"Scribblings": An Occasional Newsletter from the Legislature 
By Rep. Thomas F. Koch, Barre Town, March 22, 2009 

Just before the two-week Town Meeting break, I raised a few eyebrows when I voted for the budget adjustment bill.

Each year, the end of the legislative session is signaled by the adoption of the "big bill," the budget for the ensuing year.  As the legislature adjourns in April (we hope!) or May, or June (God forbid!), we adopt a state budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 and ending on the following June 30.  So in May 2008, we adopted the FY 2009 budget for the year ending June 30, 2009.

By the time the legislature returns in January, reality has set in.  Revenue estimates have been adjusted, anticipated expenses are more accurate, and circumstances have changed.  So the first order of business for the Appropriations Committee is to prepare a mid-year budget adjustment act.  This is an annual and reasonable routine.

This year, of course, is very different.  General fund revenue estimates for the current year are down by $55 million from last May, unemployment and social service program enrollments are up; and all other state funds except the education fund are showing sizeable reductions from previous estimates.  In July, and again in November, the joint fiscal committee, acting in the absence of the full legislature, approved budget cuts of many millions of dollars.  Now it is up to the entire legislature to modify the budget in light of facts that were not known last May.

The House Appropriations Committee reported to the floor a budget adjustment bill that was about $800,000.00 larger than the governor’s recommendation.  Initially, I was disappointed that it showed no sign of the legislature’s willingness to re-structure government and to tackle some of the excessive spending we have deluded ourselves into thinking we can afford.  However, I did come to realize that the Committee had worked diligently on a bill that would, in any event, affect no more than the last three months of the current fiscal year, that it studiously avoided making policy decisions that would affect future years, and that it had agreed that it would take up some of the more difficult choices in the context of the big bill for FY 2010.  So the Committee presented the House with a "clean" bill, and I became convinced that the right thing to do was to support it.

Then the bill went to the Senate.  In less than a week, it was acted on and sent back to the House with a number of changes.  In the first place, it added (in these times?) more than a million dollars to what the House had already proposed.  Secondly, it added several amendments involving substantive policy that would impact not only the current FY 2009, but all years into the foreseeable future.  One such amendment simply directed that the proceeds from the sale of the state’s "green credits" (that could be a whole topic in itself!) be re-directed to Efficiency Vermont.

Now, I have to say that I’m not sure whether giving Efficiency Vermont another couple of million dollars a year is a good idea or not, and if so, I’m not sure this is the right source of those funds.  The fact is that the House has never even debated this idea, but the Senate is trying to tack it onto the back of a bill that doesn’t even deal with this subject matter.  Substantively, I have not taken a position on this issue; but that is because, procedurally, the Senate has tried to slip something by without giving the House the opportunity to debate it, and under the rules applicable to bills at this stage, the House will not have that opportunity.

 I made it clear that I would change my vote and oppose the budget adjustment bill unless this provision was removed from it and given separate consideration in a separate bill at a later date.  Others voiced similar concerns.  In any event, the bill did not sail through quickly as planned.  It got postponed and finally sent to a conference committee to discuss the differences between the House and the Senate.  We are waiting to see what the conference committee has to say, and what it says will determine whether I vote for or against the final version.

During what was supposed to be a "break" in legislative action, the President Pro-tem of the Senate and the Speaker of the House got together and agreed that they would ram through the same-sex marriage bill.  On a schedule dictated by these two leaders, the Senate Judiciary Committee took up this cultural earthquake of a bill last Monday, held a two-hour public hearing on Wednesday, and voted the bill out favorably to the floor of the Senate on Friday.  The votes are there to pass the bill, and this week the Senate will do exactly that.

A wide range of people, including people I seldom hear from in the course of my work as a legislator, people I hear from regularly, and the governor have said that the legislature should not be spending time on this bill when there are so many other things we could be doing that would impact the well-being of the vast majority of Vermonters.  The response of the legislative leadership, in effect, is to say, "That’s okay; we won’t spend much time on it.  We’ll just rush it through without listening!"  That’s cynical, and that’s irresponsible.

My position on this bill is pretty simple.

In the first place, it is not a civil rights bill.  All parties agree that all rights that the state is able to confer on same-sex couples have already been conferred nine years ago when the civil unions bill passed.

The true nature of the bill is a quest for social approbation, and in this quest, its proponents seek to amend the dictionary definition of the word "marriage."  For myself, I am not prepared to vote to change 4,000 years or more of a social institution that has served civilized society well, by voting for legislation that will allow people other than one man and one woman to use the label "married."  There is a difference between a heterosexual couple and a homosexual couple, and changing the way we use language does not make the relationships the same; it merely causes confusion.  Calling a lily a rose because roses have long been favored by a majority does not change the lily’s essential attributes, but the language change would certainly introduce confusion.

 I have heard it said that legislators should not be on the wrong side of history.  I am quite willing to be on the wrong side of history if I believe history is heading in the wrong direction, and I am convinced that is the case with this bill.  I will be voting NO.

Last week we received the long-awaited "Report of the Public Oversight Panel on the Comprehensive Reliability Assessment of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant."  Created by the legislature, the panel comprised one member each appointed by the governor, the speaker of the House, and the president pro-tem of the Senate, plus two members appointed by the other three.  Their role was to oversee an assessment (which was actually conducted by an independent commercial consulting firm) of the "reliability" of the Vermont Yankee plant and its operations, and report to the legislature.

Interestingly, "reliability" is not defined by the law that ordered the Oversight Panel to assess the plant’s "reliability."  Clearly, it is not synonymous with safety, because federal law makes the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the sole arbiter of issues of safety, and states are forbidden to rule on issues of safety.  So the Oversight Panel interpreted reliability in general by the following standard: Can Vermont Yankee operate dependably and predictably at or above nuclear power industry norms?  In making this determination, the panel considered the plant’s operational performance, its ability to continue to produce power, and the plant’s structure, system, and component reliability.

In its conclusions, the panel concurs in the finding of the commercial consulting firm that Vermont Yankee "is reliably operated and maintained with appropriate design, engineering, modification, maintenance, training, operations, staffing, documentation, and management," but that "improvements are needed in management leadership," and improved inspection programs are needed, with resources and scheduling that are adequate to accomplish the inspections.  The bottom line is that the panel (unanimously) "concludes that reliability of VY for operation beyond 2012 can be reasonably expected if the recommendations of this report and the NSA report are taken.  Specifically, there must be an effective verification put in place to assure the recommendations are implemented satisfactorily and in a timely manner."

While that almost sounds like a clean bill of health, it is not.  The recommendations for improvement of management systems and equipment are strongly worded and very specific.  Furthermore, there is a recommendation for continued oversight.  The plant can continue to operate reliably, but there must be improvements!

Now it is up to the legislature to act, and the operative word is "now."  This is the report the legislature itself commissioned to help guide it in deciding whether Vermont Yankee can be permitted to continue to operate past its scheduled closure date of March 21, 2012.  A petition to extend Vermont Yankee’s license past 2012 is already pending before the Public Service Board, but the law says that the PSB is not allowed to render a decision unless the legislature allows the PSB to do that; without any decision at all, the plant will close.

If the plant closes, alternative arrangements for one-third of Vermont’s electrical power will have to be made, and such arrangements are not made overnight, except at the highest price available on the market.  Clearly, Vermont expects a substantial financial benefit for hosting this plant, in the form of favorable rates, and it is reasonable to know in advance of a license renewal what those rates will be.  But the legislature is not the proper body to negotiate those rates; we have a Public Service Department to do that, and Public Service Commissioner David O’Brien and his team understand that they must arrange for long-term rates that will be a true benefit to the people of Vermont.  Failing that, the Public Service Board will not be able to make the necessary finding that renewal of Vermont Yankee’s license "will promote the general welfare" and "will result in an economic benefit to the state and its residents."  And without that finding, the plant will close.

The legislature finally has the information it has been waiting for.   It is time for the legislature to do its duty by (1) making a decision on whether or not the PSB will be allowed to rule on Vermont Yankee’s petition to renew its license, and (2) by creating any necessary mechanisms for continued oversight of VY operations, as recommended by the Oversight Panel.  Once the legislature does its duty, all other parties can get on with doing their duty.  As I said before, now is the time.  There is no reason for further delay.