Regulatory Purgatory

“Biggest perceived disadvantage of operating a business in Vermont is the permitting process.”

This is a quote from a ten year old O’Neal Group’s State sponsored research report titled “Brand Identity of Vermont as a Place to do Business” which found that the business community widely agreed that our regulatory and permitting requirements are unduly expensive, complicated and unpredictable.

“There is a sense among business people that Vermonters view business growth as a threat to their quality of life.This mindset underlies the obstructionism and capriciousness associated with the permitting process and regulatory establishment.”

Is there any doubt businesses would say the same thing today if asked? To be certain, these sentiments have been re-qualified in a 2007 State sponsored report titled “Next Gen Workforce Analysis” in which one interviewee said:

“As a person who owns investment property in Vermont (townhouse apartments), there is an anti-business sentiment in Vermont and Vermont politics that, I believe, goes above and beyond the need to protect Vermont’s natural resources and culture.”

The earlier study found that companies with twenty or more employees are increasingly choosing to expand outside the State as a result of the perceived difficulties of doing business here. The 2007 report found that young professionals are also leaving -- presumably to follow the businesses that left ten years earlier.

None of this should come as a surprise to anybody who has been here for awhile. We all know we have a hostile regulatory bureaucracy that's fostered an anti-development business climate. We all know the hostility exceeds the bounds of legitimate enforcement of the regulations with the apparent purpose of thwarting business development. And, we all know we're dealing with individuals within the bureaucracy who have unstated motives that tend towards Marxism. What I don't know is why we continue to give the default assumption of good faith to the people who claim to speak on behalf of the environment or 'society'. Behind closed doors they're not afraid to admit they like high taxes and complex rules because it keeps Vermont rural. If this is their true position they should be held to defending it on the merits. No more hiding behind the trees.

(editor's note: this essay was written for publication before our recent symposium.  We suggest that this comment, about the symposium, on the formidable Green Mountain Daily, goes to Decker's argument.)