In the last few days of the 2017 legislative session, even a one-day holdup can effectively kill a bill, and when S.103 made an unexpected visit to House Appropriations, the bill’s supporters worried that might delay it too much to pass.
But representatives of House leadership say they’re not opposing the bill and Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, has made no effort to hinder it. Things simply get hectic as the session nears its close, said Johnson’s chief of staff, Katherine Levasseur.
“It’s the end of the session,” Levasseur said. “This stuff happens.”
Levasseur said the bill had to come before the House Ways and Means Committee on Monday and that it proceeded in an orderly and unexceptional fashion to the Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. Plenty of time remains for its adoption Saturday, she said.
Legislators and others say they expect adjournment that day.
But the bill emerged from the House Committee on Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife in the middle of last week, and advocates were assured its next stop would be the House floor for a vote, said Lauren Hierl, political director for Vermont Conservation Voters.
And David Deen, chairman of the House panel on natural resources, said he expected the bill to move from his committee to the House floor for a vote.
“We’ve been confused and concerned about the process,” Hierl said. There’s no reason, she said, for the bill to have been held up so long between committees that it could now “end up dying because the clock runs out.”
The executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, Paul Burns, said the bill must overcome powerful interests opposing it.
“It’s no secret that there are a lot of industry lobbyists — for the chemical industry, for the toy industries and others — who want to see this bill killed,” Burns said. “They’d be happy to see it delayed to death.”
Driscoll said he was surprised not that the Appropriations Committee took it up, but that Ways and Means needed to deliberate the bill Monday.
Supporters of the bill say it’s needed to protect Vermonters, particularly children.
The bill’s most contentious components would expand the state’s ability to regulate toys containing potentially toxic chemicals.
The state’s health commissioner would be able to regulate toys that “may” harm children as the result of toxic substances they contain, as opposed to the current standard, requiring that it be proven such toys “will” harm children. The commissioner could also make determinations on whether to regulate children’s toys based on credible, peer-reviewed research, as opposed to needing “the weight of evidence” supporting such a finding.
Supporters of the bill say the “weight of evidence” could interfere with efforts to regulate substances only recently found to harm human health.
The bill would also require that new wells be tested for certain harmful chemicals.
In addition, it would form a working group that would pass recommendations to the health commissioner, suggesting how to more effectively regulate the use of chemicals — particularly toxic and hazardous substances — in the state.
The working group would also create a statewide database listing chemicals used in Vermont industries and elsewhere.
Everything needs to move smoothly from this point if the bill is to have a chance of being adopted, said Jon Groveman, policy and water program director at the Vermont Natural Resources Council.
“Everyone professes they want the bill,” Groveman said, but it’s in danger nevertheless.
“For all this to happen is going to require leadership, so that’s what we’re looking to see,” he said.
Gov. Phil Scott’s communications director, Rebecca Kelley, said that to her knowledge the governor had no hand in S.103’s stop in committee this week.
