As Ranking Member of the House Environment Committee, I've fought to protect our wetlands, waterways, wildlife, and forests by supporting conservation and bans on toxic chemicals. Our state's natural beauty, clean air, and clean water are some of our greatest assets - we need to protect it to ensure that our kids and communities stay healthy and our outdoor economy remains vibrant.
We can and must do more to tackle the housing crisis. We can build more housing and build out infrastructure in smart, sustainable ways that will allow our kids to afford to live here while preserving our natural beauty. As your state representative, I've also fought for funding to make our roads, bridges, homes, and businesses more flood-resilient.
There's no easy solution to Vermont's affordability crisis. Solving it will require addressing multiple problems at the same time. We can lower property taxes for working families by raising taxes on the wealthiest Vermonters and short-term rentals like AirBnBs. We can create economies of scale across our school districts by combining administration and special education and transportation services to lower education costs. And, we can lower healthcare costs by implementing reference-based pricing for hospitals and other common-sense fixes to our broken healthcare system.