A coalition of 22 environmental and advocacy organizations were in Montpelier Wednesday to release their Environmental Common Agenda. Vermont Conservation Voters Executive Director Dan Fingas tells WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley that they have brought the groups together for over a decade to identify environmental legislative priorities:
There's a lot of really important work that happens at the state level when it comes to the environment and we try to bring together groups that work in this space: advocates, membership groups, community groups and even some uncommon partners like food security groups, democracy groups to say what are the important things that are coming up this year? What should we be fighting for, advocating for? And we pull that together in a common agenda that spans many issues across the environmental spectrum.
Are there specifics that you're looking at regarding legislation during this session that the 22 groups will focus on?
Yeah, we definitely do. I mean, we know that there's a housing crisis in Vermont and everybody's got to be part of the solution, including the environmental community. And so we are going to continue to support housing initiatives. We want to make sure that we successfully implement the Home Act and Act 181 which were passed in the last couple of years. Those are ongoing processes that have already shown really great results. We want to look at improving the Act 250 appeals process, look at permit navigators for housing, fund the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and the Land Access and Opportunity Board, expand funding and eligibility for downtown and village tax credits. We need to look at Mobility, Transportation Innovation Grants, bike and pedestrian infrastructure. And then kind of in the flood resiliency piece, we have a bill that's called Restore Waters for Improved Resilience Bill which really allows us to much more easily do climate resilience projects that will allow us to be more protected from future natural disasters.
Dan Fingas, you'll also be working to strengthen democracy. How does that fit in?
Vermont Conservation Voters, throughout its history since 1982, has fought for both environmental issues and for democracy. This year, we've decided to make it the first priority that's listed, mostly because we know that a healthy environment needs a healthy democracy. And in the world that we're living in right now, especially with our federal government, democracy is on the table and we need to make sure we're protecting Vermonters as much as possible. And so we know that it's key, because we know when citizens are active in Vermont they're telling us they want a healthy environment. And so we want to make sure that every Vermonter has easy access to our democracy.
Dan, it does seem like this is going to be an extensive agenda and you did mention that some of it builds on previous legislation, previous proposals. Are there new initiatives that the Environmental Common Agenda is putting forward?
Well, I already mentioned the Restore Water to Improve Resilience Bill, which is a new bill this year that really looks at climate resilience projects and how we can ensure that we're doing everything we can, whether it's dam removal or other river related climate resilience projects. That's something that that's definitely new within this and then in the toxic space, reducing Vermonters exposure to toxic chemicals and cut plastic pollution part of the agenda, we have a bill to get rid of paraquat, which is a harmful toxic chemical that's used as pesticide that actually has huge links to Parkinson's Disease. And we also have a bill to try to ban products that intentionally put microplastics into it, whether that's cosmetics or cleaners that have micro plastics added to them. We want to try to ban those because we know microplastics are really bad for the health of Vermonters. Some of the things that we are getting a lot of interest right away: our Voting Rights Act Bill is something that people are very excited about. A portable solar bill is already in the Senate Natural Resources and there's a lot of interest in making sure we can have plug-in solar, so that no matter your housing situation you could have solar. So renters could have solar. So those types of things are getting immediate traction. And we know it's a tough year. We know the federal government makes huge, huge cuts that are going to affect the state and so things that require investment are going to be a little harder and we're going to obviously keep pushing for smart investment in the environmental space and in the housing space.
And how are you going to gauge success of the agenda this year?
I mean, obviously we're going to gauge success both by how many of these proposed legislative solutions we are able to pass, but also the conversations we're able to start within the State House and throughout Vermont about these different programs and initiatives and how important they are. And we want to make sure that we continue to focus on how we can keep Vermont natural and beautiful and healthy, because that's going to make Vermonters healthier and our communities better.
Organizations that participate in the Environmental Common Agenda include Vermont Conservation Voters, the Vermont Natural Resources Council, Hunger Free Vermont and Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility.
