House Rules Committee reviews HR 4 to reorganize standing committees, holds unanimous straw poll

The House Rules Committee on Jan. 8 reviewed House Resolution HR 4, a proposal to amend House Rule 25 to change membership sizes across several standing committees and to split the existing Environment and Energy committee into two separate committees.

Betsy Ann, the committee clerk, read the proposed changes, saying, “This would amend House Rule 25, which sets forth the House standing committees, and you'll see the committees are set there in column 1, the members are in column 2, and their subject matter is column 3.”

The resolution would: reduce membership on the Agriculture, Food, Resiliency, and Forestry Committee from 11 to 8 and on Appropriations from 12 to 11; change punctuation in the Corrections and Institutions listing; reduce Education from 12 to 11 members; split the current Environment and Energy committee into two committees — a new Committee on Energy and Digital Infrastructure and a separate Environment Committee — and set new subject-matter jurisdictions for each; reduce General and Housing, Government Operations and Military Affairs, and Ways and Means from 12 to 11 members; and add more specific language to Human Services delineating oversight of state agencies.

Under the draft language read to the group, the Committee on Energy and Digital Infrastructure would be a nine-member panel with jurisdiction over energy, utilities, communications, broadband, information technology and cybersecurity, and related policies. The newly constituted Environment Committee would have 11 members and jurisdiction over conservation and development, climate change mitigation, land resources, air, water, fish and wildlife, solid waste management and related policies.

The committee clerk also read changes removing information technology and cybersecurity from the jurisdiction of Government Operations and Military Affairs and moving that jurisdiction to the new Energy and Digital Infrastructure committee.

On Human Services, the draft adds explicit jurisdiction “providing for oversight of programs and services provided by the Vermont Department for Children and Families, the Vermont Department of Disabilities, Aging, and Independent Living, and the Vermont Department of Health.” (Language in the meeting transcript was abbreviated; the article uses the official department names as clarified by the committee clerk.)

A committee member moved to accept HR 4 for a straw poll; the committee then conducted a straw poll vote. The roll call as stated in the meeting: Houghton — yes; Dolan — yes; Bartholomew — yes; Hawaii — yes; Tooth — yes; Feltis — yes; and one member whose name was not specified on the record — yes. The clerk announced, “Our straw poll is unanimous with 7 votes.” The straw poll was described in the meeting as a nonbinding, advisory step (a straw poll), not a final adoption of the resolution.

Members said the committee will follow up in a future meeting to consider additional procedural ideas and housekeeping changes to the House’s rules. The meeting adjourned after the straw poll.

Why it matters: changes to House Rule 25 would redefine which committees consider particular policy areas and change committee sizes, which can affect how and where legislation is reviewed, what issues committees prioritize, and how workload is distributed among members.