 Will the House please come to order? Madam Sergeant in Arms. Madam Speaker, the Honorable Vermont State Senate. Good afternoon. This joint assembly is convened pursuant to the provisions of JRS-2, which the clerk will now read. JRS-2, joint resolution to provide for a joint assembly to hear the farewell message of the governor. Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives, that the two houses meet in joint assembly on Wednesday, January 4, 2017 at 2 o'clock in the afternoon to receive the message of the outgoing governor. The chair now recognizes the senator from Chittenden District, Senator Baruth, for the purpose of making a motion. Representatives be appointed by the chair to wait upon his excellency, the governor, and inform him that the joint assembly has now convened for the purpose of receiving his farewell message. Now, the senator from Chittenden District has moved that a committee of three senators and three representatives be appointed by the chair to wait upon his excellency, the governor, and inform him that the joint assembly has now convened for the purpose of receiving his farewell message. Are you ready for the question? If so, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. All those opposed, please signify by saying no. The ayes have it, and the motion is carried. The chair appoints the following members. The member from St. Albans Town, representative parent. The member from Winooski, representative Gonzalez. The member from Putney, representative Murwiki. The senator from Bennington District, Senator Sears. The senator from Wyndham District, Senator White. And the senator from Grand Isle District, Senator Mazza. Will the committee please assemble and perform the important duties assigned to it? The joint assembly may be at ease. Mr. President. Madam Sergeant at Arms. The governor of the state of Vermont, Peter E. Shumlin. The legislators, citizens of Vermont, and our distinguished guests, I introduce the governor of the state of Vermont, the honorable Peter E. Shumlin. Thank you so much. Thank you. Come on now, settle down. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I can't tell you what a wonderful moment this is, to see all of you assembled here, ready to do great things for Vermont. I got to start by thanking, first of all, the love of my life, my rock for the last six years, your first lady, Katie Hunt. Thank you for being here. Come on, stand up, take a bow. And it seems like almost yesterday that I got sworn in. But with me at that time was my family, and I'm so proud to have them here today. My mom, my dad was here at the time he since passed away, but I know that he's looking down on us now with a combination of pride and, for God's sakes, hurry it up, Peter. My brother and sister, my niece and nephew, my girls would be here, but they're working today, making an honest living. To my many friends who are here, I got to give a huge shout out to my fifth floor team, my cabinet, my secretaries, my folks who have worked so hard over the last six years to work for someone who's almost impossible in their demand for production. Team, you are the best team that any governor could ever dreamed of having. Stand up so that we can thank you. All of you. Everyone on team shovel, go back. Thank you so much. I also want to recognize my friend, Governor-elect Phil Scott, who's going to deliver his inaugural dress tomorrow. I've known Phil for a long, long time. We served together in the Senate for many years. He's been my Lieutenant Governor and our Lieutenant Governor for the last six years. He was a member of my cabinet. I believe it's the first time in a governor's history in Vermont that a Lieutenant Governor from the opposite side but he did so with distinction. And I know that Phil cares deeply about this great state. He's a hard worker and I know that he will serve our state honorably as Vermont's 82nd Governor. Congratulations, Phil. And to those who, like me, won't be roaming the halls of this state house this year, my great friend, Speaker Shaff Smith, my great friend, President Pro Tem John Campbell, Attorney General Bill Sorrell, thank you for all that you've done. To the many Senate and House leaders who contributed so much, I want to thank each of you for your service and your friendship. It's been an honor to work with you and together we have made Vermont a better place. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. A word to all of you who will be roaming the great halls of the best state house in America, including incoming Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman, Attorney General TJ Donovan, House Speaker Missy Johnson, and President Pro Tem Tim Ash, I did that job for 10 years so of special sympathy in my heart for him. And I congratulate all of you on your victories and your hope for success in building on the progress, building on the progress that we've made over the past six years. As I look at the many new faces in this chamber, and I've got to say you look more beautiful than ever, I remember fondly back to when I was one of them, right over there. Young representative from Putney and Westminster, now honorably served by representatives of the Milwaukee and Dean with incredible energy, incredible hope, and incredible enthusiasm for Vermont's future. As I prepare to depart tomorrow, I leave with the same optimism humbled, deeply humbled, and forever grateful to the faith that Vermonters have put in me. In part, that faith is rooted, like so many of you, in my personal experience. As my mom will freely tell anyone who asks, and some who don't, as a dyslexic boy who struggled to learn how to read, and still can't spell, thank you spell check. I faced low expectations. In another state, I'm often well aware, I might have faced a very bleak and different future. In Vermont, I became governor. I came to this office shaped by that experience, knowing that many of us, many of us, need a helping hand. Many of us need a second chance. Six years ago, in the grip of a great recession, too many Vermonters needed both, just before I came to office, Vermont had suffered a series of economic body blows, and it's easy to forget them. Into three years before I was elected, Vermonters lost nearly 10,000 jobs, that's 10,000 Vermonters, who went home one day without a job. Unemployment had spiked and incomes had stagnated. On day one, I inherited a budget that included a $178 million shortfall with revenues, let's not forget that, that had plunged by $200 million. We were flying blind with no energy plan, we just didn't have one, to deal with the reality of the climate change that is well upon us. Our infrastructure was crumbling, with one quarter of the state's roads in very poor condition. Vermont was 45th, 45th in the nation for the number of structurally deficient bridges. Our state hospital was crumbling, I don't need to remind you, having been deservified by the federal government nearly a decade before, requiring Vermonters to pay $184 million in their hard-earned money that should have been paid for by the federal government, but our facility was too much of a dump. Over 30,000 Vermonters had no broadband internet service. I'm not talking about slow service, talk to my mom, no broadband internet service, and far too many of our downtowns were falling further into decay. Our lowest paid workers had little hope of a real raise, and too many Vermonters with criminal records who had served their time, paid their price, were forced to check the box to all but certain permanent unemployment. Permanent. For too many Vermonters, they were homeless, and we lost too many of them to our cold winners. I'll never forget, we lost two who frozen the streets in the first few months of my governorship. Vermont's prison population was increasing at such a rate that we were in danger of incarcerating more Vermonters than we were sending to pre-kindergarten. Bubbling just below the surface was a massive opiate crisis, feeding our incarceration problems and destroying the lives that you know all too well. Our education system had lost 20,000 students in two decades, but we refused as a state to adapt to that reality. Too many young Vermonters could not access quality early education, while too many others could not afford to get beyond high school. And we had tens of thousands of Vermonters living without health insurance. Six years later, six years later, this state is a vastly different place thanks to our work together. Let's remember when I ran for governor, I said that my top priority would be to grow jobs and economic opportunity to make this state more affordable. We've done that, we have done that. We added almost 16,000 jobs in the last six years. Our unemployment rate has fallen every year that I've had the privilege of being governor every single year. In personal per capita incomes, this really matters when you talk about affordability, have grown faster than the national average for Vermonters for the first time in our history for the last five years in a row. That hasn't happened in Vermont's history. We've put Vermonters to work by connecting over 30,000 homes and businesses to broadband internet, cutting in half the number of, we've cut in half a number of failing roads and bridges in this state, that's a big deal. And we've rebuilt the Water Rary State Office complex as you know, it was the biggest construction project in the history of our state. We did it on time and on budget and a new state-of-the-art mental health facility in Berlin, not to mention beds in Brattleboro and Rutland. On January 1st, Vermont's minimum wage increased for the third year in a row. And it's on its way to $10.50 an hour by next year, 2018. We've banned the box. And lower wage Vermonters no longer have to choose between going to work sick or losing their job. That's a big deal. Thank you. So much fake news influencing our political dialogue. I have to take a moment to make sure that as you craft a budget for the next fiscal year, that we accurately recount the fiscal record that we have achieved together. Keep this number in mind, 3.7%. That's the average growth rate of Vermont's total funds budget over the past six years, 3.7%. That's in line with our state's economic growth. It's also far lower, far lower, than the budget growth that preceded my time in office. 7.8% in 2004, 13.4% in 2005, and 7% in 2006. Our record of fiscal responsibility is one that we should all be proud of. And we did it while keeping the promise, not to raise income tax rates, sales tax rates, rooms and meals tax rates on hardworking Vermonters because they're already too high. We not only balance six consecutive budgets, but we did it while enhancing our bond rating and reducing our reliance on one-time funds for ongoing state expenses to zero for the first time in decades. We fully funded Vermont's pension obligations and our rainy day funds, and we're leaving an unprecedented $100 million cash reserve to help the Medicaid program whenever our economy hits a bumpy road, which we know it will. It's a big deal. Now, on energy, we've proven that state leadership, that state leadership can mean the difference between relying on yesterday's aging, leaking nuclear power plants, or today's clean, local renewable energy. Today, Vermont Yankee is shuttered. We have 12 times the number of solar panels and 25 times the amount of wind power, which I still say is the most efficient renewable available to us, and our utilities are transforming into cutting-edge energy efficiency companies. Working together, we've passed a ground-vaking renewable energy standard that can single-handedly achieve a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions reductions needed to meet our state's 2050 target. And if you have 17 Vermonters in a room right now, 17 Vermonters in a room, or better yet, in a pub in one of our revived downtowns drinking a head-y topper at the end of a long day's work, one of them is working in a renewable energy sector. That's where their job is. Vermont leads America in clean energy jobs per capita with over 17,700 of them. That's because of your hard work. To those that said, if we did that, rates would go through the roof. I just want to point out, today we enjoy the second-lowest electric rates in New England. And the lowest residential rates for any of our neighbors, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York, were lower than all of them. That means money in Vermonters' pockets. Most importantly, Vermont finally adopted a smart statewide energy plan. And as we're moving on the path to 90% renewable by 2050, if other states would follow us, we might have some hope, some hope of preserving our planet for our kids and our grandkids. That's kind of a big deal. Let's keep it up. When I ran for governor, I had a simple idea. Let's become the early education state, giving every Vermonter, regardless of their income, their family circumstances, or how they learn, a strong start and pay for it by not incarcerating nonviolent offenders suffering from addiction. Every... Yeah, everyone loved the education idea, but the skeptics pounced on my criminal justice reform proposals, as you may well recall. When I made that campaign promise, I never imagined not in my wildest dreams the enormous problems that we would uncover along the way. The crisis of opiate and heroin addiction did not begin in Vermont, but Vermont began the national conversation about how to do it better. We invented hub and spoke, invested in state-of-the-art treatment centers and I'm incredibly proud of them. There's one just about to open in St. Alvin's. Implemented pretrial services, passed out rescue kits to anyone who would take them and we saved hundreds and hundreds of lives that we'll always would have lost, and adopted the toughest limits on prescribing OxyContin and other pain medications in the nation. Most importantly, we got rid of the stigma for the disease so that you can hold your head high and head into recovery. And you know what, incarceration rates in this state are at the lowest level since the early 2000s. Vermont has almost 600 fewer inmates today than we did in 2010. 600 folks who aren't locked up at anywhere from 50 to 65,000 bucks a year. That's tens of millions of dollars each year that Vermonters aren't wasting on prison cells. That's something to be proud of. We delivered on the rest of the promise, becoming the first state in America, the first state to enact universal pre-K for all three and four year olds. We made it so more kids could access free school meals so no kid has to try to learn hungry because that's impossible. You can't learn on an empty stomach. Thousands and thousands of Vermont high school kids have gotten a free head start on college through expanded dual enrollment and early college programs. Personalized learning plans, they were controversial at the time, are ensuring that every student links choices in their educational journey to a meaningful career down the road so that it will have a great workforce in this state going forward. My step up program to help those Vermonters already in the workforce in low wage jobs get back into school and on the road to success is funded and enrolling more Vermonters as we speak. And together, we passed a once in a generation reform bill to improve our educational quality and find efficiencies in our system that would have never happened without the leadership of Shaft Smith. Working, thank you Shaft. Working from the ground up today, well over, this is a big deal, well over half of Vermont kids are in a school district that has either decided to streamline or is in a conversation to do so. Over half of Vermont's kids, that's progress on a tough issue that has been plaguing us for years. Congratulations. Now, Vermont has chosen education for all over incarceration for too many. That is change whose time has come. On healthcare, while we didn't accomplish all of our goals, over 25,000 Vermonters who didn't have health insurance when I became governor do now, meaning that they no longer have to worry that one serious illness or accident could send them into bankruptcy. That's where they were living before. Thanks to our embracing of Obamacare, Vermont's uninsured rate is a nationwide low of 2.7% that's virtually universal coverage. Congratulations. And after persistent challenges, headaches and pain, Vermont Health Connect is functioning well. This open enrollment season, the annual transitioning of Vermonters from one year's plan to the next which took us almost 12 months, the first time we tried this, occurred with over 99% success rate at the push of a button. That matters. In November, 95% of requested chains of circumstance. And I don't need to explain to any of Vermont or what chains of circumstance is because we've been there. They were completed in time to be reflected in the customer's next bill up from 54% at the beginning of this year, 95%. And nine out of 10 calls, and we had huge waiting lines at the call centers that you know, as you know in the early days, to this customer support center were answered within 24 seconds. I'd love to get that service from my bank. With the creation of the Green Mountain Care Board, we've kept the growth of hospital budgets to the lowest levels in 40 years. And the all payer model is the single best shot, it's the single best shot that we have, or any other state has in America, to controlling healthcare costs, which is what's made it so tough to get ahead financially for Vermonters and Vermont businesses. By paying doctors and hospitals to keep us healthy rather than for the quantity of care, Vermonters will be healthier, and so will their pocketbooks. Stick with it, it will make a difference. It was just seven years ago, marriage equality passed. And you know, it never would have passed had it not been for many in this chamber and some who are no longer here who came to overcome, came together to overcome outdated opposition to a moral imperative. When we came down on the right side of history, first state to do so legislatively, and overrode a gubernatorial veto, that was a moment of courage, and it was heard across America. In the six years in which I've had the privilege of being your governor, Vermon has not shied away from continuing the tradition of being among the first to do things right. Terminally, oh, patience can now make their end of life choices as they should be able to. Thank you. And I'll diverge from my text with my mom and my brother and my sister and my family here to say that in my wildest dreams when I signed that bill, I never thought that my own dad who was suffering from a miserable terminal cancer would be able to die with dignity in his own state, so thank you from my family. In an era where voter suppression has become a legitimate tactic to win elections in other states, Vermont will now automatically register voters and offer same day voter registration the way democracy should work. And of course there was Vermont's first in a nation GMO labeling law that so many of you worked so hard for. While Congress stepped in with a weakened Washington DC special compromise, I firmly believe that our setback was America's step forward. While we must fight a flawed national labeling standard, it is still a national labeling standard and you all can fight to make it right. Let's do that together. Now, with all that we've accomplished, there are some areas where we've got to keep pushing, even though I won't be here as your governor to help. In the last year, Vermont has seen an almost 30% decline in homelessness, in homelessness. Thanks in part to our establishing a goal to end family homelessness by 2020. We need to keep our foot to the pedal to make sure that that goal becomes a reality. We can do it, we can do it. Although we've made progress on opiate addiction, Big Pharma is still giving more money to politicians all over this country to influence public policy in America. A Washington Post investigative series that I urge all of you to read, recently detailed how high level Justice Department officials called off multiple DEA efforts to halt shipments of opiates to illegal pill mills after pressure came in from Big Pharma. That's right, that's your government in Washington. Unbelievably, Congress then amended laws to make it almost impossible to halt the shipments to illegal pill mills in the future. The DEA's top cop on the beat got removed from his position. While Big Pharma simultaneously hired 42 retired DEA officials to help them keep the FDA approved painkillers flowing freely to their profit mills. That's what they've done. Big Pharma doesn't just profit from the sale of painkillers, no, you know this, they profit from the pills to reduce constipation caused by the painkillers that they've invented. They profit from the medications that you need after you sign up for the disease in our treatment centers. They profit from the rescue kits that we pay so much money for to save people from dying in our streets. In recent years, I've often felt like a lone voice in a forest calling out Big Pharma nationally for these practices that are creating the opiate crisis in America make no mistake about it. I can't think of a current governor who's likely to keep calling them out. Vermont has continually stood up to Big Pharma in the past and I call upon you to keep up the fight now more than ever or we will continue to see our sons, our daughters and our self-inflicted crisis keep it up. Keep it up Vermont. We also have more work to do to realize the promise of a cleaner lake and a more livable planet. You know, we're entering an era where the EPA, I don't need to remind you, the Department of Energy and the State Department are gonna be under the sway of climate skeptics to be subtle, which isn't my specialty. But let's be clear. When we said that we were gonna clean up our lake, when we said we were gonna reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we didn't do that for the benefit of the federal government. We passed the toughest clean water law in the history of the state of Vermont. We passed our renewable energy plan for our future, for our children, for our grandchildren. I'm counting, we're counting on you to complete the job. With your vigilance, we need to meet the requirements of the TMDL and we gotta keep our green energy revolution moving forward, please do it. You know as well as I that Vermont is always at its best. When other parts of our country are at their worst. When slavery was written into the federal constitution, Vermont was the first to exclude it from ours. When gay and lesbian Americans were being discriminated against nationwide, Vermont was the first to say, love is love, team, love is love. When women and children fleeing unimaginable violence in Syria were turned away by so many other states, Mayor Loris and I made sure Vermont would never close its doors to those looking for a better life. Today, today America needs us more than ever, more than ever. We're entering an era of narrow, outdated ways of thinking emboldened by a divisive and contemptuous president-elect. In the face of such a future, it can be tempting to disengage from the national politics of our time to sit back on the progress that we've all made together, simply enjoy the beauty that surrounds the best state in the nation and rejoicing the fact that our little state isn't like the rest of America. But guess what, team? We can't do that. We cannot do that. Our nation has stumbled backwards and America needs Vermont's leadership now more than ever. That's more than ever. That's gonna require all of you to keep up the fight and turn a momentary stumble backwards into a inspiring leap forward. Vermont must always stand up against hatred, against bigotry, against intolerance, that will sadly be part of our future. Tomorrow, I will no longer be your governor, but I will be of Vermont-er, demanding that my government stand firm for the values, the values that make this state what it has always been. Given what I know to be true about the state that I love so much, I'm confident, I'm confident that I won't be the only one. That's why I'm leaving this chamber today with the same enthusiasm, hope, and optimism that I had 30 years ago when I first arrived. Farewell, and thank you. For two. The governor's eager to finish his work. He tried to leave without an escort. Will the committee please reassemble and escort the governor from the chamber. The joint assembly may be at ease while we await the return of the committee.