From the State House

March 16, 2022  |  By Rep. Tom Stevens 

The House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs approached the deadline of “crossover” at a high rate of speed. 

We passed a bill, H.517, that will help the Vermont National Guard retain recruits by offering an extension of an already existing tuition assistance program. 

We also passed a committee bill that will make some technical corrections to our alcohol laws, and which also included the permission to allow Ready to Drink (RTD) cocktails to be sold in general stores alongside beer and wine. These are spirits based drinks that are currently only available in our 802 Spirits stores. We are aware that there will be an immediate decrease in tax income to the Department of Liquor and Lottery, and that the Ways and Means committee will take a hard look at it in the coming week.

We passed a bill that would enable “natural organic reduction” to be a legal form of final disposition of human remains. The advocates for both funeral directors and cemetery associations testified in favor of the bill. Essentially, a body is composted and added to filler and can produce up to a cubic yard of compost. In states where this process has recently been embarked upon, the compost is no longer considered “human” after processing (it is heated and disinfected) and is usually donated to conservation sites, with some compost reserved for the family, if it so wishes. 

There are currently no facilities to do this in the state, but this enabling legislation would allow a facility to be built for this purpose. Reasons for supporting this from the cemetery and funeral director’s association include an impending lack of space for cemeteries and, as seen during the pandemic, a numerical switch in preferences from conventional funerals to cremation, and cremation itself requires a lot of carbon based fuel. We expect natural organic reduction to become another option for Vermonters who wish to not leave a large footprint on the earth after they die.

The committee passed H.96, our proposal to create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Vermont as a follow up to our apology last year, JRH 2, for the General Assembly’s role in the eugenics policies of the 20th century. This commission is proposed to be made up of professional commissioners and staff who would lead studies, interviews and public events that would give our Native population, our disabled communities and our population of people with color an opportunity to describe the harms our governmental system has caused them through our work, and will provide a reckoning and understanding for those of us who do not fit into those populations.

It is long past time we found a way to describe and define those harms, and to seek a way to reconcile with those populations and to be accountable for our policies. This commission, if approved, would take some time to set up, with the real work starting in about a year. It is currently in the Appropriations Committee, which is looking for a way to fund this process.

There are a handful of priorities that did not make crossover, but we will continue to work on them in a way that may help get them passed in the waning days of the biennium.

As always, please reach out with comments or questions! My legislative email is tstevens@leg.state.vt.us.

Rep. Tom Stevens, D-Waterbury, along with Rep. Theresa Wood, D-Waterbury, represents the Washington-Chittenden House District covering Waterbury, Bolton, Huntington and Buel’s Gore. Stevens chairs the House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs.