Vermont Business Magazine Representative David Deen, (D-Westminster)Chair of Vermont House Committee on Natural Resources, Fish & Wildlife, on Monday announced he will not seek reelection in the fall of 2018, after 30 years of service in the Vermont Legislature. Below are statements from environmental advocates.
Brian Shupe, Executive Director, Vermont Natural Resources Council:"Vermonters who are concerned about the health of our natural resources and communities learned of a huge loss today when Rep. David Deen announced his retirement. For over thirty years he has led the charge on a wide range of issues, from improving community and regional planning, to closing the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, to banning CFCs and other harmful materials, and, perhaps his most enduring legacy, restoring and protecting the State’s rivers, streams and lakes. At the same time, he never forgot that he was doing that work in service to the people who call Vermont home. He was an invaluable ally in our work, and he’ll be sorely missed. We wish him the best as he prepares for his next adventure: enjoying, as he puts it, the clean water he helped to protect."
LaurenHierl, Executive Director, Vermont Conservation Voters:"Chair David Deen has been a staunch and tireless advocate for Vermont’s environment. In his decades of public service, he amassed an impressive legacy, including championing groundbreaking laws on clean water, toxic chemical protections, establishing groundwater as a public trust, and endangered species protections, among many other accomplishments. We will miss his strong leadership, expertise, and ability to shepherd difficult laws through to passage. His legacy will live on in cleaner water and healthier communities. We thank him for his many years of service and incredible leadership which have left Vermont a better place, and we wish him all the best.”
Jon Groveman,Policy and Water Program Director, Vermont Natural Resources Council:"It is impossible to overstate how much David Deen has done to protect Vermont's water resources. Name a significant step towards protecting Vermont's waters over the last 40 years, and David Deen had a hand in it. To say that David will be missed in the Statehouse is an incredible understatement."
Source: VNRC 4.30.2018