Lt. Gov. Dubie Discusses

Top Montpelier Issues

By M. D. Drysdale

The battleground issues in the current legislature will be housing, education funding, and the state budget, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie told the Randolph Chamber of Commerce at its legislative breakfast Tuesday morning at the Three Stallion Inn.

About 35 attended and were welcomed by Chamber President Joe Boyd.

Dubie said one issue that was in the center of the controversy last year has been resolved. The result is a bill that will give assistance to homeowners wanting to heat-proof their homes.

Vermont already has a public utility, Efficiency Vermont, that helps homeowners cut down on electric usage. Democrats in last year’s legislature pushed through a bill to use the same technique to encourage conserving fuel oil, but it was vetoed for lack of a funding source acceptable to Gov. Douglas. This year, an acceptable compromise was reached, Dubie said.

The bill, dubbed the Energy Efficiency and Affordability Act of 2008, was signed yesterday by the governor.

Coming up with a bill to encourage more housing is another matter altogether, said Dubie, who like Gov. Douglas is a Republican. The administration’s bill, which would have pulled back some Act 250 regulations applying to housing, has been greatly re-written in the Democratic legislature. It now favors only housing built in specially-designated "growth areas."

That would only impact about 1000 acres in the whole state, he charged.

Lt. Gov. Dubie blamed the poor reception for the governor’s bill on the state’s uneasy attitudes toward growth.

"Vermont is a wacky place to build homes" because of permit issues, he said.

In education funding, Dubie noted that House Speaker Gaye Symington has "reneged" on the bill she supported last year to require voters to vote twice on school budgets if they are substantially higher than the previous year’s.

Symington has convinced the House of Representatives to pass new legislation on the bill that would abandon the two-vote mechanism. However, Dubie noted, Democrats in the Senate seem inclined to stick by last year’s legislation.

Another important education bill, he noted, would remove the Education Department from the direct control of the State Board of Education and make it a regular department whose head would be appointed by the governor as are other state departments.

The controversy over the state budget is a special feature of this year’s legislature, Dubie noted. Though the governor and legislature have been dominated by opposite parties for five years, previous budgets have been crafted and passed with little dissension.

Not so this year, as the available money tightens and Democratic legislators disagree with Gov. Douglas’s choices.

Dubie warned that the legislators are out to raise taxes—a common warcry for this Republican administration.

Dubie also warned that budget issues will be even tougher next year. Preliminary figures show a "$50- $80-million hole" in the budget next year. It will be a "significant challenge," he said.

‘Crazy’ Bill

Dubie also voiced his strong disagreement with a bill passed in the Senate that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use.

He characterized the bill as "crazy," citing his many years of drug tests as a military and airline pilot, and also noting that he has two boys and two girls.

He doesn’t want his children to get the "bad message" implied in the Senate’s bill, he said.

He congratulated Central Vermont towns for expressing interest in the East Central Fiber-optic Network (ECFibernet). On the topic of broadband communication, he showed off a small model of a communications satellite that will be launched soon and will greatly increase access to wireless services.