Since taking office last month, President Donald Trump has cranked out over 60 executive orders, taking aim at everything from international aid to longstanding trade policy to “radical and wasteful government DEI programs,” as one executive order puts it.
What does any of that mean for Vermont?
Speaking before the House Committee on Appropriations Tuesday morning, Sarah Clark, secretary of the Agency of Administration, told lawmakers that officials across the state are still trying to answer that question for themselves.
“The approach that the state administration is taking is really to carefully assess and monitor what is happening at the federal level, working to understand the facts and not just reacting as various directives or edicts are issued from the federal government,” Clark said.
Vermont relies on federal dollars to fund everything from school lunch programs to Medicaid to infrastructure projects, and Clark said her agency is actively tracking about 45 of Trump’s executive orders, attempting to parse exactly how each of them could impact those programs.
That’s easier said than done given the sweeping declarations and seemingly unclear language found in many of the orders from the White House.
Discussing the series of Trump’s orders aimed at erasing DEI initiatives, for example, Clark said it was “not really clear yet what those executive orders mean” and that her office was still trying to determine whether they would undermine the “core goals” of some of the state’s programs.
Clark said she’s told officials to treat the volatility of the Trump Administration as though it were an impending federal government shutdown. Earlier this month, she issued guidance to department heads across the state urging them to pursue all outstanding federal funds.
“This is the guidance that we normally issue if we’re facing a federal shutdown, essentially to make sure that we’re drawing in all federal cash that’s allowable into our state coffers so that we’re in the best position to move forward if things change suddenly,” she told lawmakers.
Until they do, Clark cautioned, the state has to walk a fine line, monitoring the chaos coming out of the White House without getting sucked into it.
“It’s important that we save our energy so that we’re able to focus on the priorities that are really important to Vermont and Vermonters,” she said.
— Habib Sabet
In the know
In his budget recommendations, Gov. Phil Scott has proposed studying how Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury could be turned into a substance use treatment facility-focused prison.
The cost — $300,000 — would cover consultant expenses and the beginning of implementation, according to Nick Deml, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections.
Almost all people incarcerated in Vermont have some kind of substance use issue, Deml told lawmakers in the House Corrections and Institutions Committee Tuesday. The proposed funds would “give us a playbook” to create the state’s first specialized prison, he said.
— Ethan Weinstein
Rep. Troy Headrick, P/D-Burlington, is set to host a panel tomorrow evening at the Statehouse on a contentious question — whether Vermont erred, well over a decade ago now, in conferring official recognition to four groups who say they are descended from historic Abenaki people.
The panel, Headrick said on the House floor Tuesday, will feature leaders from Odanak First Nation, an Abenaki community in present-day Quebec that maintains many members of the Vermont groups are not Indigenous and, instead, are appropriating Abenaki identity.
It will also feature American and Canadian researchers whose work supports that assertion.
Headrick said in an interview this week that the state recognition process, which has been the subject of recent reporting in VTDigger, Vermont Public and other news outlets, “needs to be revisited.”
“My predecessors did cause harm. I think we can acknowledge that,” Headrick said, referring to other Vermont legislators. “So, let’s start figuring out how we’re going to repair it.”
— Shaun Robinson
Read the story on VTDigger here: Final Reading: Vermont officials are trying to navigate Trump’s executive actions.