Steve Darrow - State Representative for Windham 5 District, Vermont

Steve Darrow
For State Representative

Windham 5 District:
Dummerston
Putney
Westminster

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P.O. Box 808-E
Putney, VT 05346
802-387-4720

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Hi Friends and Neighbors!

    I am standing for election again and am asking for your vote. Please check out my legislative record and priorities for the next legislative session. With your vote I will use my knowledge of the issues and the legislative process to address the problems and challenges confronting Vermont and craft real solutions to improve the lives of Vermonters.

    While my main area of expertise is energy I have also helped write and pass major legislation on Economic Development, Affordable Housing, Drunk Driving, and Worker’s Compensation. On energy I helped block the California style electric deregulation of Vermont’s electric industry and introduced the Bill to “Buy the Dams” on the Connecticut River.

    TODAY, the most pressing and over riding problem we face is our massive and inefficient use of fossil fuels. It is the driving force behind high energy prices, climate change, and most pollution.

    The economy, manufacturing, food production, transportation, and life as we know it, has developed, and depends on large inputs of cheap fossil fuel. We ignored the warnings we got from the “energy crisis” of the 1970s and then the confirmation of global warming in the 1980s.

    Now, high energy prices are pushing up the costs of everything we use – food, health care, housing, transportation, manufactured goods and government services. I am particularly concerned about how high energy prices will impact low and fixed income families whose budgets are already stretched thin.

    Vermonter's now pay about three billion dollars for energy. This is money that leaves Vermont instead of staying here and circulating. Our energy bill has grown to a gaping hole in our economy. By lowering energy use, we can save money and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

    Ironically, the cures for high energy prices, climate change, and pollution are the same: efficiency far beyond what we have yet done, and developing renewable energy and new technologies. If the whole country did this, energy prices would come down.

    Whether to relicense Vermont Yankee will a major issue before the legislature next year. I played a major role in writing and passing Act 160 which makes Vermont the only state where state approval is necessary for relicensing of a nuclear plant.

    Relicensing Vermont Yankee is not part of the answer to our energy problems. In the last few years it has become clear that the federal government is going to default on its obligation to remove the nuclear waste. It is staying in Vermont and we have to make sure that Entergy pays for its long term storage.

    While the nuclear industry claims they don’t emit greenhouse gases, they only count onsite emissions during the few decades a plant operates. The entire nuclear cycle depends on enormous inputs of fossil fuels and emits large amounts of greenhouse gases.   Nuclear energy is so fossil fuel dependent it is really a fossil fuel derivative. I expect to be on the Natural Resources and Energy Committee and will be asking Entergy the hard questions.

        I also support and will work for:

    Universal health care in a self-insured system, like thousands of large corporations use.   Included would be health education to reduce the high-risk lifestyle choices that are driving health care costs. Minimizing health care costs increases quality, affordability, and the feasibility of changing the health care system.

    Maintaining Vermont’s strong commitment to the environment and keeping the Vermont we know.

    Excellence in schools, early childhood education, and fairness in paying for education.

    Keeping agriculture and forestry strong. They are two legs of the Vermont economy that keep Vermont rural and undeveloped; the way we value it. Both will change in response to climate change and high energy prices.

    Support for Vermont businesses.

    Protection for our most vulnerable citizens who are being hurt by the economic downturn and high energy costs.

    Affordable Housing that is also energy efficient.

    Preserving our freedoms, rights, liberties, and privacy against the onslaught of the federal government, the Patriot Act, and the computer age.


        If you share these concerns I would appreciate your vote in the:

                                             Primary Tuesday Sept. 9,
                                                             and
                                        General Election Tuesday Nov. 4.

Steve Darrow

In past elections I have not used lawn signs but will this year. I challenge others in the race not to put signs out until September and only on the main black top through roads.

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