Current News

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced that they will propose revised rule language and open another comment period on two Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) rules, Produce Safety and Preventive Controls for Human Food. FDA anticipates rule language to be published by early summer 2014 to be followed by a public comment period.
The changes encompass key provisions associated with water quality standards and testing, standards for using raw manure and compost, certain requirements affecting mixed-used facilities, and procedures for withdrawing the qualified exemption for certain farms. Additional revisions may follow FDA’s initial review of the over 25,000 comments received on these two proposed food safety rules.

An East Montpelier woman who loved wildlife bequeathed her estate to the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department upon her death. Mamie Thurston died last winter at the age of 87. Her home, property, belongings, and financial assets valued at more than $500,000 are being transferred to the department at her bequest.
Thurston was an avid birder and a lover of all wildlife, according to Pat Griffen, estate executor and family friend.
‘She enjoyed watching the birds at her feeder every winter or watching the deer in her back yard,’ said Griffen. ‘In the end, she decided to leave everything to serve the wildlife that she loved.’

US News & World Report has called Norwich University’s online bachelor’s degree completion programs and Master of Business Administration (MBA) program ‘one of the best’ in its 2014 rankings of online programs. ‘
Established in 1997 with the launch of its first online master’s degree program in diplomacy and military science, the College of Graduate and Continuing Studies (CGCS) through its online delivery platform, Norwich University Online, extends the Norwich academic model to 1,200 students ‘ working adults in the military, public and private sectors, and lifelong learners from around the world. ‘
US News ranked Norwich’s online bachelor’s degree completion programs in the top 20 percent of all programs. Driving that ranking were high marks in student services and technology critical to active military and other working adults.’

Developments in Vermont’s energy landscape during 2014 will pose numerous challenges for electricity consumers and policy makers. For example, consumers will likely face the continued rise in wholesale electricity prices. In 2013, the average ‘market clearing price’ was 5.1 cents per kilowatt/hour, according to transmission grid operator ISO-New England. Prior to that, the last time the wholesale cost of electricity rose above five cents was in September of 2011. 2012 prices averaged less than four cents.’

The Vermont Country Store has committed $10,000 to the Vermont Foodbank to support the Co-op Buying Program that will help local food shelves get through the bleak winter months. The Vermont Foodbank has identified 10 food shelves in southern Vermont to participate, which are experiencing exploding demand and a shortage of resources at the same time that 3SquaresVT benefits have been cut for thousands of low-income households across the state. ‘

Three New Hampshire health care organizations have joined Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s Accountable Care Organization (ACO), bringing to five the total of members of the Pioneer ACO.
Catholic Medical Center (CMC) of Manchester, St. Joseph Healthcare of Nashua, and Exeter Health Resources of Exeter are the three new participating members, joining New London Hospital in Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s recently renamed ACO, ‘allwell.’

Green Mountain Power has announced it plans to hold a one hour power outage for Thursday, January 9, at 3:30 pm in Fletcher, Fairfax and Cambridge to repair damage from teh recent ice storm. The outage will involve GMP customers served by Line 4 from the Fairfax Substation in the towns of Fletcher, Cambridge, and Fairfax.
The Fletcher General Store, Fletcher Town Clerk, and the Fletcher School were notified Wednesday.
Outage: Thursday 1/9/14, from 3:30pm to 4:30pm
Total Customers affected: 400
Reason: outage required to make repairs to electric lines, structures, and the removal of trees at various locations, all damage a result of the recent ice storm.
Major road names by town:’
Town of Fletcher: Fairfax Road, Pond Road, North Road, School Road, North Cambridge Road, Fairfax: River Road, the western end of Goose Pond Road, east end of Fletcher Road’

by Morgan True vtdigger.org Testifying before the House Health Care Committee on Tuesday, Mark Larson, the man in charge of the Vermont Health Connect rollout, said he welcomed the opportunity to talk about health care coverage instead of IT problems ‘ however brief the respite was.
Larson, commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access, will be back before that committee again this afternoon.
In his comments Tuesday, Larson planted the victory flag saying, ‘If our goal was to make sure people had options for obtaining coverage in January, not experiencing a gap in coverage, we feel that the option provided by the governor in early November have successfully accomplished that, despite all our challenges along the way.’
He came prepared with numbers to back that up Tuesday.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, in his State of the State speech to lawmakers today, said Vermont’s economy is rebounding from the worst national recession since the Depression ‘ with unemployment among the lowest in the nation, companies expanding, and home values rising. Vermont leads the nation in high school graduation rates, and is poised to expand pre-kindergarten and quality day-care programs to every community in Vermont. ‘
SEE’ FULL’ TEXT’ OF’ SPEECH’ BELOW.
Governor Shumlin State of the State speech January 8, 2014. Photo by vtdigger.org
‘We are so lucky to live in the best state in the Union, where people work hard, trust and take care of each other, and strive to keep Vermont a place where our children and grandchildren will grow up and thrive.’ The state of our state is strong and growing stronger,’ the governor said. ‘
However, he noted, there is a growing threat to Vermont’s progress and quality of life.

VCLF lends $2,140,200 in Q4 2013, promoting job creation, emergency affordable housing, and quality child care
The Vermont Community Loan Fund (VCLF) loaned’ $2,140,200 to Vermont’s small businesses, child care programs, community facilities and affordable housing developers in the fourth quarter of 2013, ‘ promoting’ job creation, quality child care programs, and development of emergency shelters and affordable homes.’
‘VCLF is proud to work with Vermont’s innovative entrepreneurs, child care and social services programs, and developers of affordable housing who are creating amazing new solutions and opportunities throughout our state’ said VCLF Executive Director Will Belongia. ‘VCLF is proud to help finance these projects that are increasing opportunity, financial stability, and economic justice throughout Vermont,’ he added.
Tina Conn and Van Nhum Tran, Essex Junction

by Anne Galloway vtdigger.org Lawmakers got right to work on opening day of the second half of the biennium. Within an hour of the first gavel fall, senators and representatives were in committee. There they began the work of legislating ‘ of evaluating statutory changes, assessing the effectiveness of programs and listening to the conflicting points of view of state officials, constituents, advocates and lobbyists.
By the end of the day, several committees had already voted on draft legislation. A bill to allow child-care workers to unionize passed unanimously out of the Senate Education Committee. A Senate and House conference committee voted out a campaign finance bill that will lift the ceiling on contributions to political parties to $10,000 and allow parties to make contributions in unlimited amounts to candidates.

On the first day of the Vermont legislative session Tuesday, Speaker Shap Smith addressed the House of Representatives, setting forth his priorities and highlighting the need to work across the aisle to tackle a number of difficult issues.’
‘We all share the same goals for Vermont. We want a healthy economy with good jobs. We want to make sure that our friends and neighbors have the tools necessary to unlock their individual potential. And we want strong, lively, vibrant communities that are safe for our kids,’ said Speaker Shap Smith.
Speaker Smith’s priorities include closing a $70 million budget shortfall within current revenue, reviewing increased education spending and seeking ways to slow its growth, funding shortfalls in retiree teacher health care, investments in our downtowns, and working to address the growing opiate epidemic.
Full text of the speech can be found below.
Speaker Smith Opening Remarks January 7, 2014