GOP wants full Senate on the record before Town Meeting break next week
by Guy Page
With concerned Town Meeting voters in mind, the Senate voted along party lines this morning to not liberate a Clean Heat Standard repeal bill from a Democrat-controlled committee.
The vote was requested by Rutland Republican Sen. Terry Williams. H.68, ‘repealing the Affordable Heat Act’ (AKA the fossil-fuel transitioning Clean Heat Standard) will stay in Natural Resources and Energy over the objections of Senate Republicans.
During discussion of Williams’ request, Chair Anne Watson (D-Washington) said she would (for the first time this year) take the bill ‘off the wall’ and discuss it Thursday. “I have not been stonewalling the issue,” she said.
Williams and other Republicans wanted to see action – preferably, repeal – on the Clean Heat Standard they ran against last November. And they want to tell Town Meeting voters next week that some progress is being made. They were able to secure a roll-call vote on which all 17 Democrats voted No on bringing H.68 to the floor, and all 13 Republican voted Yes. As one Republican said after, the vote allows GOP senators to show to Town Meeting voters next week that they are on the record as trying to repeal the Clean Heat.
“The voters told us loudly that they want us to do something,” Sen. Randy Brock (R-Franklin) said. At Town Meeting they will ask, ‘what are you doing about this?,’ he said.
Brock then asked Watson whether she expects the discussion Thursday to lead to a committee vote sending H.68 to the floor.
On that point, Watson was noncommittal. “The intention is to have a conversation with the members,” she said. “In a world where we have enough time, it is possible that we have a path to find a partisan agreement.”
Democrats urged respect for the committee process by which Watson has heretofore kept S.68 tacked to the wall. Several senators, including Pro Tem Phil Baruth (D-Chittenden), reminded the minority they could at will bring bills now under Republican chair control, if they wished. They reminded their minority colleagues that the Senate is a deliberative, process-oriented body, where surprises and shortcuts are unwelcome.
As Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale told fellow Dems in a pre-floor caucus, “the Senate is a place where tea goes to cool.”
Specific to the CHS, Senate Dems reminded the full body that implementing the Clean Heat Standard program requires an act of legislation – which, Watson said, is not forthcoming at this time. Minority Leader Scott Beck said repeal is a more positive step as simply allowing the CHS to lay low creates opportunities for the Senate to advance it.
Sen. Becca White (D-Windsor) said there is strong support for Vermont’s climate legislation. More than 500 Vermonters called the State House yesterday to oppose H.289, a Republican bill which would soften requirements of the Global Warming Solutions,