Final Reading: Right to repair resuscitated in Senate agriculture committee

A close up of a tire and steering wheel of a tractor. — A tractor. Stock photo via PxHere

More than a year since its introduction and with time running out this biennium, a bill that would allow Vermont farmers and loggers to independently repair their agricultural equipment is headed to the Senate floor.

H.81 first made its debut last year, and was quickly met with a “flood” of lobbying opposition from major national interest groups and equipment manufacturers. The bill would compel manufacturers like John Deere, Caterpillar or Tigercat to offer the manuals, codes, diagnostics and equipment parts needed to repair farm and logging machinery at fair market value.

The point, according to the bill’s proponents, is to allow farmers and loggers to repair their own equipment — or call up their local mechanic — similarly to how Americans can get their cars repaired. Under current practice, agricultural equipment can only be repaired by special, manufacturer-certified technicians who are often located miles away, and come at a premium cost.

H.81 just barely didn’t make it out of its committee of origin, the House Agriculture Committee, in time to meet the Legislature’s crossover deadline last year. #NeverthelessTheBillPersisted into the second year of the biennium — this year.

Since January, the bill has been parked in the Senate’s Agriculture Committee. That is, until Tuesday afternoon.

After months of tinkering, the committee voted it out unanimously Tuesday. Up until that moment, the possibility loomed large of the bill being gutted to a mere study, as is so often the fate of bills under the Golden Dome.

“I just feel like, every day, we show up and we make more changes, and I just feel like the bill’s getting watered down,” Sen. Irene Wrenner, D-Chittenden North, said before the vote Tuesday. “At some point, I want to put a pin in it and pass it out.”

Pass it out they did, nearly one year after the House passed it by a 137-2 vote on May 5, 2023. But first, the committee made one final, significant amendment: They removed the bill’s private right of action language, which would have allowed individual Vermonters to sue corporations if they don’t follow the law.

Such private rights of action against corporations have been a hot topic in Montpelier this year, also becoming a flash point in the House’s data privacy bill. With H.81’s amendment on Tuesday, any legal enforcement action against manufacturers who run afoul of the law would have to go through the Vermont Attorney General’s Office.

The bill still has a ways to go in the final few weeks of the biennium. If approved by the full Senate, it will head back to the House for approval of the Senate’s changes. Or, more likely, — as the Senate committee seemed to expect on Tuesday — the bill will head into a conference committee where the two chambers will negotiate an agreement.

— Sarah Mearhoff

In the know

After a lengthy and dramatic debate Tuesday morning, the Vermont Senate voted against the confirmation of Zoie Saunders as state education secretary — but the fight over her appointment appeared far from finished.

Saunders needed a majority of the 29-member Senate to support her confirmation, but 19 members voted in opposition, while only nine voted in favor. One senator was absent. The vote fell largely, though not entirely, along party lines — with most Republicans supporting Saunders’ confirmation and most Democrats and Progressives opposing it.

Tuesday’s vote in a packed Senate chamber was the first time in recent memory that the body rejected a nominee for a cabinet-level position. In remarks on the floor, some senators criticized the former Florida schools administrator and charter school management executive for her minimal public education experience and limited knowledge of Vermont’s school landscape.

The result was a striking blow to Gov. Phil Scott, whose administration lobbied heavily for Saunders’ confirmation. But mere moments after the vote, he made clear that he was not ready to back down.

As soon as the Senate denied her confirmation, Scott said in a press release that, “pursuant to (his) constitutional authority to fill vacancies,” he had appointed Saunders interim secretary of the Agency of Education.

May Day

Lucky for you Statehouse rats whose thirst for gambling cannot be quenched by the likes of DraftKings and FanDuel, this legislative session offered one final, high-stakes, off-the-books bet: Why, it’s the House Clerk’s Office annual Adjournment Pool, of course!

Most betters put their money on May 10, the day that House and Senate leaders have staked out as the final day of the session. (Sticking to leadership’s script — how original!) Six optimists bet they’d get out a day early, on May 9. (It’s called manifestation; look it up.) A slew of masochists gambled on session bleeding into the weekend of May 11 and 12th (ughhhhhhhhhh), and others into the following week. Two Debbie Downers — Rep. Woodman Page, R-Newport City, and Ted Barnett from the Joint Fiscal Office — bet they’d be in the building as late as Thursday, May 16. (Boo! Hiss!)

I, your devoted scribe, did not participate in the tomfoolery this year despite a personal plea from Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Chittenden. “Another game of chance to redeem yourself from the showing in March Madness,” he wrote to me last week. A low blow!

— Sarah Mearhoff