Other bills would transition to non-fossil fuel heat, ease punishment on drug possession, increasing restrictions on hunting
By Guy Page
A quick glance at the weekly schedule for House and Senate committees shows the Legislature intent on creating a racial issues bureaucracy and transitioning Vermont heating systems – state, municipal, and private – from fossil fuels to non-fossil fuels.
Tuesday-Thursday, House Corrections and Institutions will review H600, requiring the installation of nonfossil fuel heating and cooling equipment in any state-owned or controlled building needing new heating and cooling. The lead sponsor is Rep. Scott Campbell (D-St. Johnsbury), a weatherization entrepreneur and legislative advocate.
Today, House Energy & Technology will discuss and possibly vote on the Clean Heat Standard, a cap-and-trade scheme to get fossil fuel dealers to fund state programs for non-fossil fuel heating systems. At 3:45 today it also will discuss H518, providing funding for municipalities to transition from fossil-fuel to non-fossil fuel heat in municipal buildings.
In House Commerce Wednesday 9:30 AM – H. 406, promoting racial and social equity in economic opportunity and cultural empowerment. Scheduled to testify are Joan Goldstein, Commissioner, Department of Economic Development, and Xusana Davis, Executive Director of Racial Equity and Chair of the Governor’s Task Force on Racial Equality, Agency of Administration.
H406 would create the Vermont Department of Cultural Empowerment and Economic Advancement, which would implement a statewide Cultural Empowerment and Economic Advancement Network, consisting of four Community Empowerment Centers located in different geographic regions of the state. It would create a new Treasury fund to finance the new department, estimated at $10 million per year.
At 9:15 Wednesday morning, House General, Housing and Military Affairs will discuss H96, creating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Development Task Force “to examine and begin the process of dismantling institutional, structural, and systemic discrimination in Vermont, both past and present.” Wednesday afternoon it will be H273’s turn: “promoting racial and social equity in land access and property ownership” through creation of a new board and $10 million fund.
House Government Operations will do what the schedule calls a “drive-by” of H546, which would create the Division of Racial Justice Statistics within the Agency of Administration. It also creates a Racial Justice Statistics Advisory Council ($540,000 pricetag). These bodies would “work collaboratively with, and have the assistance of, all State and local agencies and departments for purposes of collecting all data related to systemic racial bias and disparities within the criminal and juvenile justice systems.”
Reformers of Vermont’s alleged systemic racial injustice say some arms of state government – notably, the police and Dept of Corrections – are historically unwilling or unable to extend race-related information.
Thursday morning at 11:15 AM, House Judiciary will take another look at H505, reclassification of penalties for unlawfully possessing, dispensing, and selling a regulated drug. A draft reviewed by the committee last week came under fire by Vermont states attorneys because it classified 30 grams of cocaine – a drug-dealer size quantity worth $3,000 on the street – as a ‘personal use’ punishable only by a minor misdemeanor.
House Natural Resources, Fish & Wildlife is scheduled to hold a possible vote at 1:15 this afternoon on H411, imposing strict requirements on the retrieval, skinning and dressing of wild animals killed by hunters. Thursday the committee is scheduled to discuss H606, which would require 50% of all land area in Vermont to be protected or conserved by 2050, in compliance with an international 50 by 50 campaign. At present, about 30% of Vermont land is protected or conserved from development. Both bills are sponsored by committee Chair Amy Sheldon (D-East Middlebury).
Categories: Legislation
A Portland University Professor and two other academics last year famously exposed CRT(or would have had the left-wing media not muffled such news) and “Grievance Race Studies” with fictitious papers that were accepted by various universities as legitimate scholarly including specific Nazisms, or Equity Studies: notthebee.com/article/peter-boghossian–professor-who-exposed-critical-theory-in-hoax-papers-scheme-resigns-from-portland-state-university-in-protest-of-their-illiberal-practices
This is exactly the same thing, but in the political sideshow begotten by liberal politicians here in America. These people really think socialism is cool, but most of us know better. Unfortunately, we are preaching to the choir, while the Freak Press and the Barre Slimes, Senator Ramm, AG George and her like hope we intolerables will be rounded up and red-educated in soon-to-arrive concentration camps for conservatives. I have never seen this country so overrun by such dangerous and unhinged leftwing parasites, who despise common sense and us.
Tired of all this wasted non productive idiotic legislation?? Then Stop voting for progressives like boornie, welch, molly gray, ram and the rest of these self avowed marxists running Montpelier.
I couldn’t agree more wholeheartedly Jim, but we still need good candidates to oppose these fruitcakes. The way I see it, a vote not cast, is a vote not cast against the wrong person. I view my vote is from two perspectives, it is not only a vote for a candidate, (hopefully a good one) it’s a vote against others. I hope to see good, solid, honest, Republicans in every race, something we have been denied all to often of late, so I can claim this outcome works, as I hate voting for the lesser of the evils.
The following paragraph is from an article written by Ben Walsh who works for Vermont Public Interest Group (VPIRG), a powerful renewable lobby in Montpelier and was published in The Vermont Digger .
“Leadership in the Vermont House and Senate, as well as the governor, have identified climate action as a key priority this year. They have recognized that Vermont has both a legal and moral obligation to cut climate pollution in an equitable way, and at a pace that recognizes the scale and severity of the climate emergency.”
In fact those words are totally removed from Vermont reality as Vermont has suffered tremendous economic dislocation from the pandemic – 24,000 jobs have been lost and many surviving businesses cannot find help. Vermont has seen massive increases in mental health problems, suicide and drug overdoses and the winter has been just that – months of freezing cold and snow. Inflation and scarcity are affecting everyone.
Not one word in that paragraph reflects Vermont reality and in his column one can read the unfolding of a new narrative blending social and racial justice with climate change paranoia. The talking points are widening beyond climate and maybe because Vermont being so cold folks have lost interest in global warming, so a new layer of guilt had to be introduced to justify the “control the climate” agenda.
Vermont legislature needs to come out of its reality slump or it will forever sink the state in an unbearable state of despair and mental agony .
Are the testimonies of Vermont fossil fuel dealers( made available to the public thanks to Guy Page) regarding the clean heat standard going to be swept under the rugs of the renewable lobbyists ?
Is the rise in crime in Vermont due to drug dealing and premature release of criminals going to be ignored in the name of progressive police reform ?
It will be very easy to connect which legislator is responsible of which problem as we watch their votes .
It’s over for us, reasonable and sensible folks. If you can, leave.
Rep. Hal Colston is signed on as a sponsor for the “racial” bills. He has recently announced that he will be leaving the legislature, leaving Vermont and moving to Aruba. How low can you go? Hal knows.
RE: promoting racial and social equity in economic opportunity and cultural empowerment.” — You would think these smart people would figure out the fastest road to that goal is an education system that requires competency in the 3Rs and critical thinking. — and couple it with the fact that most Vermont students are at below grade level when tested.
Hey Ed, It’s hard for progressives to understand critical thinking because they’ve never experienced it. I also think that calling progressives intelligent people is a stretch. In order to experience critical thinking and to be intelligent, one has to hear all sides of an issue. Progressives are not interested in all sides or opinions.
eletourneau; thats the plan, the less educated the better to push the current agenda
AND . . . let us gove 16, 17, and some 15 year olds the ability to vote. They will vote with what they are being taught by a Shanghai educational system. It easy to see this is to userp voting in Vermont to allow the unsustainable taxes (it will come with tax increases) all the 16,17, and some 15 year olds don’t pay (as it comes through property taxes)
Remember, remember the 8th of November!
For the last real Vermonter/American, please remember to take our flag, our Constitution, turn out the lights, and throw away the key upon exiting the State. At this point, the State will burn itself down in short order.
I guess I’m a little tougher of thicker than that Melissa. I was born here, and I will die here. If that means I am constantly at loggerheads with the lefty, woke, socialists, and wanna be Vermonters, so be it. In the words of Sir Winston Churchill, “We shall fight them in the fields, we shall streets, we shall fight them in the hills, we shall never surrender !”
For anyone who denies that this Nation has a problem with “institutionalized racism”, these race-specific proposals are a perfect example.
Right. Vermont bans slavery before it even enters the Union and we need “truth and reconciliation.” Hey, you want to see a real disparity in the criminal justice system? The disparity between men and women for the same crime is twice as great as that between black and white, but we don’t hear much about correcting that, do we? C’mon, white liberal women… check your privilege.
Let’s have some community meetings with our elected “representatives” to discuss these topics and their proposed legislation. There seems to be no end to the creation of new councils, committees and bills that all increase the size of government and the cost to taxpayers. What are we doing?
Let’s meet and express our views. Whatever happened to individual property rights? It is time for “We the People” to stand up and speak out!