As the Vermont Legislature nears the midpoint of its session, the House leaders and governor held separate briefings to discuss progress on proposals so far.
The Vermont Legislature is quickly approaching crossover – the time in the session when bills passed in one chamber move to the other for consideration. If a bill does not meet the crossover deadline, which is this Friday, it’s dead for the remainder of the session.
House Speaker Democrat Jill Krowinski says committees are working hard and late to get bills finished.
“We’re tracking all the bills that the committees have decided to prioritize to get through and continue to watch what is happening around public safety and health care, housing and obviously the budget. I’m really proud of the work that we’re doing to help make sure that we’re creating an economy that works for everyone in Vermont and doing this while we’re also facing the challenges around federal cuts and other federal policies that have been impacting us.”
Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, believes the legislature is languishing as the crossover deadline nears.
“I’m not seeing the momentum that we need to get some of these bills, to get them to the next phase. It can be done. But they have to have the willingness to move forward on them and I just haven’t seen it in some of the committees.”
The state has been failing to meet emission reductions required under its Global Warming Solutions Act. Krowinski says there is a bill that would create a data collection dashboard to show how the state gets its energy and how it is consumed.
“So that we can make data informed decisions on how to tackle climate. So I think we need the data to help us make those decisions and so that is a really important step in this work.”
During the governor’s later briefing, Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore says the proposed bill is a good idea, but should have been proposed and passed before the Global Warming Solutions Act and associated programs were implemented.
“It is the kind of data that is necessary to develop responsible policy. Frankly, that sort of data and reporting is the kind of thing that should have been put in place before moving forward.”
