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.

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.

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

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

S.54 was introduced by Senators Cummings, Perchlik, Watson, and Wrenner with the intent of extending the separation between the individual and small group markets in Vermont Health Connect through plan year 2025.

The House Education Committee came back to their draft bill on Thursday dealing with independent schools. Timothy Newbold (Head of School, Village School of North Bennington) introduce himself after Chairman Conlon prefaced by saying that they were interested in hearing from some of the smaller independent schools.