Legislative Report 3/21/2022 - Reaching crossover, Environmental bills score big

 

As the Legislature hit the crossover date last week, House committees were busy finalizing work on the dozens of bills they had been working on since January. The once-a-decade legislative reapportionment bill was finalized and passed, and the Charlotte-Hinesburg district, Chittenden 5, again contains all of Charlotte and a slightly larger portion of Hinesburg, running along the west side of Baldwin Road from the Monkton line to Burritt Road. (Map)

 

Among the many bills that passed and were sent on to the Senate, were several that touched on the environment and our efforts to address the climate change crisis. The Municipal Efficiency Resilience Initiative (H.518) passed unanimously to help municipalities assess the energy efficiency of their buildings and apply for grants to weatherize, reduce operation and maintenance costs, enhance comfort, and reduce energy use by improving heating, cooling, and ventilation systems. The Clean Heat Standard bill (H.715) also passed with a strong 96 to 44 vote to help homeowners, renters and commercial properties reduce their dependence on fossil fuels for heating.

 

The Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife Committee sponsored several important bills including H.500, which prohibits the sale, starting in 2024, of four-foot linear fluorescent lamps in Vermont for which LEDs are available. All fluorescent lamps contain mercury and can create an immediate public health and environmental hazard when they accidentally break during installation, use, transportation, storage, recycling, or disposal. Light-emitting diode (LED) replacements for fluorescent lamps do not contain any mercury. Another bill, H.523, seeks to reduce hydrofluorocarbon emissions. Hydrofluorocarbons are potent greenhouse gases and enter the atmosphere as leakage from cooling systems. Products that contain hydrofluorocarbons for use in refrigeration systems and auto air conditioners are prohibited starting in 2024. Alternative refrigerant products are available.

 

Forests play an important role in Vermont’s working landscape, and in its tourist and recreation economy. Currently only actively managed forests are

A view of Camels Hump from Niquette State
Park.   Photo by Mike Yantachka

 eligible for enrollment in the Use Value Appraisal (Current Use) program. Forests that exhibit old forest characteristics can provide unique contributions to biodiversity, contribute to the climate resilience and adaptive capacity of Vermont’s working landscape, and serve as ecological benchmarks against which to measure active management of Vermont’s forests. The House passed H.697 which creates a pilot program to extend eligibility for current use for forest parcels that are left wild and meet certain criteria with the approval of the Commissioner of Forests, Parks and Recreation.

 

This forest program will complement nicely another bill, H.606, the Community Resilience and Biodiversity Protection Act. Nature is facing a catastrophic loss of biodiversity, both globally and locally. In addition to its intrinsic value, biodiversity is essential to human survival. According to the United Nations one million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction, and human activity has altered almost 75 percent of the Earth’s surface, squeezing wildlife and nature into ever-smaller natural areas of the planet. The health of ecosystems on which humans and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever, affecting the very foundations of economies, livelihoods, food security, health, and quality of life worldwide. The causes of the drivers of changes in nature rank as: (1) changes in land and sea use, (2) direct exploitation of organisms, (3) climate change, (4) pollution, and (5) invasive species. According to the Nature Conservancy Vermont plays a key role in the conservation of biodiversity regionally.  H.606 sets a goal of conserving thirty percent of Vermont’s total land area by 2030 and 50 percent by 2050, including state, federal, municipal, and private land. It requires the Agency of Natural Resources to develop a plan by the end of 2023 with public input from all stakeholders. These bills and many others now move to the Senate.

As always, I welcome your emails (myantachka.dfa@gmail.com) or phone calls (802-233-5238).  

The Word in the House 5/23/2019 - It Ain't Over Til It's Over!

"It ain't over til it's over!" - Yogi Berra

The plan was to finish the legislative session by Saturday, May 18^th, even working close to midnight again as we did the last couple of years. Alas, it was not to be. By Friday afternoon there were still about a dozen Committees of Conference working to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of bills, including the budget, transportation and tax bills. Speaker Mitzi Johnson recessed the House until the following Wednesday to allow the conference committees to finish their work in the interim.

Dozens of bills completed their ping-pong journeys through both the House and the Senate this week. Several bills engendered considerable debate on the House floor before the final vote including bills increasing the minimum wage (S.23), requiring a 24-hour waiting period for handgun purchases (S.169), and requiring businesses to cover medical monitoring for persons exposed to releases of toxic chemicals (S.37).

After a brief negotiation with the Senate in a Committee of Conference, the broadband expansion bill (H.513) received final approval as well.

This week was also marked by an interruption of the debate on S.37 by climate crisis protestors.  The House was startled when several protestors in the balcony started speaking loudly about the failure of the legislature to do more about the climate crisis, unfurled a banner, and tossed hundreds of index card messages into the chamber.  Speaker Johnson gaveled the House to Order and asked the Sergeant at Arms and the Capitol police to remove the protestors to restore order. When that didn’t stop the protestors, she ordered the legislators to leave the floor. All but two members complied.

While I don’t condone the actions of the protestors, I understand their frustration. For all the ominous science-based reports on what we are doing to the global climate, all the peaceful marches and lobbying by students and activists including the march from Middlebury to Montpelier, the legislature took only small steps to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. The $1.5M EV incentive program has been cut to $1M. The two-cent increase of the heating fuel tax to raise $4.6M for weatherization of Vermont’s old housing stock has been replaced by the Senate with a transfer of one-time money from Efficiency Vermont surplus funds. In the Senate version, the number of low-income families benefitting will be the same as the House version for the next fiscal year, about 1300, but falls back to the current number, about 850, for future years. Efficiency Vermont will continue to help moderate-income families with weatherization assistance.  

However, if we are going to transition from fossil fuels to cleaner electricity in both the transportation and heating sectors of our economy in the next decade, we’ll need to make an investment to accelerate adoption of those technologies. This can be done in a way that grows jobs, reduces use of fossil fuels and saves Vermonters money. What we’ve done this year does not accomplish this in a sustainable way. Our Climate Solutions Caucus made up of concerned Representatives and Senators will be meeting between now and January to define a strategy to move forward in 2020.  Last year the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated that we have 12 years to reverse the buildup of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to prevent a rise of 2 degrees-C (4 degrees-F) in global temperatures. We must act as soon as possible with our regional partners to do our part for the sake of our children, grandchildren, and future generations.

I welcome your emails (myantachka.dfa@gmail.com) or phone calls (802-233-5238).

Legislative Report 5/30/2018 - Missed Opportunities

The legislative process is both deliberate and deliberative. Bills do not get passed without a considerable amount of testimony from stakeholders on every side of an issue and discussion among the members of a committee comprised of Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, and Independents. Bills that are introduced are often modified significantly by the time they are voted out of committee and sent to the floor for consideration by the entire body of either the House or the Senate. Once the bill gets to the other chamber, the process is repeated. So, a lot of thought goes into a bill to ensure that it is a solid piece of legislation that accomplishes the purpose intended.

That is why, after hearing the rhetoric that he wants to protect the most vulnerable Vermonters and improve affordability, it is disappointing that the Governor has decided to veto four bills that address those issues. Two of the bills, S.103 and S.197, would protect Vermonters from misuse of toxic chemicals and hazardous materials. The first would create an Interagency Committee on Chemical Management to evaluate chemical inventories in the state, identify potential risks to human health and the environment, and propose measures to address those risks. It also would require testing for potability of new water sources used for human consumption. The second would require businesses responsible for exposing employees or the public to toxic materials through intentional or unintentional releases to cover the cost of medical monitoring of exposed individuals. The PFOA contamination of the public water supply in the Bennington area demonstrates the need for such legislation to protect the health of Vermonters.

Two other vetoed bills, S.40 and H.196, directly address affordability concerns for low and middle income Vermonters. S.40, the minimum wage bill, would gradually increase the minimum wage in Vermont to $15 per hour over six years. This bill would assist more than 25,000 minimum wage adult, non-farm workers who often have to work more than one job to make ends meet. It would also have the benefit of putting more money into the local economy at the same time. The other bill, H.196, is the paid family leave bill. This bill would create a statewide insurance program that would allow an employee to take up to 12 weeks to care for a child or other family member during critical times of need, including childbirth, prolonged illness, and emergency situations. The program would pay 70% of the employee's average weekly wage and would be financed entirely by a 0.137 percent tax on employee wages. For a full-time, minimum wage worker, this would be 58 cents per week, or about 5.5 cents per week for every dollar per hour. This is a crucial benefit that smaller employers often cannot afford to provide but guarantees that some income is available during times of crisis or family necessity. If we want to make Vermont attractive for working families, raising the minimum wage and addressing flexibility for families to take care of each other is necessary.

As always, I can be reached by phone (802-233-5238) or by email (myantachka.dfa@gmail.com).

Chittenden County Democrats Show Focuses on GMO Labeling and Toxic Chemical Legislation

The Chittenden County Democrats Show on CCTV Channel 17, hosted by Bob Hooper and Rep. Mike Yantachka, featured guests Matthew Ennis, RuralVermont.org, and Lauren Heurl, VermontConservationVoters.org, on legislation regarding Genetically Modified Organizms (GMO's) H.112, and Toxic Chemicals (Bill S.239).   Watch the interview here.