by Sam Douglass

Three candidates are vying for the Democratic nomination in the August 11 primary election for the Bennington County Senate district. Amy Moore is running to give rural voices representation in the district and bring diversity to the district’s representation as a working Vermonter. She is running in the primary against incumbent Democrats, Sen. Rob Plunkett and Sen. Seth Bongartz.

In an interview with the Vermont Daily Chronicle, Amy Moore said she isn’t running for the Vermont Senate because she spent years planning a political career. For Moore, Act 181 and the online grassroots activity associated with the FaceBook group, Rural Vermont Rising, became the catalyst for seeking office. As a sugar producer living on around a dozen acres of forest land and now running for public office, she’s meeting people in the district who feel the same as her.

“I felt isolated as a rural Vermonter,” she said. “It’s been a joy talking to people like me who haven’t been seen.”

Moore is a retired Community College of Vermont computer science teacher, Navy veteran, and farmer. She also owned and operated the Sue Z Cues pool hall in Bennington. Having served on regional planning boards and seeing the process, it shaped her approach to public policy. Now, she believes Montpelier too often crafts such policies without enough input from the people who live and work in rural communities.

“I don’t want us to lose the rural lives that we have,” she said.

On environmental issues, Moore said climate change is real, citing changes she’s witnessed as a maple syrup producer year-to-year with changing weather patterns. However, she argues Vermont should adopt a more practical approach to environmental regulation. She supports nuclear power as a low-carbon option and said some environmental regulations affecting forestry and agriculture have become overly restrictive. She also acknowledged Vermont’s small impact on worldwide carbon emissions.

“We need a lived and realistic approach to our environment,” she said.

Moore said she supports renewable energy but believes solar development in particular should be approached carefully. She acknowledged concerns about the conversion of farmland into solar arrays but argued that they may be appropriate in some locations. She also pointed out the environmental impact of solar, as many solar panels are manufactured in China where she said environmental regulations are weaker, and the pollutants released from disposal when panels reach the end of their lifespan.

As for electric vehicles, Moore said she does not believe electric trucks are currently a practical option for many applications in rural Vermont and argued the state should not move too quickly to phase out gasoline and diesel vehicles, which she said remain necessary for farming and other uses. 

Discussing Vermont’s conservation goals under Act 59, Moore said she believes Bennington County already does its share to conserve and protect land and worries that the region is an easy target for increased conservation. She said other areas of the state, including Chittenden County, should contribute more toward meeting Vermont’s conservation goals. 

Moore criticized recent education reforms, arguing lawmakers have focused too heavily on school finance while student performance has declined. As a Community College of Vermont instructor, she said she saw literacy and technical literacy among students fall over the past decade.

While she believes strongly in collegiality and giving people the benefit of the doubt, Moore also raised concerns about fellow Democratic candidate Sen. Seth Bongartz’s role in the state’s recent education reform efforts. She said she is concerned about his personal and professional ties to Burr and Burton Academy and argued the reforms lacked transparency from him personally. Moore said Bongartz has not provided sufficient explanations for decisions made during the development of the legislation. She stressed that she likes him personally and just wants transparency.

On state spending, Moore described herself as fiscally conservative, saying she would consider reductions to the budget while remaining open minded to public investments of tax dollars, including publicly funded medical clinics to improve access in rural Vermont. 

“If I don’t understand why we’re spending the money, I’m not going to vote for it,” Moore said.

As for policies she’s interested in supporting, Moore said she has heard of legislation that would limit the deployment of the Vermont National Guard to undeclared war zones that have not been authorized by Congress. 

If elected, Moore said she hopes to serve on the Senate’s Agriculture, Transportation, or IT & Institutions committees, where she believes her experience in farming, technology, and infrastructure would be useful.

Asked what distinguishes her from her opponents, Moore pointed to her background.

“I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not rich,” she said. “I think I can add a more diverse voice.”