No matter how much devastation takes place overseas, it just isn’t smart to take your eye off the ball here at home.  Inevitably, someone will be up to no good while the rest of us are distracted.  

Case in point:  the revelation in Seven Days that an effort is being made by former ANR officials  to quash a bill ensuring due process for aggrieved citizens.  The intention of this bill (H.258) is to provide opportunity for private individuals and citizen groups  to weigh-in on the enforcement of permit requirements.

Former Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, Tom Torti,  and former ANR chief counsel, Warren Coleman are in the lobbying business these days; Torti, as president of the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce; and Coleman as an operative of the lobbying firm of Mclean, Meehan & Rice .  Even as the ANR undergoes a brisk housecleaning in the wake of the new administration, these ex- public servants wasted no time before demonstrating that their loyalty lies with the developers and corporations rather than the people of Vermont.

 Shay Totten sums up their position in a nutshell:

Why do they object to the proposed bill? It’ll send the wrong message to Vermont’s polluters, er, businesses: that Vermont is not friendly to development

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Among Messr. Torti’s and Coleman’s handlers are some of the usual suspects.   As all Chambers of Commerce tend to get their marching orders from the U.S. C of C, we all know where their interests lie.  Other than a vague reference to complaints by “real estate developers” (I’ll just bet!), Mr. Coleman declined to share with Seven Days who exactly he is serving with his lobbying efforts in this case; but the general client list of Mclean Meehan & Rice includes both Vermont Yankee and Cabot (a.k.a. Agrimark.) Vermont Yankee’s interest in thwarting public participation in the review and enforcement process needs no explanation, as they make almost weekly appearances in GMD’s rogues gallery of environmental offenders.  

Agrimark/Cabot, as you may recall, has been dodging complaints by local residents concerning the true nature of material characterized as “dairy waste” that is routinely dispersed through spraying over farmlands. Under the Douglas administration, the ANR demonstrated great reluctance to consider those local complaints.

Besides Cabot and VY, the International Bottled Water Association is another client of MM&R that might have particular interest in frustrating participation by local citizens.

H.258 recognizes and enables the value that accessibility brings to the enforcement process.  State agencies do not always have the resources to vigilantly monitor permit requirements once they have been established.  As became  apparent at the ANR under Jim Douglas, sometimes the political culture gets in the way.  Passage of H.258 will ensure that, going forward, no matter who holds the reins of regulation in Vermont, the voices of concerned citizens will always have a place in the enforcement process.

That Torti and Coleman have so easily transitioned into industry shills from positions of power in the environmental permit system says a lot about the broken culture inside the Agency of Natural Resources throughout the Douglas years.  

I am just trying to imagine current ANR secretary, Deb Markowitz, and current chief counsel, Jon Groveman, as lobbyists for polluting industries.  Nope; it’s simply beyond the imagination.