Current News

In honor of Earth Day, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters has announced winners of its challenege to find potential soucltions to climate change. More than 100 nonprofit organizations submitted proposals to address climate change in four specific areas: threats to coffee-growing cummunites, transportation-related emissions, building political will, and empowering individual action. The four winning nonprofits will each receive a $200,000 grant, payable over five years.
The contest site on JustMeans.com received more than one million page hits, over 100,000 unique visitors, and created an online social network of nearly 30,000 stakeholders interested in Changing Climate Change.

In a move to keep Vermont tax dollars at work, the State Treasurer s Office has announced plans to make millions of dollars in short-term deposits available to area banks as a source of working capital. By utilizing a federal program designed to promote liquidity in the national economy, these deposits by the State will be fully guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or FDIC.
In October, the FDIC created the Transaction Account Guarantee Program (TAGP). The program allows participating financial institutions to provide customers with full coverage on specific types of transaction accounts. The FDIC hopes such guarantees will encourage more deposits and help increase the amount of funds available for lending to consumers and businesses.

At the invitation of Rep. Peter Welch, Regulatory Assistance Project Director Richard Cowart will testify Thursday before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
The East Calais resident will be taking part in the first week of hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, a major climate change bill which includes legislation authored by Welch aiming to increase energy efficiency by 20 percent.
Cowart, a former commissioner and chairman of the Vermont Public Service Board, will emphasize the critical role energy efficiency can play in addressing climate change while contributing to cost containment for consumers.
The world needs us to get control of our greenhouse emissions, but people are worried about the costs of climate legislation. I m delivering good news: we can design a carbon cap-and-trade program to support and reward energy efficiency, which is the low cost carbon scrubber we need today, Cowart said.

Senate President Peter Shumlin has outlined a revenue package to the Senate Finance Committee that will close the Capital Gains loophole and lower Vermonters' income taxes. The package includes many of the House's revenue provisions, increases cigarette, liquor and satellite taxes and closes the capital gains loophole to lower the marginal rates on all types of income for all taxpayers. Projected revenues from the package are roughly $25 million. Vermont is only one of nine states that has the capital gains loophole in place.
Shumlin's proposal aims to prevent additional layoffs of over three hundred state workers, which could devastate essential state services. Since January 2008, the state has cut $70 million from the state budget and the current FY10 budget contains $28 million in additional cuts.

Early estimates indicate that Vermont based Apple retailer, Small Dog Electronics recycled 150 tons of e-waste at their third annual Earth Day E-Waste Event this year, and it didn’t cost the public a dime.Cars filled with old TVs, computers and electronic peripherals lined up as early as 8:00 am to recycle their electronics for free. In the end, 100 volunteers unloaded 1,700 cars. All of the electronics collected will be processed in the United States by WeRecycle! in one of their two processing plants in Connecticut and New York.

Pitney Bowes Business Insight, the leading global provider of location and communication intelligence solutions, and Earthsense, an applied marketing company, today released demographic insights into the top ten green US states. The research integrates information gathered with Pitney Bowes Business Insight geo-demographic solutions and Earthsense Eco-Insights green survey results. Vermont was ranked the greenest state, followed by Alaska and New Mexico.
Highlights of the research include:

The US Census Bureau is launching a nationwide operation to verify and update more than 145 million addresses as it prepares to conduct the 2010 Census. In Vermont, approximately 650 people will carry out the operation. It is the first publicly visible activity of the 2010 Census, and address-canvassing listers are expected to complete the canvassing by July 2.
Nationwide, more than 140,000 census workers will participate in the address- canvassing operation, a critically important first step in assuring that every housing unit receives a 2010 Census questionnaire in March 2010.
A complete and accurate address list is the cornerstone of a successful Census, said Kathleen Ludgate, regional director at the Boston Regional Census Center. Building on the achievements of the 2000 Census, we have been testing and preparing for the 2010 count all decade and we re ready to fulfill our Constitutional mandate to count everyone living in the United States.

Though some have called the 2008 economic situation bad enough to make it a historical pivot point for the world, 2009 is shaping up to be worse for Vermont, judging by the bankruptcy filings at the United States Bankruptcy Court in Rutland. In 2008, there were a total of 48 business bankruptcies and 1,218 consumer bankruptcies. If filings continue apace in 2009, business and consumer bankruptcies will total at 95 and 1,870, respectively. The bankruptcy filings for 2009 to date suggest that the national economic tsunami has reached levels high enough to have a strong effect on the Green Mountain State.

The Senate today passed S. 154, a bill that will fully fund the town highway aid payments in April 2009. The Douglas Administration and the Legislature had previously agreed to withhold half of the $3 million, quarterly payment because of the state's fiscal situation. The state's Transportation Fund revenues continue to sag. The Transportation Fund in March was $400,000 below its target. The reaction from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, which lobbies on behalf of municipalities, was unequivocally opposed to the cuts because it would force the towns to either cut highway projects or raise taxes.
Vermonters can not afford to let their local roads and bridges fall into a further state of disrepair or pay higher property taxes, said
Senator Mazza, Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee. By passing this bill, the Senate has ensured that town s will not be forced to defer construction maintenance or raise Vermonters property taxes.

Governor Jim Douglas joined U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood today to announce a $6.2 million federal grant to rehabilitate a runway at Edward F. Knapp State Airport in Barre. The project is estimated to create 54 direct and indirect jobs. The funds were made available by the recently enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Secretary LaHood was also joined by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and Lt. Governor Brian Dubie.
This money will put people to work in Vermont while providing an important investment in airport safety. That means boosting the economy in the short term through job creation and sustaining economic recovery in the long-term by making airports more efficient and secure, said Sec. LaHood.

The Vermont Public Service Board on Thursday approved one of the largest wind power generating facilities in Vermont. The PSB issued a certificate of public good to Deerfield Wind LLC authorizing it to construct and operate a 15-turbine, 30-megawatt wind generation facility, and associated transmission and interconnection facilities, on approximately 80 acres in the Green Mountain National Forest, located in Searsburg and Readsboro. Seven turbines are to be placed on the east side of Route 8 on the same ridgeline as the existing Green Mountain Power Searsburg wind facility and eight turbines built along the ridgeline to the west of Route 8 in the northwesterly orientation.
GMP's Searsburg site is still the only commercially operating wind farm in Vermont. The eleven, 550-kilowatt wind turbines (6-megawatt) can provide enough electricity to supply 1,600 average Vermont households. It went online in July 1997.

The Vermont Department of Labor announced today that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for March 2009 was 7.2 percent, up one-tenth of a point from the revised February rate and up 2.6 points from a year ago. Unemployment rates for Vermont s 17 labor market areas ranged from 4.3 percent in Hartford to 12.1 percent in Newport. Local labor market area unemployment rates are not seasonally adjusted. For comparison, the March unadjusted unemployment rate for Vermont was 7.9 percent, up one-tenth of a point from February 2009 and up 2.9 points from a year ago. When seasonally adjusted, March job levels fell by 2,100 jobs or -0.7% from February and by 13,300 or -4.3% from March of 2008. Only Healthcare (+400 or 0.9%) and Education (+200 or 1.5%) showed seasonally adjusted increases in jobs over the month.