Tag Archives: Mark Johnson Show

Son of Return of theVPO Media Crossover Event!!!!! (UPDATED)

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Yep, preparing to get back in the saddle again and host The Mark Johnson Show on WDEV radio the next three weekdays. 550 AM or 96.1 FM in north-central VT (the AM signal can be heard from Burlington to the Connecticut River valley) and live streaming at wdevradio.com. Dates and guests:

Thursday 6/25, 9 am. Jim Salzman, professor of law and environmental policy at Duke University, and expert on water issues and policy. He’s author of “Drinking Water: A History,” a book that explores the very vital — and frequently changing — role that water plays in human society. He just finished a visit to Vermont Law School as a visiting summer scholar. We’ll talk about drinking water’s past, present and future. The School has posted a YouTube video of a lecture given by Prof. Salzman; you can find it here.

Thursday 6/25, 10 am. Matt Dunne, former State Senator and gubernatorial candidate, now head of community affairs for Google. He’s actively considering another run for governor. Oops; last-minute cancellation. Dunne was supposed to fly home from an out-of-state trip Wednesday night; stormy weather prevented that. Or, as he put it in an email to me, “I’m stuck in Chattanooga.” Currently effecting a replacement guest. (Friday and Monday guests after the jump.) Continue reading →

Return of theVPO Media Crossover Event!!!

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Prepping for another hosting spot on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show Monday morning. Also Thursday, Friday, and next Monday the 29th. Here’s the lineup for tomorrow and some notes on the rest of the week…

9:00 Monday: State Rep. Corey Parent, R-St. Albans. He was one of eight freshman state lawmakers chosen for the Canadian Embassy’s “Rising State Leaders” program, which included a tour of eastern Canada. We’ll talk about his trip and his reflections on his first year in the Legislature. And since he’s from Franklin County, I’m sure I’ll ask him about Sen. Norm McAllister.

10:00 Monday: Sarah McCall, executive director of Emerge Vermont, a group that trains aspiring women to enter the political arena. (Vermont has rarely elected women to statewide office, and has never sent a woman to Congress.) We’ll talk about the ongoing shakeup in Vermont politics and whether it creates chances for women to move up the ladder.

And later in the hour, we’ll catch up with State Sen. Becca Balint. She was a 2014 graduate of Emerge Vermont, who went on to win a Senate seat from Windham County. She’ll talk about what the program did for her, and her thoughts on Year One in the legislature.

As for my other upcoming days…

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Rent-to-own abuses reined in

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On Monday, Governor Shumlin announced something or other. Everybody paid attention.

On Tuesday, he signed a bill that will help a lot of people. Pretty much nobody paid any attention.

S.73 is a consumer protection bill whose primary purpose is to prevent rent-to-own stores from preying on the working poor. When I was a guest on the Mark Johnson Show after the legislative session and he asked me which piece of legislation would have the most impact, I said that for some, it wouldn’t be education reform or RESET or the budget or Lake Champlain; it’d be S.73.

Rent-to-own stores, at their worst, are a lot like payday lenders: they allow the poor to acquire consumer goods like furniture, electronics, and appliances with little or no money up front. Instead, they charge monthly lease rates. In some cases, a consumer will pay far more over the life of a lease than they would have if they’d paid cash (or had a credit card) up front. Like 200% more.

It’s usury by another name.

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It’s looking like the vaccine bill will get a vote — UPDATED

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Although I favor repealing the philosophical exemption for childhood vaccinations, I’ve been predicting that the issue will be pulled from the House calendar due to (1) time constraints and (2) unwillingness to tackle yet another controversy.

Looks like I was wrong.

House Speaker Shap Smith was on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show this morning, and he indicated that the vaccine bill (H.98) would be up for a vote on Tuesday. In his own typically oblique way; if pressed on his answer, I’m sure he’d say that he didn’t promise a vote on Tuesday. Here are his exact words:

It’s very possible that it could come to a vote on Tuesday in the House. It’s not a caucus issue; I don’t think it’s a caucus issue on either side. It looks to me that there is signifant support to remove the philosophical exemption; I think there’s some room around that to maybe give people time to address that. I don’t know when the implementation date will be for it, whether there needs to be a transition plan for schools. There are a number of internal issues that we’ve got to deal with, but it would not surprise me to see that come to the floor next week.

Cute. The guy who’s in charge of scheduling the calendar says “it would not surprise me” to see the bill pop up on the calendar. Hahaha.

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Bill Sorrell willfully distorts the record

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h/t to Fiona Apple.

h/t to Fiona Apple.

On Tuesday morning, our beloved Eternal General made an appearance on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show. Unlike last week’s sad excuse of an interview on VPR, Johnson actually grilled him long and hard on the questions surrounding his campaign finances.

But Johnson missed a big fat whopper that Sorrell told right off the top, and later repeated. I don’t blame Johnson for this; he’d have to have an amazing memory for two-year-old court rulings to have caught Sorrell’s dissembling.

At issue was the 2012 Democratic primary, and whether there was improper collusion between the Sorrell campaign and the Committee for Justice and Fairness, a Washington-based PAC that spent big on Sorrell just before the primary, which he won by a razor-thin margin.

Sorrell’s opponent in the 2012 general election, Republican Jack McMullen, filed a complaint against Sorrell, alleging improper collusion in the primary. Here’s how Sorrell characterized the disposition of that case:

I’m not guilty. The coordination with the Democratic AG’s Association, that was the subject of a lawsuit in Chittenden Superior Court filed against me back in 2012; the judge ruled in my favor.

He later restated his reading of the decision:

There was no violation there, my Republican opponent sued me and had no evidence to support that there was illegal collusion, and the Chittenden Superior Court ruled in my favor. Case over.

Well, actually, case NOT over.

In fact, the case was never investigated. It still hasn’t been investigated.

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No more listening and learning

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After his humiliating near-defeat at the ham-fists of Scott Milne last November, Governor Shumlin said the result was “a very clear message to this governor to listen, learn, reflect, be more inclusive.”

Sounded good. But if he ever meant it, he’s all done with that wimpy crap now. On Friday, Shumlin was a guest on The Mark Johnson Show; it was a full-on display of his least endearing qualities. He stuck to his rhetorical guns; he sidestomped inconvenient questions; he refused to acknowledge any mistakes or failings; he contradicted himself with blind insouciance; he belittled those who disagree with him.

It was pretty damned awful. Perhaps it was understandable, since he spoke with Johnson directly after House Speaker Shap Smith’s appearance, in which he openly differed with Shumlin on the way forward for Vermont Health Connect. Shumlin has set two deadlines for VHC to hit designated performance targets, at the end of May and October; Smith says May is the only one that matters. And he said so, repeatedly, on live radio, mere minutes before Shumlin stepped to the mic.

And when the mic went live, here’s what the Governor had to say.

On the subject of Auditor Doug Hoffer’s report on VHC, which related a litany of bureaucratic and IT horrors:

No big surprises. Frankly, I’ve been saying, we’ve been saying since the exchange went up it’s been a huge disappointment.

Yeah, well, a few days before it went up, you used the infamous phrase “nothing-burger.”

Technically, I suppose it’s true that Shumlin has consistently expressed disappointment. But he’s also consistently expressed optimism that everything’s under control and a fix is just around the corner. He has made promises and set deadlines, and failed to meet his own performance marks every time. He has doused his own credibility with gasoline and set it afire.

I don’t think that’s a surprise to any Vermonters that are frustrated by the exchange.

This is one of Shumlin’s tiredest tricks: positioning himself as shoulder-to-shoulder with us Vermonters, sharing our aspirations and frustrations. Man Of The People. Hey, he likes to hunt and fish and drink Budweiser down at the Legion hall.

Problem is, it comes across as completely phony. It doesn’t convince anybody, no matter how painfully earnest his voice gets.

So really, the Auditor’s report reflects what we’ve been saying all along. It’s a helpful document, but we have dealt with the issues that he reported. That’s what audits tend to do; they look back instead of forward.

Perhaps true, but misleading. Hoffer’s audit focused on several independent reports evaluating the VHC process and recommending changes. Many of those changes were not made. Indeed, some previously identified problems continue to bedevil VHC and may prevent it from becoming fully operational.

ImNotWrongThere’s a bigger, more fundamental issue with Shumlin’s statement. He hates admitting he was ever wrong or uninformed. Trouble is, we’ve heard it before and we’ve stopped believing it.

What he should have said: “The Auditor’s report is a troubling document, revealing a number of failings by me and my administration. I apologize for the difficulties we have caused thousands of Vermonters. We are doing everything we can to correct our mistakes and do better from now on. I remain confident that Vermont Health Connect will become fully functional and serve Vermonters as we intended.”

Back to the real interview. For several minutes, Johnson tried to pin the Governor down on the real import of the two deadlines, May and October. What emerged was a kicking-and-screaming acknowledgement that there’s only one real deadline, and it’s the end of October.

I’m saying if those two functions don’t work by November, the deadline I laid out in a press conference a month ago, whenever it was, we are gonna look at whatever other options we have.

Well, actually he gave two deadlines. What would happen, Johnson asked, if the change of circumstance function isn’t working by the end of May — Shumlin’s self-selected deadline? Would the contractor get more time to fix it?

I’m not going to speculate on it not working. My job is to make it work.

That’s wrong on two counts. First, Shumlin himself has been talking about what will happen if it doesn’t work. And second, he’d be an irresponsible administrator if he didn’t have contingency plans.

Johnson, a bit taken aback by Shumlin’s assertion that he wasn’t “going to speculate on it not working,” replied “You’ve got to give the people some idea of what you’ll do if it doesn’t work.”

I did. I said if the change of circumstance is’t workin’ and if you can’t sign up folks for re-enrollment in November, we’re gonna make that decision together, we should move on if it doesn’t work.

Okay, so now he did do the very thing he just denied he had done. And he conveniently deep-sixed his own May deadline, opening a line of retreat for possible use on June 1.

Finally, Johnson asked if November was the real, actual deadline. Shumlin said “Yes.” Johnson pointed out that “The Speaker says it’s May.”

I don’t see this as a test of dates. I see this as a challenge to make the exchange work the way we all wish it to work for all Vermonters.

Well, it wasn’t the Speaker’s idea to set dates; it was the Governor’s. Now he doesn’t want to talk dates. And in downplaying May 31 in favor of October 31, he has deepened the divide between himself and Smith.

All in all, it was a performance that echoed the worst of pre-election Shumlin — the overweeningly self-confident Master Of His Domain and ersatz Man Of The People. I guess he’s done all the listening he wants to do, and he didn’t like what he heard.

Et tu, Shapleigh?

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Once in a while, even a jaded Political Observer sees something that cracks through his tough shell of cynicism and evinces a breathy “Whoa!” It happened last night when I was reading a report by VPR’s Peter Hirschfeld about Vermont Health Connect.

Background: Governor Shumlin has said he’ll be ready to explore alternatives to VHC if it fails to meet functionality deadlines at the end of May and October. The “Whoa!” comes courtesy of House Speaker Shap Smith, who flat-out said there’s only one deadline that matters, and it’s the first one.

Smith on Thursday morning said he’ll look to begin the transition to a federal version of the website if May passes without a change-of-circumstance fix. “If nearly two years after we try to bring the exchange online we still don’t have an exchange that works in an effective way, then I believe that we need to move to another system,” Smith says.

"Wait, what did you say?"

“Wait, what did you just say?”

That’s a pretty clear statement that pretty clearly puts Mr. Speaker and the Governor at odds. And Shap Smith is not one to speak without thinking. Carefully. Twice. At least.

If you had any doubt about that, Mr. Speaker doubled down on his comments today on “The Mark Johnson Show.”

If we don’t meet the May 31 deadline… we will need to explore other options.

He asserted that many Vermonters had “already lost confidence in the exchange,” and “at some point, they will lose all confidence.” And if May 31 comes and goes without success, “I don’t see how we can go to Vermonters” and tell them it will work eventually.

When Johnson noted that Shumlin has two deadlines, May and October, and asked “Is May your deadline?” Smith replied, “Yes.” He expressed hope that VHC will meet the May deadline, but sketched out a plan for legislative committees to work over the summer to develop alternatives.

Smith’s appearance before the Johnson microphone was followed, mirabile dictu, by Governor Shumlin himself. And Shumlin stuck to his guns.

“There are two dates. Change of circumstance needs to work by May 31, and re-enrollment by October 31. If those two functions aren’t working by November, we’ll be looking at other options.”

There it is. The two most powerful Democrats in Montpelier* have very different outlooks on Vermont Health Connect. If I were an irresponsible blogger, I’d be tempted to write something about “the opening salvos in the 2016 Democratic primary.” Good thing I’m not.

*John Campbell? Feh.

And really, that’s not what this is about. This is about identifying the best way forward. And in this case, Shap Smith is right: if VHC’s change of circumstance function isn’t working on June 1, it will be time to start finding another way — even if it can’t be implemented until the 2017 insurance year. Which everyone agrees it can’t.

Smith is acting less in his own political interest than in his party’s interest. Waiting until November would push the process of creating an alternative well into the 2016 campaign season. Democrats would only be able to offer promises to find a better way, which won’t convince anybody.

By this time next year, they must be able to articulate a clearly defined better way. Keeping to Shumlin’s timetable would risk immense harm to the Democratic Party in 2016. I suspect that Mr. Speaker isn’t willing to take that risk, even if the alternative is to throw shade on his own Governor.

Mind you, everyone — including Smith — wants VHC to work. They want all of this talk and speculation to be rendered moot. Smith doesn’t want to part ways with the Governor, and hopes he doesn’t have to take that step. But if May 31 comes and goes, he is prepared to move in another direction whether the Governor likes it or not.

The nice and the necessary

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Congrats to the House Republican Caucus, which finally came up with something like a budget plan, on the very day the House Appropriations Committee passed a budget. Three observations to begin:

— The committee vote was 11-0. Even so, the Republicans were lambasting the budget even before the vote was taken. Are the committee’s Republican members hypocrites, or is it harder to be a simple-minded partisan when the rubber hits the road and you’re in a small room with your Democratic colleagues, than when you’re facing the camera with fellow Republicans?

— The Republicans clearly didn’t take the budget-writing process very seriously, since they waited until Approps had finished its work before offering a single specific cut. Even worse, during the process Republicans frequently objected to cuts proposed by Democrats — again, without suggesting alternatives.

— The Republicans’ budget plan is unworkable on its face. Its major initiative is a call for zero growth, but that’s (a) impossible because some programs are growing, like it or not (Lake Champlain cleanup, for instance), and (b) an abdication of the Legislature’s responsibility to draw up a budget. The responsible course, as Approps chair Mitzi Johnson has pointed out, is to fulfill the legislature’s duty and make the hard choices. Across-the-board slashing is the coward’s way out.

The GOP caucus did identify some cuts they’d like to make — finally. Most of them are short-sighted as well as mean-spirited:

The cuts [House Minority Leader Don] Turner put on the table Monday include eliminating grants to substance abuse recovery centers, scrapping a childcare subsidy for poor mothers, cutting funding for state colleges by 1 percent, and taking $5 million from a fund that would otherwise provide college aid to Vermont students.

Republicans also say spending reductions on items such as the renter rebate, financial assistance for health insurance and the Vermont Women’s Commission are preferable to increasing revenues that would otherwise be needed to fund levels recommended for those programs in Gov. Peter Shumlin’s budget.

Okay, let’s make it harder for addicts to get clean, harder for poor mothers to hold down a job, make higher education less affordable, and make health insurance less accessible. All those cuts would save money in the short term, but cause even more expensive social damage in the long term. The Democrats are trying to walk a fine line, and craft a budget that’s not fiscally irresponsible while still helping to make Vermont a better place to live.

Which brings me to something that Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning said last Friday on The Mark Johnson Show. I don’t have the exact quote, but the gist was, “There are things that are necessary, and things that are ‘nice.’ At a time like this, we cannot do the things that are ‘nice.'”

That sounds good and responsible, but the devil is in the definitions.

Do you think low-income heating assistance is nice or necessary?

How about broadening access to health care? A social obligation, or an extra?

Let’s talk substance abuse treatment, at a time when Vermont is in the throes of an addiction epidemic. Necessary or nice?

The good Senator apparently believes all these things fall into the “nice” category. Many of us don’t agree.

Okay, now let’s look at some items that aren’t on the Republican cut list — and weren’t on the Democrats’ either, for that matter. Necessary or nice — you make the call!

— The state giving $2.5 million to GlobalFoundries, a move that will do nothing to keep the company in the state. On a worldwide corporate scale, that’s nothing. It amounts to a burnt offering meant to propitiate the corporate gods. And it takes a big leap of faith to think it’ll have any effect whatsoever. Necessary?

— The state continuing to let unclaimed bottle deposits go to bottling companies. That’s a $2 million item, I’ve been told. Is that a necessary giveaway? Hell, I wouldn’t even class that one as “nice.” “Noxious” is closer to the mark.

— When ski resorts purchase major equipment, they don’t have to pay sales tax. That’s another $2 million a year. Is that necessary, in any definition of the word?

— For that matter, we’re letting the ski industry make a fortune thanks in large part to bargain-basement leases of public lands. The industry is understandably loath to reopen the leases, but there are ways to get it done. Instead, we’re letting them ride. Necessary? Hell no. Nice? Only for the resort owners.

— Vermont is one of only a handful of states that exempts dietary supplements from the sales tax. Nice or necessary?

In addition, the state gives quite a bit of money in small grants to private and corporate groups. Here’s a few examples:

— The Vermont Technology Alliance gets a $52,250 grant. Why?

— The Vermont Captive Insurance Association gets $50,000 to pay for “promotional assistance.” I realize the industry is a strong positive for Vermont, but the grant is certainly not necessary.

— The Vermont Ski Areas Association gets $28,500. This is the same group that refuses to reopen the leases. Why are we rewarding their intransigence?

That’s just a few I happen to know about. I’m sure there’s lots more. Are grants to industry “necessary” or “nice”? If we’re asking the poor and downtrodden to take major hits to the social safety net, couldn’t we ask our industries to accept at least a haircut?

And if we want to promote business in Vermont, why not take back all these penny-ante grants, put part of the money into a coordinated statewide campaign (like the one proposed by Lt. Gov. Phil Scott’s economic-development crew) and bank the rest?

Also, the state Senate is considering a bill that would make Vermont’s economic development incentives easier to access. Supporters, such as Republican Sen. Kevin Mullin, posit the bill as an investment in Vermont’s future. 

Which is fine. But so is increasing access to higher education, providing child care for working mothers, and helping addicts get clean. Those social programs aren’t just “giveaways,” they are investments in a safer, healthier, more productive Vermont.

Unfortunately, they are investments on behalf of Vermont’s voiceless. LIHEAP recipients and working mothers and addicts and prison inmates can’t hire lobbyists or mount a PR campaign. So we too often fail to invest in them, while we’re more than happy to invest in corporations that might or might not use the money productively — but in either case, it’s definitely in the “nice” category, not the “necessary.”

So you see, Senator Benning, I agree with you. I just have different definitions of “necessary” and “nice.”

A slight but perceptible bend in the glass ceiling

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The House and Senate Democrats will caucus tomorrow (Saturday) in Montpelier to choose their nominees for leadership positions. It’s been radio silence on the Senate side, which I take as a bad sign, but some news has come out of the House.

And for gender equity fans, the news is good.

As you may recall, Vermont does very well on gender equity in the House, less well in the Senate, and very poorly in statewide elective office and Congressional seats. Like, for instance, we’ve never sent a woman to Congress. Which is, well, shameful.

Back to the House, where Shap Smith will return as Speaker; but the new House Majority Leader, according to Seven Days’ Paul Heintz, will be Sarah Copeland Hanzas of Bradford. What’s even better for equity’s sake is that the other candidate for the post was also female: Kesha Ram of Burlington. Having two women in line for the House’s number-2 slot is a very good sign.

Ram dropped out, per Heintz, citing the need for geographic balance. She will apparently fill a new post, “caucus election chair,” which is being created to sharpen Democratic messaging and lend a hand to House candidates.

Those developments, plus Kate Webb returning as Whip, mean that women will be heavily represented on the House leadership team. And whenever Shap gets tired of herding cats, the next Speaker may well be a woman.

Over in the Old Farts’ Club, er, I mean the Senate, I’m not feeling the gender-equity love. I’d be very happy to be proven wrong, but I’m expecting the leadership in Vermont’s Most Stagnant Deliberative Body to remain pretty much the same.

I love my little gavel, but this job is sooooo hard.

I love my little gavel, but this job is sooooo hard.

By all accounts, John Campbell will keep the job as President Pro Tem in spite of the fact that he isn’t very effective unless he has a nanny to keep him in line. After the disastrous 2012 session, he hired Rebecca Ramos as his chief of staff, and things improved. She’s now a lobbyist, and according (again) to Paul Heintz, Erika Wolffing will take the job.

Wolffing was a Shumlin administration fixture who went to the Democratic Governors Association when Shumlin became its chair. Now that Shumlin is out at the DGA, Wolffling will reportedly become the hand that rocks Campbell’s cradle.

Which leaves me wondering why we let him hang around when he (a) apparently can’t handle the job without a lot of help and (b) openly supported Republican Phil Scott and seized every opportunity to shit on Dean Corren. But maybe that’s just me.

I’m sure the status quo will remain in the Phil Scott Fan Club, er, I mean, the Committee on Committees, the body that makes all the committee assignments. Phil Scott himself is a member by law, as is Campbell. The third, elected by the full Senate, is, was, and ever shall be Dick Mazza, a putative Democrat who was extremely vociferous in his support for Phil Scott.

Which leaves me wondering why, when the Dems have a nearly 2-1 majority, we have to settle for nominal Democrats on that very powerful committee.

The Democratic caucus will see some change with the none-too-soon departures of Bob Hartwell and Peter Galbraith, but I’d be surprised to see much happen with the leadership. It’d be nice, but I ain’t holding my breath.

Finally, for those who think I’m too mean to Mr. Campbell, here’s a little tidbit from last March. Campbell had stuck his foot in his mouth by openly doubting the prospects for single payer health care and talking about pursuing some alternative plan. (Bear in mind that Shumlin was still riding high at that point.) This reportedly enraged the governor. And a few days later, Campbell appeared on WDEV”s Mark Johnson Show and tried to walk back his earlier statement.

It was a complete fiasco. At one point Johnson asked him this question: “You dropped something of a bombshell this week that you want to start pursuing an alternative to the Shumlin health care plan. Why?”

And here, really and truly, was his answer in all its obfuscatory glory.

First of all, I guess it’s a question of how you define what my “bombshell” is. I think some people have taken it to mean what they really, what they want to hear from what I said. And basically, my, uh, my position is this, is that we are headed right now as far as the Legislature, we are going to be focusing on making sure that we have a publicly-financed, universal access to health care in this state, and that’s known as Green Mountain Care. As far as I’m concerned, I consider it Green Mountain Care, it’s a universal access program. Um, um, I charged my, in fact we spoke about it here on this program at the beginning, I think at the beginning of the session, how I had asked all of my committees with jurisdiction to start doing their due diligence under Act 48, which was the, back in 2011, which actually started Green Mountain Care or our, ah, our, ah, move to that.  And so what I did was, I asked each one of the committees that would have jurisdiction, which were five of those committees, and they were to um look and see what exactly is in Act 48 and can we actually achieve what our goal is?

And if they found things that um, through their, uh, their research and through taking testimony, that could either change this into a direction and put us in a direction that we were going to uh have this Green Mountain Care would be sustainable, then I wanted to hear about it and I thought that’s really what the Senate is doing now. So uh the fact of the matter, uh, I believe there was a statement was, um, regarding the funding, and whether or not I believed that, I think I said that, uh, the $2.2 billion dollar package that’s been put on there right now, I said I do not think that that was sustainable or viable in this, uh, current legislative — uh, Legislature. And I stand by that.

And what it, what I’m talking about in that, and people always take that $2.2 billion dollar figure, and they believe that that’s all new money. And it’s not new money. What it is is partially savings that would be found, uh, by way of not having the premiums, um, by cost savings, and so I stand by the fact is that once we find out what this financing package is, which would also first identify what the product is gonna be, um, if we do not have sufficient — if that money, um, is new money, then there’s gonna be a problem. But if we show, and we’re able to demonstrate that the money in that $2.2 billion is currently already in the system, and that Vermonters are already paying, uh, and on top of that, that we find those costs for any new money that’s — cost savings for any new money that’s coming in, then we’re, we have, I think, ahh, what we envision, all of us envision, that is to make sure that every Vermonter has full access, or access to. uh, uh, to great health care here in the state.

Good God almighty. What a statesman.

David Mears seems like a nice guy

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DEC Commissioner David Mears was on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show this morning, mostly talking Lake Champlain cleanup. I’ve been, shall we say, somewhat critical of the Shumlin administration’s response to Champlain’s deteriorating water quality (recent post was entitled “At this rate, Lake Champlain will be cleaned up about the time the sun goes nova and the Earth becomes a cold, dead husk,” which I guess could be taken as critical). So I wanted to hear what he had to say.

The face of earnest concern.

The face of earnest concern.

And a lot of it sounded reasonable. He does, however, have a problem: the cynicism of people like me is based on decades of neglect and delay by multiple administrations — and the bare fact that the current Powers That Be are being forced to act by the feds. So pardon us if we don’t accept bland assurances at face value.

First, he made an important correction. Many news outlets reported (and I echoed the reports) that the Shumlin administration had proposed new levies on “impervious development” and agricultural fertilizers that would raise about $1 million per year for Champlain mitigation. Which is a drop in the bucket.

Well, according to Mears, the $1 million figure was a “for example” number, and the administration actually intendes to set the levies at rates that would produce $4 million to $6 million per year. Mears describes this as “seed money.” And while it still seems rather small, it’s a lot bigger than I thought. (See note at end of this post.)

Overall, Mears made a good case for the administration’s dedication to the issue. And at one point he said, “We’re used to fighting on this issue” in a way that seemed to lay the adversarial blame on both sides.

To which I’d point out that the last two administrations, at least, have been dragged kicking and screaming into taking any action whatsoever. The Conservation Law Foundation’s lawsuit against the state, for violating the Clean Water Act regarding Lake Champlain, was first filed in 2008. And that came after years of diligent efforts to convince state government to live up to its responsibilities without an expensive court battle. So if “we’re used to fighting,” it’s not because the environmental community is feeling a bit stroppy — it’s because they’ve been consistently stonewalled by state  government. There’s been little or no cooperation, at least as far as we can tell in public.

When such obstructionism is practiced by a Republican government, we’re disappointed but not terribly surprised. When it’s done by a Democratic administration that professes to hold a strong environmental ethic, it seems like a betrayal of shared ideals. And it’s the plain truth that the current administration has slow-played the issue to a crawl, even as Champlain’s quality continues to degrade.

Mears’ presentation fell short in some key areas. When Johnson (who did an excellent job holding Mears’ feet to the fire, by the way) asked about items like Ag Secretary Chuck Ross’ decision not to mandate “best practices” for farms near Mississquoi Bay and the potential laying of a natural gas pipeline under the lake, Mears ducked the questions, saying it wasn’t his responsibility.

Well, yes. But as Johnson pointed out, Lake Champlain is his responsibility. We should expect him to be fully informed on issues that affect water quality even if they’re not primarily in his bailiwick.

I came away from the interview with a greater appreciation for the nuances of the issue, and for the administration’s interest in addressing it. But there’s a whole lot of history to overcome regarding Lake Champlain — and regarding the administration’s often-slippery relationship with the truth.

In short, telling me about your plans and dedication isn’t enough. You’ve got to show me.

 

Postscript. In the interview, Mears noted that he’d been in contact with reporters to correct initial reporting that proposed levies on fertilizers and “impervious development” would raise $1 million per year, rather than the administration’s target of $4 million to $6 million per year. 

Well, Mr. Commissioner, nobody ever contacted me. I realize that I don’t know everything about state government, and my ignorance sometimes results in errors. I am always open to correcting any errors in the most transparent way possible. But rarely, if ever, do I get feedback from the administration. (Generally speaking, I get more feedback from Republicans than Democrats.) Now, I’m not as high on the pecking order as your established media, but I would rather be corrected than allow a mistake to remain in place. I may be a partisan blogger, but I do have a sense of responsibility.