Below is a list of bills passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Shumlin thusfar (there are a few more on the way).

Whatever we'd like to see happen that may not be happening, there's no denying that quite a bit is getting done. Some terrific stuff in here, for sure (I don't have links to all the bills, here – I'll try to fill them in a bit later). See after the flip for the list. I’ll go back and finish the links when I can.

A young classical guitarist named James Gram will be performing in concert Saturday June 4 at 7:30 p.m. at the Unitarian-Universalist Church, 130 Main Street in Montpelier.

I am told that he gets none of his musical talent from his father. Hopefully he’ll get some coverage, at least…

Most insiders are assuming that Republican Lt. Governor Phil Scott has no burning desire to stick out his political neck to run for Governor against Peter Shumlin, and will instead leave that to the likes of Auditor Salmon or Barre Mayor Lauzon (excuse me just a moment whilst I clean my monitor of the spittle generated by my hysterical laughter after typing that sentence). Of course, that also raises the issue of whether a Democrat may emerge to run against Scott for Lite Guv next yesr?

It’s a face-saving conceit that it’s too early to be talking seriously about running for Lieutenant Governor – except, of course, that it’s not. In fact, now is the time (after the first session of the biennium) when interested folks should start getting their names into trial-balloon circulation.

But there’s nary a peep. I’ve heard a couple names tossed out in a speculative manner, but they sound more like wishful thinking on behalf of the speculators, rather than actual buzz based on any meaningful talk.

The problem is, the incumbent is a tough opponent for any Democrat. One Statehouse insider joked to me that no one would want the “suicide mission” of running against him.

Scott comes in with a lot of advantages that are very, very hard to overcome in one of the “minor” statewide contests that don’t bring in a lot of earned media and money. He’s likable and liked, moderate, willing to work with people, and is a minor celebrity already, given his racing career. He tried on the role of angry partisan chest-thumper during the Senate’s vote on Vermont Yankee last year, but then left the role by the roadside when it wasn’t a good fit. He’s also the incumbent, and will have the name recognition thing all over any opponent.

Scott’s already the kind of opponent that takes a little more than just a by-the-numbers electoral effort. Steve Howard did that last year; organization, voter ID, message work, earned media, fundraising – and he did as well as could be expected. To beat Scott, a Democrat is going to have to bring something out-of-the-box to the table in an effort to catch fire. And he or she is going to have to raise a lot of money to keep the fires burning. (And yes, that’s a lot of mixed metaphors for a mere two sentences).

It can be done, but the question is: do any of our current crop of D’s in the political mix have what it takes to do it? If not, who goes out there just to make sure Scott is challenged so he doesn’t become a political juggernaut and simply graduate to the Governor’s position when the current Dem retires (as what happened with Jim Douglas, who went unchallenged in his final run as Treasurer).

So – who are you hearing, and barring that, who would you like to hear releasing trial balloons?

Been out looking at the damage. Downtown Montpelier flooded, but has drained. Rivers are still high, and some roads are in bad shape, but they’re open now. One of the two town rec fields (not the one where the Mountaineers play, the one near the interstate) is a complete lake, and it’s hard to imagine it not being a lake anytime soon. The main road up to the largest regional school has a 20 foot chasm in the middle of it with a torrential river running through it. The drainage pipe that had run under the pavement when the chasm was still a road is some 50 feet downstream, bent and partially lodged in a tree.

And it’s worse as you go towards Barre. In the section of Berlin that lies between, National Guard trucks are still about, and there is more road damage, as well as signs of significant commercial flooding. Lots of mud. I didn’t make it to Barre, but it sounds like a disaster. I saw pictures of entire roads destroyed.

Last Spring was no fun, but it wasn’t this bad. It was, however, a bit more nasty than usual in the south and midwest. All of which leads one to ask; is this an anomaly, or is spring really turning into this? Might this be a taste of the new normal, given that it’s consistent with what we’ve been told for years to expect from climate change?

Too early to make any conclusions perhaps, but it doesn’t feel too early to wonder anxiously.

I know cuz my neighbor banged on the door at 3 AM. Very Paul Revere. Heh.

The graph below is from cemetery curve downriver a bit from downtown, but the others aren’t much better (but they didn’t have projections).

The Health Care bill has been signed into law, believe it or not (and it’s garnering a lot of attention from outside the state). Now comes the fun part: implementation.

Governor Shumlin has also vetoed S.77, which would have required new drinking water wells to be tested for arsenic and several other contaminants starting in 2013, costing (likely) in the range of roughly $140 per well, based on the testing regime that survived the committee process.

The Governor’s comments: “We have a responsibility with every bill that we pass to ensure that we are not imposing costs on hardworking Vermonters in rural areas. Every mandate from Montpelier must be balanced with this reality. Vermonters, on average, are earning what they made ten years ago.  The vast majority of Vermont’s well water is clean and safe.  The General Assembly’s desire to promote safe drinking water is one we all share, but I don’t believe the government should mandate the testing of every single new well, with the cost and burden on individual private property owners that this bill would impose.”

Strikes me as an odd bill to veto. How do we know if “the vast majority” are safe if we’re not testing the vast majority? As expenses go, this seems like a modest one considering the total costs involved. This was likely more of a “statement” veto, but it doesn’t strike me as a statement that will resonate with many, if anyone.

Vetoing at the end of the day, with a perfunctory press release, and on the same day as he signed Health Care is a clear sign that he hopes the news  of the veto will pass under radar, but first vetoes are inherently noteworthy, so that won’t happen.

And it sure won’t happen among legislators. Word is that the Governor gave no indication he was going to have a problem with this bill, and in fact it seems to have passed by voice vote (as there’s no roll call listed on the leg web site), which underscores how non-controversial it was. The only opponents seemed to be the realtors, but they seemed to be placated when some of the testing requirements were removed in committee, bringing the total test costs down considerably.

Very odd. More on this soon. I’m gonna do some digging.

I’d planned to post an interview with Speaker Shap Smith today, but I guess that needs to wait, given the photojournalism du jour.

Hm. Let’s make a list, eh wot?

1. Okay, here’s the way the “lovable rogue” thing works. First of all, it doesn’t work as well in Vermont as, say, Louisiana. To the (somewhat uncharted) degree it does, it requires distance. It doesn’t play well at the time a pol is lovably rogueing, but if it’s a part of somebody’s past, it can take on a cutesy folkiness (or is that folky cutesiness?) In other words, this picture will be long forgotten by the time it could do any political damage, beyond being a footnote in the Shummy mystique, such as it is.

2. We can knock the media for covering it, but come on – a political opponent grabbed it to make hay, and what the media does is cover hay. Obviously the more hostile-to-Shumlin sources like WCAX are going to pick it up first. Might as well shake your fist at the storm on that one. You better believe we put up goofy pictures of Jim Douglas (of course, we don’t pretend not to have an agenda, but I digress…)

3. My favorite liberal philosopher famously lives by the progressive mantra “with great power comes great responsibility.” The people who run our state government obviously have special responsibility.

On the day the historic Health Care Reform bill is to be signed into law, this picture needlessly handed right-wing opponent Darcie Johnston of Vermonters for Health Care Freedom (by which, of course, Johnston means the freedom to die from untreated ailments in abject poverty) a way to do exactly what the sleazy right lives to do – avoid an important topic at all costs and distract the public through media outlets friendly to their agenda (and forcing the rest of the media to follow suit). At the end of the day, it’s all the right has, after all.

Slapping up a picture on Facebook that feeds into the persistent murmurs and complaints about the new Governor was an abdication of the unique responsibility of leadership. Governor Shumlin is doing a lot of good things – good things for us, as he’s all set. He’s a wealthy guy, after all. Frivolously handing opponents political weapons at inopportune times affects him insomuch it could eventually create blowback on his political ambitions, sure – but the ones it really stands to hurt are us Vermonters. We need the energy efficiency bill. We need health care reform. We need the climate change task force. We need the integrity of the water table beneath Vermont Yankee protected. These are a few of the things this administration and the Democratic legislature are doing for us.

It’s not that public officials can’t have fun – but part of the responsibility that comes with the power is, frankly, that they get to have less. And they have to be more cognizant of when and how they have fun. Shumlin needs to remember how many challenges he created for himself when he was the impulsive Senator, as compared to the remarkably disciplined Gubernatorial candidate. The latter was his path to success, and it still is.

But also problematic in the pics is Secretary of Civil and Military Affairs Alex MacLean – a talented staffer (and a powerful asset for the Governor) who will find herself taken decidedly less seriously after the release of this picture.

Permanent damage? Of course not. But the honeymoon is over. Everybody knows public figures have certain responsibilities when they’re in public, whether they like it or not. If those responsibilities are not taken seriously, it feeds the notion that the public roles they play aren’t taken seriously – which then feeds the feeling that they don’t take the public seriously. That’s just the way it is.

Come on, team. We need you. We need you to succeed. Pleeeeeeeez be more careful.

At the very least, let’s be smart about the Facebook accounts, OK?  That’s already a 21st Century cliche, after all.

There goes a potential Vermont Yankee customer. From VPR:

Vermont’s second largest electric utility has reached a deal to buy a fifth of its power from the owner of the Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire.

Green Mountain Power says the contract with NextEra Energy Resources will begin next year.

GMP is casting this as a green decision, citing the lack of carbon emissions from nuclear plants (it should be noted that the absolute carbon footprint of a nuclear plant is not zero, but it is markedly less than fossil fuel burning plants). Of course, the issue of waste and concerns over safety are not part of the pitch.

So GMP brings us nuclear power, but not power from the old, deteriorating VT Yankee whose leaks and “incidents” threaten Vermont communities. Seabrook also is followed by safety issues that mirror those around Yankee: reports of fires, tritium leaks, and storage concerns – although to this point, none seem to have escalated to the degree and frequency of those associated with Yankee. Nor have they been accompanied by the overtly appalling behavior of corporate execs that we witnessed in Entergy’s testimony in Montpelier.

But it’s still disappointing. Rep. Tony Klein calls it “hypocrisy,” and in a policy sense it is. But in the commercial sense, it’s just another business following the path of least resistance, and letting many of their customers find a way to have their cake and eat it too – and that will placate many customers indeed.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

The long delayed/discussed/debated circumferential highway may finally have met it’s end.

Despite the fact that the plan for a Burlington beltway was obsolete from a planning perspective virtually as soon as the ink was dry, it’s supporters have pushed onward. Originally a bipartisan plan with support from Rs and Ds (such as Howard Dean and Patrick Leahy), in recent years the D support has been seen to whither. Pushback from the EPA on environmental issues, half-assed impact studies, and the reality that the dynamics of planning in general (and Chittenden County in particular) have changed caused many supporters to reconsider their support.

None of this ever never mattered to it’s hardcore backers, such as Governor Jim Douglas and IBM’s John O’Kane, who largely transformed the issue into a partisan one, while non-Republicans seemed more willing to consider the changing dynamics. For folks like Douglas and O’Kane, it became a sort of ideological crusade against all reason.

Gov. Peter Shumlin has now stepped into the process as the grownup – and will likely take the project back to formula, from his remarks. With the news that the Federal Highway Administration approved of the project, but the Environmental Protection Agency did not, Shumlin not only indicated it was (finally) time for a more thoughtful approach to solving Chittenden County’s significant transportation issues, he got representatives from IBM and the environmental community to stand with him when he did. Impressive.

Shumlin officially buried the Douglas ideological (or was it just petulant?) dogma with an effective epitaph, indicating it was time to finally discuss “cost effective and modern solutions” (emphasis added).

Shumlin: “The Circ, as originally conceived, has become a white elephant that is getting in the way of our ability to actually get something done.  Our focus on a project that is not going to happen as it was originally conceived has led to inaction on transportation projects throughout the region.”

Bullseye.

The Caledonian Record – Vermont’s local paper with all the hard-right-wingnuttery of a Michelle Bachmann communications shop with about five times the crazy (no, not kidding) has an egregious “poll” up.

It wouldn’t necessarily matter, but we do live in the only state where goony internet polls are taken seriously as news items by professional reporters, and are presented with a straight-face as legitimate tools of public policy (thank you, Representative-Doctor Till), so this goes a bit beyond embarrassing. The (Broken) Record will no doubt treat readers to a slew of slobbering, torture-fetish editorials if it’s right-wing readership predictably give the result they’re fishing for.

So by all means, if you have a spare moment, when was the last time you freeped a poll? Here’s the link: http://caledonianrecord.com/index.asp?PollID=209#PollSection