MONTPELIER | A Rutland-based State House representative wants the state to study the connection between video games and school shootings.
Violent video games:
Last week, Rep. Doug Gage (Rutland) asked the full House of Representatives to allocate $5,000 for the creation of an 11-member “Violent and Graphic Video Games and School Shooting Task Force” to study the connection between violent videos and school shooting. He withdrew the request after learning that the Scott administration may study the issue. He plans to introduce a non-binding resolution stressing the importance of the study.
Guns:
Meanwhile, S.55, a gun-control bill prompted by school shooting concern, was approved by the House last week and returned to the Senate for review.
No more new Vermont wind turbines for Blittersdorf:
For decades, David Blittersdorf has been an advocate, planner, and builder of Vermont ridgeline wind power. This week he pulled the plug on his Kidder Hill project in Newport. “With our goal of hitting 90 percent renewables by 2050, we have to go faster than we were before, but now we’re being slowed down due to the rules and the present administration that wants to see that some things don’t happen... .” Blittersdorf’s company, All Earth Renewables, has just one Vermont wind farm in-the-making: Dairy Air Wind in Holland.
Fossil fuel divestment decision delayed:
A decision on divesting fossil fuel stocks from 20 percent of the Vermont State College (VSC) investment portfolio was postponed until June due to a lack of quorum at a VSC board of trustees meeting last week.
Full Medicaid reimbursement for elective contraception procedure:
H404, requiring Medicaid to reimburse health care providers for the full cost of a long-acting reversible contraceptive inserted during a post-partum hospital stay, passed the House March 21 and has been referred to Senate Health and Welfare Committee.
H693, naming the Honor and Remember Flag the official state veterans’ flag, received Senate preliminary approval. H693 was sponsored by Rep. Vicki Strong of Albany, the Gold Star mother of Marine Jesse Strong, and passed quickly through the House.
H615, banning drones outside of a correctional facility, received preliminary Senate approval March 27.
A March 27 House Human Services Committee “walk-through” of S216, the medical marijuana expansion bill, was canceled.
The House Committee on General, Housing, and Military Affairs will hold a committee hearing on S40, a bill relating to increasing the minimum wage, on Thursday, April 5 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Passage of S40 would lead to a $15 minimum wage by 2024. Its passage would result in significant job losses, pressure on the State budget, and lost tax and other benefits for some working families, critics say.
How do we spend $5.8 billion?
Frugal Vermonters may be forgiven for wondering how the state plans to spend the proposed $5.8 billion 2019 budget approved by the Vermont House, and now going to the Senate. A graph for the highly similar 2018 budget is instructive: 31percent to education, 30 percent for Medicaid and long term care, 10 percent for transportation, and 10 percent for non-Medicaid human services. Everything else–natural resource, higher education, economic development, and corrections, and public safety–was in the single digits.
Finally, Sen. Margaret “Peg” Flory (Rutland) announced she will not run for reelection. The plain-speaking leader for economic growth and traditional social policies has spent 20 years in the Vermont Legislature, the last nine in the Senate.
