Updated at 6:22 p.m.
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have banned the sale of flavored e-liquids, tobacco substitutes and menthol tobacco products, dealing a setback to a yearslong legislative effort to place restrictions on the substances.
The legislation, S.18, would have prohibited retailers from selling flavored e-liquids, tobacco substitutes and menthol-flavored tobacco products, with the goal of preventing children and youth from getting addicted to enticing flavors of vapes and other products.
The bill passed out of the Senate last year, and Vermont’s House approved it last month — a milestone for a proposal that spent years floating around the Statehouse with little apparent progress.
But Scott’s veto could put an end to that momentum.
“It really is about trying to find that balance between protecting our youth, but also protecting the freedom that adults should have to make their own choices,” the governor said at his Wednesday press conference, explaining the reasoning behind the veto.
Proponents of the legislation, including public health advocates, educators, and medical organizations, had urged lawmakers to pass a ban, saying it was needed to fight a surge of youth vaping, much of it with flavored products.
Retail groups, however, argued that the bill would cut into the revenue of shops and convenience stores — all for products that Vermonters could simply drive to New Hampshire to buy.
And some lawmakers raised questions about the equity of the ban on menthol-flavored tobacco, which is used disproportionately by Black and LGTBQ+ people.
It’s not clear whether legislative leaders have the votes in the House and Senate to override the veto. Last month, the legislation passed out of the House after an 83-53 vote, and the Senate voted 18-11 in support. Neither margin reached the two-thirds majority needed to overcome a veto.
Legislative leaders did not say whether they were planning an override attempt. Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, “hasn’t yet made a decision” about trying to hold a vote to override the veto, his spokesperson Ashley Moore said in a text. Later in the day, the chamber’s Thursday calendar was posted with the question “noticed,” which signals a coming floor vote.
Conor Kennedy, a spokesperson for House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, did not respond to a text message seeking comment.
Advocates reacted with dismay to the news of Scott’s veto, saying it would continue to allow children easy access to addictive and harmful nicotine products.
“I think he’s really let a lot of the younger generation down,” said Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden Southeast, the primary sponsor of S.18 and a longtime advocate for a flavored tobacco ban. “It’s just a real loss for the state and a huge gain for big tobacco, no question about it.”
“It is deeply disappointing that Gov. Phil Scott has protected the tobacco industry at the expense of Vermont’s kids and taxpayers by vetoing legislation to crack down on the sale of flavored tobacco products,” John Bowman, an executive vice president at the national nonprofit Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a statement.
Retail groups hailed the decision, however.
“On behalf of Vermont’s neighborhood convenience stores, wholesalers, and their workers, we applaud Governor Scott’s veto of this overreaching bill,” V.J. Mayor, the CEO of the Northeast Wholesalers Association, said in a statement. “Just as he promised in his first inaugural address, the governor viewed this legislation through the lens of those it would have most impacted — Vermont’s small businesses.”
The veto caps weeks of uncertainty about the governor’s plans for the bill. At press conferences and in interviews, Scott repeatedly said that he was undecided about the legislation.
But he expressed bemusement that the bill would leave other flavored intoxicants — alcohol and cannabis — legally available to purchase. And the negative economic impacts of the bill, he said, came at a particularly inopportune time. Vermont’s Joint Fiscal Office estimated that the bill could cost the state roughly $7 million to 14 million a year in lost tax revenue.
“I know it can’t all be about money, but talk about poor timing,” Scott said on WVMT’s The Morning Drive radio show last month when asked about the bill. “At a time when we have all these other increased costs and so forth, I’m really, really concerned about the fiscal situation we find ourselves in.”
On Wednesday, however, that economic concern appeared absent.
“That was something that was brought up during some of the testimony and the floor debate and so forth,” Scott said Wednesday when asked about projections of lost revenue. “It didn’t enter into my decision.”
Instead, the veto came about because the bill seemed “hypocritical and out of step” with the way the state treated other substances, such as cannabis and alcohol, he said in a Wednesday letter to lawmakers.
“I’ve found people lose faith in government when policies have these types of inconsistencies, because they contradict common sense,” he wrote.
