Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: But when the little light comes on in the upper corner, that's something to be aware of. Right? So So welcome, everybody. And we've since we've got some new faces in the room, I think what we'll do is have maybe, first of all, our committee assistant introduce herself. Maybe we've already said hello to her, to Patricia. But, Patricia, welcome. And we'd like to hear as much as you'd like to share about your story.

[Patricia Ruggi (Committee Assistant)]: Okay, well, hello everybody. I think I've exchanged greetings with many of you, but not all of you. So my name is Patricia Ruggi. My Vermont connections go back to childhood. I come from an American Irish family, and I came to summer camp in Vermont, in Southern Vermont as a child, horseback riding camp, and I bought a house in Roquilla about twelve years ago. But I've continued to work internationally, so I haven't really been here. So this is very exciting for me, because now I feel like I'm right in the midst of things happening in Vermont. I work in the field of social behaviour change, mainly in Africa, little bit in The Middle East. So yeah, I've come from a lot of different places and I'm still active professionally, but I happen to have a six month gap January to June. And so when I saw this, I thought I would absolutely love to do that and get much more grounded here in Vermont. For agriculture, I am not a farmer, I'm not even a very good vendor of flower beds, but I've worked a lot with rural communities, mainly in East, Southern, and a little bit in North Africa. So I know agriculture from the subsistence point of view and from the nutrition point of view, because I've worked a lot on infant and young child feeding in that context. So I'm really excited to learn, driving through Vermont, all this, seeing all the farming, but really knowing nothing about it. So I'm really excited to just beat ears and listen in and learn a lot about the issues. So that's probably a lot more than I intended to say, but I'm very happy to be here with you. And I'm new at this. If I make mistakes, just shout. It's hard to hurt my feelings, and I will try to be a sweat school podcast. Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, even though you're new at this, we are already assuming that you know more than we do about the technology. So when something's not working

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I'm over a step.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, thank you. You're new at this, you really just started today. Yes,

[Patricia Ruggi (Committee Assistant)]: I know the technologies, but the way that you use them during the legislature is very specific, so there'll be

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: a learning curve on that. We should make sure that you have all of our phone numbers so that you can reach us if need be. And sometimes that will mean you and my suggestion, letting reminding everybody that we have a meeting committee meeting after the floor or that for some reason maybe we're not meeting or something like that. So if you wanna pass around a sheet of paper, can show you that. Representative Bartholomew, our new vice chair, back home in the ag committee. Back home in the ag committee. All know you, but I'm sure if it makes yourself great.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: How much do you want? Well, was on Environment this last year, and I quite enjoyed it. A lot of good testimony on beavers and reintroducing catamounts and stuff like that, but it's good to be back on ag. I was in transportation for a while, but when I started, I was ten years when it was the agriculture committee, and then it became the agriculture and forest products committee, and then it became agriculture and forestry, and now it's different again, food resiliency. So I've been around a while. I'm a retired veterinarian. I worked at Public Health Service at the National Institutes of Health, mostly in laboratory animal medicine. I actually have a degree in agriculture, but I actually never attended an agricultural school, but somehow got a degree, and that's another story, how I managed to do that. And what else? I live in a cohousing community on a working farm. I can't claim to be a farmer, although I was involved with raising sheep until malignant cataro fever created some challenges for our dairy herd, and we got rid of our sheep. So I got a big garden, and we live right next door to farmers and get the milk down at

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: the bar. I'm not sure what else to tell you. It's Heartland, right? Heartland, yes. Yeah, Heartland.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Alright. Which is not the same thing as Hartford.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Heartland is North Of

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: 88991 Junction. Right? Or right at It's it's South Of White River. South Of White River. Okay. On on the on the Connecticut River? Yes. Yeah.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Yeah. It reports Windham. Yes. Yeah. Which is also the strip. Winds really works for Windham. So this is my eighth eighth turn. Oh, yeah. Did you come in?

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Did do the math? Don't know. 'eleven, Saturday? Wow.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. I hadn't realized that you had been, I knew you'd been at the ad committee, but I didn't realize it was for as long as you had been, and I also didn't know the history of all those name changes, so interesting. Well, I guess for the purposes of maybe just letting Patricia and John know a little bit more about us and to the folks around the room. And by the way, I'm gonna get to all of you too for introductions. But maybe we can just quickly tell Patricia where we're from and anything else that's important.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Wanna go ranking.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: That's right.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Actually, why don't you go first, John?

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Okay. Representative John O'Brien, I represent Windsor Orange One. So one town in Windsor County is Rowland, one town in Orange County, my hometown of Tufts. And I'm the only member here who overlapped with John,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think. Yeah,

[Rep. John O'Brien]: this is my starting my eighth year.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: I'm Gregory Burtt, I'm from Cabot and represent Cabot Danville and Peacham Apple And Maple Syrup Farmer. I've farmer my whole life. My dad bought the farm in the 80s and we did dairy when I was a kid. But sold to her when I was a kid. I'm glad I had a little bit of something to acknowledge on the subject to start. That was nice being put on this committee. Otherwise, I wouldn't have much to offer.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: My name is Michelle Bos-Lun. I represent Windham III, which is in Northern Windham County. So my hometown is Westminster and I also represent Rockland and Brookline. And this is my first term on this committee. I've served two terms on another committee, corrections downstairs. And I'm not a farmer, but I do have a pretty hearty garden. And I actually am very interested, especially in the food part of our title. And this last summer I actually had a booth at the Bells Falls Farmers Market. So we actually passed legislation that was pertaining to cottage industries and having booths at farmers markets and I decided to try it out. So now I feel like I've earned my seat.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Yes. Patricia, my name is Jed Lipsky. I represent Lamoille one, which is Stowe. I guess professionally, I'd have to say I've been a logger, an active timber harvester for fifty nine years. Still alive, still functioning. And I also had a long and continue to have an active role in conservation efforts and environmental work, rural planning, serve on numerous boards related to that, but I'm a very strong advocate for working lands, which include agriculture and forestry. In case you don't know it, Vermont is 76% forested, and it's been a strong part of most communities in Vermont for hundreds of years. Actually it's more forested than it has been for about one hundred and twenty years. And I am not a farmer. I guess horses are agricultural, and I've had a lifelong involvement with equine. I'll leave it at at that. But I the only thing I would counsel you on is no one in this room will ever yell at you or scream

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: at you.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: They are following rules of decorum, so do not be intimidated by anyone in this room. And if anyone does scream at you, there's seven of us that are coming to your depression.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I don't know what? I brought that up because

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Patricia said I'm sure you will scream or

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Oh, okay.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: You know, you don't remember that, David? I I I That struck a chord in my ear. I shouldn't

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: That won't happen in this game. Thank you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: K. Patricia, I'm Richard Nelson. I represent the town of Derby. Lifelong dairy farmer. If you read my bio, I was born in '63, and that's when I decided I wanted to be a farmer. I have a BS from the University of Vermont, aptly titled BS in animal science. This gentleman sitting to my right is the most interesting man in the world, and as you come to hear the stories of his life, you will say that you have met the most interesting man in this world. I you know, I've lived in Derby my whole life, and this is my second year to have the great responsibility of working for the people of the state of Vermont.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Great. And I'm David Durfee, and we've had a chance to talk a little bit, but I don't know that I've told you a lot about my stuff. So I live in Bennington County, Southwest part of the state. And when you said that you went to camp in the Southern part of Vermont, I don't know where

[Patricia Ruggi (Committee Assistant)]: that was, but- Wells, I was in Lake St. Catharine. Oh, okay,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: so a little further north. Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury is the town where I live, and I represent also part of Sunderland and then Glossenbury. Glossenbury is an interesting community. It's unorganized. I always want to say unincorporated. It's actually unorganized. One of two towns that are side by side that at one point had enough population to sustain a government of sorts, but now there's only eight people that's in the class

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: of birth.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: But I like to make sure that I because those are eight constituents, they're just as important. I and I've served for seven years. This is my fourth term. I started out on the health care committee for two years, and then I was on ways and means committee for two years. And then there was a shuffling, and I came over here to the Ag Committee. And we often call it just the Ag Committee, even though it's been called something else for fifteen years just for convenience. So it's okay for you to say that too. I hope that the forestry folks and the food folks don't feel slighted. I'm

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: just for the

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: record. And I'm not an agriculture. I'm not a farmer. I have a garden, but nobody could ever call me a farmer. But I do garden, and I, for a number of years, ran a food co op, so I have that connection as well. Good. I think it's good for us to know from time to time who else is in the room, and we have some familiar faces and maybe some new faces. So if you wouldn't mind, I'm just gonna go around and Kate, I'll start with you. If you can just say, you don't have to give us your life story, but if you wanna just tell us who you are and who you're here representing.

[Kate Eberly (Dept. of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Sure, Kate Eberly, and we met yesterday, representing Forest Parks and Recreation, and we also call it

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: house agg, so it's okay. I'm sorry?

[Kate Eberly (Dept. of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: We also call it house agg,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: so we're You do, okay, alright, good.

[Kate Eberly (Dept. of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Good afternoon, I'm Michelle Bos- I represent the Vermont Dairy Producers Alliance, which is a broad range of conventional dairy farms and other members such as Chittenden Valley Equipment and trade, know, people support the agri service in the state of Vermont.

[Peter Streckerly]: I'm Peter Streckerly, grew up in Barrie, Methodistow. I'm a

[Peter Streckerly]: snowboard instructor and musician. I support Jed Lipsky of course, he's the most interesting man in snow. I'm just getting involved in politics, so kinda

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: seeing what happens and just joining the Republican Party in Washington County, I suppose. We're kinda affiliated with that in Stowe, but also in Milwaukee.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Hello everybody,

[Bob Galvin (Standing Trees)]: my name is Bob Galvin, I live in Bowling and I am representing Standing Trees and we do work on public land protection and public land management issues.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: My name is Audit Bowen, I'm with Punger Free Vermont, so I work on food security issues like SNAP, snowmobiles, and things like that. You'll probably see me wrapping up. I'm Sarah Borsland, I work for Project Coyote. We're an organization that helps communities and also farmers coexist wild carnivore species. I'm here supporting H326, the rodenticide bill that I see on the wall, and look forward to working with all of you.

[Sarah Borsland (Project Coyote)]: I'm Louisa Sackhoff and I'm in this committee, I'm a lobbyist, I'm in this committee usually for the Vermont Forest Products Association and sometimes for the Vermont Farm Bureau.

[Tennessee Lam]: I'm Tennessee Lam. I'm taking a semester off from college to do an internship within a Krasnow group, so I'm in here taking notes for them.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: I'm Caitlin Burtt. I'm here with Action Circles, also taking notes as a legislative assistant.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Welcome.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Again, with that, I'm gonna do one more show around the table, give everybody an opportunity to just say whatever has been on your mind. I know we were here in November, but we didn't really have a chance to do that and hear about things that you are thinking. It could be legislation that you are introducing or maybe legislation that we've already got on the wall, or maybe it's something that you just think is a topic that ought to be taking up or having more discussion about. Or it could be none of the above too. Think if there's something that you think is relevant that you wanna mention, feel free. Everybody, I think, got a copy of the agenda and it's not gonna be a long afternoon. I think we will go maybe until two with this and take a break, and then once the legislature counsel is able to come in, then we're gonna hear from them about this municipal ag ruling, which is pretty big deal. And I wanna just sort of make sure that we understand what the issue is. And then later in the week or possibly next week, we'll have some testimony and maybe have some language to look at. I think that there have been conversations going on over the summer between various groups and trying to arrive at an agreement or at least a framework, I think. So we have that that will help us. And then we'll be done for the day. I have a stop at three, although if that conversation turns to be something that could run longer, we could take a break then and come back in. But I don't think it will be. Anyway, yeah, I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are, what you've been thinking about. I, this morning, at our Democratic caucus, each of the chairs was asked to say something about what are you interested in? What are you planning to do this year? And I mentioned this municipal, this court ruling with the municipalities and zoning and agriculture. That was one of the things. One of the things I didn't mention was that we've got a couple of reports from the new land use review board that were requested two years ago in the big, actually, the reform bill. And they both are of interest to us. One has to do with wood manufacturers. One has to do with accessory on farm businesses. And one of those reports has already been submitted to us, and we look at it right away. And then another is due in February. So those are a couple of things that I wanna be sure that we spend some time focusing on, and hopefully making some progress on too. Both of those are examples of policy that we are interested in, but not just us. So the municipal court ruling is also of interest to government operations. The accessory on farm business and wood products deal with Act two fifty, that's of interest to the environment committee. But we can take a look. We can have our say and then see what happens after that.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Richard, would you Yeah, sure.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You know, current use programs, and we had a bunch of bills for both last year, and I don't know if any of them were right. So maybe it's just when we can have discussions about it to crap something crap for next year if I still happen to get elected again. Anything we could do to help our my cousins in forestry is very important to me. As bad as dairy is in this state, I think forestry may be worse. And and a lot of it's out of our control, but we all need we all need timber products. We all need timber products. And, of course, the s 60 is something that I'd like to see us work on more if we could call it back from appropriations. And the What was that written? S 60.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: That that

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: that's that's the climate relief bill, you know, emergency Yep. Abundant. And of course, on fram structures to to to release some of the burdensome her hurdles on that that you mentioned. And I'm on a working group for the, and we had a really good Zoom meeting yesterday, which we should've had at the beginning of the process with the New York farmers and New York DC and agriculture, and it is not adversarial at all over there. But it started with a lot of understanding and move slowly. And, you know, we've been they are you know, they started the same time we did, and they're light years ahead of us now. So that was a really good call yesterday, and I will miss some meetings to be at that, but I will go over that with you beforehand. And if there's meetings I can't miss here, then I will miss those. We they meeting Thursday and again at the January. Very important work. And there's another bill coming, maybe coming on drainage tiles, which I queried how they work with those and getting Heather. And again, it may be not something ready to pass this year, but to look into to doing a better job than we are because we all want to do the right job. So anyway, that's that's enough. Great.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Reminds me, if you know you're not gonna be here, I know everyone's very good about letting me know, let Patricia know too. If for no other reason that I might forget that you've told me. K. Yeah.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: That Thank you, chairman Durfee. There are a couple of bills that one that I have sponsored that was really looking the impacts of the wood products manufacturers report that's highlighted in act one eighty one. I'm also for full disclosure, I'm very active with the rural caucus and, you know, working lands in general, agriculture, and forestry are high priorities with me. I serve on the Vermont Forest Future Strategic Roadmap Implementation Committee, which is a broad umbrella group that's was passed in the legislature in 2022, the implementation strategic roadmap by the legislature, and that was to to advocate for support of the forest products industry, taking into account the broad umbrella of values that our forests provide for monitors and the world, which include clean water, water protection, soil sustainability, and productivity, wildlife habitat, in particular, migratory songbird habitat, and outdoor recreation, carbon storage and carbon sequestration, both forest products. It's a no particular these are all important values that Vermont's forest provide our state and our planet. With that said, I'm a strong component of what's called active management as a way to improve habitat, ecological, biodiversity, resilience. So I'm not focused on one thing like sequestration or storage or outdoor rack, but I my role in the implementation steering committee is important. I think Richard mentioned current use. I get a lot of communication around the state and my community about how critical current use some of you may not know this, but it was a policy that began in the late seventies or early eighties, became statute, and it was to really keep working lands working, to keep forest forested, and and forest connectivity as we understand various migrations of wildlife are are very critical to our environment. So I try to take a a deep, not just a high level over, but and for full transparency, I am a member of the Vermont Forest Products Association. I am a member of the professional logging contractors in the Northeast. I am a director of the Northeastern Loggers Association. Those are professional volunteer service to site. And you serve in the legislature. It's public service. But as I said, current use is under a lot of pressure, and I can attest that it plays a critical role in supporting agriculture and forest landowners. There are over 19,000 private enrollees in forest land cover in the state, and I I want to be a voice, and I want our committee to be a a a voice for that critical use. People say, current use has kept Vermont looking like Vermont, green hills, productive cropland, and landscapes. And I think all those whether it's food production or active forest management, it's critical. I don't believe that Vermonters are best served by buying forest products from the 10 time zones in the Former Soviet Union or other parts of South America or Southeast Asia where there isn't a high standard in concentration of regulation responsibilities. From a carbon footprint perspective that's very deleterious to our concern over greenhouse gas emissions, when Vermonters can regionally and locally support our local economy by using locally produced and manufactured or milled products, it's the best possible use of our local offerings. So current use will be an important topic in the World Caucus. There are issues with some of the rulemaking by the land use review board that came out in act one eighty one, and I have participated and expressed concerns about how they impact workforce transition of ownership. We have a workforce declining aging population, and we need young families or farm families or want to be farm families to be able to stay in Vermont, raise families in Vermont, put school children in our rural schools. These are all values that I'm gonna be advocating for agriculture food resiliency and forestry community this year.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you. Somebody's already talked to me about current use, and when we looked at it last year, we had the bills that we looked at, and then we also had a request from the Ways and Means Committee to just better understand what the impact of current use was on the tax rate essentially. And if nothing else, one of the things that I thought we had advanced the conversation on was how much the actual penny impact on the tax rate. For many years, we understood that $10,000,000 in the Ed Fund equated to a penny on the tax rate. And, of course, over time, with inflation, things change. And you heard from JFO that that number, this is last year now, so it's already out of date, but it was $14,000,000 of education fund money, adds an additional penny to everybody's property tax rate. And I say, I thought we'd move the conversation along. Recently, I heard somebody who should know better say, equate the $10,000,000 So we need to just help. We can help our colleagues remember, if you're in a conversation. And I think I'm probably going to get this wrong, but I think that the total current use number last year was around $55,000,000 So if you do the math, it's 14,000,000 is 1¢, but 55 is around 4¢ anyway. So that's all current use, I think, ag and forestry. Yeah, that's the impact. Which doesn't mean, I don't mean to say that we shouldn't be providing oversight the way that we should be doing for anything and making sure that we are collectively getting good value for that. We all know and I think support the reasons that we have it during this program, but we should continue to make sure that the the rules are being followed, for example, that everybody who's enrolled in it actually is doing what they're supposed to be doing and experiencing. Don't suppose there's any abuses. Well, without getting into that today. All right, on to Michelle.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Yeah, so I would just say one update that I heard in the hallway from one of our friends from NOFA was that they heard that appropriations is planning on taking S-sixty off the wall soon and voting it out soon. Now I'm not sure there was an amendment that came in kind of late, did that come in when it was still with us or did that come in down I'm not sure it may end up coming back to us, but in any case, we've been waiting for it to come out of appropriations and it sounds like it is gonna come out. So that may be coming back to us. The two I would say that I'm the most interested in of the existing bills that we've had already would be the ones that we started on fairly early in the session, which would be the rodenticide bill. And I'd actually be interested in looking into the one about welfare for chickens. Those are my two chickens and coyotes. And I actually do like

[Patricia Ruggi (Committee Assistant)]: the new bill about the right

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: to grow vegetable gardens, but I have to say I haven't looked at it in great detail. I did talk to the person who submitted that for five minutes this morning, and it sounds like a nice idea. I think people should have a right to go to vegetable gardens. I think taking that up would be a good service to garamachers.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, so S60, this is the Climate. Climate setting up a fund. Yeah, and it was We passed it last year, and then we did hear an amendment that we took a straw poll on. There was some debate. Representative Bennington had brought an amendment. Then it didn't go any farther at the time because appropriations was they had their hands full and they had run out of funding, I think. But the conditions over the last six months, I mean, conditions, but equally problematic conditions. And I think that that's actually one big factor in why they've decided to do something more more with it. Just leave it there. Does it have any funding attached to it? Because No. So so as with, most bills, what they'll probably do is strip the funding out, and then it'll be up to us to advocate for, in the budgeting process, putting something in there. Yeah. But I think it's a good signal that they would support some funding. Yeah. Thanks, Michelle.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I have farmers

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: in Addison County that are gonna be putting together a large farm, a small smaller farm, and an organic farm are gonna put together what the drought did to their crops and the cost associated with it for them. They're gonna get that too. I'll present it to the committee, but it had been quite devastating.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Tomorrow morning, the agency is coming in to give us to tell us what they have been hearing, I think both informally and then through the survey that they've been running most of the fall. So good, yeah, that would be interesting.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Greg? Yeah, well, I've got a couple bills. I've just got one delivered. This bill here would up the uniform capacity tax on solar arrays and half of the money from that capacity tax would go into the farm security fund, and then the other half would continue to go to the undefined.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: So

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: that's one bill I'm working on that might come to our committee for that reason. Also another one related to solar that would have the agency of ag be a party involved with the PUC on citing solar arrays. So that bill I have as well. So those are two things I'm going be working on. Trying to see if I have anything else that might come to our committee. I have a bill going in on really tier three parts of fact 181. Small modifications. Cabot's got a lot of tier three land on the map right now, and there are quite a few people that are up in arms about it a bit. What's tier three? Tier three is habitat connector zones.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It's gonna be stricter under Act two fifty then.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Yeah. So so, yeah, just I can show whoever's interested in that bill, the modifications that I think should be made. It also addresses the road rule a little bit. Generally, my focus is on, I want to see our working lands thrive, whether it's forests, or dairy farms, any type of farms in our state, wanna see, I kind of adhere to a philosophy of abundance when it comes to economics and community that think the more the merrier, if it's done right. When I say that, I mean, I think more farms, more forest products, utilizing the working lands. Don't think it needs to be a contest between whether or not we're improving or just making improvements to the environment or doing something detrimental to the environment and increasing the viability and access to opportunity in our state. I don't think those need to be juxtaposed against one another. So, a lot of my attention is focused on how do we grow the economy of our state and do it in a way that's continuing to increase the vibrancy of our ecosystems and adhere to our traditional values within our state of working the land and supporting working class families and supporting housing, supporting homesteading, instead of, you know, I think it's character, I'm a little leery of words and verbiage that was put into Act 181 about, specifically about cluster development when Vermont, outside of the villages, where we don't have cluster development, that's not the makeup of our typical housing situation. Most Vermonters enjoy their small farm or homestead that's all by itself, right? We want to be in and among nature and live in and among it, and so I think there needs to be a revisiting of what are our development values in the state, and how do we actually achieve those.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Good, thank you. John.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: This conversation just made me think how we're always known as a policy committee, not a money committee. One thing we don't seem to do too much of is it'd be nice to just look at sort of broad policy at the beginning of the session sometime. Because we don't really talk about this committee, Where do we fall on food policy or foreign policy, forest economy policy? Because I just looking at the votes over the years, it's like there's no committee that votes out stuff so unanimously against this committee, because we're also pro farm, pro forced economy, things like fighting food insecurity. So if we could get to that point where we're like, well, is where we want to go with these issues, then I think the bills will all follow as far as priorities go. New bills that were like, well, if this is our policy in this committee, what can we do legislatively to either incentivize things or ban things? But even you can bring to light certain issues that we think aren't getting

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: attention they should be.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: John. Second John.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: One issue that I'm concerned about of many is food security. We can only have food security if we have agricultural security, as you know, farms have to be viable. And I'm remembering years ago, there was a testimony from an apple producer who said that he would hire any American who came in to pick the fruit. And he told a story of a time he hired three Americans, only one came back the second day and he didn't want to work in the trees. He wanted to work in the packing house. So I think it's pretty clear to me that agriculture in this country only works, and the only way you get to eat is because we have immigrants who are willing to do the work. So many Americans just don't want to do it. And so one concern I'm having right now is, are these people feeling secure? And if they're not secure and they leave, are we gonna if if we could round up everyone who's not supposed to be in this country and they left, what would happen to our food? Would we get to eat at all? So that's a troubling issue. If we don't have the workers, then the farmers, the people who own the farms, can't function. So it's something I've been kind of stewing over a lot lately.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: We are too. John, if they round them all up, divest your stock portfolio, because Wall Street is gonna crash worse than twenty ninth. Well, it might stikes a bit because nobody everyone will stuff it. I mean,

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: our whole food system is based on on labor being there. And if labor isn't there, who's gonna pick the fruit? Who's gonna pick the vegetables? Who's gonna plant the seeds? Who's gonna Drow it. And you look at the demographics of Vermont farmers, they're older and older and older, and they can't do the work. They've gotta hire somebody to do it. And I think that's true in Vermont scale agriculture as well as the mega farms out west.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We had a hearing in November to just hear what was happening, what some of the impacts were of various things happening federally, and we heard a couple of witnesses addressing this specific issue who work with that population and shared some of their perspectives, but also insights on what they were seeing and hearing in terms of people's fears and comfort level and being out in the community and how that's evolved over the years and not moving in the right direction. Okay. Good. So as we were going around, did anybody have anything else that you thought of when you heard somebody else, or anything else anybody wanna add? This does not have to be this is not like, okay, we're not talking about anything else all year,

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: but Well, it struck me when John O'Brien brought up the notion of policy and objectives, and then when John B. Brought up a similar segment that is very relevant to policy. Some of it's out of our control, but I think it's really important for us as a committee to collectively sort of prioritize our visions, and I just wanted to say, John, I've never seen a body, not just our committee, but overall when migrants have been rounded up from farms in Berkshire or wherever, how universally disturbed, and everyone in this room knows what a critical component they are for the And in the forest products also there was a bill in Tupper Lake, New York that got raided some in but it's mostly with agriculture, that workforce is critical, security, and so I really appreciate you introducing that very clear critical issue to our committee. I watch Richard stress and his blood pressure and heart go nuts over. His pens. It was way beyond pens and his neighboring farms and probably for being targeted. So and this isn't a partisan issue, a political issue, it's about a sustainability issue. So I like the fact that we can continue, chairman Durfee, to circle back into where does this fit into our collective values as both the community leadership and the community membership.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you for that. Doesn't the chair have to yell? Oh, yeah. Well, I sort of went at the beginning with a couple of things that were, this so the municipal issue, the the reports, which I think to a certain extent will mesh nicely with your comments, John, about what are our priorities. Stepping back and saying, we're not always necessarily going to be able to come to an agreement on what are broadly things that we all share and the direction we wanna go. But where we can find that, I think it's worth maybe spending some time trying to think about that. So And these reports that have come out of act 181 that we're gonna be hearing about, I think maybe give us an opportunity to think about that, and use that framework to think about I think we're gonna get a pesticide bill, a specific pesticide bill, that may be something we wanna talk about. I have also been talking with folks about PFAS as an allowed pesticide component. That seems like something we ought to know more about. And it's an issue that came up in the legislature a couple of years ago, and there was a study that requested more work on it, and there really wasn't much more work done. So I'd like to go back to talking to looking at that issue.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Did you watch the news this morning? I did. No. So CAX.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. There's two new pesticide or one has been approved with a PFOA in it, but there's 50,000 different PFOA chains. I don't know the name of it yet. I'm gonna find out. It is nothing I use. Tried and true what I use and I'm comfortable with it. Yeah. If the corn's not growing, it's weeds by end August, so really short lived. If the corn grows, shades out the ground, you know, doing what it's supposed to do. But anyway I I yeah. I understand what you're saying because Greg and I have signed on to I don't know how many pieces of legislation over sludge and not putting sludge on agricultural lands to keep the PFOAs out.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Yeah. Yep.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So so if that's right, and if that's an issue that if it's in sludge and we don't like it, then if it's the same thing, and as you said, there are thousands, literally, of these compounds, and only a handful of them, I think, been identified as problematic and have been the ones getting the attention. Doesn't mean that others aren't. But I think we wanna be, it's gonna be an emotional issue. I think we should also want to be solid with the science and data and not just be dismissing out of hand anything that is raising the temperature. I'll also say this will raise the temperature. I saw just the other day, this is not really a pizza, but to glyphosate. It's a roundup. A paper that was published a quarter century ago has been retracted now by the journal that published it, and it's the most often cited paper in this literature of reports that were done at the time to justify the safety of glyphosate. Again, it's not to say that there's new evidence that there's a problem there, but this is something that has happened, so something to be aware of. Just wanna get me excited. I told you, yeah.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, it's still warm.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So what else? Some of the things that you mentioned, John, that's definitely been on my mind too. And we did take a lot of testimony last year on the rodenticide bill. I'll need to check because I think we had a couple of folks who were hoping to make some time over the off session to dig into that a little bit. And we hadn't gotten to a point where we had developed any language. Something's sitting out there. Why don't we take a little break? We've got Gradle coming in at 02:15, we'll pick it up again there.