Vermont gets $4.2 million in Volkswagen settlement

The state will receive $4.2 million from Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche to settle claims that the companies violated the state’s clean air laws by selling certain diesel vehicles.

Vermont’s sum is part of $157.4 million that Volkswagen and its subsidiaries will pay to 10 states. The money is in addition to $17.8 million that Vermont received through a federally managed environmental trust fund.

In September, Vermont became the second state to sue Volkswagen under both its state-level environmental laws and state-level consumer protection laws. The consumer protection portion of the lawsuit is still active.

“Between 2008 and 2015, the Volkswagen auto group sold and leased diesel automobiles in Vermont that were fitted with illegal defeat devices used to conceal the release of large amounts of harmful pollutants, including nitrogen oxide,” Attorney General TJ Donovan said at a press conference Friday.

“The releases were beyond Vermont’s motor vehicle emissions standards, harmful to our public health, and they were marketing these vehicles as clean and green and sold to Vermont consumers who cared about the environment,” Donovan said. “They clearly preyed on the environmental heartstrings of Vermonters.”

The attorney general’s office has estimated there are 3,400 Volkswagens, Audis and Porsches with 2-liter and 3-liter engines in Vermont that were subject to the fraud. That gives the state the second-highest per-capita ownership in the country, behind Oregon.

Julie Moore, the secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, called the $4.2 million one of the largest environmental settlements in Vermont history. She said the agency would work with other parts of state government to reduce air pollution and emissions.

Robert McDougall, the chief of the environmental protection division in the attorney general’s office, called this the first time that Vermont and other states, aside from California, received environmental penalties from an automaker for violating emissions standards.

“There’s often a misconception that ‘multistate’ means that we just signed on the dotted line and got money as a result,” McDougall said. “It’s critically important to know in this case the role that our team played.”

“They were able to increase the amount of dollars coming to Vermont, and also played a large role in expanding the use of the mitigation trust fund that we will eventually be able to use down the road,” he said.

Nick Persampieri, an assistant attorney general who worked on the case, said the settlement will also require Volkswagen to introduce three new models of battery-electric vehicles over the next several years.

Additionally, the state will be able to use up to 15 percent of the other $17.8 million to set up electric vehicle charging stations.

House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, said she owned one of the affected Volkswagen models until about five years ago. Although not eligible for any part of the settlements, she said she feels defrauded.

“I’m one of those people who actually looks at emissions standards when I buy a car, and I try to do the right thing, and I try to carpool, and I try to minimize my carbon footprint, and VW lied to me about it,” she said.

Johnson said most of the settlement would go to Vermont’s general fund, the main pot of money the Legislature uses to fund state government. She said the Legislature will have some authority to decide how the money is spent.

Lawmakers have been considering a spending plan for the original $17.8 million from the trust fund.

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