Vermont's 'Green New Scam' Scuttled

The Trump administration has canceled $8 billion in funding for climate-related projects in primarily Democratic-controlled states - Vermont among them.

The end of the "Green New Deal" - which Republicans call the "Green New Scam" - comes as a blow to the Green Mountain State's socialist senior senator.

Bernie Sanders has been trying to get funding for a bill he envisioned as curbing "climate change."

"Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left's climate agenda is being cancelled," OMB Director Russell Vought wrote in a post on the social media site X, on the same day the federal government shut down after Congress did not pass a stopgap funding bill.

Vought said the projects affected by the decision are in Vermont, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington state.

In the 2024 election, President Trump lost those states to then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee whom he defeated in the Electoral College.

The cuts are likely to affect battery plants, hydrogen technology projects, upgrades to the electric grid and carbon-capture efforts, among many others, according to the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Energy Department said that 223 projects were terminated after a review determined they did not adequately advance the nation's energy needs or were not economically viable.

Sanders recently reintroduced the "Green New Deal," a comprehensive bill that took aim at the alleged "housing crisis" and so-called "climate change."

The bill would have invested almost $250 billion over 10 years to make the public housing stock in the U.S. more energy-efficient.

Sanders claimed it would also have created up to 280,000 union jobs a year and reduce carbon. That would be equivalent to taking more than 1.25 million cars off the road, he asserted.

“We need to mobilize millions of people to ensure every American has decent and affordable housing, and at the same time we address the existential crisis of climate change and that is what the legislation does,” Sanders said earlier this year.

Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a co-sponsor, were joined by 55 House members and seven senators, including Vermont's Democrat Sen. Peter Welch, in supporting the ill-fated bill.

“We want community, and we know in order to get that, we need public policy that is going to address climate, that is going to address housing, that is going to build in a way that is sustainable and efficient. This is in our power to do,” Welch said as he tried to revive the bill last spring.

Sponsors of the legislation has argued that improving the energy efficiency of the country’s public housing stock would improve the quality of life for low-income residents, who they claimed are often forced to choose between paying for utilities or food.