Current News

by Don Gilbert, President and CEO of Vermont Gas No doubt about it, Vermonters are passionate about the Green Mountain State. That’s a healthy sign of an engaged citizenry. One project, the Addison-Rutland Natural Gas Project, has been vigorously debated. Unfortunately, sometimes the facts can get lost.

In Vermont, there is no project – proposed or underway – with the combined economic and environmental benefits of the Addison-Rutland Natural Gas Project. The first of three phases has earned a Certificate of Public Good from state regulators, regulators are reviewing the second, and the third is in the planning stages to expand services to Rutland.

With this progress, now is the perfect time to review the facts showing how customers, communities and our state will benefit from the long-term savings and other advantages of the Addison-Rutland Natural Gas Project.

Affordability

by Morgan True vtdigger.org Navigators helping Vermonters understand and enroll in health coverage through the state’s insurance exchange reached people more than 1.5 million times in the past year, according to state estimates. “That includes outreach by direct mailings, staffing tables in libraries and farmers markets … and obviously helping individuals one-on-one,” said Donna Sutton Fay, with the Vermont Campaign for Health Care Security Education Fund. The state figure includes many individuals who interacted with navigators on more than one occasion.

by Morgan True vtdigger.org The House of Representatives gave preliminary approval to a wide-ranging health care bill that supporters say positions the Legislature to pass laws during the next session that will underpin Vermont’s planned universal health care program. A debate on the House floor late Wednesday hinged on a provision to compel Governor Peter Shumlin’s administration to deliver a financing plan for Green Mountain Care, as the program is known. The administration’s financing plan has become a flashpoint for concerns about the potential fallout from the state’s transformative effort to pay for health care through taxes instead of private premiums.

by Ayla Yersel The housing market in Vermont showed further signs of recovery in 2013 as consumer confidence continued to grow in the aftermath of the housing bubble of 2008, with an increase in pending home sales and total housing transactions. According to the RE/MAX of New England February Monthly Housing Report, Vermont experienced a boost in total housing transactions, up 18.2 percent, while median price decreased 6.4 percent year-over-year. Pending sales were up 12.9 percent year-over-year.

This morning, the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously approved two more bills from a series of bipartisan energy efficiency bills authored by Rep. Peter Welch in the 113th Congress. Welch is a member of the committee and the House leader on energy efficiency issues.

“I am pleased that the House is taking further bipartisan action in support of energy efficiency. These two bills will reduce carbon emissions and save taxpayers money by cutting energy use in federal buildings and local schools. And they will create jobs through the use of American-made energy efficiency products,” said Rep. Welch. “Energy efficiency is a practical idea that has brought Democrats and Republicans together in Congress to achieve real progress for the American people.”

by John Herrick vtdigger.org When Vermont’s Olympic cross-country ski racers started skiing as children, they could set out from their doorsteps on a solid surface of snow. Now, they say the snow is disappearing, and their professional careers are threatened by climate change. After returning from the ski season in Europe, 2014 Olympic Winter Games biathlete Hannah Dreissigacker and other Vermont Olympians came to Morse Farm Ski Center in East Montpelier to call for action on climate change.

“We need to put a price on carbon emissions,” Dreissgacker said.

The 27-year-old Morrisville native, who often flies around the world to race and visit friends and family, said even her own carbon-intensive lifestyle is disguised by the low cost of fossil fuels, which doesn’t reflect the larger cost to the environment, she said.

Seventh Generation's Toxin Freedom Fighters (child-superheroes advocating for chemical regulation reform) and parent advocates from California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Vermont and Idaho, stormed the halls of Congress on Wednesday with petitions in hand, meeting with members of the Environment and Public Works Committee and other interested senators. Seventh Generation's, CEO and President, John Replogle, parent advocate and author Kristi Marsh and David Levine, CEO and Co-founder, American Sustainable Business Council will be joining the Toxin Freedom Fighters at a press conference this morning to call on Congress to make meaningful re form of TSCA.

Vermont Business Magazine The Coventry landfill buffer zone will soon be home to the state's largest solar development.

The Commonwealth Fund named Vermont as one of the top ranking states for improving health care access, quality, outcomes and lowering costs in the five years preceding implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s major coverage provisions.

Aiming Higher: Results from a Scorecard on State Health System Performance, 2014 ranks the health systems of every state and the District of Columbia based on 42 health care measures, 34 of which are used to reveal trends between 2007 and 2011–12. Vermont ranked second in the scorecard, the same rank it attained in the previous scorecard.

Anne Galloway vtdigger.org The Senate Finance Committee has approved a 6 cent increase in the statewide property tax for residential homeowners and a 7 cent increase in the tax for nonresidential property owners. The tax rate for residential property owners would be $1 per $100 per assessed property value under the proposal. The rate for non-residential (commercial property and second homes) would rise to $1.51.

The committee, after weeks of negotiations, combined the miscellaneous tax and property tax bills, which also includes a tiered increase in the employer assessment on large companies that do not offer health insurance for workers. It also places an assessment on employers who pay workers so little that they can’t afford to buy into company insurance plans and wind up on state and federally supported Medicaid programs that cost taxpayers as much as $7,000 per year for each beneficiary.

by Anne Galloway vtdigger.org The school board consolidation bill squeaked through the Vermont House in a 75-62 vote on second reading late Tuesday night, after long-running predictions from State House insiders that the bill would not survive the House and would hit a brick wall in the Senate. Though the legislation has yet to get final approval from the House, education reform advocates have scored a major victory with the first floor vote, as the Senate Education Committee began a review of a version of the legislation on Tuesday.

by John Herrick vtdigger.org In one of the most decisive votes of the session the Vermont House supported the regulation of toxic chemicals found in children’s products. The vote was 114-27. The bill, S239, gives the Vermont Department of Health the authority to require manufacturers to label or remove toxic chemicals from products sold in the state.