By a wide margin, the Vermont House voted on Thursday morning to override Gov. Phil Scott’s veto of H.158, better known as the “bottle bill.” The lawmakers’ rebuke was surely the most interesting thing that happened today in the House chamber… right?
Oh, yes — perhaps not so coincidentally, Thursday was also the day of the gov’s annual State of the State address.
Speaking in a packed chamber just after 2 p.m., Scott told legislators, with more than a hint of passive aggression, that his 2025 fiscal year budget would be “sobering” as pandemic-era federal funding dries up and “last year’s spending decisions” come to bear.
Really, though, the governor’s speech had nothing to do with the timing of the veto override vote, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, told reporters. “It was on notice yesterday — which was our first day of the session — and then up for action today,” the speaker said.
H.158 would overhaul the state’s system for recycling beverage containers by expanding the state’s existing bottle deposit law to include more types of beverage containers — including water bottles — that were not part of the original legislation, which turned 51 last year.
Proponents argue the system was overdue for an update, and the expansion would help keep more bottles out of landfills. Lawmakers’ approval of the updated bill during a special session last June was followed soon after by Scott’s veto.
The Vermont Senate is on a slower roll. Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, told colleagues Thursday that he wanted to give them time to “get refamiliarized” with the H.158’s details as well as to “have our constituents weigh in.” (Lobbyists might also have something to say.) He said he expects that chamber to take up the veto override on Jan. 22.
In a message explaining his veto of the bottle bill last year, Scott wrote that he opposed the updated bill because it would impose additional costs on manufacturers and consumers.
It’s a sentiment that, surely, would have fit right in with his address Thursday afternoon.
— Shaun Robinson
In the know
In that address Thursday afternoon, Scott reinforced to a full House chamber some of his perennial concerns: state demographics, public safety, affordability and housing.
And at least partially at fault for these grim trends, he scolded, is a Legislature emboldened by its veto-proof Democratic supermajority.
“Now, I’m a realist, and I know you have a supermajority. I know all too well,” Scott said. “You’ve proven the final budget, and the growing burden of taxes, fees and other policy-driven costs, is in your hands. So all I can do is make my case.”
— Sarah Mearhoff
A decision by an insurance carrier for the state to not provide coverage for legal claims made by defrauded foreign investors in EB-5 projects in the Northeast Kingdom will leave taxpayers footing the bill for nearly all of the $16.5 million settlement deal reached this summer.
Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark told members of the House Appropriations Committee during a hearing Wednesday about AIG Property Casualty’s decision to deny coverage, though she didn’t go into great detail about the company’s reasoning.
According to documents provided to VTDigger in response to public records requests to the Scott administration and the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, state officials have known about the insurer’s decision for years.
— Alan Keays
Faculty, staff and alumni of Vermont State University gathered Thursday morning in the Statehouse to declare a crisis in confidence in the leadership of the schools formerly known as Castleton University, Community College of Vermont, Johnson State College, Lyndon State College and Vermont Technical College.
The press event, organized by union leaders, called for increasing staff power in the college system’s decision-making processes, reducing upper level management, and ensuring VTSU is an affordable option for all Vermonters.
Proposed legislation dovetails with some of the group’s demands. Rep. Robin Chesnut-Tangerman, D-Middletown Springs, and Sen. Brian Collamore, R-Rutland, both said they plan to introduce a similar bill that will propose cutting the VTSU’s chancellor position and adding faculty and staff to the board of trustees by replacing legislative seats. The bills would also trim or fully eliminate the current requirement that VTSU reduce its operating deficit by $5 million per year, the legislators said.
— Ethan Weinstein
On Thursday, representatives from the Vermont Foodbank asked lawmakers to support their request for a dedicated annual earmark of $5 million to begin in the next fiscal year. The group received $3 million in one-time funding in the current budget.
The organization, which provides food to over 225 food shelves, meal sites and other distribution centers across Vermont, is asking for an additional $2 million through the budget adjustment process for this year. That would bring total state funding for the current fiscal year up to $5 million.
The request for dedicated funding is not new but comes after a year that saw a staggering increase in demand at food shelves across the state, as VTDigger reported last week.
The Vermont Foodbank distributed approximately 600,000 pounds of food a month in the years prior to the Covd-19 pandemic. Since 2020, however, that number has risen to well over a million pounds a month, peaking at 1.42 million pounds distributed in August following the July floods.
Representatives from the Vermont Foodbank told the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency and Forestry that, even as a best case scenario, it might take over a decade for that number to fall back to pre-pandemic levels.
— Habib Sabet
Fuller disclosure
The Vermont Senate on Thursday voted to mandate that its own members publicly disclose new information about their personal finances and potential conflicts of interest.
The voice vote, which appeared to be unanimous, came nearly nine months after VTDigger documented deficiencies in the transparency rules governing Vermont lawmakers in an award-winning series called “Full Disclosure.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, who introduced the rules change, said it had been inspired by VTDigger’s reporting.
“I would say it’s the press doing its work and us doing our work,” he said in an interview Thursday afternoon.
Read more here.
— Paul Heintz
What we’re reading
The woman who made Vermont’s medical aid in dying law more accessible just ended her life (Vermont Public)
Smugglers’ Notch Resort hit with fines for safety violations after 3-year-old’s drowning in water tank (Community News Service)
Vermont Conversation: Harvard student activist Eva Frazier refuses to be silent (VTDigger)
