Montpelier — The Vermont House has advanced a wide-ranging bill that pushes utilities beyond electricity to help customers save on heat and could resolve criticism that the current state program to promote renewable energy double-counts its results.

Supporters say the bill would move Vermont from the back of the pack — the five other New England states already have the renewable energy requirements the bill calls for — to the front by adding language calling for utilities to help customers cut consumption of home heating oil and other carbon-emitting fuels.

The Renewable Energy Standard and Energy Transformation — or RESET — program would end a current program under which wind farms and other renewable energy projects have been allowed to meet in-state goals for construction of such projects, while at the same time transferring their carbon-reducing attributes to out-of-state utilities through the sale of renewable energy credits.

Critics say the credits allow utilities in other states to meet those states’ renewable energy standards without building as many renewable projects of their own as they otherwise would have to, and fear has been growing that other states could enact laws or regulations to stop their utilities from buying the Vermont renewable energy credits, known as RECS.

“Vermont needs a renewable portfolio standard now because the viability of Vermont’s RECS has been put into question,” said Rep. Rebecca Ellis, D-Waterbury, who described the bill to her House colleagues.

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