Current News

The US Senate Wednesday night confirmed former Vermont Assistant Attorney General Julie Brill for a vacancy on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Brill served for more than 20 years as Vermont s Assistant Attorney General for Consumer Protection and Antitrust, from 1988 to 2009. Since February 2009 she had been the Senior Deputy Attorney General and Chief of Consumer Protection and Antitrust for the North Carolina Department of Justice.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced Brill at her Commerce Committee confirmation hearing. Leahy chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over many of the antitrust, consumer protection and consumer privacy laws enforced by the FTC and by the U.S. Department of Justice. Leahy called Brill Wednesday night with the news of the Senate s action and congratulated her.

Burlington Police Chief Michael E Schirling testified Tuesday afternoon before a congressional panel chaired by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Leahy invited Schirling to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Encouraging Innovative and Cost-Effective Crime Reduction Strategies.
Leahy has made state and local law enforcement issues a priority for the Judiciary Committee this Congress. He dedicated the first hearing of the 111th Congress to examining the needs of state and local law enforcement. Last year, Leahy worked to secure $4 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for state and local law enforcement, including the successful Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. Twenty-five police departments in Vermont were recipients of COPS funding included in the ARRA. In 2008, Leahy twice brought the Judiciary Committee to Vermont to hear testimony about community efforts to address crime.

Voters in Lowell yesterday voted 342 to 114 at Town Meeting to support the development of the Kingdom Community Wind project proposed by Green Mountain Power and Vermont Electric Cooperative.
"We are thrilled that the people in Lowell have overwhelmingly embraced the idea of harnessing the wind on Lowell Mountain to bring stably-priced, renewable power to customers of Green Mountain Power and Vermont Electric Cooperative," said Mary Powell, president and chief executive officer of Green Mountain Power. "This project is different than many that have been proposed, in that GMP and VEC customers will benefit from utility-owned generation and in the way we included the community in a broad discussion of the benefits of the project."
Town officials reported that 456 of 581 registered voters cast ballots in the voter-approved Australian vote, including more than 200 absentee ballots.

Vermont Yankee engineers and technicians continue their investigation into the source of tritium in the plant s groundwater. As reported by Vermont Yankee over the weekend, testing identified a leakage path that could allow water, which was previously found pooled in the Advanced Off Gas (AOG) pipe tunnel, to reach the soil. Although this pathway may eventually prove to be the source of tritium, Yankee said in a statement, engineers have not ruled out any possibilities and are considering all potential leakage pathways until planned testing is complete. Although successful draining of the AOG pipe tunnel eliminated any continued leakage via this path, an engineered catch basin has been installed to capture any further potential leakage encountered at the unearthed AOG tunnel.

Part of the Public Service Department's decision to hand the Burlington Telecom situation over to the attorney general for criminal investigation was based on a letter that was sent by a former city attorney to CitiCapital along with Burlington Telecom's application for a $33.5 million loan in August 2007, according to a story in the Burlington Free Press.
In the letter, lawyer Joseph McNeil explained that the City Charter prohibited BT losses being borne by taxpayers, but stated that there was no problem using general city funds for BT activities. He did not mention BT's Certificate of Public Good, which requires any city money used by the company must be repaid within two months. McNeil also interpreted the fact that the city's general funds are not entirely made up of taxpayer money to mean that they were fair game for BT loan payments, an argument that was not accepted by the Public Service Board. McNeil maintains that the letter correctly represented the situation.

The United States Senate passed the Travel Promotion Act (TPA) late last week by a vote of 78-18. The House already passed the bill which is now on its way to President Obama who is expected to sign the bill into law sometime this week.
This is a major accomplishment for the hospitality industry, said Vicky Tebbetts, Vice President of the Vermont Chamber s Hospitality Council. This legislation is important for the continued growth and success of the travel and tourism economy in Vermont and across the United States.
The TPA will aggressively promote international travel to the United States by creating a public-private partnership campaign to market the country as a premier travel destination with the goal of increasing the number of international visitors.

Burlington Police Chief Michael E. Schirling will testify Wednesday before the US Senate Judiciary Committee at the invitation of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Leahy, who chairs the panel, scheduled the hearing to explore Encouraging Innovative and Cost-Effective Crime Reduction Strategies.

Leahy has made state and local law enforcement issues a priority for the Judiciary Committee this Congress. He dedicated the first hearing of the 111th Congress to examining the needs of state and local law enforcement. In 2008, Leahy twice brought the Judiciary Committee to Vermont to hear testimony about community efforts to address crime.

The Senate Economic Development committee has proposed a tax on Vermont workers that would go towards replenishing the state's unemployment insurance fund, which ran out in February and is currently being funded with loans from the federal government, according to a story in the Burlington Free Press. The committee passed the bill with a 3-2 vote.
The 0.02 percent payroll tax would raise around $24 million a year. Additionally, the proposal would increase taxes on employers. The maximum unemployment benefit would be kept at $425 a week, but changes would be made regarding who can collect unemployment. Changes would include making those fired for misconduct ineligible to file, and requiring workers who are laid off to wait a week before filing. The tax on workers would mean that the tax on employers would not be raised as much as the Douglas administration had proposed.

Provisions negotiated by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to modernize satellite television services and to reauthorize the expiring statutory licenses that permit satellite providers to retransmit broadcast stations to consumers has been included in legislation introduced Monday to bolster job growth and creation. When enacted, the legislation will again authorize satellite providers to retransmit broadcast stations to consumers.
This important legislative package will modernize and streamline the statutory licenses that allow cable and satellite providers to retransmit the content of broadcast television signals to their subscribers, said Leahy. After months of negotiations, we have struck a reasonable agreement to advance this legislation. I hope Congress will quickly pass this important bill.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) has been named one of 100 Best Corporate Citizens by Corporate Responsibility Magazine. The 100 Best list is known as the world s top corporate responsibility ranking based on publicly-available information.
The 100 Best Corporate Citizens List is based on over 360 data points in seven categories: Environment, Climate Change, Human Rights, Philanthropy, Employee Relations, Financial Performance, and Governance. The 100 Best Corporate Citizens are selected from among the large-cap Russell 1000 companies, with data provided by leading ESG investor data firm IW Financial. GMCR ranked 39th overall and was among the top ten food and beverage companies on the list.

Governor Jim Douglas passed into law last week a program called Challenges for Change, which aims to find $38 million in savings in state government operations. Rather than making traditional budget cuts, the law urges state government agencies to find new, less expensive ways of implementing their services. The program is part of the effort of state lawmakers to close a $150 million budget gap.

(Source: The Burlington Free Press)

Legislation passed by the Vermont House last week would make it easier to recycle computers, televisions and other electronics, according to a story in the Burlington Free Press. The bill would require manufacturers to fund the disposal of their products, which would fund free drop-off sites for e-waste in every Vermont county. Electronics companies would be required to pay a $5,000 registration fee to sell their products in the state, followed by a fee of 25 to 35 cents per pound of electronics sold. Governor Jim Douglas is expected to sign the bill, which would make Vermont the 21st state to implement an e-recycling program. The program is scheduled to start running in July 2011.