 This is Guy Page from Mont State House Headliners. This is episode seven now of season one. Want to give my big thanks again to Zach Zorn and everyone else at Orca Media for their terrific production work. So today we're going to talk about S54. By the time you hear this, Senate Bill 54, Legal Cultivation and Retail Sale of Marijuana will have had its first hearing before the House Government Operations Committee Wednesday morning. When a bill is passed one chamber and is scheduled for committee hearings in the other chamber by mid-March, that's a good sign that at least some legislative leaders are behind it big time. But before they do their walkthrough of the Senate Bill Wednesday morning, House GovOps will make a field trip Tuesday afternoon to the Champlain Valley dispensary of medical marijuana. The committee agenda doesn't say which site could be the main store on Steel Street in Burlington, the satellite store in South Burlington, or the production facility in Milton. What we do know is that the marijuana products advertised in the Champlain Valley dispensary website include some delicious sounding items, cherry pie, kappa cookie, dark chocolate brownie, dark chocolate truffles, ginger, molasses cookie, maple lozange, and sea salt caramels. You know, there's some irony here. Trying to stop a legal drug industry from targeting underage vermoners with tasty sounding products names is one of the selling points for a bill the House approved last week. In the Democratic Caucus Tuesday, Representative Jessica Brumsted from Shelburne urged legislators to support H26, restricting sales of youth-oriented tobacco vaping and juuling products. Brumsted said, and I quote, there are lots of flavors that only attract kids like chocolate banana. The stores are out of stock. They're out because 18-year-olds are buying like 35 starter kits, unquote. And obviously they're providing them to their underage friends. Which brings us to marijuana-filled cookies for sale. Despite the well-known appetite of children for cookies and brownies, there's been little outcry about yummy-tasting brands of marijuana, some of which are concentrates known to induce psychotic episodes in teenagers. If it follows tobacco industry messaging, the marijuana industry will deny this branding as tarting or indeed would even influence youth. Well, hmm, everyone knows that marijuana causes carb-craving munchies. But we also know that children love cookies and brownies and sea salt caramels. Too bad that website says nothing about not selling to underage children until there are about three page clicks deep into the website. We did learn last week that House Speaker, Mitzi Johnson, won't be leading the charge for tax and regulate. Kit Norton of Vermont Digger reported in his March 14th final read column, which by the way is a great read every day and which like headliners is available by free subscription. He reported, I quote, House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, Democrat, South Hero, said she is not committed to passing a marijuana tax and regulate bill this year and it is not a top priority. There are currently two tax and regulation bills in the lower chamber, including one S54 passed by the Senate last month. Speaking of the GovOps Committee, this week it will also discuss bills that are unlikely to pass this year because they did not survive the March 15th crossover deadline but could come up next year. For example, H53 disturbing the legislature. Representative Pat Brennan of Colchester, the sponsor, would make it a crime to stage a protest that disturbs the deliberations of the legislature. H49, municipal regulation of possession, use and manufacture of knives. Again, Representative Brennan from Colchester. I think that bill would oppose that kind of municipal regulation. H88 requiring a presidential candidate to disclose tax returns. Representative Matthew Varang from Addison County. This is probably another attempt to use our state control of the voting system to force President Trump to reveal his tax returns, something that he's not required to do either by the constitution or federal law. H478, study of a state apology and reparations for slavery. Representative Brian Cena of Burlington. Everyone knows that our American ancestors, despite their professed belief in property rights and quote, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness stole life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from Africans and their descendants. Everyone knows that these same ancestors took the lands of the Indian nations by treaty when possible and force when quote unquote necessary. These are historical facts. The question is, have Americans since then done enough to compensate for these violations of our own sacred principles? Representative Cena would say, no, we haven't. We need to study the idea of a formal state apology and making reparations. Another bill by Representative Cena would relieve all Indian tribe owned land in Vermont of the responsibility to pay the state property tax. It's a big question. Does the legislature want to spend time and money answering it? We'll see. Another bill H444, ranked choice voting. Representative Robin Chestnut, Tangerman, a progressive and independent representative, Laura Sebelia. This is a form of vote counting, rank choice voting, a vote counting that lets voters select both their first and second choices. And if no candidate receives a 50% plurality, then the second choice is added to the totals of the first choice. In practice, it tends to favor third party and independent candidates. There may be no accident that the sponsors are a third party progressive and an independent. Last week, as a member of the coordinating committee of the ISO New England Consumer Liaisons Group, I attended the quarterly luncheon in Providence, Rhode Island. And I learned three or four facts about Vermont's and New England's energy and electricity that even, I'm a real energy nerd, but I didn't know. And I thought that I would share them with you. The first one was, which fuel has cut New England electricity, greenhouse gas emissions in half? The answer might surprise you. It's a fossil fuel, natural gas. New England electricity greenhouse gas emissions have been cut in half since 2000. And the reason isn't renewable power, really, and it isn't really nuclear power. The main reason is that a cleaner fossil fuel, natural gas, has largely replaced dirty oil and coal as the region's mainstay source of power generation. That's the takeaway from information from the Acadia Center of Providence, Rhode Island, and another graph from ISO New England, the region's power grid operator. This might surprise Vermonters who would credit either carbon-free nuclear power or carbon-free wind and solar. But in fact, both of these sources were more or less, throughout New England, were more or less flat in output change between 2000 and 2018. The big difference was that New England utilities swapped out coal and oil for cleaner and, thanks to hydrofracking, far less expensive natural gas. So what you had was technology and business working together to literally build a better mousetrap, to provide a fuel that was cheaper than everything else and cleaner than what was being used. Wasn't regulation, it wasn't government choosing who will win and lose. It was simply the market delivering a response and a solution to a big problem, carbon emissions. Also, I learned that, I learned some good news for Maine's power line project is really bad news for Lake Champlain cleanup money. The state of Maine's pending approval of 145 mile electricity transmission line could be the final nail in the coffin for Vermont's proposed underwater transmission line. Governor Phil Scott and other state officials have hoped that the New England clean link power line delivering hydrocobeck power via underwater cable to Massachusetts would generate revenue to help cover the federally mandated cleanup of Lake Champlain. But the state of Massachusetts instead chose the more affordable Maine's clean energy connect over the Vermont project. Unlike the clean link, the Maine project lacked state permits. Like the clean link developers, the Maine power line builder has promised significant financial support for local governments, renewable energy projects and other worthy causes. Not surprisingly, Maine's governor and chief consumer advocate both have signed off on this project. If it's built on schedule, the 1 billion clean energy connect would deliver to Massachusetts twice the megawatts of the retiring pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth, Mass. However, the Maine project may not be the last new transmission line from hydro power rich Canada to New England. Plans to import natural gas into New England from gas rich Pennsylvania and New York have stalled. An offshore wind at present comprises 60% of all proposed unbuilt energy generation. As the region continues to choose low carbon electricity over fossil fuels for transportation and heat, then another power line from Canada may be necessary. Experts at the ISO New England Consumer Liaison Group told the audience. Also, Vermont leads New England in cutting electricity demand. 10 years from now, Vermont will use less total electricity than it does now, thanks to energy efficiency and net metered solar power. We will be using less electricity in 10 years than we do now. According to ISO New England electricity demand projections, Vermont will lead New England in reducing electricity demand by 2027, a 0.9% in peak demand reduction and a 1.4% in overall demand reduction. Now these statistics, however, presumably do not include the scenario of quote unquote tax and regulate marijuana cultivation taking hold in Vermont. In tax and regulate states like Colorado, marijuana cultivation has been the largest single source of new electricity demand. Vermont also generates the least amount of power in New England, about 1% of the total load. It also has the least amount of proposed power generation, also about 1%. So we don't make much power, but we're really good at saving it. That's what it comes down to. Finally on my list, a natural gas blackout, it can happen. Vermonters know all about electricity blackouts, usually caused by high winds or heavy snow, but who thinks about a natural gas blackout? It happened this January in Newport, Rhode Island, begun on January 21st by either a valve failure or insufficient fuel supply. The finger pointing continues and the exact cause is still undetermined. About 7,000 customers lost natural gas heat for about a week during the frigid end of January. The local utility, National Grid, as of February 19th, had paid out $360,000 in claims for lodging, meals, and space heaters. And finally, the Vermont House Energy and Technology Committee took a major, almost unprecedented step. It says a lot about our world's interconnectedness and also about cybersecurity threats. As reported by Seven Days' newspaper, the Vermont House Energy and Technology Committee on March 12th made the almost unprecedented decision to meet behind closed doors, to meet in executive session. If you're ever in the state house, you will know this never happens. Committees never say press, go away. Interested people, stay out. We need to talk about something in private. They never say that, but they did on March 12th. And the reason was to receive an update on Vermont cyber security. Like any Vermont press and interested citizens who may have wished to hear what the committee heard, citizen advocates across New England also have struggled to learn more about how well or not the region's power grid is protected from cyber threats. The explanation given for the closed doors does make sense. The more the bad guys know, the more vulnerable our power grid. On the other hand, Vermonters and other New Englanders want to know as much as possible about this important security issue. One New England energy advocate at the ISO New England CLG meeting compared to asking utility and government officialdom about cybersecurity to encountering, quote, a dense and impenetrable fog machine. And so we do need security. And sometimes the security people need to not tell the public because if they did, the bad guys would know too. But on the other hand, Vermonters and New Englanders and Americans like the idea of knowing what's going on on something that's so important to their future. I'm sure this discussion will continue. But that's all for now. Guy Page, Vermont Statehouse Headliners. Again, you can receive my free subscription columns at Page Communications for VT at gmail.com. See you next week.