Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Bestselling guidebook author and public TV travel host Rick Steves, an ardent proponent of marijuana legalization, will complete an East Coast advocacy tour in Vermont this week, with visits to Montpelier and Burlington. Steves will visit Montpelier on Thursday to advocate for legislation to regulate marijuana for adults. Steves will testify in the Senate Judiciary Committee (Room 1) at 11:30 a.m. Steves will then join Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman and members of the Vermont Coalition to Regulate Marijuana for a news conference on Thursday afternoon to discuss why Vermont lawmakers should support regulating and taxing marijuana. The event is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. ET in the Cedar Creek Room of the Vermont State House.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) delivered a speech on immigration on the Senate floor Wednesday. See below for excerpts and full remarks. Sanders, who ran for president in 2016, talked about his father coming to America as a teenager with nothing. "The whole debate that we are now undertaking over immigration and the Dreamers has become somewhat personal for me, because it has reminded me in a very strong way that I and my brother are first-generation Americans. We are the sons of an immigrant who came to this country at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket, a young man who was a high school dropout who did not know one word of English and had no particular trade."

Senator Patrick Leahy As the Senate debates the fate of our Nation’s Dreamers this week, an uncontestable truth underpins our discussion: We are a Nation of immigrants. Unless you are Native American, you come from a line of people who come from somewhere else. More than in any country on Earth, this simple fact is a defining characteristic of our national identity. Throughout our history immigrant communities have greatly enriched our Nation; their individual stories have become the American story. Out of many, we have become one.

Vermont Business Magazine Perhaps you missed the news that the price of hummus has spiked in Great Britain. The cause, as the New York Times reported on February 8: drought in India, resulting in a poor harvest of chickpeas. Far beyond making dips for pita bread, chickpeas are a legume of life-and-death importance—especially in India, Pakistan, and Ethiopia where 1 in 5 of the world’s people depend on them as their primary source of protein.

As global climate change continues, scientists expect more droughts, heat stress and insect pests—creating need for new varieties of agricultural plants with diverse qualities that will let them cope and adapt to quickly changing conditions. Where could those novel traits come from?

Vermont Business Magazine Community Bank NA recently presented Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity with a $17,500 donation as part of a challenge grant pledged in December. The bank partnered with CVOEO to raise money for the organization’s WARMTH program by matching WARMTH donations dollar for dollar during December, up to a total of $17,500.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Phil Scott and Northern Border Regional Commission (NBRC) Federal Co-Chair Mark Scarano were in Newport Wednesday to announce that Scott will serve as the Commission’s first state co-chair. Created in 2008, NBRC is a federal-state partnership with a mission to help alleviate economic distress and encourage private-sector job creation throughout the northern counties of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. Since its inception, the Commission has awarded just over $30 million, which has leveraged $87 million to support 155 grants across the four states.

In Vermont, it’s funded 44 projects in the amount of $7.8 million. Vermont's NBRC territory includes communities within Grand Isle, Franklin, Orleans, Essex, Caledonia, and Lamoille Counties. Vermont’s Congressional Delegation has been crucial to securing funding for the program.

Vermont Business Magazine LaunchVT will hold its third annual LaunchVT Collegiate final pitch competition this Thursday at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. Teams of student entrepreneurs from six Vermont schools will battle it out for thousands of dollars in cash prizes and a spot in the 2018 LaunchVT cohort. The LaunchVT Collegiate final pitch competition will be held on Thursday, February 15th beginning at 4pm in the Livack Ballroom at the UVM Davis Center. The Collegiate competitors will be judged by a panel of local investors on their market opportunity, business plan, and overall presentation. The first-place team will receive $4,000 and the opportunity to participate in the 2018 LaunchVT cohort. The second and third place teams will win $2,000 and $1,000, respectively.

Vermont Business Magazine The Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) today released financial performance information for the state’s not-for-profit hospitals as part of their annual budget review process. From 2016 to 2017, Vermont’s hospitals contained growth in net patient revenue to just 2.8 percent, significantly lower than annual increases of nearly 9 percent a decade ago. Net patient revenue targets are set by the GMCB each year and account for revenue hospitals collect from delivery of patient care before accounting for any expenses.

Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems said in a statement that this historically low budget growth is the result of disciplined budgeting, a focus on operational efficiencies and efforts to address cost drivers such as chronic disease, misuse of emergency services and extended stays.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Patrick Leahy (D), Senator Bernie Sanders (I) and Representative Peter Welch (D) Wednesday announced that Vermont Rural Ventures will receive $60 million in federal tax credits to spur economic development projects throughout the state. Congress established the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Program in 2000 to spur private investment in economic development projects in communities with high poverty and high unemployment. Under the New Markets program, investors receive a credit against their federal income taxes in exchange for making equity investments in job-creating development projects.

Leahy, Sanders and Welch noted that this is the largest tax credit award ever received by Vermont Rural Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of Housing Vermont.

Vermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), a national leader in efforts to increase affordable housing, welcomed a decision by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt to continue funding for the National Housing Trust Fund – which provides hundreds of millions of dollars each year to expand affordable rental housing nationwide. Sanders said he was cautiously optimistic that Vermont will again receive $3 million this year.

For each of the past two years, the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB) received $3 million from the Housing Trust Fund to help provide decent, safe and affordable housing for extremely low-income families here in Vermont. VHCB has used those funds to finance critically important projects in Randolph, Rutland, Brattleboro, Poultney, Burlington, Putney and Marshfield.

by Jennifer Cheeseman Day, US Census Bureau As we celebrate the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, we take a bird’s-eye view of population statistics of the 31 states US athletes call home.

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont legislators, State House staff, lobbyists, and the Scott Administration are being challenged to a dose of healthy competition. The Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (VAHHS) has teamed up with Rise VT to give lawmakers and elected officials a hands-on experience of what is happening at hospitals around the state where greater investments in primary prevention and wellness and a focus on population health are helping more Vermonters get and stay healthy.