VPIRG’s 2015-2016 Legislative Scorecard VPIRG produces a scorecard of key votes at the conclusion of each legislative biennium. You To find out who represents you and can use this year’s scorecard to find out how your representatives in the Vermont House and their contact information visit Senate voted on important public interest issues including – climate solutions, clean energy, legislature.vermont.gov/people voting rights, toxic chemical disclosure, health care and others. S.139 Health Care Reforms H.40 - Renewable Energy Standard S.20 - Dental Therapists Public Interest Vote: YES Public Interest Vote: YES Public Interest Vote: YES One of the very last bills to be passed by the One of the last bills to pass in the 2015 session This bill allows dental therapists (mid-level dental Vermont legislature in 2015 included a number of was this critical renewable energy bill requiring providers that can perform more procedures important VPIRG backed reforms to improve our Vermont utilities to provide their customers with than a hygienist, but fewer procedures than a health care system – such as requiring insurers renewable electricity, and ensuring at least 400 dentist) to practice in Vermont. This will expand to give Vermonters the information they need to MW of new renewables will be built in Vermont Vermont’s dental workforce leading to reduced be able to shop for the best prices on health care over the next 15 years. The RES also requires travel and wait times for Vermonters and giving services. electric utilities to help Vermonters cut their fossil more people in underserved communities the fuel use for heating and transportation, which will care they need. This bill passed the Senate in S.73 - Rent-to-Own help a projected 85,000 Vermont families invest 2015 on an 18 – 8 vote, and the House in 2016 Public Interest Vote: YES in energy upgrades like weatherization, and save by a 109-32 margin. This law, passed in 2015, reins in the rent-to-own Vermonters an estimated $390 million. industry. It puts caps on how much rent-to-own H. 861 - Treated Article Pesticides merchants can mark up their products and guar- H.40 – Amendment Eliminating Tier Public Interest Vote: YES antees that customers will not have to pay full Seeds treated with neonicotinoid pesticides have price for used items. It also ensures consumers 3 Efficiency been shown to be harmful to bees and other don’t lose what they have invested in an item just Public Interest Vote: NO pollinators, but until now the state did not have because they miss a payment. Arguably the most important provision of the Re- the authority to regulate them. This legislation will newable Energy Standard bill was “Tier 3” – the give the state the ability to take necessary action H.4 – Banning Microbeads requirement that electric utilities help Vermonters to protect pollinators and our environment from cut their fossil fuel use and bills in the heating and treated article pesticides such as coated seeds. in Vermont transportation sectors. In a shortsighted move Public Interest Vote: YES which would have increased Vermonters’ energy One of the first bills of substance to be voted on costs by an estimated $390 million, an attempt H.620 - Access to Contraceptives 2015, H.4 passed the House of Representatives was made to strip this innovative program out of Public Interest Vote: YES 140-0 as legislators gave a resounding thumbs the bill. VPIRG worked closely with our partners at down to plastic microbeads in personal care Planned Parenthood to pass legislation that will products. A flurry of state action on the issue led improve access to birth control for all Vermont- the U.S. Congress to pass a bill banning microbe- H.40 – Amendment Local/Abutter ers. Because of this law, Vermonters are now ads that was signed into law by President Obama Clean Energy Virtual Veto guaranteed access to contraceptives beyond in December of 2015. Public Interest Vote: NO what’s covered in the Affordable Care Act, In another attempt to slow clean energy, this including vasectomies. Women will now be able S.29 – Election Day Voter provision would have given both the munici- to get up to a full year’s prescription for oral contraceptives, and it will be easier to access Registration pality a renewable project is located in and any “landowner whose property adjoins or is affected long acting reversible contraceptives, which have Public Interest Vote: YES by the proposed plant” broad authority to stop been shown to dramatically reduce unplanned This bill -- which passed the House 87-54 and the renewable projects from being built. pregnancies. Senate 20-7 – will allow voters to register to vote on Election Day in Vermont, starting in 2017. In the dozen other states that have allowed voters H.R. 13 – Divestment to register on Election Day, voter turnout is a Public Interest Vote: YES whopping 10% higher on average. VPIRG and our allies successfully pushed for the House of Representatives to pass a resolution Legislators were scored based on whether that urged State Treasurer Beth Pearce to care- fully consider the case for divesting Vermont’s HOW TO READ or not their vote was in the public interest. pension funds from coal and ExxonMobil stocks. THIS SCORECARD This led the Vermont Pension Investment A = the legislator was ABSENT Committee, which Treasurer Pearce vice-chairs, for the vote to form a subcommittee dedicated to studying divestment, in collaboration with divestment = FOR the public interest position N/A = the legislator was not in 8 advocates – providing a possible path to fossil office at the time of the vote fuel divestment in the near future. 8 P = Legislator did not vote because = AGAINST the public interest he/she was PRESIDING over the NOTE: “A” “N/A” and “P” were not chamber for that vote counted toward the total score listed for a legislator. VPIRG’S 2015-2016 LEGISLATIVE SCORECARD - 1 H.40 -Local/Abutter Veto HOUSE S.139-Health Care Reforms S.29 -Election Day Voter Reg. S.20 -Dental Therapists H. 861- Treated Article Pesticides Score S.73 -Rent-to-Own H.4 -Banning Microbeads H.40 -Renewable Energy StandardH.40- Eliminating Tier 3 Efficiency H.620 -Access to ContraceptivesH.R.- 13 Divestment H. -485 Automatic Voter Reg.S.260 Rules Suspension ADDISON Betty A. Nuovo (D) 888888888888 A 100% Amy Sheldon (D/P) 8 8 8 2 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 92% Willem Jewett (D) 8888888888888 100% Diane Lanpher (D) 8 8 8 8 8 A 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 100% Warren Van Wyck (R) A 8 8 2 2 2 8 2 2 2 2 8 2 33% Fred Baser (R) 8 8 8 8 8 2 2 8 8 8 A 8 2 75% David Sharpe (D) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 A 8 100% Harvey Smith (R) 2 8 8 2 2 2 2 8 2 8 2 8 2 38% ADDISON-RUTLAND Alyson Eastman (I) 8 8 8 2 8 2 2 8 8 8 2 A 8 67% BENNINGTON William Botzow (D) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 A 8 8 100% Timothy R. Corcoran (D) 2 8 8 2 8 8 8 2 8 8 2 8 8 69% Rachel Fields (D) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 A 8 8 8 8 8 100% Ruqaiyah Morris (D) 8888888888888 100% Mary A. Morrissev (R) 2 8 8 2 2 2 2 2 8 2 A 8 2 33% Alice Miller (D) 8 8 8 2 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 A A 91% Steven Berry (D) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 A A 91% Cynthia Browning (D) 2 8 8 A 2 2 2 8 8 8 2 8 8 58% BENNINGTON-RUTLAND Patricia Komline (R) 8 8 8 2 2 2 2 8 8 8 2 8 A 58% CALEDONIA Marcia Martel (R) 2 2 8 2 2 2 2 2 8 2 2 8 2 23% Joseph Troiano (D) 8888888888888 100% Scott Beck (R) 2 2 8 8 8 2 2 2 8 8 2 A 2 42% Janssen Willhoit (R) 2 2 8 2 2 2 2 2 8 2 A 8 2 25% Martha Feltus (R) 2 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 2 8 2 77% Richard Lawrence (R) 2 8 8 2 8 2 2 8 8 8 2 8 2 54% CALEDONIA - WASHINGTON Catherine Toll (D) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 2 8 8 8 8 A 92% H. 458 - Automatic Voter S.260 - Rules Suspension – Defending Clean Energy Registration Public Interest Vote: YES Public Interest Vote: YES S.230 Override – Putting the Brakes on Clean Energy Vermont became the 4th state in the nation to Public Interest Vote: NO adopt an Automatic Voter Registration law, effec- In the closing days of the 2016 session, the legislature passed S.230 -- a bill designed to empower tive in 2017. This brings voter registration into the towns and regions to take a greater role, and have a greater say, in our clean energy transition – pro- modern era by automatically registering Vermont vided they write plans that advance Vermont’s renewable energy and climate goals. Further analysis of citizens as voters when they apply for or renew S.230 showed that changes added at the last minute would have inadvertently put a one-year moratori- their driver’s license at the Department of Motor um on wind. That led Gov.