January 28, 2024 Legislative Update

 

An old adage says, “a good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied.” My Human Services Committee voted 10-0-1 this past week to pass a ban on all flavored vape products, which are getting kids rapidly hooked on nicotine. The ban is effective next January.

Check in at any school. Marketers even sell hoodies that have tubes in the hood strings so that they can vape surreptitiously. Why ban an “adult-only” product when it’s already illegal to sell to those under 21? The data says kids aren’t buying nicotine products from stores. They are getting them, overwhelmingly, from adults.

The bill came to us from the Senate, and it banned many more products from sales in Vermont. It included all menthol cigarettes (they reduce the harshness of the tobacco and make it easier to take up) and all other flavored tobacco products (pipe tobacco, etc.) We removed the adult-use ban on the “all other” tobacco products, where there was no evidence it has drawn kids in. We did also increase the penalty on those who give access to those under 21.

We were split on the issue of menthol cigarettes. (The federal government already bans other flavored cigarettes.) The evidence wasn’t as strong on whether it has special appeal to youth. In addition, adults in minority groups prefer menthol. Were we discriminating against them for their particular flavor of choice in contrast to other adults? Yet some in those groups urged the ban, saying their members were targeted by tobacco companies to get them addicted in the first place. The compromise was to defer that ban for an added six months, until July of 2025, and to ask the Health Equity Advisory Council to weigh in. We can repeal it next year, before it takes effect, if that is the recommendation.

The bill has to go through the House tax committee before it gets to the floor. My committee makes public health policy; they make tax policy. The estimate is that we will lose about $4 or $5 million in tax revenue with the vape ban, and perhaps double that when the menthol ban goes into effect.

A big struggle for me was the question of consistency. We have two other “adult-only” substances: cannabis and alcohol.  We only recently legalized cannabis, saying “prohibition doesn’t work.” Two years ago, we allowed convenience stores to start selling fruit-juice-flavored spirits. Alcohol companies have jumped on board, and you can now see products like “Sunny D” spiked with alcohol on the same shelves. Surely, this, too, is particularly appealing to youth, and alcohol misuse is a major social problem, scooping up kids at even earlier ages than vapes. Why target one substance for a new prohibition. I had an “aha” moment from one person’s testimony, who pointed out that we do ban some of those other products when they are higher risk, such as limiting the percentages of alcohol or THC. In the same way, we are further regulating nicotine, not banning it, regarding the highest risk types.

However, I argued to tighten up regulations to protect youth on the other products as well. The other committee members strongly supported this in principle, but not under our House rules, which carve out “jurisdiction” of subjects. The outcome is that we are sending a strong Chair-to-Chair memo urging that the correct committee looks closely at these issues as they take up related bills this year.

Our committee was flooded with hundreds of emails urging us to pass the Senate bill, and almost an equal number opposing it. Almost all were the identical message written by lobbying organizations. Each of us did the same thing: sorted through to find the ones from our own constituents and deleted the rest. (Some were even from out-of-state.)

I received some from my district on each side of the issue, and a few that were written personally, along with several phone messages. Getting views from residents of Berlin and Northfield is really important to me, and I appreciate everyone who contacted me, even if I didn’t end up fully sharing your perspective. I tried to answer each individually, but some phone messages came to the statehouse without return numbers and some emails with only the lobby group’s return address. Alas, with cell phones, the days of help from the phone book are gone.

***

This week’s biggest floor action was the budget adjustment act, which increased the current year’s budget by $31 million. Supporters argued that the budget was still balanced, since state revenues had increased slightly over the projections from last May. The problem is that the coming year’s budget will be much tighter: less revenue as related to ongoing needs plus inflation. The governor presented the fiscal year 2025 budget this week with a mere 3.5% increase, keeping it balanced without new taxes.

The budget adjustment is a tool to shift money midway through the year if less was spent in one account and more is needed in another. But if anything is added to the base it limits our opportunity to identify the greatest needs as we work through next year’s full budget, because we have added $31 million that is locked into the “adjustment” lines items.

There was a lot of pollical posturing on the floor saying those voting “no” would be denying help to their neighbors for flood relief funds. Voting “no” actually was only to send the bill back to remove some increases, not necessarily flood aid.

Most in contention was the extension and major increase in funding for the motel program for homeless individuals. There was a hue and cry about throwing children and the elderly on the streets on April 30. That was the extension we voted on last spring for the phase-out of the COVID program. About half of those 1,600 or so households have not found housing yet.

That wasn’t the key issue, however. What the bill does is to reverse the decision last spring to end the open-door COVID policy for those who were NOT in those vulnerable groups and to return to pre-existing criteria. It reverses the phase-out and returns to the COVID emergency standards.

For example, until the COVID exemption, those who were not in emergency circumstances had time limits on emergency housing. The exception was for “adverse weather,” providing shelter for anyone in need during the winter months regardless of the reason for having lost housing.

Time limits are now gone, through June 30, and the adverse weather policy applies at any temperature.

This topic is in my committee’s jurisdiction, and I supported extending the existing protection for those more vulnerable folks that we were housing based on COVID. However, we heard nothing about the proposed policy change to re-open to all groups coming in, without limits, until we were asked to vote on it half an hour before it was proposed to the Appropriations Committee, which then itself had only a half an hour to review it. It was all vetted in private leadership conversation, not within the committees. The scope of the housing change was not fully explained on the floor, and by House protocols, I could not get up to speak against a decision of my own committee. Both Rep. Ken Goslant and I voted against the budget adjustment as presented, but it passed on a 112-24 vote. It now goes to the Senate.

***

The updated bottle bill – vetoed last spring by the governor – only received 17 of the required 20 votes needed for an override in the Senate. Almost as many Democrats as Republicans voted against the override. Many of us would like to expand our very successful deposit policy to include more glass and plastics but the bill also completely changed our current system. I voted for the bill and the override in the House, but with a great deal of trepidation over the changes. I am somewhat relieved that the override failed in the Senate. It clears the path to expanding the bottle bill more in line with the existing system.

January 14, 2024 Legislative Update

 

Legislative Update

Rep. Anne Donahue

Jan. 14, 2024

 The major action on the House floor last week was passage of the “safe injection” site bill.

It legalizes the operation of facilities where people can bring illegal drugs to be used under the supervision of health professionals. The purpose is for the ability to have an overdose addressed rapidly.

Only one other state has passed such a law, and its own center has not yet opened. Several are operating in Canada. Our Health Commissioner testified in my committee that the research was insufficient to establish that they are a benefit: we’re putting passengers on a plane that is still under construction.

My greatest fear is that it will cost us more lives than it will save. The public messaging is that there are “safe” (and legal) ways to use drugs. After all, the state is creating the funding for them.  How many more people will feel less afraid to try highly addictive substances? We don’t know. Both Rep. Ken Goslant and I voted “no.”

There was a bright side to the 2-day debate. Those who opposed the bill identified some serious gaps. Those who supported the bill could have passed it “as is” because they represent a (veto-proof) super-majority, but were willing to listen and accept amendments to strengthen protections. One of our Independent members commented on the floor the next day about how refreshing it was to see collaboration, despite disagreement.

As a result, the bill added the requirement that local community leaders must vote to allow a center before it opens there, and that strengthen requirements for the staffing of such sites. The bill did require development of operating guidelines that a center must meet to receive approval to open. But once approved, there was nothing that required ongoing compliance with the guidelines. I drafted an amendment that would terminate the legal immunity of a center if it fails to meet good faith compliance, and that was also accepted.

Left unresolved was the concern about the lack of any age restrictions or special guardrails when a minor comes to a center to use drugs. The bill now goes to the Senate.

***

In what feels like a radically inconsistent direction, my committee is working on a Senate bill that would make all flavored tobacco products (cigarettes and vapes, and including menthol flavors) illegal to sell in Vermont. The purpose is to protect youth, who have latched on to the appealing vape products despite the fact that it is already illegal to sell to minors.

We would, in effect, shift from a “tax and regulate” system for the products into a prohibition: an exact opposite of the successful lobbying just a few years ago to change from prohibition to “tax and regulate” to permit adult choices to use cannabis. The slogan then was, “prohibition doesn’t work.”

While alcohol is highly regulated, we also recently began permitting single-serving products to be sold at any store. Ergo, the new market in convenience stores for appealing, flavored alcoholic beverages right by the check-out… while tobacco must be inaccessible except by a clerk.

Tobacco kills in huge numbers, over time. Drugs are taking lives all over the state through immediate overdoses. But alcohol misuse has never changed in its level of serious harm. There is a strong parallel to the issue of prohibition versus regulated adult use versus protection against youth addiction for all of these mind-altering substances.

I agree on how crucial it is to prevent the targeting of youth for these enticingly flavored tobacco products (“cotton candy,” is one), likely resulting in lifelong nicotine addictions. But given existing gaps in protection regarding cannabis and alcohol targeted to enticing young users, I will be struggling with whether I can get on board with this bill unless we also address some of those gaps in other adult use substances.

***

It was great to see Rep. Ken Goslant’s bill to address one of the (many) unintended consequences of our efforts to remove adult criminal processes for those teens who need stronger guidance rather than punitive measures. Our state’s attorney has told us that high-level drug dealers are now focusing on recruiting help from teens, since they will be sanctioned less severely if caught dealing. Ken’s bill would make it a specific crime to “employ, hire, use, persuade, induce, entice, or coerce a minor” to sell drugs. It’s one of many efforts this year to respond to a plethora of unintended consequences being seen from a variety of laws passed over the past several years that are helping to drive increases in crime rates.

***

The legislature and the administration continue to struggle with addressing how to restructure the ways we help protect Vermonters who lose housing during this time of a severe housing shortage. Increased efforts over the past six months have reduced by almost half the number of existing households living in state-funded emergency hotel rooms, but new needs have continued to grow.

We know some of the hotels exploited the COVID crisis since the state had its back against a wall, but our committee heard one budget figure last week that was shocking. Many of them have been charging the state a rate that is much higher than the standard rate for anyone else walking in the door, an average of $132 per night. At the same time, they don’t include the amenities you or I would get if we were paying a lower rate: room cleaning, breakfast buffets, etc. – and the higher cost includes none of the social service supports these folks need to stabilize their lives.

By aggressively clamping down on this, funds can be freed up to transition to shelter programs that offer direct assistance to people in moving out of the emergency system more rapidly. My committee will also be beginning work on a bill to reform the entire “general assistance” program for housing.

***

I was thrilled to hear a new report from our off-session Government Accountability Committee, because its recommendations tackle some issues that have frustrated me for years. A few examples:

Every year, with complicated issues that we can’t address in the short time available, we direct that the administration to prepare an in-depth report, or we create a study committee of legislators to work off-session to take testimony and recommend next steps. (Or some combination of those.) All too many times, these reports never even get read, let alone acted upon. New issues take over a committee’s time, and the level of interest in last year’s issues has dropped.

Another example: We pass laws that the administration is supposed to implement. But does it always actually happen? We don’t follow up to find out; there is no tracking mechanism in place (unless we asked for another of those reports that take resources to write and that don’t get read…) And when we draft new laws, do we actually look into the history of what was done before? Often, not.

Then, there is the budget. Every year, instead of discussing all of the funding of all of the state’s programs, the focus is almost exclusively on what are termed the “ups and downs.” Where is the governor proposing increases, and where is the governor proposing cuts; do we agree or do we want different priorities funded? The big picture is simply too big to review… but we need to create a better overview mechanism if we are going to be accountable to Vermonters for how their taxes are spent.

You can see the full report online at legislature.vermont.gov/assets/Legislative-Reports/SGAC-Report-Final-2023.12.13.pdf. Hopefully, we as the legislature will also pay attention to reading and implementing items in this report.

***

My bill requiring prominent notice to those renting a lot for a mobile home if it has a known flooding risk has been reviewed by the Housing Committee and will likely be addressed as part of a package of flood-related bills. The bill I introduced about businesses maintaining cash options for customers will be reviewed in the Commerce Committee next week.

What I am most pleased about, however, is that the issue of seniors who go onto Medicare and lose significant financial support for their health care as a result (the opposite of what we assume and would want!) has become a priority in the Health Care Committee, with testimony beginning next week. I introduced a bill on this last year, co-sponsored by a Democratic colleague to show bipartisan support, and it has gained significant momentum.

***

Thank you for the honor of representing you. Please be in touch with me (adonahue@leg.state.vt.us) or Rep. Goslant (kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us) at any time. You can access all of my legislative updates at representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com.