[G]ov. Phil Scott on Monday vetoed legislation designed to give the commissioner of health more authority to regulate toxic chemicals in children’s products, calling it redundant and constitutionally suspect.
Scott said in his veto message that S.103 “will jeopardize jobs and make Vermont less competitive for businesses.” He offered to work with lawmakers to retool it. “We have a path forward to work together to enact this bill if the Legislature desires.”
The veto drew criticism from the environmental and consumer group Vermont Public Interest Research Group and praise from Associated Industries of Vermont, an organization representing manufacturers.
“In the choice between protecting kids and pleasing industry lobbyists, he went with the lobbyists,” Paul Burns, VPIRG’s executive director, said of Scott.
William Driscoll, vice president of AIV, said the bill not only would allow a single state official to make the decision about banning certain children’s products, but would allow the decision to be made after a single peer-reviewed study, rather than the current standard of considering multiple studies.
Driscoll argued the change would have made such decisions “much more arbitrary, potentially much more political and much less scientific and legitimate.”
Both Houses of the Legislature have big Democratic majorities, but it’s far from clear that oth chambers could muster a two-thirds majority to override Scott’s veto. When the measure passed the House last May, it did so on a 93-52 roll call vote.
The Senate bill would have given the health commissioner new authority to ban children’s products containing certain “chemicals of high concern.” Current law allows the commissioner to issue bans “upon the recommendation of” a committee that includes leaders of several state agencies. The change would have allowed the health commissioner to do so “after consultation with” the committee. Any such rules are reviewed by a legislative committee before they take effect.
Supporters of the bill called it an effort to clear up loose ends in legislation passed in 2014. Scott and Driscoll were among those arguing the procedures put in place under the 2014 law need to be given a chance to work.
“The regulatory process is working and should proceed as originally envisioned,” Scott said in his veto message. “With a robust process in place, children will not be any safer as a result of the proposed changes contained in this bill.’
Scott also pointed out he had created by executive order an “Interagency Committee on Chemical Management” last year, and said a similar panel envisioned by the legislation would be redundant.
And he said a formal arrangement in which legislative and executive branch officials were working together to review chemicals could create a constitutional “separation of powers issue by improperly allocating legislative resources to the Executive branch and charging the Executive branch with doing the work of the Legislature.”
House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, was critical of Scott’s decision to veto the legislation.
“S.103 proposed a modest step to protect Vermont children and families from toxic substances in children’s products and drinking water,” she said in a statement. “It’s unfortunate that the governor is prioritizing corporate interests over public health and the safety of Vermont families”
The VT House Dems Twitter account featured this post Monday evening: “Governor Scott has vetoed S.103, a bill that would have regulated toxic substances and hazardous materials. Message to Bennington (and everywhere else these poisons were poured into the ground): too bad for you.”
The Bennington mention referred to contamination from a cancer-linked chemical called PFOA, which was found in the well water of area homes and businesses and tied to releases from a former manufacturing plant there.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate James Ehlers also criticized the veto, especially because it was developed in part to respond to the Bennington water issue.
“Since the time the bill was introduced, toxins have also been found in Rutland’s water,” he said. “So what will it take for the administration to act?”
Provisions most related to the Bennington situation were removed from the Senate bill during the legislative process — including the ability for citizens to sue companies whose closed plants have left pollution behind — and added to a different bill, [S.197], which has yet to reach the governor.
