This week, legislators in the House Committee on Human Services were faced with a menthol-flavored dilemma.
Committee members spent much of the week haggling over the final details of S.18, a bill that would ban the sale of flavored tobacco products in Vermont.
The trickiest of those details was a question of equity. Lawmakers heard repeated testimony about how mint-flavored menthol tobacco is disproportionately used by people of color and LGBTQ+ people — the result of years of targeted marketing by tobacco companies.
Thus, the committee was faced with a quandary: Would banning the sale of menthol cigarettes, while leaving unflavored ones available, amount to unfair treatment of those groups? Or, conversely, would creating a carveout for menthols in fact be discriminatory?
“Are we causing discrimination if we know there are several groups who most enjoy or make use of menthol, and we’re saying, ‘Well, everybody else can keep their tobacco, but we’re taking away your preferred (type)’?” Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield, said. “Versus, these are groups that were disproportionately targeted.”
So Vermont lawmakers decided to put the question to someone else.
On Wednesday, Donahue proposed an amendment to punt the question to Vermont’s health equity advisory commission, a body created in 2021 to “promote health equity and eradicate health disparities among Vermonters.”
Committee Chair Rep. Theresa Wood, D-Waterbury, responded with a compromise amendment: Put the question to the commission, yes, but still include a ban on selling menthol cigarettes that would take effect several months after the ban on other flavored tobacco products. If the commission ended up advising against a ban, well, then the Legislature could just repeal it before it took effect.
“That would accomplish both things,” Wood said.
So the committee members wrote that language into the bill, and voted on Friday to advance it.
If passed into law, the ban on flavored tobacco sales, except menthol, would largely take effect in Vermont on Jan. 1, 2025. The health equity advisory commission would be required to issue recommendations two weeks later. If lawmakers take no action next legislative session, selling menthol tobacco products would be banned July 1, 2025.
“It’s problematic that a group of white legislators would be making this decision,” Rep. Jubilee McGill, D-Bridport, said Wednesday afternoon. “And I think this is really what the health equity advisory commission is there for.”
And with all their hard work done, the lawmakers stepped outside to hit their Blue Raspberry vapes while they still could. Just kidding they didn’t. (That we know of.)
— Peter D’Auria
In the know
Talk of public safety — and a perception that Vermont is less safe than it has been in the past — was a central tenet of Republican Gov. Phil Scott’s budget address to lawmakers this week, and has been a major focus of policy conversations in Montpelier so far this year.
In his speech, Scott called on members of the House and Senate to “solidify our ranking as the safest state in the country” and urged them to pass legislation that would increase penalties for certain crimes and keep more people held in jail.
Some Democratic legislative leaders have voiced support for several of Scott’s proposed initiatives, but they’ve also suggested that the governor’s fiscal conservatism is shortchanging what the criminal justice system most needs — funding for new resources and staff.
— Shaun Robinson
What began as a dispute among neighbors over an Essex Junction man growing cannabis and raising ducks in his half-acre yard has escalated into an effort to create a new state law limiting where cultivators can grow cannabis outdoors.
Two state representatives, Karen Dolan, D-Essex City, and Lori Houghton, D-Essex Junction, have introduced a bill, H.549, which would prohibit outdoor cannabis cultivation in densely populated areas that are served by municipal water and sewer and have 500 or more persons per square mile.
Jason Struthers sees the bill as yet another attempt to shut down his farm.
— Auditi Guha
On the move
After a heated debate Thursday evening (catch up here), the House on Friday passed this year’s Budget Adjustment Act, or BAA in Statehouse lingo, by a voice vote.
House leaders celebrated H.839’s passage in a written statement Friday afternoon, touting the bill’s “strategic investments” that address “critical issues facing Vermonters.”
“We remain committed to flood recovery efforts, investments in affordable and safe housing, food security for the most vulnerable, and making sure Vermonters have access to the programs and resources they need and deserve,” wrote House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington.
The BAA is the Legislature’s mid-fiscal-year adjustment of the state’s current budget. This year’s bill took on particular significance as it is the Legislature’s first major chance to direct state funds to cities and towns still rebuilding after this summer’s catastrophic floods. The bill now heads to the Senate.
— Sarah Mearhoff
Another smaller effort to support municipalities struggling with flood-related losses, S.160, won approval in the House Appropriations Committee Friday morning, after passing through the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this week.
The bill would reimburse municipalities for state education property tax payments owed as a result of abatements provided to flood-damaged properties. The Joint Fiscal Office estimates the total cost to the Education Fund in fiscal year 2024 would be $1.1 million.
The Senate fast-tracked the bill to the House, where it will likely see a vote early next week.
— Kristen Fountain
Visit our 2024 Bill tracker for the latest updates on major legislation we are following.
On the fifth floor
As Texas’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott continues to spar with the Biden Administration over enforcement at the U.S. southern border, all of the nation’s GOP governors signed onto a letter backing Abbott — except one.
Asked to join the letter signed by 25 of his peers asserting that Texas has a constitutional right to defend its border, Gov. Phil Scott refused, according to his spokesperson Jason Maulucci. Neighboring New Hampshire’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu did sign the letter.
The conflict stems from Texas’s recent installation of razor wire along the border — a particularly brutal attempt to deter crossings away from designated points of entry as the numbers of migrants making the journey from South and Central America into the U.S.continue to soar.
The Biden Administration argued successfully before the U.S. Supreme Court that the razor wire impeded the federal government’s ability to exercise its authority related to immigration. The court issued its 5-4 decision on Monday, and the letter followed Thursday. “We can enforce our laws and administer them safely, humanely, and in an orderly way,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson reportedly wrote to CNN after the ruling.
Maulucci told VTDigger in an email that Scott ”shares concerns expressed by many governors and leaders of both parties about the situation on the southern border. He believes Congress should continue to work towards solutions to both secure the border and address the significant humanitarian needs.”
Maulucci added that Scott is “hopeful that the current negotiations in the Senate are successful.” But support among congressional Republicans for a bipartisan border deal has wavered in recent days after former-President Donald Trump dubbed any bipartisan deal struck as a “gift” to Democrats.
— Sarah Mearhoff
Corrections section
Wednesday’s Final Reading repeated the misidentification of one of the motels in Rutland owned by Anil Sachdev from a press release announcing the settlement. It is the Cortina Inn. We regret the error.
What we’re reading
Lawmakers hear plan to use Waterbury armory as 40-50 bed emergency shelter, Waterbury Roundabout
Several bills target book bans in school and public libraries, Seven Days
