Lawmaker looks to improve the electric grid — and relationships with constituents

Representative Lucy Rogers

Vermont state Representative Lucy Rogers, who serves on the energy and technology committee, discusses the importance of local democracy and how it depends on people’s ability to trust their government, and believes that it has the possibility to be a force of good. 

“I take pretty seriously my role on a local level to be caring, kind of empathetic, patient, and worthy of trust for people to interact with,” Rogers said, “because people's interactions with me in depth reflect their view of all government at all levels.”

“It's kind of all under the government umbrella,” Rogers said, discussing her role within the interactions between Vermonters and the state government. 

“This might be their experience to kind of take away how they feel about their government, which, in today's times, the future of democracy depends on,” Rogers said about how she interacts with constituents. 

“In Vermont, we're pretty fortunate with how approachable and accessible state government is just because of being such a small state, and also having a pretty strong culture of close connections between citizens and government,” Rogers said.

Within this committee framework, one piece that Rogers will be working on this coming legislative session is electric grid modernization. Although this topic doesn’t get a ton of attention it is massively important, Rogers said.

“Particularly as we work to transition away from fossil fuels into a more renewable electric grid in order to have it work in the future, as fossil fuels are limited in supply,” Rogers said.

Electric grid modernization, the multifaceted term referring to changes with the power grid to accommodate all the technological and electric impacts on the ecosystem, is “very relevant to people’s individual lives,” Rogers said, explaining the renewable electric grid’s importance to a sustainable future.

Involved in the leadership of the rural economic development group, Rogers is working on a wide number of issues that have to do with rural economic development and modernization, one in particular being promoting the forest products economy in Vermont, where the supply chains and demand both became so different during COVID.

Rogers is trying to upgrade and modernize the infrastructure so that “there's capacity for storage on the grid,” she said, “which there currently isn't, but is really important with renewable style energy generation here you can't always predict how much electricity will be generated.”

“It's actually quite possible and accessible to kind of tune into some of the work that is happening at a state government level and to reach out to the people whose job it is to represent you and to make sure that they know what is important to you,” Rogers said.