him and others within the division. Within the early weeks of the pandemic, many individuals labored seven days every week to fulfill the regulatory wants that arose from modifications in insurance coverage, prescription drug refills, and different issues, he mentioned. The common press briefings, then 3 times every week, added one other layer of labor.
“There are unsung heroes in our division who stepped up and labored with the entire stakeholders to ensure all people was nicely taken care of on this once-in-a-lifetime scenario,” he mentioned.
Pieciak was born and raised in Brattleboro, then accomplished his undergraduate diploma at Union School in Schenectady, N.Y., the place he additionally performed on the soccer workforce. He graduated from the College of Miami Faculty of Regulation and spent 5 years working for legislation corporations in Vermont and New York Metropolis. When he was 24, he was chosen as certainly one of 4 Hillary Clinton delegates to characterize Vermont on the 2008 Democratic Nationwide Conference.
In 2012, when Pieciak was working on the workplace of Downs Rachlin Martin in Burlington, he served as marketing campaign supervisor for incumbent Democratic lawyer normal Invoice Sorrell, who gained once more that 12 months.
Regardless of these connections, Pieciak describes himself as apolitical, and declined to enter element about whether or not he may run for workplace.
“I simply wish to have a while to be considerate about them and think about them,” he mentioned of the opposite alternatives which have arisen. “I feel it is necessary to step away from the  division earlier than making a call on one thing else. I simply wish to go together with a transparent thoughts.”
The commissioner oversees about 100 employees members who regulate a whole bunch of native, nationwide and worldwide firms within the banking and insurance coverage industries. Deputy Commissioner Kevin Gaffney will function interim commissioner after Pieciak’s departure, Scott mentioned within the assertion.Â
![](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/np-logo.png)
Vermont
Vote in our poll: Your chance to vote for the best French fries
French fries may be the perfect food. Fried to a salty, crispy perfection, fries can easily stand on their own but also are the perfect vehicle for your favorite dips.
Oh so good, but oh so bad for you. That deep fried potatoes are something of a forbidden treat probably make them taste that much better.
Given the good culture in the Burlington area and beyond, no one should be surprised there’s plenty of good fried to be had in Vermont.
A quick web search will turn up what the rest of the country thinks where the best fries are in Vermont. Let the outsiders have their say, but there’s no knowledge like local knowledge.
Here’s your chance to vote for the best fries in the area. For this poll, we decided to go beyond our usual confines to include a few places outside of Chittenden County, but still within an easy drive from the Burlington area.
Vermont
'The people make the place.' Burlington High School seniors graduate from Macy's
!['The people make the place.' Burlington High School seniors graduate from Macy's](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/28df533/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4032x2117+0+454/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa3%2Fc9%2Ff6dc4abb4f36a0fcaebbded79a25%2Fmallrats-pic.jpg)
During the summer of 2020, PCBs, a class of toxic chemicals, were detected at elevated levels throughout Burlington High School, and the state condemned the campus. After a few months of planning, district officials came up with a solution that made international news.
In just ten weeks, they converted a vacant department store in the Queen Cityâs downtown into a makeshift high school.
Now, four years later, the students who first stepped onto the escalator in the former Macyâs building as freshmen are graduating. And while attending class in a defunct department store may sound pretty dystopian, for BHSâs class of 2024, that was just high school.
âObviously it’ll be different than other people’s high school experiences,â said BHS senior Elliot Laramee. âBut like, for me, I don’t really feel, like, bad that I ended up here. Because I just never experienced anything different than this.â
Itâs not that students at BHS arenât keenly aware of how strange their high school experience has been. It would be hard to miss all the reminders of their temporary schoolâs former life. Thereâs a giant escalator in the middle of the building â which students said is often broken â and sports trophies are on view in former jewelry display cases. Some of the old signage is still up from when things like handbags and jeans were on sale, and students eat at the so-called “Michael Kors Cafe.”
Lola Duffort
/
Vermont Public
But over time, theyâve gotten used to it. Brooks DeShaw said at first it was strange to go to school in a place where she once went Christmas shopping. Classrooms didnât have doors when students first arrived, and the walls didnât go all the way to the ceiling.
âBut I feel like I’ve adapted to it,â she said.
If Burlingtonâs seniors have adapted to their makeshift home â which students will be attending for at least two more years â itâs also partly because the building has adapted to them. Classrooms do now have doors, and many of the partitions that section off classes go all the way to the ceiling.
Staff and students alike also often talk about something that might, on first blush, appear pretty trivial â the decorations on the walls. Rowen Clarke still remembers when staff first put up these big vinyl decorations that say “Burlington,” in all capital letters, at the top of the escalator.
âI was pretty hype when they put those up. I thought they were, like, really cool,â he said. âBecause they were the first, like, ‘Burlington’ thing we had. So yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. And added a lot of schoolness to the school.â
In the intervening years, student artwork, posters and athletic banners have accumulated on the walls.
âIt’s unfortunate, and we can, like, laugh about the Michael Kors cafe, but you know, the lunch ladies are there every day with a smile, serving food. There is that. The people make the place.â
Medea Daly
Medea Daly recently took pictures for a project in different places throughout the school, in the exact same spots as she had when the downtown campus first opened. She said she was struck by how lifeless the building seemed then. And in general, Daly said sheâs thankful for all the work staff and faculty have put into making the building feel like a home.
âIt’s unfortunate, and we can, like, laugh about the Michael Kors cafe, but you know, the lunch ladies are there every day with a smile, serving food. There is that,â she said. âThe people make the place.â
Students have also leaned into the absurdity of their situation. In the fall of 2021, BHS seniors asked Lauren McBride, the principal at the time, if they could hold their own Macyâs Day Parade on the Friday before Thanksgiving break. She agreed. And every year since, seniors have kept up the tradition, complete with balloons, costumes and themed floats built from rolling janitorial carts.
âIt’s honestly a blur because I’m wearing earplugs because the drums are so loud, and I don’t know anything that’s going on behind me,â said senior Vivian Halladay, who has been in the drumline every year. âItâs one of my favorite things we have at the school. It’s so much fun.â
Students were matter-of-fact about the very real drawbacks of going to school in a building that was never meant as a space for learning. There basically are hardly any windows, for example, and the fluorescent lighting can make it hard to concentrate â particularly if youâre recovering from multiple concussions.
âTrying to go back to learning in a school where there’s really, really harsh lighting, and just getting crippling headaches is not a good thing,â Halladay said.
But on the whole, students said that as much as they liked to joke about how bizarre their high school years had been, it had also helped bind them together.
âIt’s not been, you know, great or perfect, but it’s been â it’s been very good,â Halladay said.
Have questions, comments or tips? Send us a message.
Vermont
How ruinous floods put Vermont at the forefront of the climate battle
![How ruinous floods put Vermont at the forefront of the climate battle](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/4ULYROJR52T7W2XEPSUPOUKYHQ_size-normalized.jpg&w=1440)
Across the country, state and local leaders are scrambling to find the money they need to protect their communities from worsening disasters fueled by climate change. For Barre, needed flood mitigation projects will cost the city an estimated $30 million over the next five years, Lauzon said.
Yet Vermont has a new answer to this problem.
Earlier this month, it became the nationâs first state to require fossil fuel companies and other big emitters to pay for the climate-related damage their pollution has already caused statewide. While conservative legal experts are skeptical the law will survive challenges, some Vermonters said they are both grateful and a little nervous that one of the nationâs least populous states has picked a fight with one of Americaâs most powerful industries.
âIâm proud to have this state stand up and say, âLook, you need to be held accountable, and you need to help us with the damage we incurred,ââ Lauzon said. âBut Iâm also scared to death. I feel like weâre a pee wee football team going up against the 2020 New England Patriots.â
The Vermont law comes as oil and gas companies face dozens of climate lawsuits, both in the United States and abroad. While none of the state and local lawsuits have gone to trial yet â including Vermontâs own challenge, filed in 2021 â they pose a growing threat and add to the companiesâ potential liabilities. If Vermontâs novel approach endures, it could reverberate across the industry.
Republicans are pushing back, arguing that individual states cannot apply their own laws to a global pollutant. Last month, Republican attorneys general in 19 states asked the Supreme Court to block the climate change lawsuits brought by California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island against fossil fuel companies.
Vermontâs law authorizes the state to charge major polluters a fee for the share of greenhouse gas emissions they produced between 1995 and 2024. It is modeled on the 1980 federal Superfund law, which forces polluting companies to clean up toxic waste sites.
The law doesnât spell out how much money should be paid; instead, it tasks the state treasurer with assessing the damage Vermont has suffered from climate change and what it will cost to prepare for future impacts. The final tally is expected to be comprehensive, factoring in an array of possible costs from rebuilding and raising bridges and roads to lower worker productivity from rising heat.
Bills similar to Vermontâs have been introduced in several states, including California, Maryland and Massachusetts. Last week, New York lawmakers passed a climate superfund law that would require polluters to pay $3 billion a year for 25 years. It is now awaiting Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochulâs signature.
The timing of the Vermont law was no accident, said Ben Edgerly Walsh, the climate and energy program director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. Memories of last Julyâs flooding â which inundated the state capitol of Montpelier, damaged thousands of homes and trapped people in small mountain towns â are still fresh.
Over the last year, Vermonters have also endured a freak late-spring frost that damaged crops, hazy skies from smoke blown south from hundreds of wildfires in Canada, and more flooding in mid-December. All these events primed state lawmakers to tackle climate change at the beginning of 2024.
âWhen we brought this idea to legislators, they came to it with a very open mind in a way that may have taken more time, more convincing, in another year,â Edgerly Walsh said. âBut this was a moment we just knew we needed to act.â
As disaster recovery costs mount, it has not been lost on state leaders that oil companies are enjoying massive profits. In 2023, the warmest year on record, the two largest U.S. energy companies, ExxonMobil and Chevron, together made more than $57 billion.
It might seem unlikely for a state like Vermont, with a population just under 650,000, to stand up to the fossil fuel industry. The stateâs Republican governor, Phil Scott, expressed skepticism in a letter to the secretary of the Vermont Senate, writing, âTaking on âBig Oilâ should not be taken lightly. And with just $600,000 appropriated by the Legislature to complete an analysis that will need to withstand intense legal scrutiny from a well-funded defense, we are not positioning ourselves for success.â
Yet Vermontâs small budget â it has the lowest GDP in the country â means that it feels the rising risks from heavy rains more acutely than wealthier states. A report by Rebuild by Design, a nonprofit that helps communities recover from disasters, found that Vermont ranked fifth nationally in per capita disaster relief costs from 2011-2021, with $593 spent per resident.
The costs are only expected to climb. A 2022 study from University of Vermont researchers predicted that the cost of property damage from flooding alone may top $5.2 billion over the next 100 years.
Ultimately, the governor allowed the law to go into effect without his signature, saying he understood âthe desire to seek funding to mitigate the effects of climate change that has hurt our state in so many ways.â
Legal challenges will inevitably follow â the only question is when.
The oil and gas industryâs top lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute, has said that states donât have the power to regulate carbon pollution and canât retroactively charge companies for emissions allowed under the law. It has also emphasized individualsâ responsibility for climate change, noting that Vermont residents use fossil fuels to heat their homes and power their cars. Scott Lauermann, a spokesman for the group, said API is âconsidering all our options to reverse this punitive new fee.â
âI think the courts are going to have problems with the idea that Vermont can penalize the companies for past actions that were completely legal and the state itself relies on,â said Jeff Holmstead, an energy lawyer who served in the Environmental Protection Agency under George W. Bush. âIâm skeptical this will actually pass muster.â
Supporters and environmentalists involved in drafting the law said they believed they had created a legally defensible way to recover damages from polluters by modeling it after the Superfund law, which has been repeatedly upheld in court. Several legal experts said the state had also taken a more conservative approach than others by requiring a study before assessing companiesâ liability, ensuring the fines levied against them are proportional to the amount of damage caused by their products.
Cara Horowitz, executive director of the UCLA School of Lawâs Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said that, inevitably, fossil fuel companies will challenge any bills Vermont submits for damages. But that is years off, she said, and the industry is likely to move sooner than that.
The lawsuits âwill start soon and last a long time,â Horowitz said. âIt would surprise me if they donât preemptively try to undermine the entire exercise by declaring the whole thing unlawful.â
In Barre, Lauzon said he isnât confident litigation over the law will be resolved in his lifetime. But even if the fossil fuel companies are never made to pay, he said, the lawâs passage was the right thing to do.
âI canât look at the north end, I canât look at the city of Barre and say no one needs to be held accountable,â he said.
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