It’s almost Earth Day. What better time to take stock of the climate and environmental bills that have been meandering through the legislative process this session?
Some of the big ones include a biodiversity bill that sets new goals for land conservation, a housing bill that has focused on Act 250 and zoning, and a bill that would install a runway for a statewide clean heat standard in 2026.
One priority for climate advocates this session, however, has been largely out of play: reforming the state’s Renewable Energy Standard.
“The bottom line is, right now, Vermont’s energy policy is getting very little new renewable electricity built,” said Ben Edgerly Walsh, a climate and energy lobbyist for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. “We need to get a lot more new renewable electricity built as we’re electrifying our transportation and heating sectors.”
The idea, as posed in several bills that have been introduced this session, is to increase the percentage of energy that comes from renewable sources in Vermont. More Vermonters are electrifying their cars, stovetops and heating systems, and those measures are only climate-friendly if the electric sector is clean, too.
Sounds simple enough, right? Not so much.
For example, the definition of “clean” energy is ever-fraught, and some renewables are cleaner than others. Many Vermonters have objected to hosting renewable energy in or anywhere near their backyards, posing a significant barrier to new renewables.
“Is Hydro-Quebec carbon free? Ah, sort of,” Sen. Anne Watson, D-Washington, said during a committee meeting this week. “The McNeil Power Plant — carbon free? Ah, not really.”
And the state has long been engaged in discussions about whether net metering is an affordable and efficient way to add renewable power to the grid. Lawmakers who take on the renewable energy standard would wade into the waters of that debate.
While the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee is considering a bill that would call for a study to “analyze the costs, advantages and disadvantages, and impacts of increasing the amount of distributed renewable generation,” the bill isn’t headed anywhere fast, having missed the crossover deadline.
As written, the bill changes the requirements of the existing renewable energy standard, upping the state’s total renewable requirement from 75% by 2032 to 100%, but Sen. Chris Bray, D-Addison, said that piece of the bill is still under discussion. The committee had scheduled a vote on the legislation for Thursday, but bumped the matter until next week.
Meanwhile, the House Environment and Energy Committee has two renewable energy standard-related bills on its wall. But the committee has had its hands full this session, in part because it’s overseeing legislation that, last year, fell under the jurisdiction of both a natural resources committee and an energy and technology committee.
This reporter endeavored to ask Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, vice chair of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, why the panel hasn’t taken up the renewable energy bills.
Sibilia, who presented S.5 — one of the most complicated, controversial and potentially consequential climate bills of the session — during a three-hour debate on the House floor yesterday, expressed excitement and relief that a long week had come to a close.
“We have taken on a lot of really hard and complicated bills, and we are not done yet,” Sibilia said. “We still have the housing bill in our committee, and there are still some miscellaneous energy issues we need to discuss, as well as, as you’ve noted, potential for some action on RES this year.”
“It’s a lot,” she said. “We’ve done a lot. So yeah, we’ll see what next year brings.”
— Emma Cotton
IN THE KNOW
In the final installment of VTDigger’s Full Disclosure series, former Digger scribe Riley Robinson took a close look at state lawmakers’ financial disclosure forms, which require them to list their membership on boards or commissions that receive state funding or are regulated by the state.
But these forms keep a lot of information vague, making it challenging to ascertain the potential for conflicts of interest. And while the House and Senate do have policies to curtail such conflicts, the only entities that can enforce those rules are the chambers themselves.
A handful of lawmakers serve organizations that could be directly impacted by the policies crafted in their own legislative committees. But in a series of interviews, several lawmakers, as well as leaders of some of these nonprofits, described legislators’ involvement in local organizations as a real strength.
With future access to a widely used abortion medication in the hands of federal courts, Vermont officials are putting together a plan to stockpile the contested pill.
An internal memo obtained by VTDigger, dated April 20 and signed by Health Commissioner Mark Levine, laid out a plan to stockpile a two-year supply of mifepristone, one of two pills taken in tandem to induce an abortion.
In the memo, Levine reiterated that access to the standard, two-step medication abortion regimen — mifepristone, followed by misoprostol — remains status quo for the time being. On Friday night, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that access to the medication will be unchanged pending the federal appeals process.
“(A)ny actions Vermont takes at this time should incorporate a long-range view,” Levine said.
Jason Maulucci, a spokesperson for Gov. Phil Scott, confirmed the plan to VTDigger Friday afternoon and said it has the governor’s approval.
— Sarah Mearhoff
ON THE MOVE
The House gave final approval Friday to S.5, a bill that would design and study — but not implement — a clean heat standard, a system intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state’s heating sector.
While the bill would establish a clean heat standard in state law upon passage, it would also require a rulemaking process before its provisions took effect.
Gov. Phil Scott took sharp aim at the bill in a statement released Friday afternoon, which criticized not only the bill’s content but also how it was described on the House floor.
“Proponents of the bill have argued nothing will move forward without future legislative approval. They also say ‘this is essentially a study.’ Both of these statements are misleading,” Scott said.
Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, who presented the bill on the House floor, said in an interview on Friday night that elements of the governor’s statement were incorrect, and to that end, she had reached out to his spokesperson, Jason Maulucci.
“I know the Governor has lawyers and a lot of his folks that have reviewed the bill. So I’m going to guess that he’s been misquoted here, but I am looking forward to the response from Mr. Maulucci,” she said.
— Emma Cotton
The House gave unanimous preliminary approval to a Senate bill intended to provide stronger protections against assault and harassment for health care workers in hospitals and ambulances.
“Can you imagine going to work every day getting punched, kicked, maybe some bones broken?” asked Rep. Tom Burditt, R-West Rutland, when introducing S.36 for a vote. “It happens on a regular basis in our hospitals and to our EMT workers,” he said.
The Vermont criminal code says that law enforcement officers must have witnessed most misdemeanor offenses in order to make an arrest without a warrant, rather than issue a citation.
But this bill newly authorizes officers to make an arrest if someone criminally threatens a healthcare worker or EMT or if someone engages in disorderly conduct by fighting or making threats in a way that interferes with the provision of health care.
The bill has changed slightly since the Senate approved it last month, so it will now return to the upper chamber for review.
— Kristen Fountain
After a quick pit stop in each respective chamber for concurrence, this year’s two landmark abortion bills — S.37 and H.89 — will head to Gov. Phil Scott’s desk for his signature.
The House overwhelmingly voted in support of S.37 on Thursday and Friday’s floor sessions, ultimately casting a tripartisan 114-24 vote on the bill’s third reading Friday morning.
The legislation aims to protect Vermont health care providers from professional repercussions — such as insurance premium hikes or license revocations — for providing abortion or gender affirming care to patients in Vermont, where such health care remains legal. The bill also takes a crack at regulating so-called crisis pregnancy centers, which are non-medical establishments that seek to discourage people from obtaining abortions. Lawmakers and abortion rights groups allege that such facilities utilize false and deceptive advertising practices.
At the last minute, as a result of the ongoing Texas lawsuit, lawmakers deemed it necessary to add protections for abortion medications in both bills.
In a Friday statement celebrating S.37’s passage, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said the bill “is needed now more than ever, in light of ongoing US Supreme Court cases, to protect the rights of Vermonters in making personal health choices.”
“We know our work to protect reproductive and gender-affirming care is fundamental,” Krowinski said. “Safe access to reproductive care has always been a top priority, now is our time to use all the tools at our disposal to ensure that Vermonters are protected.”
— Sarah Mearhoff
WHAT WE’RE READING
2nd incarcerated witness details death of David Mitchell at Springfield prison (VTDigger)
Peter Miller, photographer of ‘Vanishing Vermonters,’ dies at 89 (VTDigger)
EMS and ambulance agencies in line for crucial state funding boost (Vermont Public)
