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Political notes from Free Press staff writers Terri Hallenbeck, Sam Hemingway and Nancy Remsen


2.16.2007

 

Idle chat

The Vermont Senate was voting this morning on a bill that would require schools to establish a bus idling policy by 2008. The legislation also says that the Education Department should write a model policy.

What with all the focus on global warming this legislative session, restrictions on where, when and whether buses may idle, which have been brewing in both the House and Senate for several years, have about as good a chance as they ever have had.

When this bill got its airing on the Senate floor, however, its flaws began to show.

Sen. Dick Mazza, D-Chittenden/Grand Isle, questioned why the state and the local boards should be making separate policies. Why the duplication?

Sen. Bobby Starr, D-Essex/Orleans, responded: "I believe we're all great believers in local control." The idea, he said, is to simply encourage schools to form a policy, but not tell them what that policy has to be.

"We all want to do something for cleaner air," Mazza said, "but this does nothing to do that."

Heads around the room started shaking, signals were being flashed in Morse code.
Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, rose to say that any idling bill would eventually become part of a larger climate change bill. As in, don't worry, this exact bill is going nowhere anyway.

That, apparently, allowed many senators to vote for it, even if they wanted something stronger, lest they be accused later of favoring idling. The bill passed 25-4. Mazza, Sens. Alice Nitka, Hull Maynard and George Coppenrath opposed.

Perhaps the oddest part of the little charade was a comment from Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington. "I hope eventually to do away with school buses," he said. That should be interesting legislation.

- Terri Hallenbeck

Comments:
What messages do we send to our kids? Its not ok for busses to idle, the pollution, the global warming, the kids going to the statehouse. Guess what if any jerk votes for this then I ask what should have come first?

When did kids start wearing seatbelts on school busses anyways? What is more important? For their little butts being belted to the seat or worrying about the idling of the bus that keeps them warm. It's not like schools are the most sickness and germ free environment anyway.

With school kids I choose safety over environmental considerations. If they care that much enough to lobby, run all the school busses in the state on biodiesel. Seatbelts and biodiesel, we'll show them we care.


Rednalsi
 
Why not choose both? Preventing idling is not going to make kids less safe. I'm not a safety expert but it's been determined that buses are fine without seat belts. That's a whole different discussion but there haven't been any problems with kids getting hurt because buses don't have seatbelts, there is a problem with global warming.
 
Idling school buses make only a small contribution to global warming. More significant are the thousands of trips in single-occupancy gasoline-powered motor vehicles every day. If the Legislature of Vermont wanted to do something serious about global warming, it should raise gasoline taxes by at least 50 cents a gallon, and use the proceeds to provide meaningful tax breaks to purchasers of hybrid cars (not the 1% Gov. Douglas talked about, but a full 6% sales tax exemption) plus substantially increase funding for public transportation in the state. European countries such as Switzerland, the UK, and Scandinavian countries, with population densities in rural areas no more than Vermont, use clean-powered electric trains to provide much of their local and intercity transportation. Why can't Vermont do the same, and reduce our dependence on Middle East and Venezuelan oil at the same time?
 
Diesel Engines don't run efficiently when they are cold.

They are hard to start cold.

I'm not sure that it's a good idea to turn them off and on repeatedly.

But then again, I don't know much about it.
 
Then why comment?
 
Because I've worked as a diesel mechanic and I know that diesel engines don't run efficiently when they are cold.
 
The sad truth of it all is that if education kept pace with the rest of the world we'd probably have teleporters instead of schoolbusses. Personal computer terminals and interactive classrooms instead of desks and whiteboards. So many people take a myopic view they fail to see the overall big picture. Education is not what it once was, from the ride to school, to subjects, to special education. We need to move forward and acknowledge a changing world, and not leave education in the dark ages.

Rednalsi
 
Rednalsi,

Is that "I slander" or "Islander"?
 
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