A Worthwhile Legislative Agenda for 2009 
By John McClaughry

For legislators - especially freshmen - the first January trip to Montpelier is usually a hopeful occasion. This year it will surely be different. The state's growing fiscal crisis promises only day after day of grim tidings and voting on highly unpopular spending cuts for programs once thought to be eternal and bullet proof.

In the old days - the 1950s - a majority of the legislators (old male Republicans) were largely content to do the state's necessary business, and especially to avoid doing anything expensive or stupid. In recent decades, a liberal majority always comes back to the Capitol eagerly hoping to Do Something Big and Historic.

The 2005 legislature came to town eager to install $2 billion worth of universal taxpayer financed health care. After a stern Douglas veto, it was forced to settle for creating Catamount Health for the uninsured, which is now of course running out of money.

The 2007 legislature, goaded by Senate president pro tem Peter Shumlin, the Senator from VPIRG, sought to have Vermont lead the planet in defeating the Menace of Global Warming. Over the ensuing two years his proposed program of taxes, regulations, mandates and supergovernment shriveled into practical insignificance.

Now comes the 2009 legislature, and in the face of a deepening fiscal crisis the prospect of its doing Something Big and Historic probably comes down to only two issues: authorizing gay marriage and voting Vermont Yankee off the island. Neither one, significantly, will have any impact on the state budget, at least for the next three years.

So, leaving aside these two hot button issues, what could legislators usefully do while the money committees sweat over the FY2009 and 2010 budgets? Here are some suggestions that would make the Vermont of the future more economically attractive and productive.

• Put a stop to taxation by unaccountable strangers, notably the Public Service Board and the Vermont Milk Commission. Affirm that if the state government is going to relieve its citizens of their wealth and incomes, it can do so only by a recorded vote of elected legislators.
• Put a stop to unaccountable bureaucrats adopting sweeping and costly regulations. A regulatory accountability act would allow one fifth of the membership of the House or Senate to bring proposed regulations up for an approval vote.
• Give local citizens the opportunity to reshape their educational systems by passing an Educational Freedom District bill.
• Rescue the state's deteriorating bridges by raising the motor fuel taxes by a nickel a gallon. That would largely solve a growing problem, and still leave gasoline under $2 a gallon. Unlike other taxes, the motor fuel taxes are levied on gallons used, independent of prices. They must be periodically raised to stay current with the ever-rising costs of highway and bridge rehab and maintenance. It's been twelve years since these user fees were raised, and waiting for a bailout from Congress is not a responsible option.
• Repeal Act 168 of 2006, the sleeper bill that commits the state to reducing its carbon dioxide emissions to 75% of the 1990 level by 2012, and down to 25% thereafter. Unsuspected by legislators who viewed this as a feel-good greenie bill, regulators can seize upon Act 168 to defeat economic growth. California Attorney General Jerry Brown has pioneered this tactic, using a law almost identical to Act 168. Vermont AG Bill Sorrell refuses to disavow the use of this powerful regulatory tactic, so the legislature should do it for him.
• Rationalize the Act 250 permit criteria, especially wetlands, esthetics, historic preservation, agricultural soils, and conformance with town plans instead of zoning bylaws. (This is not an exhaustive list).
• Make Vermont's proportion of renewable-source electricity the nation's highest. This requires only deleting the artificial "less than 200 megawatts" definition of "renewable", thus making HydroQuebec hydropower what it is everywhere but in Vermont, a renewable resource. That would ease the pressure to unwisely subsidize uneconomic renewable energy producers.
• Pass a regulatory takings bill, by which a landowner could invoke inverse condemnation whenever harsh regulation destroys more than half the value of his or her property.
• Create a long overdue performance review process to weed out outdated or useless state programs and make the remainder more efficient. The modest funds needed could be found by abolishing several state commissions that serve no useful purpose.

John McClaughry is President of the Ethan Allen Institute (www.ethanallen.org)