Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: Time to get everyone introduced. The, the reason we're here together with our colleagues from the senate ag committee is so that we can hear at the same time from the logging community and the impacts that the flooding and other weather events had over the summer and throughout the fall and maybe beyond. So I will allow the witnesses to provide their own testimony on that. But, I'm gonna just go around the room quickly and introduce the members of the house committee, and then I'll turn it over to senator Starr, who, we're will introduce the members of his committee. And then I think we're gonna let him run the meeting as well. So if there are, questions that you any of you have for the witness, you can ask senator Starr, and I'm sure he'll be happy to give you permission to speak. So I'm David Durfee. I'm chair of the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry. And I represent the Bennington Free District. Shaftsbury is my hometown. And let's just go around the table here for house fire.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Alright. Mister Kunak, I'm

[Rep. Esme Cole (Vice Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: the vice chair of the house fire committee. I represent Windsor four, the housing partner, Alfred and Bridgewater. Hello, everyone. I'm representative Esme Cole, and I represent Windsor 6, which is Hartford, Vermont.

[Rep. John O’Brien]: Good morning. John O'Brien, Windsor Orange One. I represent Marlton, my hometown.

[Rep. Mike Rice]: Mike Rice, representative Bennington, Rutland District, Danby, Dorset, Landgrove, Mount Tabor, and Root.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Vice Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: I'm Josie Lovett, Grandal Chittenden, which is all of Grandal County and a sliver of West Milton.

[Rep. David Templeman]: David Templeman, Orleans three, Barton, Brownington, and Westmore, and I'm from Brownington.

[Rep. Charles Wilson]: Senator Charles Wilson from Caledonia 3, which is Linden, Sheffield, Wheelock, Sutton, and York.

[Rep. John O’Brien]: Representative Henry Pearl, I represent the towns of Danville, Peacham, and Cabot.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Representative Chad Lipsky, represent Lemoyle One, town of Stowe.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: Brian Graham represent what? Three or two minutes out of Charleston.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: And I'm, Bobby Starr, senator from Orleans County, and I wanna thank Dave and you folks for hosting this meeting. Our room is kind of a lot smaller than your room. And so we really appreciate that and glad to be here. And my committee is sitting stacked here on the right of the vice chair.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: Brian Colomar representing Rutland County of twenty seventh Towns. Henry Renard Chittenden North, Fairfax, Westford, and Essex where I live.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Rich Westman and I represent Dublin Land District.

[Sen. Brian Campion]: Alright, Camden, Bennington County, particularly Shasbury and Dorset. So,

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: to get started this morning, last this past summer, I got a call from from my buddy, Sam Lincoln, who wanted to meet and brought Dana along. They're in the process of setting up a a new organization, I believe, called a professional logging contractors of the northeast, and Dana has worked putting that all together with state of Maine. And so they wanted to meet and talk about setting that up and and how we might proceed to try to help them. You know, our ag and forestry people had a real bad year this past year with all the rain and the frost and early frost that kinda nip the grapes and apple buds and and, so anyways, to to get started, I wanted to get this going early in the session so that, you know, when you're doing something new, it, certainly takes time and a little money. And we know I think the health members have been probably told like we have on the other side that money's gonna be a little tighter this year, but I wanna make sure that we get our fair share. If there needs to be some some financing done here. One one advantage that we have on the senate side in regards to that is both senator Westman and myself sit on the appropriations committee. And I'm sure you've all heard the tale that Bill Doyle used to say if you didn't have a seat at the table, you were on the menu. Well, I spent a lot of years on the menu. And so, anyways, it's, again, good to get here, and we'll get right down to business. And I'll introduce you, Sam, then you introduce your crew, and we can get right underway. So but I have your back, Sam. Sam, I don't know if some of you maybe know Sam. He was a deputy commissioner, I believe, of Forest and Parks, and we did quite a few good things while Sam was here and has helped certainly back then, we we helped logging industry with their workers comp and some of those things and very, excellent person to work with. And so welcome, Sage.

[Sam Lincoln]: Thank you, senator Steyer, for that generous introduction, and we did great we did unprecedented things. We got a lot of things done that have been a challenge for years with your help and the committee's help. Thank you, chairman Steyer, chairman Durfee, for coordinating this hearing to discuss the impacts of the weather on

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: the forest economy and to the respective committees for taking your time and giving us your attention

[Sam Lincoln]: today. For the record, my name is Sam Lincoln. I own a master logger certified mechanized timber harvesting business in Randolph Center. I am part of a multi generational family that owns farm and forest land. I'm a father of

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: two sons, 17 and 20 years old, both starting their way with their

[Sam Lincoln]: own working lands and businesses.

[Sam Lincoln]: I have worked on timber harvesting projects for over 50 individual landowners within 15 miles of my home for the in the past twenty five years. Many of them repeat clients during that time, including three legislators, generated millions of dollars in revenue for them. In addition to our family's agricultural enterprise, I've conservatively estimated that I've spent well over seventeen thousand hours in a machine in the forest of Vermont, not including the time planning, coordinating, and managing timber harvests, attending training, and advocating for the sector as a volunteer. How do professional logging contractors perform their work? Planning and logistics. Timber harvesting requires preparation. That includes meeting with landowners, consulting foresters, regulatory foresters from our power plants, walking the site multiple times to observe conditions, map, plan, hang flagging, and doing everything we can to ensure a properly executed timber harvest will take place. Communicating with sawmills, log buyers, and brokers to understand up to the minute market conditions before calculating the potential income and expenses is the job to prepare a proper stumpage proposal. Talking with equipment and log haulers, quarry operators, dump truck drivers to get all the necessary equipment and supplies on-site at just the right time, and then haul the forest products away to market. Preparing a closeout plan to be certain that when your harvest is swept out as you leave the job and your tracks are cleaned up, that the water quality is securely protected until the next harvest. Knocking on the doors of abutting neighbors to introduce yourself, explain this temporary disturbance, answer their questions, and put a face to the name on your sign next to the job at the roadside. As they say, a job well planned is half done. What have logging contractors been experiencing this year? Significantly fewer workable days. Business owners like me can manage those logistics I spoke about, but not the weather. Professional loggers depend on the additional requirement of suitable ground conditions, such as dry or frozen soil to avoid avoid soil and root damage or creating the potential for erosion, sedimentation in our streams. Unlike the controlled environments of factories or offices, we must adapt to the weather and manage ground conditions or manage around ground conditions to meet a large array of expectations. If those conditions are not suitable, we must shut down our operations, which immediately and directly impacts our finances relative to the frequency and duration of the unsuitable conditions. While the average Vermonter goes to work at a regular nine to five job accumulates about two hundred and forty workdays in a year, the weather historically allows logging contractors a hundred and sixty to a hundred and eighty days of timber harvesting. This summer, when we returned to work after mud season, it started raining steadily. I was shut down on a job two weeks prior to the July 10 flood with the un unable to work. Conditions were just too wet. On a job that should have taken three weeks, after nine weeks, we had produced the equivalent of three days production in normal conditions. I had to implement implement temporary closeout measures to protect the trails from erosion and move my equipment off the site to start a new job site where we had better but still limited operations. From the period between June 1 and 10/01/2023, I worked twenty three days. In the six weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's, we worked thirteen days due to continuous rain and above freezing conditions above freezing temperatures. When we can work, production is low due to the need to lay down brush brush armoring or corduroy in the trails to distribute the weight of machines in wet areas and to protect from erosion. We frequently have to install temporary water bars in advance of these severe rain events that we've been having. We're spreading mulch for erosion control, installing culverts, bridges, creating diversion ditches, many other practices that we can to manage the extraordinary amount of water coming off the hills and out of the ground. The prolonged wet weather reduced our hundred and sixty the low range of a hundred and sixty days. In 2022, we only worked a hundred and twenty one days. 2023, we closed out the year at a hundred and four days. This represents a 35% drop compared to a typical year. In fiscal year 2023, my timber harvesting revenue has decreased overall by 22%. And during the period of June 1 to October 1, 82% loss of revenue. To stay afloat, I've used savings. I've done excavation work to repair, roads for the town highway department, split firewood nights and weekends, and borrowed money from my line of credit. Why is our why is our work important? Why would, somebody keep doing this? While carrying out this work and managing for a host of important goals, including forest health, water quality, wildlife habitat management, Vermont's logging contractors are responsible for the production of two very important things, $27,000,000 in stumpage revenue that we pass through to forest landowners for their timber that we harvest and the creation of raw materials used in products that are essential for human existence. We learned during the pandemic that forest products from Vermont are transformed into medical supplies, food packaging, heat hospitals, schools, homes, build temporary medical sites, bedding for livestock, and many other examples that we take for granted until just one day, it's all exposed for being very, vulnerable to uncontrollable forests. What we're asking for today, I communicated with the administration this summer, legislators, representatives of the federal delegation, nonprofit organizations that were raising money for flood relief to determine if anything could be done for our sector. Our damages have primarily been to business revenue, not physical damage to buildings, land, equipment, or crops, and therefore, not ineligible for any funds that have been distributed. Our sector has been denied relief when agricultural producers, a vitally important companion working land sector, has received millions in programmatic relief. Headlines promises of more relief from the federal delegation, fundraising and grants from nonprofit organizations. I do not dismiss or diminish the serious needs and impacts that so many Vermonters, not just ag producers, not just forestry, but so many Vermonters have experienced a lot. But our sector has been, is is not I don't understand why our sector has not had any relief funds committed or adapted to fit our losses. I'm extremely reluctant to be here today to pay taxpayer dollars for my business, but I know my example is common and widespread across the state. Many businesses like mine are in jeopardy, and many are already dispersing equipment. I respectfully request that you at least make our sector and revenue losses eligible for any additional real relief programs and funds that are appropriated as soon as possible. Before stopping to take any questions, I will mention as senator Starr did did our next witness, Dana Duran, who's executive director of the professional logging contractors in the Northeast, is here today to introduce himself at our new organization that Vermont loggers and log haulers are joining. The PLCs for policy proposals were developed in direct response to the weather and economic situation that we're facing, with the assistance of representative Lipsky and Sims. H six twenty four was recently introduced, and we look forward to discussing that with

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Thank you, Jose. Did you wanna have Dana go next, or are you open for questions? I'll take questions if you'd like. Yep. Are there questions from any of the reps or senators?

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: John? Sam, what's happening downstream then since there there are no raw materials coming to mills, etcetera? Are are they all feeling this too?

[Sam Lincoln]: I believe so. I believe so, representative O'Brien. We have, Trevor and Cliff Howard here from Howard Lumber Company and Sawmill, to talk about that. So

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: And, Rodney?

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: I just understand that a Johnson number is shut down. Right. Is that permanent?

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Should be.

[Sam Lincoln]: The a Johnson sawmill in Bristol is on is shut down permanently as of the November is my understanding.

[Rep. Rodney Graham]: Awesome. Sam,

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: you folks in the timber industry, you weren't like the PP program that the feds had where you had lost labor help. You couldn't qualify for any of that federal money?

[Sam Lincoln]: During the pandemic or during the as the part of the flood?

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Well, during the pandemic.

[Sam Lincoln]: During the pandemic, I believe the forest products industry qualified Vermont the the the legislature stood up the forest economy stabilization grant program, which was 3.6 it was $5,000,000 appropriation of which $3,600,000 were administered, through that to, the forest economy businesses up and down the, supply chain that could demonstrate, an impact and loss. I believe logging businesses were eligible for payroll protection program, and Dana can speak to, the timber harvesting and hauling, relief program that was stood up by the federal government.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: But only but this flood stuff, it there wasn't any help from agency or commerce and community development.

[Sam Lincoln]: Revenue loss was not an eligible, impact from the flooding. There were, a number of loggers that reported they had tens of thousands of dollars of timber cut in the woods they couldn't reach with the equipment. And if they could demonstrate that as a physical loss, I believe that was eligible, but it was, 20% or $20,000, whichever was more. And I talked to people that had far more than that and timber left in the woods. We're on a job now salvaging timber from a logger that had to abandon a job in June that the wood was cut and left,

[Sam Lincoln]: and we had to go back.

[Sam Lincoln]: We're coming we're in there now cleaning that up, at a loss to the landowner to some extent.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: And how how soon do you have to that timber once it's cut before it starts going the other way?

[Sam Lincoln]: All depends on the species, the humidity, the moisture, temperature, things like that, but certain we're cutting some pretty high value maple wood that some pretty nice veneer logs that are going on the firewood pile. So which is a pretty big hit to the landowner.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: That's not not good. Yeah. Well, and you wanna any other questions? If not, you wanna turn it over to Dana?

[Sam Lincoln]: Yes. Thank you.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: Are,

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: paper copies of my testimony. Did you already circulate it? If you want, I can give these to you to circulate if you'd like.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: I've circulated it digitally.

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Oh, you did? You folks want the paper copies? Sure. Oh,

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: welcome to Vermont, Dana. Senator, CEO again.

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Yes. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Senator Starr, Senator Cullimore, members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, representative Durfee, representative is it Supernaut? Supernaut. Got it. And representative Graham and members of the House Committee on Ag, Food Resiliency and Forestry. My name is Dana Duran. I'm a resident of Belgrade, Maine. I drove over here this morning. It was one of the greatest drives ever because it was quiet and dark. It's time to do it. Traffic on the road. And as Sam told you, there's not a lot of wood moving. So there were not a lot of log trucks in the way. I am the executive director of an organization called Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast. I'm gonna go through my testimony. I'm not gonna read all of it. I've given you written copies. I came prepared because I think paper is a good thing, for our industry at least. And in Maine at the legislature, we always provide 25 copies of standard procedure. So Maine hasn't gotten rid of the paper form yet. So, if I do the same thing, it's just because I've been trained for the last ten years to do that. So, as Sam alluded to, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast is a trade association that started in Maine as the PLC of Maine in 1995. And I've known Sam since 2016. I've gotten to know representative Lipsky over the last year and a half. It's a what we call a traditional trade association that represents loggers and log haulers in the state of Maine. In 2022, Vermont contractors came to our organization and said, would you be willing to expand to Vermont? And we said, sure, took a board vote, the board approved it unanimously, and we that ensued a series of discussions about who the PLC is, but then what's the interest in Vermont? We weren't going to come to Vermont unless Vermont contractors wanted us to come. So we had a series of meetings starting in December 2022. We hosted about 50 contractors at a meeting in Barrie, unanimous support throughout the room to pursue this in May 2023. Our membership voted to change our bylaws, to change our name, and we officially moved forward. We have since that point in time selected three board members of our organization are from the state of Vermont. So Sam Lincoln is one of those board members. Jack Bell, who I think is going to be appearing over my shoulder here in a little while representing his business. Longview Forestry of Heartland and Gabe Russo of Southwind Forest in Paulette has also been elected. We also have had 15 new members join our organization since the October. We have five new members that have submitted applications, so we'll have 20 here within the next two weeks. So there's been significant interest from contractors in the state of Vermont to become a member of our organization. It's not simple. We don't just take an application and say you're in, you have to have a workers comp policy or be master logger certified and comply with all state laws regarding being a sole proprietor. And you also have to undergo a background check with the Department for Forest Parks and Recreation. So every single applicant that we get has to go through that background check and then they have to be formally approved by our board. So it's not an easy process. We want professional contractors that are meeting the rules, regulations and abiding with state law and federal law to be members of our organization. So that's just brief background about why we're here and what we're doing. I've been in my position since 2014. Predominantly, we're an advocacy organization, but we do quite a few things regarding training, insurance, discount purchasing programs for our members, we also have a philanthropic program called Log A Load for Kids. And since 1995, we have raised 2,200,000.0 for children's hospitals in the state of Maine, and we're bringing that program to the state of Vermont. So we're quite proud of that work, especially considering what contractors go through on a daily and annual basis. They still dig deep to get back to their local community. So what I'm gonna go over is what we've kind of developed as a policy platform. I apologize. John? Yeah. Sure. To give us

[Sam Lincoln]: some context, are there other states now in the Northeast that are also part of the PLC?

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Sure. Good good question, representative. So, as of right now, we are making our organization available to contractors throughout the Northeast. Vermont is the first state that has come kind of both feet in and said we want you here. So and that's the way we're treating it. We're not going to every state and planting a flag and saying we're here. We need a critical mass contractors that want us there. So, Vermont has been that first guinea pig, I guess, so to speak. So, hopefully that answers your question. So, we've over the last year, we've had a steering committee of 15 contractors here in Vermont that has been meeting and has been working on a policy platform. And I'm gonna present that policy platform to you. There's a phase one and a phase two to the approach. It's all included in my testimony. Phase one is what is before this committee in Representative Sims and Representative Lipsky, co sponsors. I've referenced it at the top of page two in my testimony, that's H-six 24. Sam mentioned it an Act relating to providing financial assistance to the forest product economy. One that's included in my testimony is what is essentially in that bill. And then phase two potentially is something for the future just for your own consideration, but it all comes in context. So let me start with phase one. So over the last eight years in Maine, we've worked with the University of Maine and producing an economic impact study. That economic impact study has been published three times. It's critical to demonstrating and benchmark benchmarking what logging and trucking mean to the main economy. There's nothing that's been done like that here in the state of Vermont. So part of what we're putting before this committee is to work with the University of Vermont, the Center for Rural Studies, and to essentially benchmark what logging and trucking mean to the state of Vermont, not as a full met but as a distinctive separate member of the full value chain. So we wouldn't study, okay, here's what the entire Vermont Forest Products economy means in terms of jobs, in terms of economic output, taxes, payroll, etcetera. But what does logging and trucking mean? So that we can present facts and figures and data as to the jobs, the employment, the wages, the capital expenditures, the types of equipment that are here in Vermont. That's never been done before. So that's one of the things we feel strongly before we can do anything else with respect to workforce development. We need to know and understand what logging and trucking means to the state of Vermont. So that's something that is we have worked with with representative Sims and representative Lipsky on the legislation to be included as a kind of a benchmarking study. So that's step one. From that, we also, Sam referenced and so did Senator Starr, the work that was done in 2019 and 2020 on workers' comp. Workers' comp, obviously, you have to have workers' comp to be a member of our organization. We feel very strongly that employees in the forest have to be safe, they have to be protected. If there are accidents, they might must have a safety net. And so safety training is critical to that. You have to lower risk. So a second piece that we have requested is some funding to try to help contractors get their employees trained, especially in mechanized logging on what are the risk factors, what are the risks that they need to be trained on. And so bringing training that we've been doing in Maine for the last decade, and we've trained over 12,000 people have gone through one of our trainings, bringing that to the state of Vermont. Our trainings are different every year because the risks change every single year. So that would be a second step under phase one. Phase two, as you'll reference on the top of page three, has to do with career promotion and workforce development. I've just provided it to you because after we provide that benchmarking study, we know what the jobs look like now. We know what the jobs of the next ten years look like. What are the forecasts on the types of jobs logging, trucking, mechanics, back office, then we can set up training in the state of Vermont. We can take a look at the secondary system. We can take a look at the post secondary system and we can make recommendations. Eight years ago, we created a mechanized logging operations and forced trucking program with the community college system in Maine. We've trained 100 individuals who have gone through that program in the last seven years. It's a twenty week training program. A student who goes through that program goes through twelve weeks of on the job training on seven pieces of mechanized training equipment, and they also walk out with a commercial driver's license now. We want to bring that program here to the state of Vermont, but we need to know we need to benchmark what are the jobs, what do they look like, then we can determine, okay, this is what it's going to cost and here's how we partner with industry and the state legislature to do so. So that's again phase two. Coming back to phase one, Sam mentioned the situation with the floods, the warm weather, the winters. So trying to help contractors be or adapt to climate resilience is a measure that has to take place in order to increase operating days. There are measures that have to take place in order for contractors to work in the woods. Those include sedimentation control, that includes skidder bridges, that includes, Sam mentioned, corduroying of trails, riprap, etc. So that you can prepare landings and prepare job sites with culverts, so that in the case or in the event there is a large storm, contractors can continue to work. So in the state of New York, specifically in the New York City watershed for the last twenty years, there's been a tremendous program that has actually paid contractors to implement those essentially we're calling harvesting adaptation resilience procedures. And we would like to bring that to the state of Vermont so that in the event there's a large flood or is there a storm or there are winter conditions, contractors can remediate and continue to work. I think it is money that will be well spent, and every dollar that goes in will probably be essentially tripled or quadrupled because it'll continue to allow contractors to work, pay their employees, to continue to buy equipment, and to keep that entire value chain running. So that's in our phase one idea. And lastly, which is also phase one, which should have no impact upon the general fund here in the state of Vermont is an idea that we're working on currently with the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation and the Department of Environmental Conservation. And that is to use currently appropriated federal funds from US EPA. State of Vermont receives, EPA clean water revolving loan, money. Fifteen years ago in Maine, we used that money to create a revolving loan program for contractors to invest in new low ground pressure harvesting equipment so that they could reinvest in their businesses, but that they could positively impact watersheds. And so the idea is to to essentially carve out some of those already appropriated funds and set up a revolving loan program so that contractors can invest in high or excuse me, low ground pressure equipment that in many respects costs anywhere from a half $1,000,000 to $850,000. It's not cheap. But if you can use these funds to lower the interest rates, a contractor can save $50.75, $100,000 on interest, and it allows them to reinvest and to employ many of these climate resilience initiatives that I mentioned before, also in phase one. So we're working with the administration right now. We're not there yet, but we're we feel pretty positive, and I know Oliver is here from DPFR, and he can mention the work that we're doing behind the scenes on that. So I think that's enough for today. Happy to answer any questions that you might have, but appreciate the opportunity to to be here and have feet on the ground in Vermont.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Vice Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: Yes. I just have a question for you about your request here that the the PLC would like to see Vermont legislature invest in safety training. I'm curious, does the Maine legislature how do they handle your training, and how much does it cost?

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Yep. So very good question. So the training that takes place in Maine started back in 1992. That was almost, you know, thirty one years, thirty two years ago. So at that point in time, the legislature did invest in it to get it off the ground, to help encourage contractors, to lower the burden, and and basically allow them to comply with their workers' comp statute, which quite frankly is exactly what Vermont adopted in 2019. So this is a way to kick start it. It's not meant to be long term funding request year after year after year. It's really meant to be aberration. So effectively, what Vermont would be doing is the same thing that Maine did thirty years ago.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Vice Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: And what would the dollar cost be to that?

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: We've estimated about a $100,000. Oh, okay. Yep. Yep. Annually.

[Rep. Mike Rice]: Are you able to estimate at all if the adaptation resilience practices were in place that you're talking about, what the the days that Sam was giving us in terms of days work this year, what that would look like. That's what that would look like during a in a year like this with so much rain and flooding and then winter conditions.

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Yeah. Very good question, representative Rice. Mean, I couldn't I couldn't give you a data point specifically to say if x was done, here's the the y increase in in days on the ground. That's probably a question better served to Sam knowing the variable ground conditions. But I think it would be safe to assume that you could see a 25 to 30% increase in the number of days worked just simply by employing some of some of those techniques, putting more gravel on a landing, putting a culvert in bridges, etcetera. I mean, are things that cost contractors money. And if they can't work, remember, is a cash based business. If you don't deliver wood across a scale, you don't get paid. So if you can't work, there's no revenue coming in. So if you can employ some of these measures, it allows them to work, it allows wood to get loaded on a truck, it allows that to get to allard lumber and then payments to be made. But unless you can do that, money just stops flowing.

[Rep. David Templeman]: Dave? Just a real simple question on the economic impact study you mentioned. It just says here, professional logging and trucking, I'm assuming trucking is specific to the logging industry, not okay. Not trucking in general. Correct.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Yes. Yep. Yep. Good.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: Brian? Thank you, mister chair. So, Dan, it's good to see you again. You mentioned that in order to join the PLC, there had to be sort of an alignment with statutes in both Maine and Vermont in terms of people that are joining. How different are the laws in Maine from what we have here? And if you could just talk about that for a sec.

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Sure. They're almost, mean, I wouldn't say identical, you know, in terms of workers comp statute, it is quite consistent. The sole proprietor situation in Vermont is a little bit different in Maine. You have to, you actually have to get a statement of self determination from the Maine Department of Labor in order to show that you're a sole proprietor and exempt from workers' comp. Vermont, you don't have to do that. So that would be the only change. I mean, Vermont, or I should say Maine has a much more diverse set of Forest Practices Act regulations that folks have to comply to or with than Vermont does. So in terms of that background check that I was talking about, you know, the main forest service has significant resources on investigations and compliance and etc. Than Vermont does. So, know, that enforcement piece is much, much different. So you won't see as much of evidence with the individual companies, but there are a lot of similarities.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: So would it be fair to say that the Vermont guys gals had had an easier time with it than maybe the main that sounds like it may may be a little bit more restrictive or

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: It's become more restrictive over time. I think when PLC first first started, if we go back twenty nine years now to 1995, the Forest Practices Act hadn't been passed yet. You know, the workers' comp reforms had just come around. So if we compare apples to apples in snapshot in time, you know, it's pretty consistent other than that small sole proprietor piece that I talked about. So, good question, Senator.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Yes. Thank you, Senator Star, and thank you, Dana. Just for the record, my name is Jed Lipsky, and for full disclosure, I have worked on the advisory committee with the PLC of the Northeast, and proudly so, I'm also been honored as Sam Lincoln has been. We are current master certified loggers, And there's a connection between the PLC, the Trust to Conserve Northeast Forest and the master logger certification program. And the biggest part of that connection has to do with the integrity and the responsibility that, loggers need to uphold in order to continue in with the best practices and most environmentally responsible practices. So I just wanna weigh in on a question that representative Rice brought up and also senator Kalimore. This issue of armoring a landing which protects municipal roadways or other public ways from any deleterious impacts from heavy loads or turbidity that could potentially reach waterways. That's a very specific and critical expense. And our bill our bill, I include what represents Sims and I are cosponsoring does address that particular challenge. But what I I just for everyone in this room, and you've heard me over previous session, responsibilities at timber harvesters face from ecological water quality, wildlife, bird habitat, soil productivity, as well as, adapting to outdoor recreation demands on forest land has increased over the last couple of decades. But right now, those responsibilities have never been greater, and we expect with all the climate impacts, they will continue to rise. So that has forced many contractors to invest in what you refer to as low ground pressure, most environmentally responsible. And I have been engaged in that low ground ground for particularly forwarding, harvesting, tracking equipment. And that has significantly allowed me over the years, although I'm a small contractor, to continue working, and I would estimate over the last decades, probably added about 25 or 30% of my production. So that is an important issue looking moving forward, but also a huge cost.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Thanks. Yeah. And I'm wondering how is that is that bill been introduced here in the house side? We

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: so it's it is it's on our wall. Oh, so you

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: have it.

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Yeah. Straight up.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Yep. Good.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: Right up there, I believe.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Yes. Yeah. John? Pam, how did

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: the other state governments responded to this loss of revenue crisis that's going on?

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Mhmm.

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Yeah. It's interesting you bring that up. So so a couple of things. I know that the committee had asked Sam about federal assistance in in the past. So back during the pandemic, you obviously had the PPP. We worked very hard with our national organization to get a program, essentially a one time program to deal with revenue loss called the pandemic assistance for timber harvestants and haulers, very successful program. It was a nationwide program in 2021. Since that moment in time, there's been no other funding source to assist. So Vermont went through this this summer and we painstakingly discovered that there were no programs available federal or state. Maine just had a big storm December 18. So Monday, I'm meeting with secretary Vilsack from USDA is coming to Portland with congresswoman Pingree and I'm meeting with him. We've just surveyed the Maine members over the last three weeks to find out what their income loss looks like. Looks like they have lost somewhere between 3 and $5,000,000. I'll have the final results at 05:00 today when the results are due. But that's something we're gonna bring to our governor in Maine as well as to secretary Vilsack to see what can be done. So I don't have an answer on that. What I will say is that the same things we're presenting to this committee with respect to forward thinking, climate resilience measures, equipment investments are the same measures we're promoting in the state of Maine, because these things have to happen. And I guess, bringing it to a close, you know, we're not trying to say replace income and wages. What we're trying to do is to look at what can we do to get folks to work so that continue to produce to make revenue to pay their employees. We don't wanna lean on the government and say, please bail us out every time this happens. That's not where we wanna go. We don't wanna promote that. But we wanna get folks to work, and that's the bottom line. I'd rather do that all day long than ask for a handout. Yeah. So yeah.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Do you have something

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: to say? If may

[Sam Lincoln]: make sense. Thank you. And to add to that, to Dana's point, is our vision for this is as Vermont looks for resilience and adaptation and climate practices, loggers are working hundreds of logging sites a year. And if you start putting pins on a map where we've implemented these better practices, more durable practices, we're securing that land from sedimentation, erosion, larger impacts with with the necessary tools and equipment and practices to get that done. That's what we're looking ahead saying we want to do and we can play a big role in the state's response and again, an adaptation and resilience in the future.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: The it would seem to me as quite important to get that impact study done because now the first thing that we're gonna get asked when we get to appropriations, some facts and and figures. And so has there been a movement on that with UVM?

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: So we've had some some really good discussions with both UVM and the Center for Rural Studies. UVM didn't feel like it had the resources within the forestry department because they don't have a forest economist on staff. But the Center for Rural Studies, we just had discussion two weeks ago. They actually just got back to Sam and I on Wednesday, and they felt confident that they had the they had the the person power and the access to the software to us to assist. A lot of this entire exercise revolves around getting data from contractors and contractors are resilient because they're independent businesses to provide information to state agencies, to others, just because they're businesses. They don't like to get that information up. So you need an organization like ours that can work with them and build that trust to then get that information. So anyway, that's again, we're not there yet, but we have had some positive conversations with the Center for Rural Studies.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Got you. Yeah. That's something I want to

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: think about. You want to think about here is we would have we would a little bit of yourself. And we I know the doctor bars because I can't get people to cut these jobs that are due for way of use program because there's not enough people, not enough parties to do it. So, it could have jeopardized the whole way of use plan in the state. Yeah.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Yeah. Because if you've got a ten year plan Right. Exactly. We've seen that.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: I I could tell you many times. And the other thing is with the weather, they're gonna pick the one the largest that they wish they need to do. They're pick the ones they can harvest and the others because of because of capital expenses and equipment, they're they're not gonna get cut.

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Yeah. Senator Star, would you mind if I just add it to what mister Allard was talking about? So I mentioned in here that community college training program. So I'm sure all the folks in the room are aware that Vermont Tech essentially is eliminating their forestry program, which is bad news.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: So

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: So one of the ideas is that we bring our community college program here to Vermont. Maybe hopefully, it's in Randolph Center. It's at Vermont. We bring it every other year, every third year. It's not something where we have to recreate the wheel. We've been running this program for seven years in Maine. We know how it runs. What we need to do is then bring it here. I mean, I will tell you, this is a multimillion dollar program. It's not paid for by the state legislature. Essentially, $250,000 a year comes out of the Maine legislature to help with that program. The rest of it's coming from the manufacturers. So, we have seven pieces of mechanized harvesting equipment that if you bought them brand new, it's 5,000,000. The manufacturers give us the equipment to run, because they look at it as McDonald's. If you train someone cradle to grave, here's your happy meal, you know, in twenty five years, are you still buying a hamburger at McDonald's? It's the same way with manufacturers, and that's the way they look at it. So it's a it's an amalgamation, but it's a collaborative effort between industry, the legislature, and the manufacturers for workforce training. And we think it's a great model, And we could bring it here to Vermont as well and maybe do it at Vermont Tech if that forestry program truly goes away.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Well, we've got we've got on the senate side, we've got people from Vermont Tech coming in. I don't if it's either the tail end of next week or the first part of the following week because the ag program is in the same shape as the timber program. So we've got the people coming in, to explain to us what their what their procedure and what's gonna be included in the in the program starting in September. So, yeah, we're aware that it's not a good good issue. We're losing. Yes, sir.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: Oh, I was just wondering.

[Rep. John O’Brien]: I know, like, in reference to that, the the issue around both ag and forestry seems to be an enrollment issue. You know, they wouldn't shut down a program that had people wanting to do it. So I'm wondering in Maine, do you guys is there any education outreach? Are you in school? Like, there there seems to be need for promotion at an early level Yep. To encourage people that this and also, obviously, we need to fix the problem of making it a profitable industry. So it's something people wanna go into, but how do you address the education piece?

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Sure. So if you look at my testimony on page three, I talk exactly to that point, representative Pearl, and that is career promotion. You know, we work very hard in Maine and getting into secondary schools, but we also work with post secondary because there are a lot of applicable trade programs where folks go through a welding program, a heavy equipment operations, a diesel hydraulics program, and they're a natural fit to come into logging or trucking. But the direct answer is yes. So we have a teacher's tour in the summertime that we run to bring secondary school teachers out and get them immersed in the forest products industry so that they can see the jobs of the future. And it's not just logging and trucking, it's forestry, it's mill manufacturing, could even be recreation. And then we also do a lot of promotion, television advertising, social media to advertise and promote the jobs of the future. Interesting fact point, I should have brought copies of our economic impact study, but in 2017, the data point in logging and trucking alone said the average salary was 47,000 in rural Maine in the job. We just released this the findings of the of the latest study in March 2023, which was 2021 data, but the salary had increased almost $20,000 Pandemic, etcetera, demand, all those things. But if you can go through a twenty week training program and walk out making 65 to $70,000 with zero debt, it's pretty good for a rural area. I don't care if you're in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York. That's pretty good. So I would challenge anybody to find a program like that where they can walk out with zero debt and start making that kind of money, but only if they can work.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: So Other questions? Sam.

[Sam Lincoln]: Thank you, senator. I just wanted to add to that that as a business owner, logging contractor of of policy proposals, the one that I'm most excited about is that job workforce forecast. The idea that we can work and find out how many empty seats and machines there are, how many people we need to do these jobs, and start taking action to recruit those young Vermonters, Mid LA Vermont, however, like our age, and put them, train them, and get them into this industry. And because it's exciting. It's a very actionable thing that we can do. I'm really, really supportive of that.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: So does the study program, they, are they all set to go or do they need any direction from us or or up at UVM, the rural studies? Is that rolling?

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: It's gonna take funding, senator Starr. So I think, you know, included, we put a forecast estimate into representative Lipsky and representative Sims bill of about a $100,000 to get that done. We're gonna get that done sometime in 2024.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: That'll be that's in the bill? Yes. That's in your bill?

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: It it is. And I and I would add a comment that we have interacted with commissioner Fipsco with FBR. We and they also have a lot to contribute, you know, and some data, not complete range of data. And a vital interest in seeing that study, happen as a number of witnesses have said that that's critical importance in in particularly center star. So there is a collaboration with FPR and Yeah.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: I'll speak to that in my remarks.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Sure.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: I believe, mister Bell is next in order.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Oh, yeah. On the on the screen.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: He's up there.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Jack Bell. Jack, can you hear us, Jack?

[Jack Bell (Long View Forest)]: I can. Can you hear me?

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Sure. Yeah. Wait. Welcome to the to the process.

[Jack Bell (Long View Forest)]: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you all. I'm sorry I'm not there in person, but the good news is that it's one of the very first kind of good weather logging days out there that we've had in a very long time. I'm not logging right now, but it's very busy here today and I'm grateful to, Sam and Jed for getting there in person because I'm sure that's a big sacrifice to not be in the woods, this morning working with, how it's been. As I said, my name is Jack Bell. I live in Putney, Vermont. I co founded a business called Longview Forest, in the year 1999, so we're in our twenty fifth year business. We're based in Westminster and Heartland, Vermont over in the Connecticut River Valley. We have today 37 employees, 13 of whom are employee owners of the company. We started as a small logging only business, but we've grown and diversified over the years. And, right now our employees, about half are working directly in logging and logging related activities every day. A quarter are in, forestry consulting and related services, invasive plant control, other things, and the other quarter are in our most recent new activities, forestry equipment sales, as well as some administrative staff. I'm also, one of, three Vermont board members with the PLC of the Northeast. Sam recruited me to get involved with that organization a year or so ago and, been really excited and impressed with it as, an opportunity for Vermont logging businesses. So I just thought, you know, I'd just talk a little bit about what the weather impacts have been on our business. We're a mission sort of a mission driven, mission focused business. Our mission is to to do forestry, to grow and harvest trees and be a contributing part of the Vermont forest products economy. We do plenty of other things to earn money, but that's, you know, the reason for our businesses being. And, you know, we're out to try to help produce some of the materials that we all use so much of. And we, you know, believe that Vermont and its forests and soils is a place that's very, very capable of doing that and that these materials are gonna come from somewhere. And if they're not coming from here, coming from somewhere else, and they may or may not be produced, in as good way as we can do it here. And then also, you know, I'm a big believer in wood as a really good raw material to use compared with the alternatives of plastics and metals and concrete and others, from a

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: overall

[Jack Bell (Long View Forest)]: energy and carbon and environmental impact perspective. So of our biggest goals in our business in trying to build and accomplish our mission are to have really good jobs in the business and that means, competitive pay benefits. And you know, we find that there's a lot of people that want to work in this industry, from a variety of walks of life, from the traditional backgrounds of logging and forestry, but also plenty other people. Like, I had no background in any of this. I grew up in New Hampshire, but, just wanted to work outdoors and get involved in, natural resources. And so there's I find there's there's a lot of people that want to be part of this industry, but you know, the quality of the jobs is a big hindrance. A lot of people try it and then if they have other alternatives, go elsewhere because of, you know, higher pay, better benefits, but also, and absolutely to the weather, question, consistent pay. In general, people that are employees in logging businesses are paid hourly. If people are running their own business, obviously, it's, as Dana was saying, just whatever they can produce on any given day. So the consistency of income is really a a big factor for people working in forest products industry and especially logging. You know, you can imagine that, you know, like pretty much every time it rains, if you're a logger, you are lying in bed with dread, for whether or not you'll be able to work in the morning. Mhmm. And I don't they're prob they're probably out there, but I don't know what other types of work, are like that where you have an awareness of the weather overnight and into the morning, and that's gonna affect whether or not you can, like, earn a paycheck the next day. It is a bad feeling any times, but, especially in these times when we have had so much, terrible weather. You know, thinking of, you know, just what my experience has been, you know, to the last few years, you know, Irene was the signature weather event for us in our business' history because I remember when that happened in 2011, we had pretty much a total stop of our operations for something like a month, You know, as we all know who were here for that, just so disruptive, roads disappeared, just we just had a complete total stop of operations, and we never had that before. But that was really only about a month long, and and and in the scheme of things, it was dramatic, but it fell within the range of what we're used to. We have a month or two of spring mud season and slow times in the fall, so it still felt sort of within the range of something like normal. But then, you know, I'd say these last you know, 2020 through today, the last three, four years have been incredibly different. You know, the the pandemic, there was the shutdown from the pandemic that was such a panic with everything freezing up. And in the forest products industry, there was just a total concern of everything being stopped, and that luckily was short lived. And, we we wondered in the 2020 whether we'd be able to work at all that summer. But after a brief period, you know, we went back to work, and it turned out it was a pretty good time for the logging business really through 2020. Decent weather. Markets came back, and then, you know, we we we were able somebody asked earlier about the PPP program and, you know, our business, we did tap into that. We did pay employees to be at home for periods of time when the business was shut down. A whole bunch of people that have worked in the logging business for a long time here said it was the only that is the only spring where they ever didn't have financial stress, because we had PPP funds, and we were paying people based on their average pay right through spring twenty twenty, and that stood out as the only spring for a bunch of our logging staff where they didn't have financial stress because they had a steady paycheck. And, you know, we're not a business that lays people off or sends people home. We we've committed that people can always come to work and work a regular full week, but a lot of our guys, if it's sweeping the floor and doing things that aren't incredibly obviously needed, they'd rather stay home and do something else, scout hunting or whatever it may be. So they sort of, you know, we provide work, but they, you know, just wanna get back to their normal work, so spring is always a stressful time. Know, 2021, we had down here in Southern Vermont, like, you know, over 30 inches of rain in the month of July, and that was more disruptive than Irene. That was unbelievably difficult summer stretched right on through. That was a time when, a group of, legislators were going around the state visiting job sites, and we were due to host one of those visits, I think, in July. Well, I remember it was right around that time because Paul Frederick kept asking, like, are we really gonna be able to visit an active job site? Because he knew what the weather was, and we had an active job site. And the guys on the job were saying, do we really wanna have people come and visit? It's pretty ugly out here. And I appreciated where they were coming from because it it wasn't our favorite type of work to be doing with the mud that was happening. But you know, my answer was like, no, that's absolutely what people need to see is come see what we're dealing with and what we're struggling with because that is something we face all of the time is like, what do we do? Do we Do we not have work for people to do? As has been discussed, do we spend more money on gravel, excavator time? What do we do? And we're facing that all the time more and more and more, and 2021 was before this year, definitely the worst stretch we'd had, but, that turned around and 2022 was really very good weather, June through October, like fabulous weather. But now since November 2022, it's been terrible. We have it's fourteen, fifteen months continuous of absolutely terrible logging weather. We have been logging, but it's been pretty much last winter never really froze. It was a terrible and short winter for logging, and, you know, this entire we never really came out of spring and got any good weather before this summer's, rain started, and it really continues. I mean, it's been wet, obviously, and mild through December, and so we've had, you know, I of the guys was around the shop this morning and he said it's the longest in ten years. It's the longest stretch he's had of being out of the woods a month and a half since he was logging, and that's a guy that logs every day all year round for us, but he's been here at the shop, like, working on equipment and doing whatever he can to keep busy. So that has been difficult. Our our business is logging production. It peaked in the year 2020 at 22,000 cords. In 2021, our logging production dropped to 14,000 cords. In 2022, it was 12,000 cords this year. We're eight months into our fiscal year. So we produced 6,000 cords. So we produced one third, less than one third of what we produced in the full year three years ago. Some of that is that we are not trying to produce as much wood. We've diversified away from logging. We're doing a lot more land clearing, which is kind of the opposite of what our mission is, but we get paid to clear land. We're doing a lot of excavation work that again is not what our mission is, but we, like many other loggers, just have to do whatever we can to pay ourselves and keep the business going. So we've shifted significantly away from timber harvesting and logging work to other things, related things that we can do. We don't really want to do that, but we've had to. Until this year, we had pretty much maintained our business revenues on balance through that shift to services, but this year our revenues are at about 65% of budget, because even with the shift to services, we just there's so many days when we can't work or it's hard to work, and our costs are up by 30%. I I didn't have enough time to look at everything I wanted to, but I did look. We have spent $72,000 in the last three years on mats, wooden mats and bridge panels, and those are used. Those are cheap used ones at 50 to $100 a piece. So that's about $25,000 a year. And before I looked back and before 2019, I couldn't, I couldn't find any records of us spending any money on wooden mats, but we've, I didn't I was going to, but I didn't have time to look at gravel. I was also gonna look at the number of excavator and bulldozer hours in the business because I without looking, I know that, our spending on stone and gravel and our spending on excavator and bulldozer hours that no one pays us for because it's just part of logging work. All those things have increased similarly. So I figure we've had about $25,000 a year of, wooden mat expense. We can use those one to three times laying them down on the ground to protect sections of truck road or landing or skid roads that we're using. We can use them one to three times, and then they're all they're trashed, and we have to dispose of them. I figure that the cost of the mats is probably a third of the total cost of dealing with them because we have to pay to haul them back and forth in between job sites, so if we're, know, we probably have somewhere in the range of $2,500 of trucking, added trucking expense to just move them between job sites because we usually need multiple truckloads of these things to cover any ground area. And then of course we have to install them. We need equipment on-site to like place them on the ground, do some minor excavation, set them onto the ground, and then remove them. And then we have to dispose of them as well. We have to haul them back to one of our sites, and usually we we burn them, eventually because they're just sort of all beaten up and they're not something you can leave behind on people's properties. So that's just an unbelievable added expense, and I figure that if if our production was not down, I'd say that would be adding, like, something like 10 to 15% to our total average logging cost, but at the same time that we're seeing all that additional expense, that's spread across less volume production because we've been you know, that expense is pretty much all in timber harvesting. We don't have those kind of expenses when we're doing land clearing work or excavation work, so I I didn't have time, but it's it's it's a very, very significant, increase to our, logging costs. So those are some sad anecdotes, but, that's kinda what we've been experiencing. I I love the proposals that, have been put together here, and we would absolutely benefit from and try to take advantage of any assistance, cost share sorts of funding around, this kind of work to protect soils and allow logging work to happen. It would benefit water quality, it would help get people to work. It would be a big help for us, in trying to continue to pursue our mission and contribute to the forest products economy in Vermont.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Well, thank you, Jack, for your testimony and the time you've given us in regards to this. Are there any questions from the committee members? Thanks, Jack, and you can stay on if you've got time. Now would you like to say a few words?

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: I'd love to chair this. I know I'm I'm fifth in this. So mister Allard is is on the agenda before me, so I wanna respect that.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Well, he's still got

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: it. Affairs.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: One over here. I think Trevor is a Trevor? Are you okay?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: If I may, if the senate members of the group need to be on the senate floor, I think, shortly, we we have we have extra time. We're we're available till noon, and we'd be happy to hear the testimony from the folks who haven't had a chance to speak yet. And then Yeah. Perhaps you

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: could check-in

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: with them later or or watch it

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: on television. Yeah. Okay. Well, why don't we do that then?

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: So maybe we should leave before we get started, and then we won't interrupt you. But before before we leave, I wanna, again, thank thank all of you folks for coming. And I think we probably most of us have some forced industry in our district. And I know Ethan Allen, not my way. They aren't loggers, but they certainly use a lot of maple and high grade timber, and they're having a hard time getting the product, that they need and, hopefully, we'll be able to get that bill going that you folks have got and

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: Yeah. And I don't wanna get too far out ahead of ourselves because it's we haven't had a chance to most people aren't even aware of its existence, but, we'll we'll have a It's truly guy in there. Guy in on the wall. Yeah.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Well, we need it on the dash.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: Very good.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Thank you. Thank you, Bobby. Thank you.

[Rep. John O’Brien]: He's the

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: one that drafted the Okay.

[Rep. John O’Brien]: Bill's on

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: the so maybe

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: So let's all just, pause for a second. In fact, you know what I'm gonna do? Because we've been going for an hour and fifteen minutes. I apologize to the guests who've been waiting, but we need to take five minutes, I think, just to to stretch. So let's do that. Are you all okay with that, Trevor? Let's I'm not sure who which is which.

[Rep. John O’Brien]: I'm Trevor. He's correct.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: Trevor. Okay. Good. Okay. Well, just just so wanna give the committee five minutes to stand up and stretch.

[Sen. Robert “Bobby” Starr (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: So