Task Force shirks duty in the midst of Climate Emergency
Please come to tonight's South Burlington City Council Meeting at 6:30pm. Demand that that the City include aviation emissions in the Climate Action Plan.
The Climate Action Task Force will be presenting its recommended final Climate Action Plan to the Council. The plan includes an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, but notably absent from this inventory are Airport emissions originating from ground and flight operations. F-35 trainings alone from the Burlington Airport are estimated to create around 100,000 tons of CO2e/year. This is a conservative estimate and does not include any other aviation or ground emissions originating from the airport.
The task force plan states that S. Burlington does not have the authority to regulate these emissions. Here is the specific language:
"While the City of South Burlington does have an international airport within its borders, aviation emissions and ground transportation emissions associated with the airport are not considered in the inventory because the City does not have the authority over the airport. The aviation and military activities that occur at the airport are under the jurisdiction of the City of Burlington, Federal Aviation Administration, and the Air National Guard. These entities have their own climate action plans. The City of Burlington is working with a consultant to include airport related emissions in their plan."
S. Burlington doesn't have authority over cars driving in the city either, nor does it regulate emissions from cars, but it rightly counts vehicle emissions in its greenhouse gas inventory. S. Burlington also includes emissions from business and homes in the city, regardless of who owns them, EXCEPT for the Airport. Any recommended actions to mitigate GHG emissions are and will be based upon wildly inaccurate assumptions if aviation emissions are omitted from S. Burlington's GHG inventory. This inventory will drive future decisions related to land use planning, development, and a whole host of other activities; decisions that will be made based on false and misleading information.
I have seen no evidence, and the CAP provides no evidence that the City of Burlington is including Airport emissions in their climate action plan. Furthermore, although there are indeed activities at the airport that are under the jurisdiction of the FAA, as well as the military, this jurisdiction does not prevent South Burlington from including GHG emissions from the airport. In fact, NEPA regulations provide federal agencies should work with local governments in monitoring, and reporting of emissions:
Federal agencies are authorized to cooperate with State, Tribal, and local agencies that are responsible for preparing environmental documents, including those prepared pursuant to section 102(2)(D) of NEPA.
(40 CFR § 1506.2)
See the full code at: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/1506.2
"Not my problem" has never been an acceptable response. In the midst of a climate emergency, "not my problem" is an indefensible position. We've known about climate change for many decades and our leaders have consistently, year after year, decade after decade, have chosen not to act. The entire globe is reaping what we have sown. We are now in the midst of a climate emergency in which people all over the world are literally dying due to a problem that most of them had no hand in creating. The actions we take or do not take materially impact the habitability of the planet, species extinction or survival, and the most vulnerable among us. While we may see our maple sugar industry disappear, others will lose their food crops, their drinking water, their homes, their lives. We must demand more of our leaders.
This link http://sbvt-records.info/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=289899&dbid=0&repo=SBurl
will take you to the agenda for tonight's meeting. This agenda also contains the latest version of the Climate Action Plan dated 9/13/22. This is the only place I have been able to find the latest version which is being presented to the City Council at tonight's meeting.
Please insist that South Burlington include aviation emissions in its Climate Action Plan inventory of greenhouse gas emissions just as they do for all other entities in South Burlington.