The Affordable Heat Act raised costs, the PUC confirmed it, and the real outside cash is already funding Vermont’s media and advocacy landscape: they just don’t like competition.

When Vermont lawmakers passed Act 18 in 2023, they required that it be cited as the Affordable Heat Act. The title was branding, not substance. Vermont’s own Public Utility Commission (PUC) has since confirmed what many Vermonters already suspected: the Clean Heat Standard created by Act 18 will raise, not lower, the cost of staying warm in winter.

That hasn’t stopped progressive activists and their media allies from sounding the alarm about a supposed “dark money invasion” by Americans for Prosperity (AFP). Grist, Vermont Digger, WCAX, and the Vermont Democratic Party have all churned out the same storyline: billionaire-backed outsiders are trying to undo Vermont’s climate progress.

But that narrative falls apart under scrutiny.

Vermonters Were Already Pushing Back

Long before AFP entered the conversation, Vermont residents had been fighting to repeal the so-called Affordable Heat Act. Why? Because the PUC’s 2023 check-back report estimated nearly $1 billion in program costs over the first decade and rate impacts ranging from 2% to 45% increases on fossil fuel customers. The Commission was blunt: obligated fuel dealers would pass compliance costs to consumers.

That reality resonated in towns like Rutland, where residents showed up to a recent AFP-sponsored event. FYIVT was there. Far from the caricature of a radical Koch-funded spectacle, the meeting was measured and polite. Even Republican Senator Terry Williams acknowledged climate change was real but called it unreasonable to bankrupt Vermonters in a state whose emissions are globally negligible.

Representative Zach Harvey (R-Rutland-3) echoed the same point in an interview: Vermont’s contribution to global emissions is “completely negligible,” while Act 18 guarantees higher energy bills for people already struggling. Affordability, not ideology, is what is animating voters.

AFP’s Vermont director Ross Connolly has said the group only came north after being contacted by Vermonters desperate for help. That’s a far cry from the Democratic Party’s claim that AFP parachuted in to impose a Trumpist agenda.

The Double Narrative of Act 18

It’s telling that supporters can’t keep their story straight.

• Speaker Jill Krowinski’s line: Act 18 was about insulating Vermonters from oil price swings, after heating oil jumped from $2 to nearly $6 per gallon during the pandemic spike.
• Conservation Law Foundation’s line: Act 18 was about “slashing the pollution overheating our planet.”

Neither version matches the facts. (Again, read Act 18 and the PUC Report.) The law doesn’t shield families from oil volatility. It layers new compliance costs on top. Nor does it guarantee emissions reductions. It simply creates a credit-trading system — another version of renewable energy credits — where costs are shuffled onto ratepayers while the climate impact is negligible.

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The “Dark Money” Shell Game

If Vermonters are supposed to be horrified that AFP has national backers, they should look more closely at who funds the other side.

Network maps, from DataRepublican, show that millions of dollars flow into the Vermont Journalism Trust (parent of Vermont Digger) through intermediaries such as the Vermont Community Foundation, the American Journalism Project, and the Institute for Nonprofit News. Much of this funding originates in donor-advised funds — vehicles like Vanguard Charitable and Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund. These funds allow wealthy donors to give anonymously: the public sees only “Vanguard” or “Fidelity” on IRS filings, not the individual behind the check. By the time the money reaches Vermont media outlets, the original source is impossible to trace.

The environmental lobby operates the same way. Groups like: the Sierra Club, Vermont Natural Resources Council, Energy Action Network, VPIRG, Vermont Conservation Voters, Vermont Community Foundation, 350.org, Vermont Energy Investment Corporation (VEIC)/Efficiency Vermont, and the Conservation Law Foundation have deep pockets and national fundraising machines. Together, they’ve spent hundreds of millions pushing climate mandates like the Global Warming Solutions Act and Act 18 — which has cost Vermont taxpayers dearly while producing zero measurable reductions in emissions.

Against that backdrop, AFP’s resources are modest. In 2022, AFP reported about $186 million nationally. That’s chump change compared to the combined budgets of the climate advocacy-industrial complex and its allied nonprofits. And it’s misleading to suggest AFP is all-in for Donald Trump. The group backed Nikki Haley during the primaries, proof that it doesn’t march in lockstep with MAGA.

Manufactured Alarmism

What’s striking isn’t just the rhetoric, but the convergence. The Vermont Democratic Party’s Facebook blasts, Digger’s reporting, Grist’s national framing, and WCAX’s television coverage all landed on the same storyline: AFP as a billionaire-funded outsider plotting to influence Montpelier. The net effect was a single narrative repeated across Vermont’s political and media landscape.

Yet nothing in AFP’s Vermont events has matched that hysteria. The Rutland meeting was a small-town discussion about heating bills and economic reality. (Again, FYIVT was there.) Vermonters themselves were driving the repeal conversation before AFP even showed up.

Note: The joint VTDigger/Grist piece was written by Austyn Gaffney, VTDigger’s environmental reporter and an instructor at UVM’s Center for Community News. She previously served as a climate fellow with The New York Times and has written extensively on energy and climate for outlets including The Guardian, Rolling Stone, National Geographic, and The Washington Post. Grist is a Seattle-based nonprofit climate-advocacy newsroom; Digger is a Vermont-based nonprofit outlet funded partly by national foundations.

The Real Dark Money

The true story is not AFP parachuting into Vermont, but how national foundations, advocacy groups, and donor-advised funds pump tens of millions into local nonprofits, media, and lobbying groups to cement climate policy that Vermonters can’t afford. DataRepublican’s flow charts make it plain: Vermont’s policy discourse is already saturated with outside money and influence.

Bottom Line

Act 18 was cynically branded the “Affordable Heat Act,” but it makes heat less affordable. The Public Utility Commission’s own numbers confirm it. Vermonters recognized the problem immediately, which is why repeal efforts have kept surfacing in Montpelier. AFP didn’t invent that backlash — they responded to it.

The real dark-money influence is flowing the other direction: into media outlets like Vermont Digger and advocacy groups like CLF, Sierra Club, and VNRC. Vermonters deserve to know that before they’re told to fear a Koch-funded bogeyman. Or, as Senator Anne Watson (D/P-Washington District) told VTDigger/Grist, “Vermonters need to be savvy about that and recognize when outside influence is coming in to try and affect our policies and our elections.” Why else is it so expensive to live in Vermont?

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Dave Soulia | FYIVT

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