Current News

A survey conducted by Opinion Dynamics for the New England Energy Alliance found New Englanders favor market-based approaches to limit greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency by a significant margin in comparison to government regulation and mandates. There also seems to be no inclination to roll back electricity industry restructuring as a very significant 78% of survey respondents at least somewhat favor consumer choice and competition for electricity.
78% say they favor competition in the electricity industry

The weekly Pink Floyd radio show "Floydian Slip" will end its 13-year Vermont run on Winooski's Champ 101.3 with show #701 on June 7. Station management informed the show's host, Craig Bailey, of its decision on May 28, citing the FM station's evolving format and the show's lack of sponsorship as reasons. Bailey started the show in 1989 on 106-VIC, a student-run station at Ithaca College, where he was a senior. After a year on the now-defunct WEXP 105.1 in Burlington, he brought the show to Champ in 1995.
"I never imagined this would last as long as it has, but I'm not quite ready to have it end," said Bailey. "I suppose I'd consider pitching it to another station or webcasting it on my own. I haven't decided.
"I appreciate the chance to do a good-bye show on Champ. It's not very often a DJ is let go and then invited back behind the mic one last time."

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin and Speaker Shap Smith today announced a companion bill that the Vermont Legislature will consider and pass during the special session on June 2 to enhance the legislative budget and economic development efforts. Some of the strongest objections made by Governor Douglas, which triggered his promised veto of the budget, are addressed. Among those are: changing the capital gains increase to July 1 (the start of the state fiscal year, instead of retroactive to January 1); giving farmers a 40 percent break on capital gains; addressing the growing shortfall in the unemployment insurance trust fund; and recognizing constitutional concerns over the governor's ability to lay off state workers. The cost to the budget and how these changes will be paid for was not addressed. These changes could make the budget more palatable to swing votes away from sustaining the governor's veto and toward and override.

Vermont Governor Jim Douglas signed into law Wednesday H.445, An Act Relating to Capital Construction and State Bonding, which makes $109 million in investments for a wide range of capital projects from school construction to parks and recreation infrastructure. Douglas, who hosted the bill signing at Little River State Park in Waterbury, noted the bill goes beyond traditional capital expenditures and focuses heavily on generating economic activity, creating jobs and leveraging federal funds to speed recovery.
In a program reminiscent of the federal Civil Conservation Corps, the bill devotes nearly $6 million to forest, park and recreation infrastructure and the expeditious creation of hundreds of private sector building trades jobs throughout the state.

Governor Jim Douglas has signed into law a bill that will enhance the regulation and expansion of the captive insurance industry in Vermont, a key provider of revenues and jobs for the state. At a ceremony in Burlington Wednesday, Douglas signed the omnibus banking and insurance legislation, S.42, and praised it as an important step in maintaining Vermont’s position as the largest captive insurance domicile in the U.S. and the second largest in the world in terms of gross written premium.
“As our state tackles budget and revenue challenges, my administration continues to recognize how critical the captive insurance industry is to Vermont and the need to continue investing in our infrastructure and innovating in our regulation,” Douglas said.

The Council on the Future of Vermont (CFV) was a two year project of the Vermont Council on Rural Development. Join us in a regional roll-out of the results where residents can learn about the CFV process and share their ideas and priorities for their own towns and Vermont. A series of free and open public discussions will be held around the state this summer.
FIND YOUR REGIONAL MEETING BELOW!
All Meeting Times are: 6pm to 7:30pm
July 1: Island Pond, Island Pond Welcome Center
July 2: North Hero, Public Library
July 7: Middlebury, venue TBA
July 8: Burlington, Fletcher Free Library
July 9: Rutland, Rutland Free Library
July 14: Bennington, venue TBA
July 15: Brattleboro, Marlboro Graduate Center
June 10: Randolph, Gifford Medical Center, Conference Center
June 11: White River Junction, Hartford High School
June 16: Barre, Old Labor Party Hall
June 18: St. Albans, Bellows Free Academy

Senior political correspondent Juan Williams of National Public Radio and other national media will be the keynote speaker at the summer meeting of the Vermont Business Roundtable, which will be held on June 18 at the Sheraton Burlington Hotel and Conference Center. Williams will deliver The Latest from Washington An Insider s View following dinner and a brief awards presentation.
Roundtable members and government leaders from across the state are expected to attend the event, and non-members are also encouraged to participate. Dubbed a Summer Celebration, the regular meeting of the Roundtable s membership will culminate in an evening of social networking, celebrating leadership and learning political insights from one of the nation s leading political analysts.

A groundbreaking ceremony will be held today for Champlain College's renovation of historic Perry Hall. The $15 million student “Welcome Center” is one of Vermont's largest, non-transportation construction projects. President David F Finney said the project is important to both the college and Burlington, especially during the current economic conditions. When completed, Perry Hall will house the admissions, financial aid, student accounts and advising and registration departments.
“This will greatly enhance the ability to serve our students better and show off one of Burlington’s historic architectural gems restored to its former glory,” Finney said. “A project of this scope, expected to take 14 to 16 months, will employ a large number of local workers, it will help to stimulate the local economy and perhaps most importantly, when finished will provide a great first impression of Champlain College and Burlington to visiting prospective students and their families.”

By Timothy McQuiston. Businesspeople did not have to encourage Governor Douglas to use the bully pulpit to make his case for vetoing the Vermont state budget, but they did it anyway. Douglas was at DEW Construction in Williston for a town hall style meeting with about 40 business leaders. Douglas has also visited businesspeople in St Albans and in the Northeast Kingdom to spread his message that the Legislature s $4.5 billion budget spends too much, taxes too much, and where lawmakers did make cuts, they made the wrong cuts.

By Timothy McQuiston. Governor Douglas today avoided a veto of H446, the renewable energy bill, by letting the it become law without his signature. The governor opposed the bill because he said it gets government in the way of what already is a competitive and growing private marketplace for the development of renewable energy. He and his administration have told Vermont Business Magazine that they also opposed the Legislature setting de facto electric rates, which has been the purview of the Public Service Board. A governor must either sign or veto a bill within five days of it being sent to him. If he does not act, it becomes law regardless.
Below is a portion of the governor s written statement:

Week Ending May 23, 2009. There were 958 new regular benefit claims for Unemployment Insurance last week, a decrease of 422 from the week before. Altogether 15,386 new and continuing claims were filed, 951 less than a week ago and 7,809 more than a year earlier. The Department also processed 2,629 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08), 162 more than a week ago. In addition, there were 1,095 Second Tier claims for benefits processed under the EUC08 program which is a decrease of 284 from the week before. The Unemployment Weekly Report can be found at: http://www.vtlmi.info/. Previously released Unemployment Weekly Reports and other UI reports can be found at: http://www.vtlmi.info/lmipub.htm#uc

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced today that he secured $500,000 for Vermont public schools to install solar panels, the latest development in the senator s ongoing campaign to transform Vermont s energy system.
We must move, as aggressively as possible, to become energy independent, to address the crisis of greenhouse gas emissions and global warming and, in the process, create millions of new jobs over a period of years in the clean-energy field, Sanders said. In my view, this is one of the transformational issues of our time and I very much hope that Vermont will be a national leader in this area.