vermont

Worries about health effects, privacy and cost are fueling growing opposition to wireless, digital "smart meters" that utilities around the country are installing on homes and businesses and touting as key energy conservation and grid reliability tools.  WAMC’s Tristan O’Neill reports…

Vermont appears poised to take an unusually aggressive stance. While several states have allowed utilities to charge a fee to customers who want to opt out of smart meters, Vermont's governor is expected soon to sign legislation that would allow customers to say no without paying anything extra.

Vermont lawmakers have completed the arduous process of redrawing legislative district maps for the next 10 years.  WAMC’s North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley reports…

Reapportionment happens once a decade to accommodate shifts in population, and in keeping with those shifts during the past decade, Burlington is gaining a House seat, while Rutland County is losing one. Other changes are being made as well.

Another Republican is entering the race for governor of Vermont.  WAMC's North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley reports...

Roy Newton, a Rutland area publisher, announced Wednesday that he plans to be on the GOP primary ballot in August.

Newton is challenging Sen. Randy Brock for the Republican nomination. Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin has not said whether he will run for reelection.

WCAX-TV reports that Newton is the founder of the Vermont Ski Museum and runs several small publications in the Rutland area, including the Rutland Sun.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin is hailing what he calls good news on the corrections front: Vermont has seen a reduction in its prison population, while its crime rates also are down.  WAMC’s Pat Bradley reports…

Numbers released on Wednesday show Vermont's inmate population has dropped by more than 140 since 2008, to 2,059 people behind bars. It had been projected to grow by 26 percent between 2008 and 2018.

Backers of marijuana decriminalization have failed in their effort to bring the measure to the full Vermont House for a vote.  WAMC’s North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley reports…

The measure had been held up in the House Judiciary Committee, with House Speaker Shap Smith opposed to it.

On Tuesday, Representative Oliver Olsen, a Jamaica Republican, called for a vote in the House to pull the bill out of committee and bring it to the floor for debate. That motion failed on a vote of 119 to 21.

Vermont is planning to expand a program that connects schools to local farms.  WAMC's Tristan O'Neill reports...

Since 2006, the Vermont Farm to School program has provided nearly 50 Vermont schools with funding to get more nutritious food into cafeterias and nutrition and agriculture education into classrooms.

Vermont is embroiled in a debate over ending the philosophical exemption that allows parents to have their kids skip childhood immunizations required for attending school.  WAMC's Tristan O'Neill reports...

The state Senate voted 25-4 recently to end the exemption, while the House has voted 93-36 to preserve it.

Vermont is among the highest states in the number of parents who exempt their children from immunizations. State health officials say Vermont had 102 pertussis cases between January and the first week of April, more than were reported in the state all last year.

Legislative leaders say Vermont lawmakers won't be going home for the year this coming Friday, as they originally had hoped.  WAMC’s Tristan O’Neill reports…

But they're still technically ahead of schedule. The Legislature budgeted for 18 weeks this year, and this coming week will be their 16th in session.

House Speaker Shap Smith and Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell say lawmakers should plan on being in session through the first week in May, possibly including Saturday the 5th.

This could be the climactic week in an effort by some Vermont lawmakers to get the Legislature to intervene in the proposed merger of Vermont's two largest electric utilities.  WAMC's Tristan O'Neill reports...

The House may be asked to debate a measure that would have the Legislature direct the Public Service Board on how $21 million is repaid to customers of Central Vermont Public Service Corp.

The Vermont House has passed a resolution calling on the U.S. Congress to start the process of amending the federal Constitution to reverse a 2010 Supreme Court decision expanding the rights of corporations to influence political campaigns.  WAMC's Tristan O'Neill reports...

The 92-40 vote on Thursday came after more than two hours of debate in which supporters said corporate money has come to distort the political process in the United States. Opponents called the effort an assault on First Amendment freedoms.

The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources says the emergency rules that allowed people to work in the state's rivers and streams to help clean up after Tropical Storm Irene are no longer valid.  WAMC’s North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley reports…

Effective immediately, anyone who wants to work in a waterway must comply with all rules and regulations and get a permit from a state river engineer.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin has reversed a position pushed by his administration earlier this year and has come out in favor of continuing to allow parents to opt out of having their kids vaccinated for philosophical reasons.  WAMC’s Tristan O’Neill reports…

For the next six months some Vermont cellular telephone users will be able to text 911 emergency calls for help.  WAMC’s North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley reports…

Vermont's Enhanced 911 Board says that Verizon Wireless customers will be able to send a text message to 911 that will be answered at a public service answering point in Williston.

The people who receive the messages will coordinate the emergency response with the appropriate agency.

The United States Air Force will hold a public hearing next month on a plan to add F-35A fighter jets to the Vermont Air National Guard base in South Burlington.  WAMC's Tristan O’Neill reports…

The public has 45 days to comment on the draft environmental impact statement that was released on Friday.

The Air Force is looking at several different scenarios for where the jets would be based. Burlington is one of two preferred locations.

The Vermont House is expected to be the scene of some heated debate Tuesday over a plan to redraw legislative district, with a focus on where district lines should be drawn in the city of Burlington.  WAMC's Tristan O'Neill reports...

Redistricting is done every 10 years after the census shows where population shifts have occurred in the state. Both the House and Senate have been working to make sure the boundaries of their districts result in every Vermont voter getting roughly equal representation in Montpelier.

A Vermont House committee has reversed a Senate action and reinstated the philosophical exemption for parents who don't want to meet requirements that their kids get vaccinations before attending school or child care.  WAMC's Tristan O'Neill reports...

The Senate passed a bill — hotly opposed by some parents — that ended the philosophical exemption that allowed parents to let their children skip some or all immunizations on a state Health Department list of those kids should get before attending school.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin has signed into law an overhaul of the state's mental health system.  WAMC's Pat Bradley reports...

Wednesday's bill signing was the culmination of a process that got underway in earnest after Tropical Storm Irene in late August flooded and forced the closing of the Vermont State Hospital.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin is promising to work with municipal officials and business owners to bring new jobs to the Bennington area.  WAMC's North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley reports…

Shumlin spoke Monday at a luncheon sponsored by the Bennington County Regional Commission.

He says long-term improvements in infrastructure, education and a renewed focus on agriculture will increase the number of jobs and lead to wage increases for employees who have suffered from stagnant earnings.

A Vermont judge has ordered a Texas debt settlement company to pay a fine of $2 million in a consumer fraud case.  WAMC’s North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley reports...

Credit Solutions of America also must pay full refunds to 207 Vermonters totaling about $350,000.

The Vermont attorney general's office had sued both CSA of Dallas and its owner, Doug Van Arsdale, in July 2010, accusing them of using unsubstantiated claims that people can reduce their debt "in 60 seconds" to advertise its services.