Vermont lawmakers have hit the midway point of the legislative session, and that means it’s make-or-break time for the hundreds of bills that committees have been mulling since January.
Last Friday marked the “crossover” deadline for policy bills, which means legislation that hadn’t gotten a committee vote by then is effectively dead for the year. The deadline for bills that include revenues or appropriations comes this Friday.
Vermont Public spent the week inventorying some of the bills that made the cut.
The clean heat standard, and big changes proposed for Efficiency Vermont
In 2023, Democratic lawmakers overrode Republican Gov. Phil Scott’s veto of a sweeping piece of energy policy that sought to reduce carbon emissions from the home heating sector.
But last week, the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy advanced legislation that would repeal the so-called clean heat standard.
Washington County Sen. Anne Watson, the committee’s Democratic chair, said it’s become clear that the policy — which would help Vermonters transition to cleaner energy sources but also increase the cost of fossil fuels — no longer has the support needed to become fully implemented.
“We’ve known for a long time that we were not going to move forward with the clean heat standard,” Watson said this week. “For now, that’s not the path we’re going to be taking, and so I think it makes sense for us to remove this language from statute.”
The clean heat repeal bill, called S.65, also includes some proposed changes at Efficiency Vermont that have drawn opposition from electric utilities and the Scott administration.
“The main point of S.65 is to reprioritize greenhouse gas emissions as the primary focus for the Efficiency Vermont work,” Watson said. "Right now, most of their money is supposed to go toward activities or technologies that reduce electric consumption, rather than focusing on the carbon emission outcomes.”
Watson said the mission change would allow the state to pursue its emissions reduction goals without raising the cost of fossil fuels or imposing new taxes or fees on Vermonters.
“Without raising any additional funds, let’s take the money that we have and use it for this purpose that we know we need to accomplish,” she said.
Alek Antczak, director of the Efficiency and Energy Resources Division at the Department of Public Service, said the goal of reducing carbon pollution is a worthy one. But he said sacrificing efficiency work to speed up emissions reductions will drive up demand for electricity, and force utilities to purchase higher-cost energy.
“We’ve got to backfill that energy with supply-side resources, and that’s just much more expensive,” Antczak said. “And that will necessarily drive up rates for all Vermonters.”
The bill is now under consideration in the Senate Committee on Finance.
A new mileage-based fee for electric vehicles
The House Committee on Transportation is poised to advance legislation this week that would set the stage for a new mileage-based user fee for all electric vehicles registered in Vermont.
The gasoline tax is one of the biggest sources of revenue for Vermont’s transportation fund. But as more and more residents switch to EVs, gas tax receipts are expected to decline.
Gov. Phil Scott introduced the mileage-based fee proposal to lawmakers earlier this year. In order to draw down the federal funding that makes up the majority of Vermont’s overall transportation budget, Scott said, the state will need to find a more sustainable source for state revenues.
Administration officials say the fee would generate an estimated $5 million annually in new revenue, starting in 2026. Senate lawmakers say they’re generally open to the concept set for approval in the House.
The legislation directs the Agency of Transportation to design a framework for a mileage-based system by July of 2026. But lawmakers and the governor would need to sign off on another bill next year before the fee can go into effect.
Financial protection for Vermont’s largest private health insurer
In an open letter last month, the CEO of BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont warned elected officials of the insurer’s precarious financial position. And lawmakers are taking the threat of insolvency seriously.
“If our one domiciled insurance company in this state goes under … it will leave 70,000 people without the access to even be able to purchase health insurance. And it is imminent,” said Essex Rep. Alyssa Black, the Democratic chair of the House Committee on Health Care. “And if BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont goes into receivership, our entire system of health care in this state will cease to exist.”
In response to those concerns, Black’s committee has approved legislation, called H.482, that would authorize the Green Mountain Care Board to intervene if BlueCross finds itself on the brink. Specifically, the five-person regulatory board could initiate mid-year budgeting amendments that force hospitals that meet certain benchmarks — University of Vermont Medical Center is the only institution that would qualify — to accept lower reimbursement rates from the insurer.
Black calls the bill “probably the most important legislation that met the crossover deadline.”
But the University of Vermont Health Network has some concerns. A network official said the organization recognizes that the state’s health system is experiencing “an access and affordability crisis.” But they said H.482, which the network is still vetting, could have “potentially unintended harmful consequences.”
After Trump cuts nutrition program, will state lawmakers backfill?
Vermont found out last week that the Trump administration is cutting $1.7 million dollars from a federal program that was supposed to help schools and food shelves purchase produce from local farmers.
Some state lawmakers are now hoping to backfill those funding cuts.
Contracts were already in place for a USDA-funded program that subsidizes the purchase of healthy, local foods for low-income Vermonters at schools, child care centers and food pantries. Cuts announced by the White House last week, however, caught lawmakers by surprise, according to Shaftsbury Rep. David Durfee, the Democratic chair of the House Committee on Agriculture.
“Up until last week … there wasn’t any question about whether that funding would be coming in, and then suddenly it was canceled,” Durfee said.
Durfee said recent developments underscore the need for legislation that the House agriculture committee was working on before news of the federal cuts came down. The bill, called H.167, allocates $2 million for a program called Vermonters Feeding Vermonters. The program provides funding to the Vermont Foodbank to purchase food from local farmers, which in turn distributes that produce to food shelves.
Durfee said the initiative serves dual goals of increasing access to healthy local foods while also improving the resilience of Vermont’s food supply system.
The House Committee on Appropriations, which has received far more requests for funding than existing revenues can support, is still considering the proposal.
Domestic violence updates
Earlier this year, Vermont’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board urged lawmakers to expand the circumstances under which alleged abusers can be forced to attend rehabilitative programming. Legislation approved by the House Committee on the Judiciary would turn that recommendation into law.
South Burlington Rep. Martin LaLonde, the Democratic chair of the judiciary committee, said H.222 would allow courts to require participation in a domestic violence accountability program in a civil abuse prevention order. That option is currently only available after a criminal conviction.
“And that’s a pretty critical and important big step in the world of domestic violence and relief from abuse orders, and so we’re pretty excited about that particular bill,” LaLonde said.
The bill would also update Vermont’s stalking law to include unwanted surveillance by technological means, such as remote vehicle tracking or AirTag monitoring.
