Tensions boiled over in the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs this morning where lawmakers are mulling changes to — and a dramatic expansion of — the state’s Capital Investment Program.
The program was created in 2021 with $10 million in federal Covid relief funds and, per the legislation that conceived it, intended to fund “transformational” projects that attract or retain new businesses and encourage capital investment and economic growth. Gov. Phil Scott has proposed expanding it with $50 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds, plus he wants another $30 million for a similar program in towns with stagnant grand lists.
The original $10 million came with some strings. It required the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, which is charged with doling out the funds, to work with the Legislature’s economist to create a model to “assess the fiscal, economic, and societal impacts of proposals” and prioritize grant awards based on results.
But on top of the extra money, the Scott administration is now asking lawmakers to ax that bit of regulation. State officials say the economists’ modeling set too high a bar by demanding a return on investment and conflict with updated federal guidelines about how to spend American Rescue Plan Act funds.
“It’s not that we don’t like the model,” Joan Goldstein, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Economic Development, told the panel. “We just think that it’s misplaced in an economic recovery. And we’ll all agree this is an economic recovery pot of federal money with pretty stringent constraints.”
Committee Chair Sen. Michael Sirotkin, D-Chittenden, expressed some discomfort at this new framework.
“The skeptic in me says that if the program is changing its target so much — why do we still need $80 million for it?” he asked.
Majority Leader Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, put it this way to her colleagues: “I think, sadly, that once the Treasury rules came out that we all had to shift our thinking from transformational with a capital ‘T’ to transformational with a lowercase ‘t’.”
But Tom Kavet, the Legislature’s (semi-retired) economist, who has been working on modeling the impact of proposals, urged lawmakers to make sure they maintained some external scrutiny if they expanded the program.
“Many of the applications I’ll say we’ve reviewed to date have had an extraordinary number of ridiculous data inputs that are just not credible,” he said.
The projects currently under review, he added, could prompt “enormous eye-rolling and head-scratching,” and pertain to entities that don’t really need the cash.
“This is icing on the cake. This is extra profit margin. Very, very few are transformational — even with a lowercase ‘t,’” he said.
Sirotkin asked: Couldn’t the commerce agency be trusted to provide that same scrutiny?
No, Kavet replied bluntly.
“The clear preference and pressures” from agency personnel have always been to increase grant amounts, he said. “I just think there needs to be another set of eyes on it.”
Goldstein bristled at the suggestion that the agency was simply looking for a “blank check.”
“There’s nothing frivolous about this, and any connotation to the opposite I really take exception to,” she said.
— Lola Duffort
IN THE KNOW
The Senate Rules Committee voted 5-0 on Thursday to OK a game plan for the upper chamber’s return to the building March 8.
For two weeks after lawmakers get back from their Town Meeting break, Senate floor sessions on Tuesdays and Wednesdays will be pro forma (aka “token”) sessions, with regular floor sessions on Thursday and Friday.
Senators will have to report physically to the Senate chamber to vote in floor sessions unless they are in isolation or quarantine because of a Covid-19 exposure — or because they refuse to comply with the Legislature’s pandemic protocols. (Everyone must be masked in the building, and lawmakers are required to be vaccinated or get tested.)
— Lola Duffort
Rep. Patrick Seymour, R-Sutton, has resigned from the House, where he had served since 2019.
“The pandemic has reinforced my belief that family is the most important thing in my life,” Seymour wrote in his resignation letter, which House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, read on the House floor. “And now I wish to spend the majority of my time with my newborn and my wife.”
— Riley Robinson
The clean heat standard, a policy focused on reducing emissions in a sector that makes up over a third of the state’s total carbon output, won approval Thursday from the House Committee on Energy and Technology.
“It was a heavy lift,” Rep. Tim Briglin, D-Thetford, the panel’s chair, told his colleagues after they signed off on the measure. “It’s a better bill.”
The committee voted 7-2 in favor of the legislation, with its two Republican members casting “no” votes.
Rep. Sally Achey, R-Middletown Springs, suggested that the Legislature had already taken significant action related to reducing emissions in the heating sector. She said lawmakers ought not pass additional legislation yet.
“We have just appropriated so much money in weatherization,” Achey said. “I think we’ve taken an incredible amount of action. I don’t think enough time has passed.
“We don’t know how much effect (previous legislation is) going to have,” she said.
— Ethan Weinstein
A prominent regional advocacy organization has named former Bennington state legislator Kiah Morris as its new executive director.
Rights & Democracy, a Burlington-based group that works in Vermont and New Hampshire, made the announcement in a press release Thursday morning. Morris replaces James Haslam, the organization’s founder.
Morris previously served as the organization’s “Vermont movement politics director,” a role in which she lobbied state leaders on equity issues.
— Jack Lyons
ON THE MOVE
The House Judiciary Committee voted out H.534, a bill on sealing criminal records. The vote was 9-2, with Reps. Ken Goslant, R-Northfield, and Robert Norris, R-Sheldon, casting “nays.”
Earlier in the day, Department of Public Safety Commissioner Mike Schirling and Deputy Defender General Marshall Pahl offered last-ditch testimony on the proposal.
In voicing his opposition, Schirling said criminal records were important for “informing the response methodology” when police dispatch to a scene. He suggested law enforcement should be able to see when someone has a sealed record, even if they cannot see the record’s contents.
Pahl pushed back, saying he was concerned about how police use past criminal records when making roadside stops.
Police discretion during roadside stops is a driving factor in racial disparities, Pahl said. He recalled watching body camera footage in which a police officer references a driver’s past drug-related arrest before asking the driver about current drug use.
“At some point, people should stop being asked about that when they’re stopped for a traffic infraction,” Pahl said.
The committee also voted unanimously in support of H.533, which would change the civil forfeiture process in drug-related prosecutions. Both bills will next move to House Appropriations for review.
— Riley Robinson
The House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs voted unanimously in support of a bill to expand the National Guard Tuition Benefit Program. The expanded tuition benefit, as laid out in H.517, would provide funding for a Guard member’s graduate degree, or a second bachelor’s degree in a “critical occupation career,” such as nursing.
— Riley Robinson
IN CONGRESS
Vermont’s congressional delegation on Thursday condemned Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, for invading Ukraine and igniting war in Europe.
“The unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin is based on his twisted interpretation of world history and current affairs,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a written statement.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called Putin’s actions a “blatant violation of international law and of basic human decency,” with the potential to “kill thousands and displace millions,” as well as “plunge Europe into long-term economic and political instability.”
The third member of the delegation, U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., called the invasion “a catastrophe” that would “result in the loss of many innocent lives.”
— Sarah Mearhoff
WHAT’S FOR LUNCH
Chef Bryant says that “New England-inspired” pork loin is on Friday’s lunch menu. This flatlander doesn’t know what that means, but I’m told it may involve applesauce.
— Sarah Mearhoff
WHAT’S ON DECK
FRIDAY, FEB. 25
9 a.m. — Senate Natural Resources & Energy is scheduled to vote on S.148, an environmental justice bill.
1:30 p.m. — Senate Government Operations is scheduled to discuss and vote on S.155, which would create an Agency of Public Safety.
2 p.m. — Senate Institutions hears from the State Auditor’s Office on the Dam Safety Audit Report.
3:15 p.m. — Senate Government Operations is scheduled to hear from more than a dozen witnesses on S.250, an act relating to enhanced administrative and judicial accountability of law enforcement officers. The agenda notes this may be postponed until after Town Meeting Break.
WHAT WE’RE READING
Record-setting 2021 opioid overdose death toll continues to rise (VTDigger)
At Statehouse rally, protesters call for legislation to combat climate change (VTDigger)
Democracy How? The Pandemic Has Weakened — but Not Killed — Vermont’s Grand Town Meeting Day Tradition (Seven Days)
