Friday, September 20, 2019
"We are skipping our lessons to teach you one," read a sign that a girl held up in a crowd packed shoulder-to-shoulder in front of Burlington City Hall.
The turnout there reached at least 2,000 and was probably many more, Deputy Police Chief Jon Murad said shortly after noon, as he and other officers set up traffic barricades. But he had no way of knowing for sure, he added.
The crowd spilled onto Main Street, which was closed to vehicles. Musicians played, students chanted for climate justice and speakers addressed the crowd from city hall steps.
In Montpelier, protesters gathered at the Statehouse carrying banners such as one that read "Climate Action Now." Similar events were being held all around the state, according to the Vermont Climate Strike Coalition, which said Friday marks the start of a week of action.
Climate protests organized by youths have drawn massive crowds in major cities around the world.
Check out these images from Vermont gatherings:
Tags: Vermont Climate Strike Coalition , climate change , global warming , Web Only , Image , Slideshow
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Sinclair entered the popular, mountainous Highline trail on the afternoon of July 8 after leaving his car and dog unsecured at the Logan Pass Visitor Center atop the park's famed Going-to-the-Sun Road. Search crews scanned the area by foot and air for more than a week but called off the response July 18, according to park officials.
Sinclair, 66, spent two decades advocating for environmental issues in Vermont. He directed the Conservation Law Foundation's Vermont office, worked at the Clean Energy Group and served as an attorney for the state Agency of Natural Resources and the Public Utility Commission.
Tags: Mark Sinclair , Clean Energy Group , Conservation Law Foundation , Glacier National Park , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
The permit allows the vast dump in Coventry near the Canadian border to operate for another nine years, until 2028.
But an appeal of a different permit from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources that is also required for the expansion is still pending. Until that's resolved, the expansion cannot go forward.
Tags: landfill , Casella , Coventry , Act 250 , PFAS , Lake Memphremagog , Web Only , Image
Monday, July 15, 2019
Their deaths are the first officially linked to cyanobacteria in Vermont since two dog-poisoning incidents on Lake Champlain in 1999 and 2000 spurred the creation of a water-monitoring program.
The recent incident occurred in mid-June on private land.
Tags: cyanobacteria , neurotoxins , blue-green algae , dog poisoning , Lake Champlain , algae blooms , Web Only , Image
Monday, June 17, 2019
Scott said the state has recently passed numerous drinking water protections, but he worried that the bill, S.37, lacked clarity and could negatively affect the business climate in the state.
“Numerous Vermont employers have expressed concerns to me, and to Legislators, that the unknown legal and financial risks, and increased liability, is problematic for continued investment in Vermont,” Scott wrote in his veto letter.
Tags: drinking water , contamination , lawsuit , veto , Phil Scott , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
The House voted 133-5 to concur with the Senate changes, meaning the bill now heads to Gov. Phil Scott for his likely signature.
"It looks like we're in a good place," Scott's spokesperson, Rebecca Kelley, told Seven Days after the vote.
The governor had proposed funding clean water from existing estate tax revenues, and while he still needs to review the final details, Kelley said he's encouraged that the legislature has embraced a similar principle.
The plan would take 6 percent of existing room and meals tax revenue that is normally committed to the general fund and divert it to the state clean water fund. The move would raise $8 million during nine months of next year and $12 million for water projects each full year thereafter.
Lawmakers argued that the state can afford the additional spending because revenues are tracking $50 million higher than expected this year, with projections of at least $15 million of that increase to recur in future years.
Tags: clean water , Vermont , House , Senate , Phil Scott , governor , Web Only , Image
Monday, May 20, 2019
Legislative leaders on Monday floated a plan to fund clean water projects in the state not by raising new taxes, but by siphoning off one-time funds and existing revenue streams — and figuring out later how to plug the hole that will blow in future budgets.
The last-minute maneuvering, conceived in a closed-door meeting Monday morning and approved that afternoon by the Senate Finance Committee, would give legislators a way to claim victory in identifying a long-term source of funding without really doing so. By Tuesday morning, the full Senate backed the proposal on a voice vote and sent it to the House for consideration.
“This is a solution for now," said Senate Finance Committee chair Ann Cummings (D-Washington). "It gets us our money."
It would also obviate the need to immediately impose a new "cloud tax" on online software or raise the rooms and meals tax by 1 percentage point — two previous proposals that met resistance from industry lobbyists.
The plan calls for dedicating 6 percent of the general fund’s allotment of the rooms and meals tax — or about $12 million — annually to the Clean Water Fund to augment about $40 million in existing state and federal spending.
Tags: clean water , Vermont , Ann Cummings , Chris Pearson , Kaj Samsom , Phil Scott , Environmental Protection Agency , rooms and meals tax , cloud tax , general fund , Web Only , Image
Thursday, May 16, 2019
About a dozen protesters initiated the demonstration by unfurling banners from a second-floor gallery and delivering a series of speeches about the urgent threat of climate change and what they called a failure by the legislature to address it.
At first, House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) tried to restore order from the podium with forceful strikes of her gavel. After Capitol Police led a woman out of the chamber, protesters threw hundreds of slips of paper off the balcony, showering legislators seated below. Johnson declared a recess and ordered representatives to clear the room.
After most lawmakers had departed, a man approached the vacant speaker’s podium, pounded the gavel and declared his fellow activists “in order” and “truthful” before Capitol Police removed him from the chamber.
Tags: climate change , climate activism , Vermont House , Capitol Police , Matthew Romei , Mitzi Johnson , Brian Cina , Zach Ralph , Colin Meyn , Carmen Richardson-Skinder , Asa Skinder , Alec Fleischer , press freedom , First Amendment , protest , Vermont statehouse , Web Only , Image
The triumphant declaration came after the Senate’s tax committee agreed for the first time this year to a source of revenue to pay for Vermont’s $50 to $60 million annual obligation under the federal Clean Water Act.
Even still, Campion acknowledged that the plan is far from finalized.
The proposal would raise Vermont’s rooms and meals tax from 9 percent to 10 percent starting in January and dedicate the increased revenues to the state’s Clean Water Fund.
Senate Majority Leader Becca Balint (D-Windham) said the plan would raise an estimated $8.1 million next year. Combining that sum with existing revenues from the property transfer tax and unreturned bottle deposits, she said, would be enough to put the state on a path toward meeting its clean water goals.
Tags: Lake Champlain , clean water , Heidi Scheuermann , Brian Campion , Becca Balint , Ann Cummings , Janet Ancel , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
Instead, the committee on Wednesday heard testimony from three men in the tech industry who oppose the House plan, which could raise $6 million next year through a "cloud tax" on software accessed over the internet.
Ted Adler, the president of Union Street Media, said the tax would disadvantage Vermont companies like his as they compete in a global online marketplace.
“In the world where we have a cloud tax and other states do not, [customers] would have a basically 6- to 7-percent penalty for buying … from a Vermont company,” Adler said.
Tags: clean water , Lake Champlain , Lake Carmi , TMDL , Ann Cummings , Chris Pearson , Brian Campion , Ted Adler , Union Street Media , Web Only , Image