Representative Dolan introduced her short form bill, H.275, to the House Education Committee on Wednesday. Her intention with the bill was to establish education grant pilot projects focused on middle schools for 8^th and 9^th graders to get them enthusiastic about going to a trade school and to understand the available opportunities. She believes this will be particularly valuable for rural union school districts.  

Eric Henry, the CFO of the Vermont Pension Investment Commission (VPIC) joined the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. He highlighted that it's important for them to be separate from the Treasurer's office to provide more transparency.

Representative Sibilia presented H.209 to the House Education Committee on Tuesday. The bill proposes to give elementary school students the choice to attend other elementary schools within the same Supervisory Union. The language models the public high school choice mechanism, which requires that both the sending and receiving schools would need to agree to the transfer.

The Senate Natural Resources Committee passed the Clean Heat Standard (S.5) on Friday, paving the way for $1.2B in subsidies to clean energy groups. Affordability and equity advocates cautioned that this bill was a blunt instrument and unintended harm would be done to Vermont's most vulnerable, but to no avail. Adequate safeguards were not included in the bill passed by the Committee.

The Senate Education Committee met on Thursday to discuss marketing our higher education institutions.

Heather Pelham (Commissioner, Department of Tourism and Marketing) talked to the Committee about the Vermont brand. She sees tourism and marketing’s economic impact on Vermont every day:

The House Commerce Committee met on Friday with representatives from higher education and Advance Vermont, at the invitation of Chairman Marcotte, to discuss alternatives to higher education as a pathway to Vermont's workforce.

The Senate Natural Resources Committee took up S.5 again on Tuesday.

This week the Senate Economic Development Committee reached the mark-up stage of their Omnibus Housing Bill. There was discussion in the Committee that many local governments in Vermont were unhappy with the duplex by right governing authority that is being taken away in this bill. Barre Town was particularly not pleased. The Chair tried to justify that it was not taking authority from local government but was more dealing with the homeowner. Even so, the Committee believed this was a huge change and expressed concerns.

The Senate Government Operations Committee reviewed S.42 on Thursday, which would divest state pension funds from fossil fuel investments.