FAILED
in the State House of Representatives
on April 1, 2015, by a vote of 40-100
. Purpose: The underlying bill, H.35, raises $8 million in new taxes for cleaning up Lake Champlain and Vermont’s other waterways. The Dickinson Amendment eliminated the need for new taxes by reallocating roughly $9 million of existing revenue for the same purpose. .
Analysis:There was unanimous support for the policy elements of H.35, which are necessary to both (A) clean up our waterways and (B) keep the EPA from imposing a clean up plan on Vermont. After a parliamentary move to “divide the question”, legislators voted on the prescriptive measures of the bill (Passed 140-0) separately from the funding mechanisms. .
Those voting YES on the Dickinson Amendment believed that no new taxes were needed to fund the Lake Clean Up policies outlined in the H.35, and that the financial obligations could be met by reallocating existing revenues from the property transfer tax. .
Those voting NO on the Dickinson Amendment supporting raising new taxes ($5.7 million from a 0.2 percent surcharge to the property transfer tax) and various fees ($2.3 million). .
As Recorded in the House Journal, Wednesday, April 1, 2015:“Shall the amendment proposed by Rep. Dickinson of St. Albans Town and others be substituted for the second instance of amendment (Committee Report of Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources in Sections 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 38-42)? was decided in the negative. Yeas, 40. Nays, 100.” (Read the Journal, p.1920-1926.) .
The Ethan Allen Institute is Vermont’s free-market public policy research and education organization. Founded in 1993, we are one of fifty-plus similar but independent state-level, public policy organizations around the country which exchange ideas and information through the State Policy Network. Read more...
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