Senate committee drafts H.398 amendment to add forest-products businesses to disaster loan fund and clarify 'non-declared' events

During a Senate committee meeting Friday, April 18, legislators and legislative staff reviewed a draft amendment to H.398 that would expand a disaster recovery loan fund to explicitly include forest products enterprises and add language to cover smaller-scale or "non-declared" disaster events that do not meet criteria for a statewide emergency.

The amendment review, presented by legislative staff, would also change two section headings—relabeling "state projects" and "state bonds" as "authority projects" and "authority bonds," reflecting that the projects and bonds are issued by an authority rather than the State of Vermont. The amendment text was circulated to committee members by email before the meeting.

The change to the loan fund subsection would replace a narrower listing of businesses with a formulation that refers to "businesses, including agricultural and forest products enterprises," and would require consultation with…