By State Sen. Dick McCormack

Although I didn’t support him for President Pro Tempore Senator Shumlin graciously gave me the committee assignments I’d requested: Natural Resources and Energy and Finance. This put me in the middle of issues like school funding, energy efficiency, and broadband access. What was enthusiasm and hope in January has become ambivalence in May. I think we achieved mixed results including some mistakes and some qualified successes.

I’m disappointed in the legislature’s handling of school funding. People want bipartisan cooperation but I wish the Democratic legislative leadership had chosen a different issue on which to follow the governor’s lead because on this one he’s dead wrong. The legislature embraced the governor’s view that the problem lies with local voters’ lack of "discipline" (the Governor’s term), as well as his low goal of simply "bending the curve of tax increases".

I think this is misdirected. School budgets are driven by costs that are beyond the control of local communities: fuel, health care, unfunded federal mandates, shrinking enrollments. It makes no sense to punish or admonish people for things that happen to them as opposed to things they choose to do. No doubt there are cost savings to be found and that some communities ignore, but that is not an adequate solution. People need and expect reductions in their property taxes.

The final bill included neither the governor’s punitive caps nor a lowering of the threshold for penalizing towns that get stuck with high costs. These had been part of earlier versions and their deletion was an improvement. But high spending penalties remain, thus kicking people while they’re down and penalizing students. The bill also shrinks income sensitivity at a time when it ought to be expanded.

Worse, the bill continues to focus on local voters rather than on the actual drivers of spending. I was one of only a small handful of senators to oppose the final bill on roll call.

I also, regretfully, voted against the pre-K bill. I think pre-K is necessary, but I can’t see introducing any new costs till we address the problem of high property taxes.

Global warming is a Vermont problem affecting our ski and snowmobile industries as well as maple, logging, foliage tourism and bovine health.

The bill we passed was short on sacrifice and long on the economic opportunities of energy conservation. Its central feature is the expansion of our very successful and effective electric efficiency utility, Efficiency Vermont, to all fuels.

The legislature, to my chagrin, was unwilling to fund this with any kind of carbon tax (a gas guzzler tax or the small surcharge on fuel) and chose instead to tax Vermont Yankee. I’d rather tax something that adds greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere but we were only able to reach consensus on the Vermont Yankee tax. While I don’t love this tax, neither do I accept the claim that it violates a previous agreement. I’ve repeatedly asked people who make that claim to quote the language in any agreement that the tax violates and I have yet to get a textual answer.

By the time this goes to press the governor may have vetoed the bill. This will require us to find a new funding source. I urge opponents of the Vermont Yankee tax to consider the various forms of carbon taxes.

The creation of the broadband authority is a real achievement. As with railroads in the nineteenth century and rural electrification in the twentieth, broadband is an economically necessary infrastructure. I worry that in our eagerness we’ve loosened up too much on local control over corporate power, and on environmental and land use protections. The legislation does include ongoing monitoring of those questions.

I continue to appreciate the high quality of the Vermont legislature. My colleagues of all parties are dedicated, intelligent, reasonable and ethical. Members of all parties remain among my best friends.