Phil Scott

Gov. Phil Scott supports the legislation, but it remains unclear whether it will garner enough support to pass in the House and Senate next Monday.

Gov. Phil Scott’s three-month extension for this group is set to expire June 30 — and local service providers say the state’s interpretation of the governor’s order caught them off guard.

The marquee policy in the bill is the Community and Housing Infrastructure Program, which is intended to help cover costly infrastructure upgrades that are needed to make residential development possible.

The yearslong push to put guardrails on when — and how — companies can commodify key aspects of a person’s identity has taken on new urgency in Montpelier. But the tension between strict consumer protections and their potential impact on local businesses continues to thwart compromise over an issue that states are reckoning with nationwide.

The bill would have marked a fundamental pivot in how Vermont approaches homelessness, which has spiked amid a crushing housing shortage and rising housing costs.

Advocates say as many as 13,000 low-income Vermonters could see their federal food benefits reduced or eliminated under the budget reconciliation bill being considered by Congress.

At his weekly press conference, Scott said that he had not yet read the final version of the bill, but indicated that lawmakers “would have had to move a long ways” before gaining his signature.

Democratic lawmakers have spent the last five years laying the groundwork for the most aggressive emissions-reduction policies Vermont has ever seen, but a political sea change after the November election has brought that work to a “standstill,” according to legislators and climate advocates.

Administration officials have been pressuring lawmakers to speed up the transition away from the emergency motel housing program, and cut down on costs. Despite winning some concessions, the governor’s administration wouldn’t say whether it was satisfied.

Housing advocates say a cap on the amount of state tax revenue set aside for the new CHIP program would severely limit the number of homes that could be built with its help, among concerns about other restrictions.