Special Veto Session to Start in a Stalemate

When lawmakers return to the Statehouse today for a one-day meeting they will be greeted by an energy activist in a polar bear costume — and by a decision about whether to make an energy efficiency bill into law over Gov. James Douglas' veto.

Both sides said Tuesday their opponents had failed to compromise enough to allow a new version of the measure to be crafted and made into law.

If lawmakers want to make either the energy measure or another vetoed bill – this one on campaign finance limits — into law without Douglas' agreement they will have to pass them with the support of two-thirds of those present in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Only six vetoes have been overturned in Vermont since 1836 and even supporters said recently it will be a tough fight.

The campaign finance bill will be taken up first in the Senate, while the energy bill will start in the House.

Douglas vetoed the energy bill as it was originally passed in large part because it imposes an additional tax on the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant and establishes a new heating fuels efficiency program the governor believes will add to "bureaucracy" in the state.

But Tuesday, Speaker of the House Gaye Symington, D-Jericho, said despite a series of changes lawmakers offered to make in a new version of the bill, Douglas seems to find another objection.

"I'm discouraged. There doesn't seem to be any interest in finding common ground," she said. "He doesn't want a bill."

But legislators haven't offered to make real changes, said Jason Gibbs, spokesman for Douglas.

"The governor's objections remain exactly the same as they were during the legislative session," Gibbs said. "They continue to ignore them."

Meanwhile, advocates for the legislation, including AARP Vermont, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility and the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, continued to pressure for the passage of the bill despite the governor's veto. Advocates are said to have arranged for a volunteer wearing a polar bear costume to arrive at the Statehouse to highlight the impact of global warming pollution — including from heating fuel use — on the species.

A June AARP survey found that if Vermont Yankee's tax was increased, 72 percent of Vermonters would support using some of the revenue to lower heating bills. The macro poll of at least 400 adults has a margin of error of roughly 5 percent.

Meanwhile, Symington outlined what she and other supporters of the measure would be willing to trim from the bill. Gibbs said those proposals do not satisfy Douglas' worries about the measure.

 Several days ago lawmakers offered to remove the $25 million in new taxes on Vermont Yankee over the next several years, although they originally said they would return to the issue of the nuclear plant's tax rate in January.

Symington said Tuesday she would be willing to pledge that the tax will not return as a funding source for the program.

"They have not agreed to take taxes off the table to fund this program," Gibbs said. Just delaying the consideration of the tax until January is not sufficient, and both a tax on Yankee and other tax increases would have to be permanently jettisoned, he said.

 Douglas has argued that the new efficiency program is not thoroughly thought out and researched. Lawmakers indicated they would be willing to give the Public Service Board more time and more leeway in deciding how to make the use of heating fuels more efficient than the original bill proposed. But there would remain "an arbitrary timeline" and "a preordained outcome" to the board's investigation, Gibbs said.

 And the Douglas administration has called on lawmakers to include his alternative proposal — a weatherization program based on the state helping to lower interest rates on private loans for homeowners that want to use less heating fuel — in any bill if they want his approval.

Using private loans with state assistance offers "all of the advantages of the Democrats' proposal without any of the disadvantages," Gibbs said.

But a one-day session on two bills is not the time for a citizen Legislature to begin working on a complex new proposal, Symington said.

"That work should have been done during last session," she said.

Lawmakers would consider trimming objectionable portions of the bill, or even adding more funding to existing weatherization programs, she said.

"(Douglas) supports energy efficiency, he supports responsible balanced programs that will reduce the cost of people heating their homes," Gibbs said. But "they have to be advanced in combination with responsibility economic development and job creation policies."

But advocates said, from their perspective, Douglas simply doesn't want the efficiency program at all.

Don Mayer, CEO of Small Dog Electronics in Waitsfield and chairman of the progressive business group, called Douglas' decision "a misguided veto of this essential legislation."

"It's an important part of our economic development in the state," he said. The efficiency program in the bill "buys the least expensive energy available on the planet."

While the House considers the energy bill, the Senate will take another look at the vetoed bill establishing new campaign contribution limits in the state. Vermont's last law on the issue was demolished by the U.S. Supreme Court, but Douglas said the replacement passed this year is unacceptable because it would allow outside special interest groups too much power because it limits the state political parties and candidates.

"If Vermonters are interested in having reasonable rules and restraints around the influence money has over politics" they should support the veto override, Symington said.

Like the governor's alternative proposal on energy efficiency his objections to the campaign finance bill were not voiced early enough or they could have been accommodated, some lawmakers have said.

But Gibbs said that just isn't true.

Douglas made his objections to the bill "repeatedly, in private meetings with legislators and at his regular press conferences," Gibbs said. "Just like the energy bill, the Legislature chose to ignore the governor's point of view."

"We are optimistic that a number of common-sense Democrats will join with the minority caucus to sustain the veto," he said.

For their part legislative leaders will continue pushing for support on the two override attempts until the votes are taken, Symington said.

"We will continue to work on that," she said Tuesday afternoon.