by Alison Despathy 

The Vermont Legislature super-majority’s emerging legislative priorities include treating children for STDs without parental consent, limiting citizen involvement in energy projects, more renewable power mandates, and choking off parental access to private schools. 

Parents permission not required – Senate Bill 151 provides transparency in healthcare by requiring the Green Mountain Care board to review contracts and fee schedules. It also streamlines some administrative procedures and increases primary care payments and spending. But the transparency ends on page 16, Section 7, ‘Preventive Services.’ where the bill allows a minor over the age of 12 to consent to receive both treatment and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases under the care of a licensed healthcare professional without parental consent to authorize care.

Stop and think about that for a moment. Is there ever a situation where this would be acceptable? This is aiding and abetting predatory and abusive behavior and either way parents, guardians or appropriate authorities should be notified. Given that there is risk associated with all treatments and medications, a twelve year old does not have the mental capacity to perform a valid benefit risk analysis of care options or monitor for adverse events, recovery and follow up.

Included in this preventative care are HPV and hepatitis B vaccines, both of which hold known risks. Class Action Lawsuits for the HPV vaccine Gardasil are currently under review. The lawsuits “Accuse Merck of fraudulently concealing evidence regarding the health risks of Gardasil while falsely promoting it as a vaccine that can prevent cervical cancer.” Plaintiffs in the lawsuit have two primary health complications related to the vaccine; Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) or Primary Ovarian Failure. A twelve year old child does not hold the critical thinking skills to review this material or Vaccine Information Statements listing known and unknown side effects and risks. Section 7 sets the stage for unintended adverse events and perpetuates situations involving minors that demand oversight by parents, guardians or authorities. This bill is moving forward, it is a matter of when. Please take action and contact Senate Health and Welfare committee members. This obliterates parental rights and places minors at risk.

Usurping local control and giving it to renewable power industry – Over in Senate Finance, S.236, sponsored by Senators White, Watson, Gulick and Vyhovsky, usurps local control and handing it over to renewable energy special interests. S.236 is intended to limit adjoining landowner participation in the placement of new gas and electric purchase to public health, safety and traffic concerns alone. S.236 also removes the aesthetic criteria from Public Utilities Commission review.

S.236 epitomizes the problem with a supermajority not representing Vermonters and instead choosing their pet causes and favorite lobbyists at all costs even if it means sacrificing the quality of life of their constituents. This has become standard fare – see last year’s S.5, the UNaffordable Heat Act The result is more centralized control. If passed, S.236 will heavily limit the people’s ability to play a meaningful and engaged role in the development of their communities. Hopefully Vermonters can see this for what it is: yet another move that chooses the greedy wants of special interest groups over the needs and rights of Vermonters, our communities, and our local environments. This bill will most likely move from Senate Finance over to Senate Natural Resources where two of its sponsors reside. It remains to be seen if it will be taken up to move forward in any capacity.

Eliminate private school choice – Moving on to the House Education Committee, Representative Laura Sibilia has sponsored H.634 which would further enable the public school monopoly to continue eliminating any competition and consuming as much of the education fund as possible. H.634 would force a town to choose three designated public schools as options if that town’s school was to close. The alternative to this would be that towns gain true school choice and families are able to best meet the needs of their children as opposed to coercion into a public school education system that very clearly does not work for all children.

Public school enrollments are dwindling due to curriculum, performance concerns, behavioral and staffing issues. Meanwhile school budgets are increasing exponentially, forcing school boards and communities to assess the best approach. It remains to be seen if this bill will be taken up by committee. Despite not serving Vermont’s students or making any geographical sense in certain cases, the united public school lobby of teachers, superintendents, and school boards is fierce and powerful under the Golden Dome. In essence they represent their institutions instead of the needs of students and communities.

More renewable energy mandates – The Renewable Energy Standard (RES) is under review in House Energy and Environment (HEE). This past fall, the RES Working Group met to reassess the current Vermont Renewable Energy Standards and goals. Ultimately, there is a drive to mandate that renewable energy production in Vermont is further ramped up. Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) and Renewable Energy Vermont (REV) both of whom have obvious agendas participated in the working group and presented testimony last week in HEE. The findings will influence legislation and it remains to be seen what the timeline and details look like to further pressure Vermont to be powered by 100% renewable energy.

In a survey conducted by the Department of Public Service and presented to HEE, Vermonters are demanding that affordability and reliability are kept at the forefront of energy policy. Hopefully these common sense requests will be considered as the RES legislation is developed.

Couple the findings and goals of the RES Working Group with S.236 and Vermont faces a situation where renewable energy projects could be placed just about anywhere and it will not matter what towns, villages, planning commissions or neighbors think should happen. This is the ultimate flex in central control and it disrespects Vermont’s long standing work to protect local control and the democratic voice of the people within their own communities.

All of this brings to mind Maximilian Robespierre’s infamous quote justifying the horrific French Revolution, “On ne saurait faire une omelette sans casser des oeufs.” Translation: One cannot expect to make an omelet without breaking eggs. As the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) points out, Robespierre worked tirelessly to plan the lives of others during his Reign of Terror. FEE states, “Much was destroyed in order to impose a utopian society with government planners at the top and everybody else at the bottom….History is littered with their presumptuous plans for rearranging society to fit their vision of the common good, plans that always fail as they kill or impoverish people in the process. If big government ever earns a final epitaph, it will be this ‘Here lies a contrivance engineered by know-it-alls who broke eggs with abandon but never, ever created an omelet.”

The author is a clinical nutritionist in St. Johnsbury.