Following weeks of protests from rural landowners, Democratic leaders in the House signaled willingness to roll back portions of act 181 and it was polarizing Vermont.

And we needed to not let our environment, which we all love and care about, come between us.

Plus, the House version of the education reform bill moves to the Senate and look at Vermont's cannabis industry.

All that and more ahead on Vermont this week.

From the Vermont public studio in Winooski.

This is Vermont this week, made possible in part by the Lintilhac Foundation and Milne Travel.

Here's moderator Mitch Wertlieb.

Thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

It's Friday, April 17th, and with us on the panel today, we have Pete Hirschfeld from Vermont Public Sasha Goldstein from Seven Days, and Carly Berlin with Vermont Public and Vtdigger.

Thanks, everybody for being here.

Really appreciate it.

And Carly Berlin, I want to start with you because, we've got some news about Vermont's land use permitting law, Act 181, which has gone through some changes or maybe in the process of that.

What can you update us on with this act and remind us again what it's meant to do.

So act 2081 is a law passed two years ago in 2024 that would overhaul act 250, Vermont's signature landmark, land use permitting legislation.

Act 2081 is trying to to roll back act to 50 jurisdiction in some parts of the state that are already developed, think villages and towns and add some more conservation protections.

And in more rural areas, there's been a big upswell of pushback to those conservation measures, as the mapping underlying this law has has been coming into fruition for the last couple of months.

And so Democratic, leaders, apparently, we're hearing those protests loud and clear, lots of people at the statehouse.

And what are they saying now?

They're not saying that they are looking at rolling back some of those more controversial pieces of of act 181.

Now, that's a step further than the Senate took when they were looking at this legislation that would tweak act 181 a couple weeks ago, the the Senate moved to just just delay some of these portions from going into effect to get more feedback and possibly change them.

Now, the house, in a pretty dramatic about-face is saying you know, we're actually going to look at repealing these portions of the law.

I we heard Representative Amy Sheldon there at the top of the show.

I went and spoke to her when the Senate passed its version of this, this Two-Week bill, a couple weeks ago.

And she said, you know, I'm going to think about this delay, but really, a rollback is is not in the cards.

So this is this is a pretty dramatic turn that we've seen this.

Yeah.

That's an about face for sure.

Let's dig a little bit into exactly what, some of the provisions in 181 that people were most upset about.

That that may be rolled back.

We're talking about, the length of roads and something called tier three.

What can you tell us about that?

Yeah.

So the road rule take first, this would apply to to most land in the state as it's currently getting, getting considered.

And it would basically mean that if you want to build a private road over 800ft, you would need to get an Act 2050 permit.

The idea here was to to try to prevent the fragmentation of forest by building closer to roads.

Rural landowners have been really up in arms about this and saying, you know, this is going to infringe on personal property rights for what you what you can build on your land and add quite a bit of, of cost to, to be able to simply build a road.

Tier three would apply to a much smaller area.

It's still, I should say, getting mapped out these these areas are not set in stone.

But the idea in tier three is that Vermont's most sensitive ecosystems, think habitat connectors, headwater streams, things like that.

The idea when act 181 was getting written is, you know, these are really sensitive places.

If you want to buil anything there, you should get you should have to go through that.

Act.

250 permitting process.

This is so interesting.

As we pull back and look at this kind of from an overview, the whole point of trying to reform act.

250 all this stuff is we know that the housing crunch.

You've reported on this extensively.

We've talked about it on the show a lot.

So on the one hand, a lot of housing proponents are saying this is great.

We're getting, you know, clearance for some housing now in some of the more developed areas of the state.

But there's also the conservation portion of this, which is, again, to preserve Vermont's beautiful environment.

And is it fair to say then, that generally speaking, a lot of rural landowners are just upset that because they seem to be getting the brunt of the conservation part of this foisted on them?

That's that's exactly right.

I think the the perception is that the the benefits of act 181, in terms of rolling back regulations and making it easier to build things flowed to, you know, cities and towns, places that already have development.

And part of the idea here is this kind of smart growth principles, right, that we should be building things and concentrating development in areas where we've we've already got stuff, we've already got infrastructure.

And I think that some of this push back to to 181 is, is a bit of a rebuke to that, that whole idea.

Well, where do you where do you think stand with all of this, change with act 250, generally with 181?

I mean, it kind of feels to me like with this rollback pending again, it's not we don't know exactly what's going to happen yet.

Are these things working?

Are the, you know, the attempts to to change these things working at all?

What are we getting out of this?

It's going to be really interesting to see, you know, should this roll back, move forward.

What's the what's the next step.

You know, there was some discussion in the environment committee room earlier this week of, you know, this this framework that we've, you know, lawmakers agreed on in 2024 is not working.

You know, the tiered classification system for land use is not working.

It's dividing people like you heard Representative Sheldon say.

But is there are there other ways to be trying to to preserve land?

Perhaps like perhaps there are going to be other other methods considered here?

Well, there'll be next steps and of course, we'll keep following your reporting on this.

So thank yo for the latest update on that.

Pete Hirschfeld, I want to turn to you now for some more statehouse news.

The education reform bill is now out of the House.

What does that mean?

Where does it go next?

And what do we know about efforts to reform education in the state?

I think there's a interesting throughline between the next steps that lawmakers taken on education reform and act 181 that we were just talking about, because what we're seeing is Democrats retrea from one of the central pieces of legislation that they passed just last year, which is forced school district mergers, the bill that lawmakers approved, today is, notably absent those that mandatory consolidation, they're instead relying on voluntary mergers to achieve economies of scale in public education to streamline governance.

The bill also calls for, eventually, starting in 2030, what's known as a foundation formula, which would see the state take control over the budgeting process from local school boards.

This bill is now on its way to the Senate, where it will undergo many, many changes, though the Senate also, appears to have decided that forced mergers are not the way to go in.

This puts both chambers in direct conflict with Republican Governor Phil Scott, who has said, if you don't give me a bill that has forced mergers, then I'm not going to sign a state budget into law.

So so we are on a collision course toward an end of session standoff between Democrats in the legislature and Phil Scott.

Yet again, you know, we have mentioned that very thing before.

We about this sort of game of chicken, with the governor and now, but how long then, do you think the Senate will be looking at this?

How far is this going to go?

When will that come to a head where we may be looking at?

No state budget?

Yeah.

Well, the the days in the legislative session are beginning to run short.

We're well past the halfway point.

The Senate is going to need a couple of weeks, at least, you would imagine.

But they're going to need some time once both the House and Senate have reached agreement on whatever it is they want to do for Democratic leaders in both chambers to come up with, a compromise with the governor.

Now, whether or not that is even possible is yet to be seen.

But Phil Scott, has reiterated as recently as this week that he's dead serious about this ultimatum that he's issued, and they're ready to push it to the brink.

I mean, I can open this up to everybody, but I think it seems to me like he's banking on the fact that what we saw in the last election cycle, where a lot of Democrat got voted out over this issue, high property taxes, we're going to get to that in a second.

Does it look like the governor has something in his back pocket here?

Well, to Pete's point about act 181, I mean, there's this clear sense that Montpelier is kind of operating in the Montpelier bubble, right?

I mean, where they're not seeing the how rural places are, receiving this legislation and it's being foisted upon them, I think is what you said.

So, that's been really interesting to see.

We saw this big, rally outside of the state House and all this, testimony before committees about this.

So there is definitely a political aspect to all of this, I think, to the act 181 stuff as well, where it's just, you know, that that Montpelier is sort of the elites who are telling everyone else what to do.

And, you know, a lot of times we think about, like, who's who's the political winner and all of this.

And on education, I'm starting to wonder if it's going to come down to who's the smallest loser.

There's some new polling out from Vermont NEA that shows that, Vermonters, do not like this approach of having the state take over control of the local school budgeting process.

Phil Scott acknowledged that this week.

He said, look, a lot of this stuff is not going to be popular with Vermonters.

We have to brave the political headwinds because it's the responsible thing to do.

And if we're going to give them the ultimate goal, which is property tax relief, we're going to have to put them through some things that they don't really want.

I think Phil Scott's calculation is that he, he has more political capital to spend right now than Democrats in the legislature.

And is is hoping that he can bring them along, notwithstanding the political downsides.

It's going to be fascinating to see what happens.

Well, sticking with propert tax relief for a moment, Pete, there's a property tax relief bill.

But it could drive up taxes in many districts.

Those things don't seem to jive with me.

Yeah.

So, the idea that lawmakers have is to take what's known as an excess spending threshold, which is in in law right now, but lower that so that more districts would come under this threshold if they continue spending at current levels.

What this does is it creates financial penalties on districts that exceed the threshold under this bill, if they spent more than 112% of the statewide weighted per pupil average, they would be double taxed on all the dollars that they spend above that amount.

Well, if districts don't do what they need to do to stay below the threshold, which a lot of districts say, hey, we're in a bind, that's that's going to be very difficult for us to do.

Then their local taxpayers will be paying the price for that.

So, it passed the Senate with broad support.

I think there's that proposal is going to get a lot more skepticism in the House.

So so we'll see where it goes.

Okay.

Thank you for the update on that.

Social.

Goldstein.

I want to turn to you for a really fascinating, feature piece you had in seven days about Vermont's cannabis industry, which is about, what, five years old now?

Let's see, it opened.

It actually opened in 2022, but, it was created beginning in 2021.

So it's been, you know, they had to create it from nothing, essentially.

So, from $0 to last year, $150 million in sales.

It sounds like a bit of a success story to me.

I mean, when we're talking about the state needing so much money, that's a lot of money for Vermont, isn't it?

It it it equals about $30 million in taxes.

And that would be, sales tax.

And then also the 20% excise tax that, is on cannabis.

So, it's actually I'm sorry, 14%.

So it's, it's quite a boon for the state.

It's something that's been, very successful.

I think by, by all accounts, there is some concern.

I did speak with the chai of the Cannabis Control Board, which which regulates the industry.

There is some concern that the market's gotten a bit stagnant.

He's a little worried that without some changes in the legislature that they could plateau.

You know, there' a certain amount of customers.

There's obviously some tourism.

But there is some concern that without innovating a bit that the market could, you know, plateau or even fall off.

That's James Pepper you're talking about the, head of the Cannabi Control Board here in Vermont.

You did have that extensive interview with him, but I want to get back to the money, briefly, because that hundred and $50 million, how is Vermont using it?

Where's that money going?

Sure.

Well, some of it is going to a universal afterschool and summer special fund.

And then some of, this excise tax is going to this substanc misuse prevention special fund and then a bunch the rest is going to, the state's general fund.

So obviously that's a boon.

For sure.

But yeah, I think the question is in the legislature, what's the political will to change that and potentially juice those numbers a bit?

For those of you who are watching at home, we had a graphic up there with some of the numbers, and we'll talk about a few of them because they're kind of fascinating.

One thing is the number of cannabis products registered, with the state more than 5800.

Yeah.

What kind of products are we talking about here?

What?

We were talking about this before the show, but there's marshmallows.

There's some cookies.

There's, you know, cannabis flower.

So any specific product has to be registered.

So that could be a different flavor or a different, brand name for a strain.

So, it's a lot of variety.

You know when I talked to James Pepper, he was very impressed with the innovation in the market that he's seeing.

It's really built on small growers who are kind of creating this buzz for the market.

And, some of the, you know, there is a bill right now, that went through the Senate, it's on to the House, it's 278.

And there are some key things in there that I think, Pepper thinks could, help the industry.

There's there's this pilot to allow delivery.

It's called delivery.

But really, what it would allow is direct sales from a grower to a customer.

And that would kind of cut out the retailers who there's 110 retailers.

It would cut out the retailer from sort of skimming off the top from that grower.

So I think there's some, a lot of interest for that to go through.

It'll be a big question in the House, which has also been, a little more skeptical about cannabis legislation.

And same with, Governor Phil Scott.

Of course, he didn't want, this bill legalizing cannabis in the first place to go through.

I don't know if he's changed his tune when he's seen some of these numbers and the tax revenue that's coming in, but, it'll be a matte of what he is willing to sign.

I think ultimately, yeah.

I mean, how many dispensaries are there in Vermont now?

110, 110?

No one person can own more than one dispensary.

So each of these is a small mom and pop business, that's operating under a regulatory structur that very few other businesses have to contend with in this state.

And I think a lot of people think you're selling weed.

It's pretty easy money, right.

And it's not.

The margins are thin.

The business is tough.

There's often a lot of dispensaries.

Concentrated in one area.

And so they're making the argument that, like, look, if you want this to work, you're going to have to help us out.

And and they want more towns to allow, dispensaries to open up.

There's been the way it is, is you have to opt in and you have to vote to say a town can or a dispensary can open in our town, but they want to change that, where if you don't have that vote by a certain date, it's open season in your town to to open a dispensary.

So there's 78 towns with at least one dispensary.

Now, I would imagine, though most of those are concentrated in Chittenden County or they're they're fairly well.

So there are some towns that I think, Morrisville has like five, you know, so there are certain places that, have become hubs.

Rutland has, has a bunch, Brattleboro as well.

So it for within a mile and a half radius in Montpelier.

Sure.

Yeah.

So there's and part of that having those that close James Pepper is arguing they want this geographic diversity to have them in more rural areas where.

But it's hard because there are all these regulations and it's expensive to have a shop to, you know, you have to have security, you have to have strict protocols in place to operate this business.

Like you said, that' unlike other other businesses.

So there is some concern that these regulatory pressures are are weighing down o the people in the marketplace.

And we could see in the coming years some closures is what, James Pepper said.

So we're kind of at this, this tipping point where we're becoming an established market for years in, and there might be some consolidation among the growers and, and business and people are going to keep smoking cannabis and people are going to keep growing cannabis.

And I think the question that Pepper would pose to the legislature is, do you want them doing it in a market where the state is generating tax revenue from that and regulating it and regulating it, or do you want it to go back into the shadows on the in the black?

And there's a healthy black market that's still exist.

And they acknowledge that.

And they're looking for the way they're looking at the reasons why consumers and customers choose the black market over the retail, operations.

And some of that is taxes, location.

You know, if you have to drive far and your neighbor is selling cannabis, you know, easy, easy decision.

So they're looking for ways to bring more customers in.

So it's safe and and generating this tax.

Also, Sasha, to that point, isn't there also concern that some people want higher potency, cannabis that is allowed than is allowed in the state?

Now I know that medical marijuana, recipients can get a higher potency, but even they would like to see, a raised potency level.

Right?

Yeah.

That's been this has been something that's been talked about for years.

Vermont's one of the few states that caps the like at 60%, thc in concentrates.

And there's a flower with, you know, the actual cannabis plant.

There's there's a cap on that as well.

So, advocates really want that to be lifted.

I don't know if that's going to happen, but, James Pepper did say that a lot of the reason people seek out, black market product is because it's that higher concentrate up thing that they're looking for.

And if you're wondering, you know, why all this fuss about cannabis?

Why all the protection here?

Another another number I found fascinating number of people who work in the industry not including business owners.

More than 1300.

Yeah, a lot of jobs.

It's a lot of jobs.

And you think about this.

This was as as Pepper described it, they had to create this from out of whole cloth.

This is an industry that exists solely within Vermont's borders, which means everything's grown here, produced here, made here, sold here.

And technically consumed here.

So, it's kind of an amazing story to see a business, like, just crop up and and succeed in that way.

And again, those jobs existed before.

Right?

Cannabis became legal, and they'll exist forevermore whether it stays legal or not.

The questio is, are they above board jobs?

Where people are getting w-2s at the end of the year?

Or is it behind the scenes, being done illicitly?

Yeah.

And one more thing before we get off this again, it's a fascinating article.

I think everyone should check it out.

Pepper was also saying, James Pepper that, you know, he would love to see changes at the federal level because this is still largely cash only industry, right, which can create its own challenges.

Yeah, there's a lot of federal challenges as far as doing your taxes is is one issue that's come up.

Yeah.

You can't use a credit card and in many cases at a store.

So, there are a lot of issues with that.

But but there are some issues that would emerge if it was opened federally as well, because there's all these states with the legal markets of their own.

And it would be an open question of if it's federally legal.

What does that mea for the market?

We've created?

Because I think they're quite proud of the market we have here, and they feel like they've learned a lot from the failures of other states and have said, hey, Vermont is something to be proud of and something that's actually working pretty well.

We've been known for craft beer for a while.

Why not be known for the cannabis?

Exactly, exactly right.

Pete Hirschfeld, the Vermont Senate is eyeing some mileage based fees for all vehicles.

But I think that folks who drive maybe gas vehicles are not completely happy about this idea.

Well, you know, I this is this wouldn't go into effect until 2031.

And I've not heard any direct response from drivers yet, though presumably that'll happen.

But the problem is Vermont's transportation fund has a structural deficit.

And every year, lawmakers and the governor get together and figure out a, you know, series of patchwork fixes to to get through the year.

The county senator, Richard Westman, he's the Republican chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, says the time for Band-Aids is over.

We need to fix this problem.

And the source of the problem really is stagnating revenues from the gas tax.

People are driving more fuel efficient vehicles.

Electric vehicles, of course, plug in hybrids.

But even gas powered cars are getting a lot more miles than they used to, which means the state is collecting fewer dollars per mile driven.

The Senate Transportation Committee has voted out a piece of legislation that has a solution in the form of a new mileage based user fee that would act in concert with the gas ta to sort of extract the revenue that Vermont needs to to keep its roads and bridges in shape.

And this will kic in starting in January of 2027 for electric vehicles first, which will have the option of either paying this mileage based fee or paying a flat fee of $178 a year.

Still a lot more debate to be had in the legislature.

There are some, folks in the Hous that are worried about Vermont going first with this.

No other state in the country currently, has a mileage based fee for, internal combustion engine vehicles.

But it's going to be a robust conversation both this year and following.

Well, and what about the people who are driving out of state and you're paying gas tax in those other states when you fill up their whatever.

Yeah.

And and that's one of the concerns with the mileage based user fee is that they about the gas.

The estimate is about 25% of gasoline purchased in Vermont is purchased using out-of-state credit cards and mileage based user fee.

You don't have the opportunity to extract revenue from visitors.

So there are some issues with it.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what happens with that.

But as you said, wouldn't be implemented for a while anyway.

Correct.

All I do know i if you're driving around here, certainly after the winter we had there are potholes everywhere.

I mean, Williston Road.

Try it.

You're going to be swerving in and out of traffic in right now.

I think 6% of the state's state highway miles are in, poor, very poor condition.

If Vermont maintains current funding levels for paving by 2035, it'll be 60% of state highway miles that are in poor, very poor condition.

Unbelievable.

In other news, the Vermont Supreme Court ordered the temporary suspension of Addison County State's Attorney vacancies law license while a disciplinary case related to her drunk driving conviction plays out.

The state's high court ruled 4 to 1 Friday that the facts surrounding Vegas's DUI case supported the argument that she was convicted of a serious crime, which warranted the suspension.

Vehicles did not respond t a question for comment Monday.

It's unclear how exactly the Addison County State's Attorney's office will run, with its chief prosecutor barred from practicing law firm.

All law does not require a state's attorney to have a law license, but Vegas will be confined to administrative work, and the office currently has one deputy prosecutor that, according to its website.

And, of course, we had another incident with the Grand Isle State's Attorney was cited for DUI recently, right?

Yeah.

And I mean, there's been a string of these incidents in recent years.

We had Franklin County, Sheriff John Chris Moore, allegedly using excessive force on an individual.

We had, Franklin County State's Attorney John LaVoy, who was an internal investigation, found he had used inappropriate language with folks.

Lawmakers have taken a look at this.

Tried, but there are some constitutional guardrails around what they can and can't do when it comes to removing county leve elected officials from office.

Something they'll talk about next year.

But there's no easy fix in Montpelier for this.

Yeah, this is a tricky one, for sure.

We recently had Ben and Jerry's free cone day.

And there's also an effort now from, I believe, Ben Cohen, who would like to see, Ben and Jerry's freed from its current owner.

Yeah.

Says they're not.

It was at the Magnus group of.

So they're owned by Magnum?

Yeah.

Magnum?

Yes, they they famously sold the company to Unilever in 2000.

And that was the Ben and Jerry's, was later spun off to the Magnum Ice Cream Company.

Ben and Jerry's got to keep this independent board that allowed them be to be sort of the funky activists, people that they always have been.

They're saying in recent years that, Magnum has cracked down on that, not lived up to their not their social mission.

Exactly.

So, so Ben Cohen is wanting to free the cone, and buy the company back.

He says he has a group of socially conscious investor who are willing to buy it from Magnum, who as of now are not willing to entertain that.

Right.

So anybody willing to tell me their favorite Ben and Jerry's flavor, Cherry Garcia?

Oh, that's mine too, I love it.

I, I like this, marshmallow sky.

It's really good.

Pete Herzfeld, I hate to copy somebody, but you can't.

Garcia.

It's so just something that's going to have to do it for Vermont this week.

Thanks so much to our panel.

Peter Herzfeld from Vermont Public Social.

Goldstein from seven days, and Carly Glenn with Vermont Public and Vtdigger.

I'm Mitch Wortley.

Thanks so much for watching.

We'll see you next Friday on Vermont this week.

And.