Wow, What a Week!
Like a fireworks grand finale, the last week of the legislative session was a rapid fire explosion of bills passing back and forth between House and Senate, punctuated with highs and lows, political intrigue, compromise, negotiations late into the night, and most often culminating in a satisfying resolution.
Several bills that address the critical issues facing Vermonters were passed by both chambers, consistent with the Governor's desires, in expectation of his signature. Highlights include:
S.51 is a Tax relief package including child tax credit, social security, veterans, and retired military benefits. This puts Vermont more in line with the remainder of the United States, making it more affordable for our elderly and encourages our skilled military families to stay.
S.127 is a comprehensive housing package that includes rental and low income housing incentives and, most importantly, the Community Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP) that offers a very flexible and accessible tax increment financing mechanism to towns across Vermont to fund necessary infrastructure for housing.
S.124/S.45 are a farming and clean water package that places the VT Agency of Natural Resources in clear authority to enforce agricultural activity compliance to the clean water rules in Vermont, while clarifying the “right to farm” in Vermont.
H.266/S.126 are a combination that places limits to rein in drug pricing by hospitals and Pharmaceutical Benefit Managers (PBM) as a bridge to an overall healthcare pricing reform. This sweeping pricing reform would limit and make transparent the hospital prices charged to consumers for both prescriptions and services by tying them to ratios of what Medicare pays, also known as “reference based pricing”.
Lastly, S.69 is an internet social media child protection bill that restricts predatory methods and data gathering while attempting to retain first amendment rights on content. This is a new and challenging but necessary area of legal protections for children's mental health.
This short list of highlights addresses several of the key affordability issues facing Vermonters: housing, healthcare, and taxes. Notably missing from the list is education, energy, and public safety. As I’ve noted in previous newsletters, all of these issues are interrelated and improving one will have beneficial effects on the others, but we mustn’t be lulled into thinking we can focus on just one area. They all need improvement.
The education reform bill, H.454, is still in deep negotiation in a “committee of conference” between the House and Senate. The legislature is on a 2 week “recess” while this small group attempts to hash out the differences between the many competing viewpoints on how to improve education quality and equity across the state while controlling and even reducing costs. This is a challenging task but one that must be done. They are receiving significant help and are very well informed and motivated. The Legislature is scheduled to return to Montpelier on June 16-17 to hear their results and vote on their proposal. When this passes, it will certainly be the big bang at the end of the fireworks grand finale!
Unfortunately, nothing significant in the areas of energy or public safety were addressed this session. The Speaker and respective chairs of those committees were frustratingly unwilling to take up the many impactful bills that were written and assigned to them for consideration on these topics, despite impassioned pleas and attempted floor amendments. We may see some action in these areas next year as those bills not addressed this year will remain “on the wall” for next year. My experience this first year tells me that if we don’t, we’ll need further change in the legislature to enable those topics to be addressed.
While there is work that needs yet to be done, I consider our body of work this year to be a good and successful collaboration that is beneficial to Vermonters.
I remain honored to be your Representative,
Rob North
www.NorthForVTHouse.com
Addison, Ferrisburgh, New Haven, Panton, Vergennes, and Waltham
