OPINION: It’s time to stop outsourcing responsibility

August 4, 2026  |  By Elizabeth Brown and Alison Despathy

In recent years, the Vermont Legislature has increasingly relied on a governance model in which it establishes broad statutory requirements while delegating substantial policy design and implementation authority to appointed (non-elected) boards, commissions and councils. 

Vermont utilizes this model in several key areas, including climate governance, regional planning and healthcare. These unelected bodies (Climate Council, Regional Planning Commissions, and the Green Mountain Care Board, respectively) are established through legislation with the intention that critical details, including methodologies, will be determined after the law is enacted.

These legislatively created bodies can therefore assist in defining the problem, proposing regulatory responses, developing policies, and creating and enforcing rules that are subject to legal deference. This approach raises concerns about unconstitutional separation of powers.

There may be valid reasons for this approach, particularly considering a part-time citizen legislature: technical expertise, flexibility in relation to rules versus statutes, continuity through election cycles. However, the drawbacks include the creation of non-elected entities with broad discretion, which can result in the diffusion of responsibility, conflicts of interest, a compromised democratic process, deficient oversight, and a lack of accountability for elected officials.

An example of this problematic delegation of power and overreach is evident in regional planning commissions. For decades, regional planning commissions have primarily functioned in Vermont to provide municipalities with support, advisory guidance, and coordination with the state. 

However, regional planning commissions have now been legislatively mandated with energy planning, housing planning, flood resilience, municipal plan approval, and state designation programs. In the context of municipal plans, regional planning commissions must approve these plans, which must align with the regional plans created by the regional planning commissions. This often results in a diminishing of community and local control, as municipal rights are gradually eroded.

One regional planning commission is utilizing the development of its regional plan to exert influence and impose stringent regulations on towns and residents. The Two Rivers Ottauquechee Regional Commission has drafted a regional plan with regulatory language that, if adopted by the regional commission and approved by the Land Use Review Board, would prohibit new construction requiring Act 250 approval from utilizing fossil fuels, mandate the installation of electric vehicle chargers, and permit new buildings only on paved roads. The potential impacts of the Two Rivers commission’s proposed regulations on towns, the economy, residents, and businesses are not subject to legislative evaluation.

Vermont’s Climate Council is another instance of an unelected entity creating policy. As part of Act 153, the Global Warming Solutions Act established the Climate Council, comprising 23 appointed members, including several with apparent conflicts of interest.

The Climate Council is tasked with the development of a Climate Action Plan which is then voted on by unelected members for adoption. This is in addition to and often in direct conflict with an existing Comprehensive Energy Plan developed and updated by the Department of Public Service since 1998 with intent to: 

“Ensure to the greatest extent practicable that Vermont can meet its energy service needs in a manner that is adequate, reliable, secure, and sustainable; that ensures affordability and encourages the State’s economic vitality, the efficient use of energy resources, and cost-effective demand-side management; and that is environmentally sound.”

The Climate Council is not only redundant, its existence is also constitutionally questionable.  It has broad authority to develop policy via the Climate Action Plan that, “shall set forth the specific initiatives, programs, and strategies that the State shall pursue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions…”

The clean heat standard and transportation cap and invest programs are regressive policies supported, developed and recommended by the Climate Council. Both result in increased costs of basic living expenses such as fuel for heat and transportation for Vermonters. 

A third example is the Green Mountain Care Board, originally designed to implement a single-payer healthcare program. Despite the failure of single-payer over a decade ago due to prohibitive costs, the board continues to serve in its regulatory capacity, tasked with “improving the health of Vermonters while controlling healthcare costs and increasing access to high-quality care.” Since its inception, Vermont’s health insurance costs have increased exponentially while access has plummeted. 

Statutorily assigned to both regulate and develop policy via rulemaking, the Green Mountain Care Board has a clear conflict of duties with an unsuccessful trajectory. This has led to the escalating issues experienced by providers and patients, posing risks to critical services and hospitals themselves.

This situation highlights examples of Vermont’s dilemma with unelected bodies and the state’s ongoing efforts to centralize and control. As decades of poor policy have compounded, it is imperative to evaluate the current situation and assess potential solutions. 

The same bodies created to address our problems have exacerbated Vermont’s affordability challenges. Creating unelected “special expert” bodies to solve these issues is undemocratic. 

It’s time to stop outsourcing responsibility.

Elizabeth Brown of Waterbury is state director of the Fiscal Alliance Foundation. Alison Despathy of Danville is president of the Natural Rights Project.