By Guy Page

Vermont House committees this week will consider bills that would:

• Bring back the Vermont Catamount
• Allow multiple electricity generating sites to be counted as one site for permitting purposes
• Require energy generation siting to consider agricultural soil impact
• Create off-site housing production
• End PCB testing in schools
• Create a new category of conserved land called Wildlands
• Ban the use of rodent poison
• Add students as voting members of school boards

H. 758, banning the use of rodenticides, will be introduced and walked through in the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry on Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 9:30 a.m. at the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Larry Satcowitz (D-Randolph), who is scheduled to testify along with Bradley Showman, legislative counsel with the Office of Legislative Counsel.

The bill is supported by Project Coyote, which opposes killing coyotes in Vermont. 

H. 677, primary, secondary, and local importance agricultural soils and solar energy generation, will also be taken up by the House Agriculture Committee on Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 9:30 a.m.. The bill is being presented by sponsor Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt, an apple orchard owner (R-Cabot). The others sponsors also are all Republicans. 

The proposal would require the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets to be a required party in electric generation facility siting cases before the Public Utility Commission, mandate consideration of secondary and locally important agricultural soils, and establish that preclusion of farming on more than five acres constitutes an undue burden.

H. 211, data brokers and personal information, is scheduled for amendment walk-through and testimony in the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.. Testimony is expected from Rik Sehgal of the Office of Legislative Counsel; Chris D’Elia, president of the Vermont Bankers’ Association; James Feehan, government relations director at Primmer Piper Eggleston & Cramer PC; Dylan Zwicky of Leonine Public Affairs on behalf of RELX; former data broker employee Steve Lappenbusch via Zoom; Consumer Reports policy analyst Matt Schwartz via Zoom; EPIC Deputy Director John Davisson via Zoom; and Zach Tomanelli, communications and engagement director for VPIRG.

H. 775, a bi-partisan bill creating tools for housing production, will be heard by the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee on Friday at 1 p.m. at the Vermont Statehouse. The bill proposes new policy tools, including off-site modular home construction, aimed at increasing housing development statewide.

Vermont crime data will be the subject of testimony before the House Corrections and Institutions Committee on Wednesday at 2 p.m. at the Statehouse. Monica Weeber, executive director of the Crime Research Group, and Robin Joy, JD, PhD, director of research for the group, are scheduled to present.

Immigration detainees and related testimony from the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project and the ACLU will be discussed by the House Corrections and Institutions Committee on Thursday at 1:45 p.m. at the Vermont Statehouse. Jon Murad, interim commissioner of the Department of Corrections, is scheduled to testify.

H. 542, terminating testing of schools in Vermont for polychlorinated biphenyls, will be heard by the House Education Committee on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. at the Vermont Statehouse. Testimony will be provided by Matt Chapman, director of the Waste Management and Prevention Division at the Department of Environmental Conservation.

H. 640, adding voting student members to school district boards, is scheduled for introduction and walk-through in the House Education Committee on Friday at 9:30 a.m. at the Vermont Statehouse. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Leanne Harple, with additional witnesses to be announced.

H. 710, electric generation facility definitions, is before the House Energy and Technology Committee at the Vermont Statehouse. Sponsored by Vice Chair Rep. Scott Campbell and Rep. Kathleen James, the bill would clarify when multiple energy-generating facilities should be considered a single facility by the Public Utility Commission, particularly when they use the same technology and are located on the same or contiguous parcels.

H. 473, the reintroduction of catamounts to the State of Vermont, will be heard by the House Environment Committee on Tuesday at 1:15 p.m. at the Vermont Statehouse. Sponsored by Rep. Sarita Austin of Colchester, the bill would require the Department of Fish and Wildlife to conduct a feasibility study on reintroducing the puma concolor, including suitable locations, conflict management, success metrics, timelines, and estimated costs. Peter Brewitt, PhD, director of the Sustainability, Ecology and Policy Program at the University of Vermont, is scheduled to testify.

H. 276, State Wildlands, is scheduled for testimony in the House Environment Committee on Wednesday afternoon at the Vermont Statehouse. Sponsored by committee chair Rep. Amy Sheldon, the bill would create a new Wildlands designation within Vermont’s Ecological Reserves, permanently protecting certain lands from conversion, promoting natural processes and old-growth forest conditions, and permanently designating many state parks as Wildlands.

This list is only a partial list of bills under review by House Committees A – E! Click here for a complete list of scheduled House and Senate committee activity this week.