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.
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