Lawmakers
ready to require schools
to test for radon and PCBs
By Lola Duffort May 19 2021
The General Assembly created a lead testing program in the state’s schools in 2019, and spent months hashing out the details at length, including timelines, action levels and funding for remediation. But lawmakers barely discussed any testing regimen this session until Senate lawmakers decided two weeks ago to pitch a radon-testing mandate as an amendment to a bill, H.426, requiring a high-level survey of school facilities across the state.
The House countered that it would like to give schools until June 2023 — not January 2023 — to complete radon testing, and that independent schools should also be included. The Senate Education Committee voted on Tuesday to endorse that proposal, and the Senate is expected to vote on the amended bill Wednesday.
Meanwhile, until last week, there remained substantial confusion about the status of another testing program for polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, the manmade toxic chemicals widely found in construction materials. Both the House and Senate omnibus budget bills included $4.5 million for testing at public and private schools, but appeared silent on virtually all other details, including whether the testing would be required.
[Get the latest status on more than 30 key pieces of legislation in VTDigger’s 2021 Bill Tracker.]
Anticipating legislative action on PCBs, Gov. Phil Scott included $4.5 million for testing in the state budget proposal he unveiled in January. But while the House and Senate kept the money in the state budget bills they developed, they never elaborated on what a testing program should look like — including whether tests should be mandatory.
Asked by the media last week why the Senate was pitching a mandate to test for radon but not for PCBs, despite money being available for it, Senate Education chair Brian Campion, D-Bennington, said it appeared to be an oversight. And even though the Legislature was only a week or so away from adjournment, he vowed to find a way to add language making it clear that PCB testing was a requirement.
New language before the committee of conference hashing out a final budget deal between the two chambers now says PCB testing “should be completed by August 2024.” It adds that schools may participate in the program just next year on a voluntary basis.
But the quick-and-dirty work of the session’s last days means that lawmakers will need to return to the subject next year. The budget bill’s new proposed language also says that “additional guidance and authority shall be developed during the 2022 legislative session.”
A sign warns of PCBs found at the Burlington High School. Students have shifted to learning at a former Macy’s department store because of contamination. Vermont lawmakers are poised to require testing for PCBs, as well as radon, in schools. Photo by Mark Johnson/VTDigger
Lawmakers are poised to adopt two new mandates requiring wide-scale testing for toxic chemicals in Vermont’s public and private K-12 schools.
[Get the latest status on more than 30 key pieces of legislation in VTDigger’s 2021 Bill Tracker.]
Continued on page 16 ...
15