News

Governor Announces $400,000 Training Grant
Funds Will Help 1,000 Vermonters Improve Skills
BURLINGTON, Vt. - Governor Jim Douglas has announced the award of more than $400,000 in training funds to help Vermont workers improve their skill and make their employers more competitive.

Merchants Bank donates $50,000 to help Vermonters heat homes
SOUTH BURLINGTON, VT -Thomas S. Leavitt, Executive Vice President for

Alain Brizard of Essex Junction
Saint Michael's physicist receives $50,000 US Dept of Energy grant to support his research in plasma dynamics

UNEMPLOYMENT EDGES UP SLIGHTLY TO 4.9% IN AUGUST, JOB GROWTH SLIPS DOWN -0.2%.
Montpelier (September 19, 2008) -- The Vermont Department of Labor announced today that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for August 2008 was 4.9 percent, up one-tenth of a point from the revised July rate of 4.8% and up 1.1 points from a year ago.

Vermont's conservative financial ethos spares state, so far
By Kevin Kelley
The conservative financial practices of Vermont banks and of many individual Vermonters appear to have spared the state, so far, from the full impact of the financial crisis besetting much of the country.

Vermonters have significant opportunities to save energy in their homes, and today Governor Jim Douglas, Hal Cohen, Executive Director of the Central Vermont Community Action Council, and Jim Grevatt, Director of Residential Energy Services for Efficiency Vermont, unveiled a new initiative to help Vermonters learn how to reduce their home energy use and save money.

Today, Governor Jim Douglas announced that Vermont received nearly $2.5 million in additional contingency FY2008 funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The news came as the federal government released the remaining $120.7 million in LIHEAP contingency funding for FY2008 to all states.

The Vermont Public Service Board has issued a Certificate of Public Good approving Washington Electric Co-op's proposed expansion of its landfill methane generating facility at the state's largest landfill in Coventry.

OTTER CREEK AWNINGS
RETURNS TO VERMONT OWNERSHIP

National Summit Participants Praise New Ballot as a Solution to Continuing
Problems for Americans Away from Home Who Want to Vote
Washington, D.C. - An estimated six million Americans who are members of the
military or live overseas have a new way to ensure their vote for president
counts this November, according to experts speaking at a high-level summit

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont to Bring Renowned Wellness Expert to Department of Health Conference

GREEN MOUNTAIN POWER'S CEO STRONGLY ENDORSES
THE CALL FOR A DEEPER, EXPANDED RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN VERMONT AND QUEBEC
BAR HARBOR, ME - September 16, 2008 - Mary Powell, president and chief executive officer of Green Mountain Power, issued the following statement from the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers 32nd Annual Conference: