By JOHN FLOWERS

MONTPELIER — The Vermont House on Tuesday voted 77-63 in favor of a bill that would allow organic farmers to seek damages from the manufacturers of genetically modified seeds, if those products taint their crops through pollen drift or some other accidental event.

The controversial measure is far from a done deal, however. It now requires Senate approval, after which it would require the signature of Vermont Gov. James Douglas, a Middlebury Republican.

Douglas administration spokesman Jason Gibbs minced no words on Wednesday when asked whether the governor would support the House-passed measure.

By JOHN FLOWERS

MIDDLEBURY — Work crews soon will launch the first of what will be two of the busiest municipal construction seasons in Middlebury’s history, with reconstruction of Seminary Street; replacement of water/sewer infrastructure along College Street; and installation of better signalization on Court Street highlighting this year’s projects.

“The next few years will be kind of painful, but once we’re done, we should be set for a couple of years,� Middlebury Director of Operations Dan Werner said.

Work is scheduled to get under way later this month, when Tom Vanacore & Co. of Bridport begins the last phase of masonry work on the Battell Bridge in downtown Middlebury. The company has already completed filling cracks between the large stone blocks that make up the bridge’s three massive arches. Crews this spring will perform the same kind of work on the bridge railings on both sides of Main Street.

Of all the regrettable outcomes in the election of 2004, the fact that Congress has become ever more protective of the bumbling moves of the Bush administration will turn out to be one of the gravest errors in the Bush era. With deliberate intent, Congress — rather than pursuing the facts important to the formulation of policy — continues to allow the administration to classify documents and to deny worthy investigations that might contradict this administration’s claims, assumptions and purported facts. Without good information, however, the nation continues a downward slide with serious consequences.

In the statewide political battle surrounding a tax hike on gasoline, the Republicans picked the easier side in the debate — affordability — while the House Democrats have to defend a more complex position: that the tax is a better mechanism to raise needed revenue for a host of reasons, none of which can be boiled down into a politically palatable sound bite.

But take a moment to inspect the issue. The first question is: Is the additional revenue the proposed gas tax would raise really needed?

The Vermont House approved a bill that would raise gasoline taxes by 4 cents per gallon (to 24 cents) and by 6 cents per gallon on diesel fuel (to 32 cents per gallon). The increased taxes would generate $26 million that would be used to leverage more than $100 million in federal highway funds — a bump in transportation funding approved by the U.S. Congress and Bush in this era of burgeoning deficits. (If you don’t raise the needed state match, you lose out on the federal dole.)