Vermont Democratic House Campaign

Posted at VTDigger

The recent Vermont Yankee court decision said the State of Vermont can’t trump the federal government when it comes to issues of nuclear safety. But the same ruling affirmed Vermont’s continuing authority for oversight of other Yankee issues, like enforcement of the Clean Water Act.

That’s good, because when your next-door neighbor is a nuclear power plant, their bad housekeeping is more than just a nuisance. Vermont Yankee refuses to adequately use its cooling towers, and instead discharges hot water – thermal pollution – directly into the Connecticut River. It cuts electricity production costs, but as Vermont Yankee is an independent energy producer, any savings do not automatically reduce anybody’s electric bill, allowing Vermont Yankee to pocket the savings. So Louisiana-based Entergy profits at the expense of the river, a shared public resource that millions of us cherish as the heart of New England.

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From the Manchester Journal

Health Care - The Governor surprised a few folks early last week by acquiescing to a couple of fundamental changes to pending legislation concerning health care insurance exchanges (the future vehicle for purchasing private health insurance). Under new Federal health care law, states must set the ground rules for an exchange prior to 2014. Originally, the Administration had recommended that Vermont's exchange not include the more Spartan bronze plan and require businesses with less than 100 employees to purchase their insurance through the exchange. Both of these provisions were aggressively opposed by many in the business community and the Governor, apparently heeding their cautionary calls for restraint, changed course by indicating he could now accept the bronze option and limit the exchange mandate to employers with less than 50 employees. The Vermont Chamber of Commerce and others had thought that the bronze plan was a crucial must-have ingredient for many businesses to continue their high deductible, Health Savings Account-based plans. The Chamber also felt that mandating employers in the 50 - 100 employee range to participate in the exchange would severely limit insurance procurement options for this group of businesses. The House Health Care Committee hopes to wrap up work on the exchange bill (H. 559) within the next couple of weeks.

State Property Tax - Every year the Legislature sets the base education rate for residential property and the uniform education tax rate for nonresidential property. [...]

From Rep. Yantachka's website

A lot of the work that is being done at the Statehouse this year has been focused on addressing problems created by tropical storm Irene.  At the end of January, a few weeks into this session, a 10 year old problem was finally tackled as a direct result of Irene.  Irene did suddenly what the legislature has wanted to do for many years: it closed the Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury. This caused severe disruption to the State’s ability to provide services to Vermonters who need acute inpatient care for mental illness. The silver lining: it forced the legislature to act and provided a capital funding opportunity that was not available before.

From Rep. Partridge's website

In the House Agriculture Committee, we are continuing to work on H.496, an act relating to preserving Vermont’s working landscape. We have heard testimony from dozens of people, all of whom have offered positive feedback regarding our work.

The process has been painstaking and I thought it might be interesting to share a bit of the experience. Some say that making legislation is a lot like making sausage, the end result is generally good, but it’s best not to watch the process. I would say the process can be messy and tedious but it is important that everyone’s views and questions be listened to and considered because if we are hearing concerns in committee, we will definitely hear them when we get to the Floor of the House. It’s best to be prepared.

All of our House Agriculture Committee members are smart and thoughtful and we come at the bill with different approaches. [...]

Montpelier Report #6, Feb. 10, 2012
     This week got off to a good start when we welcomed the football team on Tuesday.  We received a lot of positive comments about the impression our student-athletes made. We have much to be proud of in Hartford and our high school is just one of them.
     One sign that the session is moving along is that the first set of pages have come to the end of their six week term of service.  As usual, this group has done a fine job.
     Health care continues to be a contentious subject. The Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems stated that,“for many private practice physicians the costs of doing business … and the downward trend in reimbursement rates has simply become too challenging.”  Finding the right combination of cost containment measures and reimbursement rates to maintain quality health care is going to be a difficult process.
     The House passed out H-630 to reform the mental health system. Under H-630 there will be a fourteen high-intensity acute bed facility at the Brattleboro Retreat and six high-intensity acute beds at the Rutland Regional Medical Center.  In addition,there will be a five bed secure residential facility, 31 new intensive residential recovery beds spread across three new facilities and four new crisis beds statewide.  Finally, a 25 bed state owned and operated acute care facility will be built in Central Vermont.  It will two to three years before this facility will be in operation. Interim facilities will be used. H-630 still needs to pass the Senate and be signed by the Governor.
     Education funding is a “hardy perennial” issue up here and it has reared its controversial head yet again. [...]

From the Manchester Journal

Week 5 was a very productive week in Montpelier, with a number of bills making their way through the House. Here's this week's snapshot:

Redistricting - Every ten years states are required to use census data as the basis for redrawing legislative district boundaries. Throughout American history, this redistricting process has been fraught with all sorts of political and contentious shenanigans (ah yes - gerrymandering). The process in Vermont, thus far, has been remarkable because it has been so low on partisanship, and high on consensus. [...]

From Rep. Yantachka's website

We Vermonters pride ourselves on being “green.”  It’s a great attitude to have.  However, we can do better.  We have had recycling programs since the 80’s and most of us do pretty well at it.  Recyclables are separated from trash for curbside pickups, and our solid waste districts are accepting more and diverse materials in their recycling streams.  But the fact is that, despite a goal set in 1999 to achieve a 50% recycling rate by 2005, Vermont has over the last decade reached a plateau of about 36%. This means 64% of everything we throw away as a state goes to the landfill.  This is a serious problem because we presently have only two operating lined landfills, one in Moretown and the other in Coventry; and the one in Moretown is estimated to have only about 18 months before it reaches capacity.

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From www.briancampion.org

Welcome to "What's The Deal With...", a series of posts we'll be doing trying to make sense of and generally figure out, well, what's the deal with some of the odder traditions that live on in the Statehouse. For our inaugural edition, we're looking at Farmer's Night!

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Published on Vermont Digger

From the recently released study done by Lawrence O. Picus and Associates, a study commissioned by the Legislature last spring, we know that how the money gets into the Education Fund is equitable across all Vermont towns and cities, that a penny on the tax rate does indeed raise the same amount of money in all towns. We also know that when money is distributed on an equalized per pupil basis that spending also has achieved equity.

But we do not know from the Picus study whether that equity of input of money to the Education Fund purchases equal educational opportunity for all Vermont’s children as required by the Supreme Court in “Brigham,” “that to fulfill its constitutional obligation the State must ensure substantial equality of educational opportunity throughout Vermont.”

To address that question, the towns of Dover and Wilmington, home of some of Vermont’s many, many small schools, believe from the many years of crafting their school budgets under the constraints of Act 60/68 that the equity of input to education funding does not buy equal education opportunity for its children. Therefore, the two towns commissioned a study by Northern Economic Consulting of Westford, Vt., to find out. That study was released on  Jan. 16.

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From Rep. Buxton's blog

[...] Already, the general assembly has taken up some very  important issues - restructuring our mental health delivery system (including the State Hospital in Waterbury), redrawing our legislative districts, providing property tax relief for communities hit by flooding in 2011, supporting kids in foster care, clarifying Vermont's home foreclosure process, and creating a civil action against those who abuse, neglect, or exploit a vulnerable adult.

So far, I have  been the primary sponsor of 12 bills and have co-sponsored dozens of others.  I plan to introduce at least two more “short-form” bills by the end of the month. (Short-form bills are generally broad and offer the committee of jurisdiction an opportunity to study a specific policy aim.) If you are interested in researching my work, click here: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/database/search/resultsy.cfm .  I expect that eight of the bills I drafted this year will gain some attention: H.395 (gravel extraction), H.563 (flood plain management), H.608 (prescription drug reporting), H.610 (sale of invasive plant species), H.651 (public funding of independent schools), H.660 (corporate campaign contribution disclosure), H.681 (small-scale dairy promotion), and H.728 (reformed meat/slaughter regulation).

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