 Welcome back to Capital Beat, a joint production between Orca Media and the Vermont Press Bureau. It's Friday, February 26th, and we have reached the halfway point of the legislative session. Joining me as always is, well, I guess not always, I wasn't here last week, Joshua Gorman, Vermont Press Bureau reporter, thank you. I'll always a pleasure to be here now. All right, as I mentioned, we've reached the halfway point. Quite a few notable things have happened throughout the session, but I think just like most weeks we'll focus on what transpired this week. As we speak, the House is debating a resolution to divest from coal and fossil fuels. Tell us a little bit about how we got to this point today. Sure, so during Governor Shillman's final state of the state address in January, he called for the state pension funds to divest first from all coal and from ExxonMobil in particular and then to explore divestment from all oil companies. This is something that is not exactly a new idea. Senator Anthony Polino from Washington County has introduced legislation in the past calling for fossil fuel divestment. So Shillman's pushing pretty hard for this and he's getting some pushback. Treasurer Beth Pierce, who oversees the pensions, says that this is not a great idea. She says it's gonna cost the funds money. We know that it's not immediately popular with the folks who are actually invested in the pensions because they have an option to go with a fossil fuel free investment portfolio and a tiny handful of folks who have that available to them actually do it. And do we know what the returns are like for the few folks who take that option? Are they getting a smaller return on their investments than others? I honestly don't know, Neil. Probably something maybe we want to look at. Yeah, at some point, sure, sure. Well, you know, honestly, it depends on who you talk to for that, you know? I've heard folks, I heard somebody from Norwich say that after studying the issue, he says that rate of return will be better. Secretary Pierce says it will not be better if you go fossil fuel. Unfortunately, I'm not an economist. I'm just a simple country reporter, so I'm really not sure. But we know that, so over the past month or so, Shulman has reiterated his support for getting rid of fossil fuels and he's been receiving pushback from groups such as the VSEA, the Vermont NEA, the local AFL-CIO. All these labor organizations saying, hey, don't do this. So on Tuesday, Shulman met with the pension board to plead his case, and right now, as we speak on the House floor, lawmakers are debating a resolution, which the language of it calls for the state to divest from fossil fuels. However, it is facing amendments from Republican lawmakers, Patty Comline out of Dorset and Job Tate out of Killington Menden, who, and these folks are saying, hey, let's just not, it's not our place to tell these folks what they should be doing with their investments. And so that's the argument that's happening right now on the floor as we speak. All right. The other real big story of the week was pot in the Senate. The Senate voted this week to advance it to the House. The final vote came on a 17 to 12 roll call. It picked up one vote from the previous day. We know from speaking with House Speaker, Jack Smith, that it faces a very tall task. So how big of an accomplishment was it to clear the Senate and what still lies ahead in terms of challenges? Well, it was certainly something to clear up through the Senate. It went through at least three committees, beginning with Senate Judiciary, which was chaired by Democratic Senator Dick Sears out of Bennington, who came into this very much a skeptic. He agreed to go ahead and let the issue come before his committee. However, he was certainly not in favor of legalization when this began in January. However, after taking a lot of testimony for about a month and then doing a series of forums around the state, he became convinced that it was better than the current system. And so this bill wound its way out of his committee into Senate Finance, which figured out the money that needed to be spent and then into Senate appropriations where actually two members of that committee voted in favor of it just to get it out of committee knowing that they were not gonna vote for it on the floor. And so Senator Sears really said, it really shows the lack of an obstructionist ethos over on the Senate side that these folks would go ahead and not just allow this to die in committee. And so whether that's gonna happen over on the House side is really uncertain. There are folks who, I haven't counted the votes, but they're saying that it's pretty difficult to get it out of the House Judiciary. However, that's gonna come up maybe three weeks from now. So that's certainly a lot of time for people to have their arms twisted. Yeah, the conventional wisdom is that Governor Shumlin, a former Senator, the former pro tem had very strong relationships in the Senate folks like Dick Sears who would help him carry it across the finish line. Those relationships don't really exist in the House for him. And it's not really clear whether anybody has enough sway to move the needle enough to get it through. So we'll follow that up after the town meeting break week next week and chat more about it then. And also this week, the governor pulled together a hastily called press conference on Thursday to announce that five wells, five private wells in North Bennington, Vermont, tested positive for a chemical known as PFOA. It's the same chemical that was found in nearby Hussig Falls, New York that allegedly came from a company called St. Cobain who ran Chemfab factories in the early 2000s in both Hussig Falls and North Bennington. We don't know a whole lot about the extent of the contamination yet. What we do know is that the five private wells tested positive, the public water system, unlike Hussig Falls, did not test positive and the company has agreed to provide bottled water and some filtration systems for folks impacted by this. We expect the governor's office to provide more information as this moves forward and as they find out the extent of the contamination issue. So that's something we'll be following up on next week. Very good and that's actually from your neck of the woods, right Neil? It is from my neck of the woods. The factory was situated along the Walloomsack River, a place where I've spent a lot of time fishing and actually eating some of the fish out of that river. That's lovely. I have unique interest in finding out the extent of contamination in that neck of the woods and one of the homes, I believe one of the homes that tested positive was from one of my best friends growing up where we spent quite a bit of time hanging out drinking the water and playing in the river. So we'll see how that one turns out. For now we know Josh has got to get up to some debate in the Senate, so we'll be right back with Dave Graham from the Associated Press. Thank you. Welcome back to Capital Beat. Joining me now is Dave Graham from the Associated Press, longtime State House reporter and observer. Welcome to the show. Nice to be here Neil. Your first appearance. That is true. On our very fancy show. Uh huh. So we are halfway through this session. You've been doing this for a long time. Anything stick out at you as different or odd or out of place so far this year? Well one thing that's a little unusual is that we have a governor who's in his last term this session and I think we may see some of that play out in terms of you know the question is does he have any degree of reduced cloud as sort of a you know semi lame duck or whatever. And he's pushing hard for passage of a bill calling for legalization of marijuana. He was able to cajole some senators into coming around and voting with him on that. And the question now is whether he's gonna have any kind of similar clout in the house. I think interestingly enough I was speaking with Sarah Copeland-Hanses, the house majority leader, one of the senior Democrats earlier in the week about what might happen in the house. There's a lot of sort of sense that the house is gonna be cooler to this legalization idea than the Senate has been. And she said that she's basically asking her caucus members to go home to their districts over the town meeting break next week and that she put it in gauge with their neighbors and find out what folks are thinking and want to see happen. And you know I imagine that some of the advocates supporting marijuana legalization are probably doing some grassroots work right now to try to get folks to go to their town meetings and talk to their state reps and say, let's go ahead and do this. And because obviously there is some trepidation about this among a lot of house members as well as among some senators as well. But it seems like a higher percentage of house members might be in that camp right now. So we'll see. A lot has been made about, excuse me, the governor's relationships in the Senate. Is there anyone in the house that sort of sticks out to you as a potential ally for the governor in this battle that's about to commence here? Well, I think a key, if not the key person here is gonna end up being the speaker. And the governor and the speaker have worked closely together for years now. And the speaker has a great deal of clout obviously in the house. And I think that it's entirely possible. You know, he talks about how he's a supporter in principle of the legalization idea. He has some questions about it, including things like how do we ensure that there's a way to guard against impaired driving? You know, the police have talked about developing some kind of a new technology, a sort of analog to the breathalyzer that they use with drunken driving. And whether that's gonna be coming along soon enough to make people comfortable that Vermont can sort of guard against stone driving in the same way that it guards against drunken driving is a question. And that's obviously been a question in the speaker's mind. As well as issues like are we really going to be able to legalize this marijuana for adults and not sort of enhance teenagers' access to it? And the, but if he's genuine and ends up being strongly supportive of this, you know, I'm reminded last year there was a measure that came out very late in the session to remove the philosophical exemption for parents who didn't want to get their kids fully vaccinated. And that sort of materialized the first in the Senate about three weeks before the end of the session. And then it got through the house before the session was over. Now that's obviously a big change in Vermont law to remove that philosophical exemption. There was a lot of controversy about it and actually the legislature tried and did not do that a couple of years earlier. So, you know, this is also a pretty controversial measure this idea of legalizing marijuana, obviously. And, but I think the vaccination debate sort of shows us a model of the way that the house can turn pretty quickly if it wants to. And if the speaker wants it to. And so, you know, that's still, I think it's still an open question and a possibility. Okay. 2010 was the last time we had a governor who was on his way out. Jim Douglas, his portrait is actually staring at me in the hole over there. Do you see any similarities between that year and the year we're in now with Governor Shumlin on his way out? Well, there is a fairly significant difference which is that, you know, Governor Douglas was dealing with a strongly democratic legislature, you know, opposite party legislature and Governor Shumlin is dealing with a legislature of his own party, although the legislature frequently wants to sort of flex its muscles and demonstrate its independence from any governor of any party. And they've done that a few times with Shumlin. They have and, you know, and I think that factor may weigh in a little bit, for instance, in the marijuana debate as well. I think, you know, one of the interesting issues you mentioned divestment from fossil fuel companies and the governor has been pushing that hard as if that's sort of a marquee issue for him for this session. And, you know, it appears that he may not, he likely won't get a bill from the legislature moving in that direction, although he may get a resolution which is obviously non-binding. And even the resolution essentially leaves the decision, it kind of sides with the state treasurer, Beth Pierce, who's been pushing to have the decision left up to the board that oversees the state's pension fund investments. So, you know, I think there are similarities in the sense that, you know, between 2010 and 2016, in the sense that the legislature is frequently interested in asserting its independence. There also was, back in 2010 even, I think even more strained relations between the legislature and the governor because just the previous year in 2009, the legislature had overridden the governor's budget and also the governor's veto of a bill which ends up allowing same-sex marriage in Vermont. Now obviously same-sex marriage since last year's Supreme Court decision is allowed nationwide, but at the time it was a very hot issue still around the country and it came down to, you know, the House leadership needed to round up the last one or two votes in order to override the governor's veto, which the House managed to do. The governor didn't really respond with any degree of anger or whatever about that as much as he sort of, I think, pretty much shrugged it off and said, well, that's the way it goes. The budget veto I think really did leave a lot of bitterness or the budget veto override, I should say, left a lot of bitterness and there is still some people on the Republican side today pointing to that moment as turning Vermont. Right, the turning point in our finances. In our troubled finances. And so, you know, I think some of that kind of tension is not in play this year as much as just the general legislative assertiveness. Okay. What should we be looking for in the second half of this 2016 session here? Any surprises? Well, you know, I do think it's probably the most interesting issue right now is will the advocates muster the advocates for marijuana legalization muster the support in the House? Will the governor muster the support in the House? And, you know, I think that obviously remains to be seen. Otherwise, it's, you know, aside from this divestment thing in marijuana legalization, I think it's really been a kind of a slow session. Yeah. You know, in terms of- It seems slow. In terms of any real hot issues. And so obviously there will be the annual budget dance as things wind down, but other than that, you know, I don't really see any marquee issues coming down the pipe right now. All right. Dave Graham from the Associated Press. Thanks so much for joining me. Glad to be here. Thanks. And that's a wrap for us this week on Capitol Beats. We will be off next week as the legislature is not in session for the town meeting break, but we will be back the following week. So join us then. Thanks again.