Equipment Supplier/Dealer Bill Moving in Commerce

A bill that would tip the scales in contract negotiations between farm and yard equipment suppliers and their local dealers has passed the Senate and is now pending in the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee.

The bill, S.224, purports to solve a problem in which dealers who repair equipment that was purchased from large home equipment retailers claim they are underpaid for the repairs. But the bill is far more extensive, allowing dealers to sell competing lines of equipment at the same location even if the supplier has made substantial investments in the business.

Suppliers argue that the bill interferes with the rights of suppliers and dealers to reach their own agreement regarding the supplier-dealer relationship, and fear that the bill under consideration will also affect existing contracts, which have been negotiated based on a law in place since 1994.

The committee plans to hear from competing interests on Thursday.

Ways and Means Takes up Economic Development Bill

The House Ways and Means Committee on Friday began what appears to be a pretty detailed look at the Vermont Economic Growth Incentive language in the Economic Development bill, H.868. Given the choice of a general overview of the Commerce Committee’s work to rewrite the statute or a word-by-word review, Rep. Janet Ancel, D-Calais, chose the latter. Legislative Counsel Attorney David Hall then began a line-by-line analysis using a side-by-side he provided earlier. 

Among the issues flagged by the committee in about an hour-and-a-half of testimony was how the legislature would maintain regular oversight of the program and how the proposed ten-year extension compares with past extensions.

The bill was referred to the committee ten days ago for what Commerce Committee members had hoped would be a quick review, but earlier testimony from State Auditor Doug Hoffer about concerns with the VEGI program have apparently slowed it down. Meanwhile, the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee has already begun reviewing the bill in the hope of getting it later in the session.

Sanders Takes His Message on Prescription Drugs to the Statehouse

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ Health Policy Director Kathryn Becker Van Haste praised the House Health Care Committee this week for putting Vermont on the leading edge with its bill to require price disclosure and transparency for drug manufacturers. With little hope that Congress will address this issue any time soon, she said she is pleased to see that states are moving forward on their own accord and supports the committee’s bill, H.866.

Van Haste said S.2023, a bill introduced by Sanders, attempts to ensure greater affordability of prescription drugs and to report information that affects drug pricing. Van Haste said drug manufacturers routinely distort the true cost of drug research and development to justify skyrocketing prescription drug prices. “The industry has high profit margins that are equal or higher than the R&D costs. Additionally, a lot of R&D costs are borne by the federal government resulting in taxpayers paying twice,” said Van Haste.

Patient Notification Bill Takes a Turn

After a week of delay, the Senate passed a bill this week that requires hospitals to disclose affiliations between physician offices and hospitals. The bill, S.245, requires the Green Mountain Care Board to amend its current policy for reviewing new physician acquisitions and transfers as part of the board’s hospital budget review authority to include a notification to each patient served by that health care provider about the acquisition or transfer.

The Senate approved two amendments on the floor Thursday. The first amendment requires hospitals to notify the Attorney General’s Office as soon as practicable of an affiliation. The AG may perform an inquiry into potentially anticompetitive practices with the information provided by the hospital.

The second amendment offered by Sens. Tim Ashe, D-Chittenden, Mike Sirotkin, D-Chittenden, and David Zuckerman, P-Chittenden, requires that Medicaid rates to hospitals for outpatient services not increase as a result of a provider transfer or acquisition. It also requires the GMCB to consider the impacts of a similar policy for commercial insurers. Finally, it requires the GMCB to provide a copy of each health insurer’s implementation plan for providing fair reimbursement to independent providers to the Health Care Reform Oversight Committee and the committees of jurisdiction by July 15 and to provide a progress report to the same entities by Dec. 1.

Panel Passes Opiate Bill With Minor Changes

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Friday passed S.243, a bill that attempts to combat opiate abuse. The bill includes a fee on pharmaceutical manufacturers that would be used to fund the provisions of the bill. The breakdown of the budget can be found here. The committee accepted an amendment from the Senate Health and Welfare Committee which provides that a portion of the money raised from the fee can be used for the exploration of nonpharmacological treatment for pain management. Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, said the amendment offers more flexibility on how the funds can be used.

The committee also received clarification on the establishment of a hospital antimicrobial program to reduce hospital acquired infections from Vermont Department of Health Senior Policy Director and General Counsel David Englander. Englander said antibiotic resistance is one of the most pressing public health problems. As of December 2014, only 7.1 percent of Vermont hospitals had antibiotic stewardship programs that incorporated the Centers for Disease Control core elements. A portion of the money raised from the manufacturer fee would fund efforts to improve antibiotic prescribing and reduce the incidence of resistant pathogens, as well as improve surveillance for antibiotic resistant organisms by adding additional testing capacity.

The bill will be debated on the floor next week.

Independent Contractor Bill Stalled in House

Perhaps not surprisingly given the opposition of organized labor, a bill to clarify the rules governing independent contractors, H.867, has stalled in the House. The House General, Housing and Military Affairs Committee held extensive hearings on the bill this week. Floor debate on the measure has been postponed until March 31.

The bill would repeal one of the criteria for acting as an independent contractor that many have found impossible to meet. Under existing law, if a person works within the “nature” of a general contractor’s business, he or she is considered to be an employee of that business. H.867 would repeal that standard but retain a rigorous test which requires that an independent contractor:

• Is free from the direction and control of the employing unit;
• Controls the means and manner of the work performed;
• Operates a separate and distinct business;
• Holds itself out as in business for itself; and
• Offers its services to the general public.

Opponents have argued that the bill would allow employers to wantonly convert employees into independent contractors, but that claim fails to withstand any objective analysis given the strict criteria that would remain.

House Institutions Approves $750,000 in Broadband Funding

A telecommunications bill approved by the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee, H.870, included $1 million in bonded funds to help pay for the expansion of broadband in Vermont. That proposal had to clear the House Corrections and Institutions Committee, which has jurisdiction over the state’s capital spending plans. On Friday, the Institutions Committee reduced the requested amount to $750,000. The funding decision is nonetheless significant since the proposal was not in the state’s capital plan.

The bill now goes to the Ways & Means Committee, which will review the bill’s proposal to increase the Universal Service Charge on telephone bills from two percent to 2.5 percent. The additional revenue would also be used to pay for broadband expansion.

Pesticide Bill to Get Closer Look in Senate

A House-passed bill requiring the Agency of Agriculture to adopt rules regulating “treated articles,” H.861, is likely to get a closer look in the Senate after it passed the House with little scrutiny. Treated articles are products treated with pesticides to protect them from insect or fungus infestations. The bill resulted from growing concerns that neonicotinoids, a new class of insecticides that are used in farm production, may be responsible for the rapid decline of bee populations.

The bill would also regulate the treatment of utility poles. The use of pesticides in treating poles was the subject of a recent and exhaustive report that established the best management practices for pole treatments. That report was the result of a collaborative effort involving numerous state agencies, environmental organizations, utilities and others. Utilities have questioned the need for a new regulation given the widespread agreement on the best practices for treating poles.

Senate Panel Takes Up AHS Workplace Violence And Prevention Bill

After passing the House last week, H.74 was subject to a hearing on Thursday in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee where legislators will continue to examine whether workplace violence and prevention policies at the Agency of Human Services need to be statutorily required. Committee members will also be determining if such policies are the best immediate tool to further protect direct service workers.

AHS Chief Operating Officer Dawn O’Toole said that “in theory, the agency supports this bill,” but feels that the bill needs to clarify which workers the policies would need to cover. O’Toole also said she would like to strike the requirements that the policies be consistent with Occupational Safety and Health Administration guidelines, stating that it would be impossible for a policy to include every one of the required guidelines. Human Resources Director Susan Loynd of Washington County Mental Health Services echoed this concern, saying that the four guiding components in the bill are enough to help create helpful policies.

O’Toole finished by saying, “I honestly don’t believe that this bill is going to do what it takes to make employees safe.” She emphasized that the real need is for onsite physical security.