Advocacy Update: Week 16, 2022

Your Roadmap to Adjournment

We’re quickly spelling out for you what’s going on, where it is, and how it could proceed. 

• The Budget 
  • The Committee of Conference continued to meet this week, however, as the House and Senate versions of the budget get closer to each other, little has been done to bridge the gap between the Governor’s version and the Legislature’s version, something the Governor highlighted in a letter this week.
• Act 250 – S.234 
  • The bill is going to the House floor as early as today. This may be contentious as it goes to the floor with significant pushback from mayors, local government, as well as non-profit and for-profit developers. Mayor Miro Weinberger took to Twitter on Thursday to push back on the legislation, as it contains H.492, which he characterized as “anti-housing forces taking us backward and undoing arguably the most significant state pro-housing reform of the last 20 years – the 2004 bill that allowed builders to consolidate local and state land use permit appeals to one court.” If you agree, you should contact your legislator ASAP and tell them to vote against S.234. 

Clean Heat Standard – H.715

• • The Clean Heat Standard, H.715, passed the Senate with an amendment that requires the legislature to vote on whatever the Public Utilities Commission creates before the final implementation of the program, referred to as a lookback. This legislation should appease the Governor who asked for it to be added. 

Economic and Workforce Omnibus Bill – was H.159, now S.11 

• • The Economic and Workforce Omnibus Bill, yet again, was pushed into a new legislative vehicle when the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development plucked the proposals they wanted to pursue from H.159 and added them as a strike all amendment to S.11, which previously dealt with robocalls. 
  • See more about this bill in the below section (link)

Tax Relief Bill – H.510

• • We covered the slimed-down version of the Child Tax Credit that the Senate Committee on Finance created and added other tax relief too (see a summary here). It passed the Senate, with the House appointing a Committee of Conference to iron out a compromise. Despite appearances, the two Chambers are very far apart on this, with the House likely wanting to keep their $50 million versions of the CTC and the Senate wanting to spread some tax relief beyond that, make the CTC temporary, and retain some of the Governor’s priorities in the bill. 
  • See a side-by-side of the House and Senate versions here. 

Yield Bill – H.737 

• • As passed by the House, the yield bill setting statewide property taxes, spent the ~$95 million surpluses in the education fund between buying down property tax rates and paying for a one-year pilot program for universal school meals. Now the bill has hit a snag as a last-minute effort has been mounted to redirect some or most of that to eventual remediation of PCBs in schools pending the ongoing testing as well as more school maintenance. 

Pensions – S.286

• • This bill passed the House unanimously, meaning there might be little-to-no chance the Governor can impart any change on the legislation. 

Miscellaneous Tax Bill – H.738

• • This week saw a skirmish on e911 funding between the legislature and Administration. The Administration is seeking to fund e911 services with general fund money while directing the universal service charge fund, which currently funds this service, to pay for cell tower expansion. The counter-proposal is to apply a flat fee to each phone line. So, add this to the list of disagreements between the Administration and the Legislature that needs to be resolved over the next week.   
  • This may also be the location for the SALT cap workaround, which we will cover later in the newsletter, and we need you to reach out to your legislators to help our advocacy efforts. 
• The Transportation Bill – H.736
  • The future of Burlington International Airport’s governance, among other items, is slowing the progress of the T-bill as it inches to the finish line. 
• Merged or Unmerged Health Insurance Markets – H.489 
  • The Senate Committee on Finance will allow the large and small group insurance markets to remain unmerged for another year to take advantage of ARPA premium subsidies, lowering premium rates for small businesses, which saved small businesses $17.7 million last year, however, the Committee needs to find about $2 million to make that happen.
• Corporate Tax Reform – S.53
  • Little action has been taken on this in the Committee of Conference. Members did ask their Joint Fiscal Office to break out the impact of internet service taxes. This serves as a reminder that in the last few weeks of the session, revenue proposals can disappear and reappear, so if you have not voiced your concern about a tax on internet services, please do so. You can find more information in last week’s update.