Remember the Rubik's Cube? I always
had a hard time solving that 3D, 3-axis puzzle. The last week of the
legislative session seemed like trying to solve a giant Rubik's cube
of legislation. Fourteen bills were assigned to Committees of
Conference because the House and Senate could not agree on details in
the versions each chamber passed. In addition to those bills, the
Immunization bill (H.98), the Water Quality bill (H.35) and the
Energy bill (H.40) still had not been settled.
Early in the week the House Health Care
Committee took a couple more days of impassioned testimony on whether
to retain the philosophical exemption or to remove it before finally
bringing it to the full House for a vote. The hours-long debate on
the floor reflected the range of opinions heard in testimony. Several
amendments were offered before the House voted to remove that
exemption while retaining the religious and medical exemptions. The
85 to 57 vote crossed party lines as individual legislators made up
their own minds on the legislation. Following the decision on vaccine
exemptions, the House voted quickly to concur with the Senate on
proposed amendments to the Water Quality bill, which will put Vermont
on the path to reducing phosphorous runoff into its lakes and
streams.
By Friday afternoon most of the
conference committees reported agreement on all but the Budget,
Revenue, Health Care, and Education bills, and the Senate was still
debating amendments to the Energy bill. Earlier in the afternoon we
passed the very important Child Protection bill (S.9) which requires
any mandated reporter who reasonably suspects abuse or neglect of a
child to report it to Department of Children and Families instead of
to a superior, and it improves cross-agency communication for child
welfare cases. Typical of the "hurry up and wait"
character of the session's final days, the House was repeatedly
recessed to await updates on the status of conference committee
negotiations.
Friday evening we received from the
Senate its amendments to the Energy bill, and the House quickly
concurred in its passage. The Senate left the provisions adopted by
the House and added provisions regarding siting of solar energy
projects. They include giving municipalities automatic party status
in Public Service Board hearings, defining minimum setback
requirements, and allowing municipalities to define screening
requirements. Passage of this bill satisfies the objections
Connecticut and Massachusetts had regarding Vermont's double-counting
of renewable energy credits (RECs) and avoids the loss of $50M in
annual revenue for our utilities, thereby avoiding a potential 6%
increase in electric rates.
Saturday brought the passage of the
Education bill and the Health Care bill. The Health Care bill had
been trimmed back considerably because of an inability to agree on
funding. What remained was a 33 cent/pack cigarette tax increase and
subjecting soda to the 6% sales tax. The package contains $3.2
million in new state health care spending, which is eligible for
roughly another $3 million from federal matching funds. The money
will be used to level-fund Vermont Health Connect subsidies for
out-of-pocket costs, target increases to Medicaid rates, and invest
in initiatives to strengthen the primary care system.
As late as Saturday afternoon
negotiations were still going on among the House and Senate
leadership and the Governor regarding how the agreed upon budget
would be funded. $53M in program cuts had been agreed upon with the
expectation that $30M in additional revenues would have to be found.
This represents $3M more in cuts and $5M less in revenues than
originally passed by the House. Finally, around 10 PM the final
agreements were made and the House gave final approval to the Budget.
After the traditional speeches from the leaders of the Progressive,
Republican and Democratic parties, the Speaker of the House, and the
Governor, the session was gavelled to a close just before 11 PM.
I can be reached by phone
(802-233-5238) or by email (myantachka.dfa@gmail.com).
