A day was too long for the Senate to wait on H.222, an overdose prevention bill that the upper chamber amended earlier this month to include immunity for people who operate and utilize drug-checking sites.
The Senate gave both preliminary and final approval to the bill Tuesday morning with a lone “no” vote, after Senate Pro Tem Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, proposed suspending the rules to expedite the process by a day.
In suggesting the move, Baruth cited the urgency of the need, calling the drug overdose crisis “one of the most persistent and intractable of any we confront in this building.”
There have been year-over-year increases in overdose deaths in the state, the result of an illicit drug supply that is increasingly contaminated with an array of potentially deadly substances in unknown concentrations.
The bill as amended also allocates just under $8 million of settlement money from lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, based on recommendations from the Vermont Department of Health and an advisory committee. The Senate also inserted an additional $700,000 to provide grants for the startup of drug-checking services.
Largely unchanged from the House version, the bill updates Medicaid and private insurance coverage requirements to reduce barriers to accessing medication-assisted treatment; establishes a statewide program for syringe and needle disposal; removes the sunset of a 2021 law that legalized possession of small quantities of buprenorphine and clarifies that group homes for people in recovery should be permitted in any area zoned for single-family residences.
The sense of urgency articulated on the Senate floor today has not, however, extended to other overdose prevention bills under consideration in the building.
Over in the House, the Human Services Committee has recently taken up H.72, a bill that would create immunity from prosecution for those who operate “safer drug consumption” programs, where people can be supervised while using pre-obtained drugs. (The bill, introduced Jan. 19, did not make it out of committee before the Legislature’s crossover deadline and is therefore unlikely to make it into law this year.)
Last year, Gov. Phil Scott vetoed a bill that would have required a study of the feasibility of launching such sites. There are currently two safe injection sites in the U.S., both located in New York City, though drug policy reform advocates have pushed to legalize such facilities for years.
Department of Health Commissioner Mark Levine testified Tuesday that providing immunity would be a necessary first step before such supervised consumption sites could be launched. But he was careful not to say that the committee should take that step now.
His department has been looking at the evidence for the benefit of these sites for years, he said. Almost all of the research has been done in other countries, very little of it in rural settings. Academic researchers have just started to analyze data from two sites up and running in New York City.
“We are eagerly awaiting more peer-reviewed literature,” Levine said.
— Kristen Fountain
IN THE KNOW
One could say things are getting… heated between legislative leadership and the Governor’s Office when it comes to the Affordable Heat Act, or S.5.
Minutes before Gov. Phil Scott kicked off his weekly press conference, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, sent an email blast decrying “misinformation… deliberately spread to create fear and uncertainty amongst Vermonters” in regards to S.5. Krowinski went on to “correct the record” on “incorrect assertions” from the Governor’s Office “that intentionally or unintentionally undermined the true intent of the legislation.”
Krowinski pointed specifically to a statement Scott’s office issued last week, in which he alleged that S.5 as written would “give people two options: pay significantly more in fuel costs or spend thousands of dollars to install electrical heating systems, when most don’t have the financial means to do either.”
The intent of the bill is the opposite, Krowinski said: “to provide Vermonter’s (sic) relief from year-over-year increases in fuel costs” by “developing a system of incentives and options for low and moderate-income Vermonters to weatherize their homes and diversify how they heat them.” The statement did not refute Scott’s continued assertions that home heating fuel prices could rise as a result of the state levying fees on Vermont fuel dealers.
“The bill’s goal is to make us more resilient to the whims of the global market and the continued rise in fuel costs, as well as to take action to mitigate the impact of climate change,” Krowinski wrote.
Scott had not yet read the statement when he was asked about it at his press conference. But as for Krowinski’s allegations of spreading misinformation, he said, “I’m getting hardened to politics and I think this is just typical politics.”
“I think there’s been a lot of misleading information on both sides, possibly,” Scott said.
The governor called on lawmakers to clarify what has been referred to as the bill’s “check back” provision, which would require a future legislature and governor to give the final go-ahead to implement a clean heat program to be developed by the Public Utilities Commission.
“It can be fixed,” Scott said. “Just say it’s going to come through the normal legislative process, in bill form, go through all the appropriate committees, be debated within the committees and then be debated on the floor so Vermonters understand what they’re getting themselves into with their eyes wide open and making sure they understand why we’re doing this, and what the cost is going to be — if there is one. And then they can decide — legislators and whoever the governor is at the time — can decide whether to sign it and move forward with it.”
“It’s just transparency,” he concluded. “I think it’s pretty simple from my standpoint. But apparently, they think that I just don’t understand.”
— Sarah Mearhoff
One week after VTDigger launched its Full Disclosure series, in which reporters pored over state legislators’ official and candidate financial disclosure forms — amounting to 360 records, in total — Senate leadership has pledged to make senators’ disclosure forms more accessible to the public.
As reported last week, one currently must trek to the Statehouse and request physical copies of the handwritten documents from Senate Secretary John Bloomer.
That’s soon to change, according to Bloomer and Sen. Baruth, the pro tem. Bloomer told VTDigger that the Senate will post the forms online by the end of the week.
As for more substantive changes to the upper chamber’s financial disclosure process — such as broadening the scope of the forms and asking senators to provide more specific, clarifying questions about their personal financial stakes — Baruth told VTDigger on Tuesday that the Senate’s Rules and Government Operations committees will discuss the issue over the summer and propose changes come next session, in January.
It’s too late in the session now to make such changes, he said, but he suggested modeling the Senate’s official disclosure forms after the secretary of state’s more detailed forms, which are required of candidates. Asked if he thinks senators should be required to update their forms yearly, rather than every other year at the start of the biennium, Baruth said he didn’t find that necessary. If senators’ financial situations change, he said, they’re already encouraged (but not required) to update their forms.
— Sarah Mearhoff
Desperate to lure young people into an aging state, the Vermont Senate in 2018 put forward a plan to pay relocation expenses for remote workers willing to move to the Green Mountain State. Gov. Phil Scott eagerly hopped on board, and in 2018, a $500,000 pilot program was signed into law.
The Legislature has reauthorized funding every year since then (save for 2020), for a total of nearly $5 million. And as part of their draft of the state budget for the next fiscal year, which is due to hit the floor Wednesday, Senate budget-writers have again recommended continuing the program, this time with $1 million.
But times have changed since 2018.
— Lola Duffort
Senate floor activity was disrupted Tuesday due to a YouTube glitch. That prompted the Senate Rules Committee to meet briefly to consider how to handle connectivity problems, which also arose last Friday.
Baruth proposed that internet outages should continue to require a pause in legislating, as the chamber’s rules were modified this session to allow for remote participation, which would be more challenging without Zoom. But he wanted committee members to approve a policy that would allow action to continue if the problem was localized to the YouTube video link.
The public could continue to listen in via Vermont Public’s live feed, and the chamber would be open for people to attend in person, Baruth argued.
He got no disagreement from the other senators on the committee.
“I think we actually operated for hundreds of years without even (Vermont Public), so it’s all a much of a muchness,” said Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor.
“As a wise man once said, ‘YouTube is not in the Constitution,’” Baruth added, gesturing towards Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin.
— Kristen Fountain
ON THE MOVE
The House granted final approval Tuesday morning to a bill aimed at curbing thefts of catalytic converters — the vehicle exhaust gadgets used to limit harmful emissions.
S.48 would prevent scrap metal processors in Vermont from purchasing more than one “used and detached” catalytic converter per day from any person, unless that person is a motor vehicle recycler or runs a vehicle repair shop.
The bill also would ban anyone who isn’t a recycler or repair worker from transporting two or more catalytic converters at the same time, unless they have documentation proving they own them.
House lawmakers also tacked on measures requiring the Agency of Natural Resources to conduct an unannounced inspection of at least one salvage yard a year for compliance with state law, as well as charging state officials with creating an outreach campaign to educate scrap metal processors and police about the bill’s changes.
S.48 will now head back to the Senate for review.
— Shaun Robinson
IMPACT
It is a rare and beautiful thing to see your work as a journalist result in timely, substantive change that will improve people’s lives. Today, I was reminded of why it is I do what I do:
“Sarah, you can’t possibly prove that The Diet Coke Fridge is entirely thanks to your dogged reporting on the Statehouse cafeteria’s formerly low supply,” you may be saying to yourself. “Perhaps this fridge can be attributed to the simple mechanics of supply and demand.”
Nay. I choose to believe this fridge is my doing.
I showed this photo to VTDigger Photo Master Glenn Russell in the hallway today. “Behold,” I said, more or less. “My life’s work.”
Glenn grimaced. “It looks gross,” he said, clearly unimpressed by the rows of plastic bottles, glistening with the promise of a bubbly low-cal caffeine boost. He’s not much of a pop guy, he told me.
Alas, the Diet Coke lifestyle is not for everyone, but it is for me. Cheers, fellow Statehouse rats.
— Sarah Mearhoff
WHAT WE’RE READING
Vermont State University reverses course on libraries, athletics (VTDigger)
State scrutinizes report that calls for minimal change to Montpelier’s beleaguered water system (VTDigger)
Vermont farms shouldn’t pay local stormwater fees, state says, but towns disagree and are charging them anyway (Community News Service)
