On April 20th, the Ethan Allen Institute hosted its 29th annual Jefferson Day celebration at Saint Michael's College, showing the first half of the Ken Burns film "Thomas Jefferson." EAI Board Chairman Jack McMullen presented former EAI president Rob Roper with an award for leading the organization from 2014-22. EAI Vice President John McClaughry fielded questions about the film afterwards.

"The evening was upbeat in its honoring Rob Roper's near decade long service as EAI president. The Jefferson film was remarkably well done and balanced showing his strengths and his human failings." 

~ Jack McMullen, Chairman of the EAI Board of Directors 

"It was my first EAI event and I loved the energy of the group and enjoyed spending time with like minded people." 

~ Randall Northrup, EAI Board Member

"It was a truly wonderful evening! Besides a well-deserved recognition of Rob Roper’s many accomplishments as EAI president, we were treated to a truly thought provoking and beautifully produced film about one of the most seminal yet complex figures in American history."
~ Robert Letovskey, EAI Board Member

A friend sent me the video of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy committee meeting of April 15, discussing the Clean Heat Standard bill (H.715). Twenty nine minutes in, it yielded this these gems:

Matt Cota of the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association recently sent out its weekly bulletin to its hundred-plus members, the people who bring fuel oil and propane to keep you from freezing in Vermont winters. A major topic was the Clean Heat Standard bill (S.715)  that has passed the House and is now in the Senate.

Legislators will soon vote on an override of H.157, which would create a fee-based registry for Vermont’s small contractors, based on the theory that home improvement fraud is a massive problem and consumers don’t have a good way to protect themselves.

The Legislature is doing a wonderful job of compartmentalizing problems, so sure that partisan sleepwalking is the best strategy for all kinds of political problems.

Vermont's first-in-the-nation legislation to regulate all fossil-based home heating fuels, called the "Clean Heat Standard" (CHS), is poised to become law this month.

A bill making its way through the Vermont legislature is the latest attempt by the education establishment to limit or block parental choice in education  -  at a time when parents are  looking for affordable alternatives to what’s being taught to their kids in public schools. It’s the public school lobby’s response to court cases that have opened the door to children to escape from unsatisfactory public schools to more satisfying independent schools, including faith-based schools.

Policy analyst David Flemming was interviewed by WCAX this week, in a segment featured on Wednesday’s 6 o’clock news. EAI had recently released research suggesting that 10 Middlebury absentee ballots from the 2020 election were submitted by individuals from out of state, either by those individuals who when they no longer residents of Vermont, or who by other individuals living at those addresses.

To watch the segment, click here.

On Monday, the lightbulb went off over the heads of the members of the senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee that the Clean Heat Standard bill (H.715) that they are currently reviewing only deals with thermal – hence the definitive word “heat” in the name – emissions. Not transportation emissions as well. This did not go down well.

Bill McKibben, the climate activist at Middlebury College and the leader of 350.org, now appears to be tiptoeing away from his ardent anti-nuclear views of yesteryear. In a journal article that appeared two weeks ago, McKibben says this: