Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship
MONTPELIER — Lauren Hierl is the executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC). Its mission is to create and maintain healthy, sustainable environments and communities in Vermont. The organization also advocates for pro-environmental policy on a state and local scale.
Q. What was your background before working at VNRC?
A. Prior to joining the VNRC, I worked for a little more than a decade at Vermont Conservation Voters. It’s an affiliate organization that also does advocacy, accountability, especially for elected officials and did election work trying to help elect pro-environment lawmakers. Whereas VNRC is a charitable nonprofit, so it does not engage in electioneering.. Before that, I worked on environmental campaigns at the state level and worked in Washington, D.C. doing advocacy around Alaskan issues.
Q. You’ve worked in South Africa, Washington D.C. and Alaska previously. What drew you to Vermont?
A. My husband has family here and grew up here. It had always been somewhere that we said at some point we’re going to live in Vermont because it’s a great community. Before we moved here, we had been living in Washington, D.C. and we were drawn to the tight-knit communities in Vermont. Living in Montpelier, it’s walkable and you can make lots of connections with people. It is a space where doing policy work is fun because you can really make a big difference. You can get to know people. It’s a lot less partisan. People still know each other and are neighbors. So it’s just a good place to try to solve problems because people will work together collaboratively more often than not.
Q. What work are you doing at VNRC?
A. A lot of our work right now is focused on implementing a law that we’ve been really involved with trying to shape, Act 181. It is designed to modernize Act 250, the statewide land use law that’s been in place since 1970.
Around a decade ago, we had been like, OK, what needs to be modernized? There has been this huge effort for many years, with lots of stakeholders coming together to try to shape what we could be doing. Climate change and climate resilience are things that hadn’t been on people’s minds back when the law was first passed, as well as the need for more housing.
Q. Have the recent severe weather events in Vermont shifted the goals and priorities of VNRC?
A. Definitely. One of our big initiatives after the floods in 2023 was a bill we called the Flood Safety Act. It looked at how we’re regulating development within our flood plains and river corridors, trying to make sure we’re not going to be putting new buildings in harm’s way. It also looks at being thoughtful about how development is happening so we can keep those areas free to let our rivers move like they naturally do. It also looked at wetlands, which act as sponges on the landscape.
The last piece of this initiative was dealing with dam safety, looking at how are we making sure our dams are safe and our flood-control dams are actually going to work. There are a lot of derelict dams around the state that make flooding worse. We questioned whether we have good programs and funding in place to take those dams out. The VNRC has a dam removal program where we take out a few dams every year in recent years.
Q. Have there been any shifts or setbacks to the VNRC’s goals because of the federal changes to climate policy?
A. The federal endangerment finding was rolled back February 12. It is the underpinning for all of the climate regulations under the Clean Air Act. The rollback threatens regulations on climate pollution, public health and will cost taxpayers billions from climate-intensified natural disasters. The ripple effects remain to be seen, but could be substantial.
Also, one of the biggest impacts so far has been the reconciliation bill that got passed, HR1, last year. It eliminated subsidies for clean energy projects and a lot of funding was halted federally. Prior to that, there was an influx of money that could help with transitioning to clean energy and climate action. A lot of those technologies are the more affordable ones, but they take an upfront cost which then save people money over time. This is where government policy and incentives can help people get over the hurdle to pay more upfront when it will actually be cheaper for them in the long run. It has been really harmful to Vermont because that money is just not available.