For the past two month my committee, the House Energy & Technology Committee, has been taking testimony on and debating a bill to establish a program called the “Clean Heat Standard” (CHS). The CHS is part of the Climate Action Plan put forward by the Climate Council under the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA).
In a nutshell, the CHS is designed to drive up the cost of fossil home heating fuels (oil, propane, natural gas, and kerosene) by forcing distributors to purchase “credits” to offset their products’ greenhouse gas emissions. These credits would be created by other businesses (or the dealers themselves, though for many this is not a realistic option) by installing cold climate heat pumps, getting customers to switch from oil to biofuel, weatherizing buildings, etc. Once the credits are created, the businesses that created them can sell them to the fuel dealers who by law need them.