Final Reading: A behest to divest

State Treasurer Beth Pearce during an interview in Montpelier on Nov. 22, 2019. File photo by Mike Dougherty/VTDigger

When you disagree with something, should you reject it outright or try to reform it?

It’s a question in all kinds of activism, and it’s at the heart of a long-running debate as to whether the state’s pension fund should divest from fossil fuels. Four senators — Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor; Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden; Chris Pearson, P/D-Chittenden; and Anthony Pollina, P/D-Washington — are cosponsoring a bill that would require the pension fund to divest by 2025.

The bill would require the pension fund to divest from the world’s top 200 owners of fossil fuel reserves, as defined by FFI Solutions’ Carbon Underground 200 List. Vermont Pension Investment Commission Chair Tom Golonka presented preliminary calculations to the committee, estimating divestment would impact $150 million of the pension fund’s $6 billion portfolio. That does not include the fund’s roughly $800 million in private equity.

State Treasurer Beth Pearce, who has long resisted calls for divestment, and Golonka appeared before the committee Tuesday to urge them to reconsider. Both argued that divestment is a less effective way to take action on climate change because Vermont would no longer have a seat at the shareholder’s table to make demands on large corporations.

“I do believe addressing carbon is a core issue that investors need to look at,” Golonka told the committee. “How we do that is through, as Beth [Pearce] says, invest not divest … The argument would be, you’re either playing on the field or you’re sitting in the stands, and I view divestment as sitting in the stands.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, Pearce suggested the committee study divestment further before making any major changes. Senators pointed out that Vermont already studied pension divestment in 2017. Following that study, Pearce suggested investment in a low-carbon index, rather than blanket divestment — an option she presented again to the committee Tuesday.

Vermont’s pension fund has already invested in a low-carbon index alternative, following the recommendations of the 2017 study, Golonka said. The investment management company BlackRock designed a low-carbon fund specifically for VPIC, and the pension fund invested $200 million over the past year — significantly more than the estimated amount up for divestment under this bill.

Golonka also raised concerns about the specific method laid out in the bill, as the FFI Solutions list it names is private, proprietary information. Tuesday’s calculations were based on an old version of the list, Golonka said.

Senators suggested the pension fund could learn from New York and Maine, as both recently announced they would divest state pension funds from fossil fuels over the coming years. New York has pledged to divest its massive $226 billion pension fund by 2040, and Maine’s law requires divestment by 2026. This bill, S. 251 proposes a much more ambitious timeline.

“I don’t want to see a study,” Pollina said. “I want to see a strategy.”

— Riley Robinson

IN THE KNOW

The House Ways and Means Committee is poised to vote out legislation tomorrow that would create a refundable child tax credit for Vermont.

On Tuesday, the panel made minor amendments to H.510 in an 8-3 vote. Mirroring the federal benefit, the original version of the bill cut benefits off for single filers making $200,000 or more and joint filers making $400,000 or more. The new version phases out the benefit at $200,000, whether filing jointly or alone.

Legislative analysts told lawmakers earlier that tax data suggests very few households with incomes above $200,000 have young children anyway.

— Lola Duffort

A year ago, the town of Ripton secured its independence from the Addison Central School District. Now, Ripton administrators, unable to access school services elsewhere, are considering rejoining the district. And state officials are trying to avoid a repeat of the process.

The House Committee of Education is considering a slate of amendments that would dramatically change how schools could withdraw from their districts. Towns would be required to create a “withdrawal study committee” to draft a written report on the rationale and plans for a withdrawal.

The new proposal would also effectively give the state Board of Education the ability to veto a petition for independence if it determined that the bid was “not in the best interests of the State, the region, the students, and the school districts.”

“Without those structural guardrails to make sure that people are going through this in a really thoughtful manner, things can go off the rails pretty quickly,” said Oliver Olsen, chair of the state Board of Education, which drafted the legislation.

It’s unclear how far the proposals will go.

“We have made no decisions,” said Kate Webb, D-Shelburne, who chairs the committee.

— Peter D’Auria

The arduous work of redrawing Vermont’s legislative districts continues. The House Government Operations Committee has continued hearing hours of testimony from local officials. On Tuesday, it was those from Addison and Rutland counties who described how different map options would impact their communities.

Some maps would draw borders right down the center of their towns. Others would lump their towns into districts with nearby communities with whom they claimed to have few common interests.

Lawmakers have a larger debate to consider — whether to go with single- or multimember districts — but at the local level, they need to make sure districts cover an appropriate population and avoid cutting apart communities. Oh, and they can’t gerrymander. On Tuesday, several officials told representatives they “didn’t envy” their job, to which committee members smiled knowingly.

— Sarah Mearhoff

With election reform and accessibility top of mind in national politics, Vermont lawmakers are considering their own election reform bill that would establish ranked choice voting for federal elections in Vermont.

Should S.229 become law this session, Vermonters could rank their preferred federal candidates as soon as the 2024 presidential primaries. The bill would not apply to state-level candidates, such as governor and lieutenant governor.

Ranked choice ballots allow people to vote for multiple candidates in order of preference. If no candidate wins a decisive majority vote (more than 50%), the candidate with the least support is eliminated. Anyone who voted for the eliminated candidate then has their second-choice candidates counted.

Read more here.

— Sarah Mearhoff

ON THE MOVE

The Senate Appropriations Committee has finished its work on the 2022 budget adjustment bill. Usually a sleepy affair, the House sent over a mammoth $360 million spending package over to the Senate for consideration. The upper chamber’s reply should hit the floor Thursday.

— Lola Duffort

THE FIFTH FLOOR

Vermont may get plaudits from the national press for its cooperative, good-natured and bipartisan approach to politics, but our Republican governor isn’t shy about using his veto pen when the Democratic-controlled Legislature sends bills his way he doesn’t like.

Asked about a series of legislative initiatives during his weekly press conference Tuesday, Gov. Phil Scott made no explicit threats. But he indicated where he stood.

On ranked choice voting, Scott said flatly he was not supportive.

“I think the person with the most votes wins,” he said.

A registry for contractors, which passed the Senate last week, “puts an undue burden on the single proprietors,” he argued.

And as for a proposal to close the so-called “Charleston loophole,” which passed the House, Scott declined to give what he termed a “definitive answer” — and then appeared to give one anyway.

“I don’t believe that we need to change any of our gun laws at this point in time,” he said.

— Lola Duffort

CONGRATS!

Rep. Chris Mattos, R-Milton, got married this weekend.

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who is vying to replace retiring U.S. Sen Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., far and away led the pack in congressional campaign fundraising last quarter, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission.

And in the race to fill Welch’s soon-to-be-vacant seat, Democratic Lt. Gov. Molly Gray outpaced Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham.

The reporting period for the most recent filings, which were due Monday from the campaigns, covered the final three months of 2021. They offer a detailed — but partial and somewhat dated — glimpse into who was financially supporting Vermonters running for federal office as the races began to take shape.

Read more here.

— Lola Duffort

WHAT’S ON TAP

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 2

The Senate is on the floor at 1 p.m. and is scheduled to take up S.113, the medical monitoring bill, and S.210, the rental registry bill.

9 a.m. — Senate Judiciary hears testimony on S.265, which would expand the scope of Vermont’s criminal threatening laws.

9 a.m. — House Judiciary hears testimony on H. 534, an act relating to sealing criminal history records.

1 p.m. — House Corrections and Institutions hears from the state treasurer’s office on the Annual Report of Capital Financing and Debt Management.

2:30 p.m. — Senate Education gets an update from Health Commissioner Mark Levine and Secretary of Education Dan French on Covid-19 guideline rollout in schools.