By Guy and Tim Page
A House bill introduced March 1 would have plans in place by 2026 to overhaul the entire Vermont economy into a “regenerative economy.”
The bill would task 11 regional People’s Assemblies to create a Regenerative Economy Roadmap that would make Vermont a 90% Regenerative Economy by 2046.
One of H.435’s lead co-sponsors comes as no surprise to State House observers: Rep. Brian Cina, a Burlington Progressive who since taking his seat in January, 2019 has sponsored or co-sponsored several hundred bills, many of them aspirational in a progressive vein. The colorful, outspoken Cina has sponsored 89 bills in 2023 alone.
But Cina’s legislative successes (when they happen) usually are a result of dozens of other lawmakers and stakeholders getting behind his initiative. He’s an adept catalyst and provocateur. What he’s not is a key legislative decision-maker.
But Amy Sheldon is.
Sheldon, chair of the House Environment and Energy Committee, is as low-key as Cina is outgoing. A natural resources consultant with a Masters Degree in resource planning, Sheldon is deadly serious about environmental transformation. She will – and has – spent not months but years leading committees under her jurisdiction to pass transformative legislation. She chaired the House committee that has spent half a decade on rewriting Act 250, the state’s landmark environmental planning bill.
Last session she was the sole sponsor of a bill to fund a planning study for conserving 50% of all total land area from development. After lengthy testimony in her committee, she shepherded the bill through the House and the Senate – only to see it vetoed by Gov. Phil Scott.
Undeterred, she reintroduced the bill again this year as H.126, community resilience and biodiversity protection, and has spent many hours of committee time reviewing it. It passed the committee on March 1 and was sent to the House Appropriations Committee.
According to its introduction, H.435 would address claims that “the world is facing climate emergencies, mass extinction, and ecological collapse as a consequence of human economic activity over the past 400 years. These activities did not account for the full impact of the economy on the environment and on society. In order to survive these changes, Vermont must build resiliency and create a roadmap for a just transition from an extractive economy to a new economy that repairs and restores the Earth.”
Also, the bill states: “There will not be economic justice without racial justice and social equity, and the new economy must recognize and rectify the intersection of systemized oppressions,” and openly calls for the creation of local “People’s Assemblies.”
Much of the bill reads like classic Cina – for example, “The world is facing climate emergencies, mass extinction, and ecological collapse as a consequence of human economic activity over the past 400 years.”
But it also has a 32-point punch list of detailed wonkiness describing how Vermont must change its energy use, childcare, education, healthcare, and housing (and much more) to achieve the 90% Regenerative Economy. That part sounds more like Sheldon.
Will Sheldon put this bill on the back-burner of aspirational legislation? Or will she – as she has already twice done – use the Power of the Chair to make change happen? When H.435 appears on her committee agenda for more than a hearing or two, the public will have its answer.
But here’s a clue, maybe – the same day H.126 (protecting 50% of all land from development) was voted out of her committee, she and Cina introduced H435. One would-be transformative task done, has she begun another?
Guy Page is publisher of the Vermont Daily Chronicle. Reprinted with permission.
So in a previous article a leader was opining that the dems were dividing.
Does not seem to be the case here. Seems like they are unbelievably determined to usher the United Nations agenda and take complete control of all property, development and business by any means neccessary.
Lord, please help us. May you grant us truth, wisdom and justice.
That’s rich, the ones responsible for ruining the economy are going to invent a new economy. The only way business flourishes is when the government GETS OUT OF THE WAY… No amount of equality and race promotion will fix what the legislature has ruined with tax and regulation. Of course communist have no idea about how capitalism works.
Hopefully these Heavyweights got all their boosters.
Perfect a regenerative economy for a degenerate state.
More socialist green BS. We should be doing the same thing as eastern Oregon and divorcing from VT to join NH.
Globalist hyperbole written in the form of legislation. The worshippers of Yuval Noah Harari doing exactly what they are ordered to do by their Masters. They are nothing but puppets regeratating scripted talking points, actively participating in depopulation genocide agendas, and more than likely will be recipients of their own prophetic doomsday rhetoric. Boomerang incoming.
A quote from Yuval Noah Harari:
“Since 1945, not a single internationally recognized country was wiped off the map by external invasion.This is a fantastic achievement, which is the basis for everything we have: for our medical services, for the education system, and this is all now in jeopardy. Because of this era of peace, it wasn’t a result of some miracle. It wasn’t a result of the change in the laws of nature: it is humans making better decisions and building better institutions.”
No Yuval, it was the result of two atomic weapons detonated on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Isn’t it frightening that anyone pays attention to this idiot?
Turning VT in to a “Re-generative” state is just Socialism on steroids, bordering on a totalitarian dictatorship. “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”.. All this will lead to is a financial crisis in VT….”Regenerative Climate Socialism” will just lead to “Re-locating for Sanity”…people will leave. And it will start with the upper incomes who already pay the majority of all VT taxes – for the these Climate Socialist, wastrel, non producers. It will also create a “re-pulsion” or “re-thinking” of anyone to move to VT or a business thinking of coming here. Soon enough , VT will collapse under a fiscal/debt nightmare. VT can’t figure out out to fund & pay a $4.5 billion Union unfunded liability…all that matters is the funding of the Cult of Climate Change – to “Save the World”? Those were Sen. MacDonald’s own words, verbatim.. Basically, you don’t want to be in VT much longer. Get out while you can. The Super Majority Totalitarians rule your life now….and you are only on this earth once. Why stay? Get out, be happy, safe, and money happy..you get to keep it then 🙂
The Vermont economy cannot regenerate under the heavy wet blanket of government command and control and taxation; a pure pipe dream
All states in the US that are doing well emphasize PRIVATE ENTERPRISE FOR REGENERATING THEIR ECONOMIES
NO ADDITIONAL PROOF AND STUDIES ARE NEEDED