Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: This is for our benefit as well as pledge capsule. Well, that's a good point. If I had to swear an oath, why did

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: we do? I mean, and as we all know, when we're putting together something for a presentation, we learn as much as we

[Unidentified Member]: It'd be interesting if we had bills passed in both houses signed by the governor that came out of here this That would be helpful, actually.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: Yeah. And we do have that on our website. But we don't have a way to portray that, I guess, on the board, right? Because

[Rep. Heather Surprenant]: maybe we'll red sticker on them or something.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: Just a new column. Yeah. Okay. We'll work we'll work on that. Good idea.

[Bradley Sheldon, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. Well, good afternoon. My name is Bradley Sheldon with the office of legislative council. I'm an attorney there. And today, I will present a brief overview on the twenty twenty five acts from that that were passed out of this committee. And here they are. We'll go through each of these acts one by one, and I will give a brief overview of each of them. There's probably more detail in this presentation than the committee needs, but it is there for reference if you would like moving forward. So, to start, we are starting with Act four, an act establishing the Vermonters, Feeding Vermonters grant at the Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets. So this grant program provides grants to the Vermont Food Bank to purchase local food and distribute that food throughout the food bank's distribution channels. It also permits the Vermont Food Bank to offer subgrants to do this work. The next bill, act 36, an act relating to the creation of the Mollie Beattie Distinguished Service Award. This creates an award that the commissioner of forest parks and recreation will present annually to a current or former state employee or partner whose contributions honor the legacy of Mollie Beatty in advancing the conservation, accessibility, quality recreation experience, and sustainability of Vermont's public lands. Act 42, an act related to exemptions for food manufacturing establishments. So this act created a new category of food manufacturing establishments, cottage food operations, which refers to home kitchens or auxiliary kitchens on a person's private property where cottage food products are produced. This define cottage food products to mean items sold by a cottage food operator that do not require refrigeration or time or temperature controls for safety. It exempted these operations with gross annual receipts of 30,000 or less from licensing requirements, But it does require these operations to submit a licensing exemption and to attest to a completion of training required by the Department of Health in this rule. Before we move off this one,

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: just coincidentally, tomorrow, I think L. F. A. R. Is viewing rule alluded to in the bottom, at the end of this slide, it's actually an emergency rule because we had two phased or two pronged approach here, I think.

[Bradley Sheldon, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. I can speak to that. So the rule itself passed in early December. The standard rule passed in early December, however, due to an oversight. That rule was not properly filed afterwards, so it necessitated an emergency rule so the standard rule could go into effect or without a lapse between when the standard rule goes into effect. And so that is on the agenda for L. CART tomorrow.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: I had and this is some sort of the thing that happens behind the scenes in the off season for those who are interested in communication from the Elkhart staff, I think, saying, here's the rule that so, you know, we're working on it, and you can let us know if you see anything that's out of you know, looks askew here. And so I consulted with legislature counsel. It wasn't Bradley. It was Katie who helped us with that one. So that happens when there are rules happening. Representative Basil? Yeah. Actually have

[Rep. Heather Surprenant]: a question too. So I actually worked at a farmer's market this summer sort of under this. I registered a small business and sold baked goods and other things. And there was another woman that was at my same farmer's market who sold exclusively cookies. And she wanted to sell her cookies to a coffee shop in our town. And I had somebody from the coffee shop come over to me and say, Hey, you know about the law. Can she sell cookies at my coffee shop that are produced at her house because it's a home business? And I said, I don't actually know how that works. It limited where you sell your items if they're sold under 30,000? Like, could somebody do a secondary sale like that? Like somebody from a home cottage industry sell their cookies to a coffee shop that's then gonna sell them to customers?

[Bradley Sheldon, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So I am not familiar with the kind of inner workings of that, but I can find the answer for you. Go back to you.

[Rep. Heather Surprenant]: That would be awesome because it's a live issue. In fact, this person they found to make cookies has literally, as of this month, stopped making their cookies. So they need cook we need cookies in our coffee shop at Flatiron in his phone as well.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Still pass out.

[Rep. Heather Surprenant]: Alright. If you can let me know, I will be happy to pass on the word.

[Bradley Sheldon, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I will be happy to.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: Okay. Representative Bartholomew. It's not really clear

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: to me what food products would be included and excluded from this. And I

[Rep. Heather Surprenant]: can't remember from the I mean, they said it has to be foods that are not easily going to be contaminated or have food poisoning. So almost any baked good is gonna be fine with the exception of something like a quiche or a tart with a cream filling or something like that. So basically hot foods that you can't, anything that you have to cook that is supposed to maintain a temperature is not, you would need to get a license for catering for that.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Baked goods, candies, canned goods?

[Rep. Heather Surprenant]: Canned goods also were under this as well.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: So you make jams or stuff

[Rep. Heather Surprenant]: like Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And in my booth, I sold that stuff too. Okay. Excellent. Yeah.

[Unidentified Member]: Maybe

[Rep. Heather Surprenant]: not for many mayonnaise. I didn't try that one.

[Bradley Sheldon, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Act 59 is a much larger bill. It's our miscellaneous agriculture bill from the house, house 44. So this this bill amended several laws related to agriculture and environmental subjects. And because it's it's pretty big, I will go through each of these points and I get them as quickly as I can here. So, it conforms statute related to regulation of fertilizers, plant amendments, and soil amendments with national standards. It increased the annual pesticide product registration fee by $50, and directed that revenue. It required the agency of agriculture to study operations for sustainable funding sources to reimburse solid waste management entities for all costs associated with collection and disposal of unwanted or obsolete pesticides. It directed a the agency to submit a report, and the agency has done so, in December 2025. The recommendation was to keep the increased fee and keep the allocation to solid waste management districts, to offset those costs. Continuing with the, the agriculture bill, This bill provided that the Rutland County Fair shall continue to be required to obtain a three acre stormwater operating permit, but the fair shall not be required to pay a stormwater impact fee or complete an offset for those restrictions. It cannot complete because of site constraints. There was an issue with the Department of Forest, Parks, and Recreation rule, intent to cut notification emergency rules, standards, procedures. It this bill said that that rule has is full force and effect, on or after 07/01/2018. The issue there was that it was not, properly published on or before that date is required by law. And so this, this rule undid that mistake. The bill amended the household hazardous waste producer responsibility program to clarify that it does not include paint products, and it provided that if household hazardous waste producer stewardship organization does not submit an approval plan, ANR may issue a plan in charge of manufactured of covered household hazardous waste products for the cost of the program plus a penalty. This extended, the date of the landfill disposal ban on covered household hazardous products by a year and provided ANR with authority to grant variances, to the requirements for municipal household hazardous waste collection events. It's extended, the producer responsibility, the EPR program for architectural paint to expand its scope to include additional paint products. The scope of the program was also expanded to clarify that the EPR program for paints and not the EPR program for covered household hazardous products is responsible for the collection and management of the expanded list of paint products. It's expanded the deadlines by one year for required construction of an efficiency product project at a base load power. That's it for the house agriculture miscellaneous bill. Moving on to act 61, an act related to protection of nuisance suits for agriculture activities. We discussed this a little bit yesterday. This bill amended the rights of farm protection for nuisance suits provided to farmers. It added a new definition of generally accepted agricultural practices. It provided that no agriculture activity shall become a nuisance when the activity is conducted in accordance with those practices. However, a farmer must be in good standing with the agency of agriculture and a ANR to assert that nuisance protection. It's clarified that, a plaintiff in a nuisance suit shall have the burden of proof by preponderance of evidence to show that a farmer is not entitled to nuisance protection and is in fact a nuisance. A farmer doesn't receive the nuisance protection if the nuisance violation results from negligent operation of an agriculture activity. The agriculture activity has a substantial adverse effect on health, safety, or welfare based on upon objective, documented medical or scientific evidence that the agriculture activity was a proximate cause of the alleged effect, or a reasonable person would find that the agriculture activity was a proximate cause of a noxious and significant interference with the use and enjoyment of neighboring property. This provided that the rights of foreign protection from nuisance is to be liberally construed by courts. It's required that parties attempt to resolve nuisance claims arising from agriculture activity through mediation first before bringing a civil suit. Just because we spoke about Pass Street yesterday, I I did want to discuss this. So protection from nuisance lawsuits, is a litigation matter between parties, so neighbors, for example. These protections, were not discussed or some could that that protection in particular would be affected by Taft Street, the decision we discussed yesterday. However, it is possible an agreed party could potentially seek municipal action to enforce local ordinances or zoning, against a farm, and to achieve a similar effect. So it's one potential thing to think about, when considering the effects of the Tap Street Tap Street decision on nuisance that we discussed yesterday.

[Unidentified Member]: Representative Bradley. Bradley, so a municipality could be a party if there was a suit?

[Bradley Sheldon, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I am I I don't wanna shoot from the hip. I think a municipality could potentially be a nuisance a party, but I will look that up because I don't have the statue in front of me, I'd like to to get an answer. So let me let me double check on that. Get back to you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Donna, were you talking as a cole pip or Right.

[Unidentified Member]: Or as

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: a pen and

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: No. Like a planket, essentially.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Okay.

[Bradley Sheldon, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. And now we're moving on to another big bill, the senate, miscellaneous agriculture bill. So the senate miscellaneous agriculture bill dealt largely with agriculture water quality, including regulation of point source discharges of waste or pollutants from concentrated animal feeding offer operations or CAPOs. The bill dealt a lot with the interaction between ANR and the agency of agriculture and how to regulate wastewater excuse me, agriculture water quality. So it struck the requirement that ANR and the agency of agriculture enter into a memorandum of understanding describing how the agency will comply with and implement KFO program the federal KFO program requirements. Instead of that, the bill directed ANR's in consult in consultation with the United States EPA and the agency of agriculture to issue a document defining ANR's responsibilities in implementing the Clean Water Act. This document also defined the agency of agriculture's responsibilities in implementing the state's non ports non point source program for farms. This bill clarified that ANR is the regulatory entity in the state that is required to determine if, there is a point source discharge from a large or medium CAFO that requires a CAFO permit. This bill to define what constitutes an animal feeding operation, a large CAFO, and a medium CAFO under ANR's authority. It's clarified that the discharges that ANR shall regulate are point source discharges of wastewater waste or pollutants from AFOs to waters of the state, including waters of The United States, and the set forth specific authority of ANR to regulate discharges from CAFOs. This bill further clarified that a discharge of manure, litter, or process wastewater to waters from a CAFO as a result of the application of manure, litter, process wastewater to a land area is a discharge from that CAFO subject to VPE. Excuse me? Fifties. Fifties. Fifties. Okay. Okay. The Vermont Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, fifties. Writing that down. Thank you. Permit requirements except where the manure, litter, or processed wastewater has been applied in accordance with a site specific nutrient management plan approved by the secretary. This bill required all medium and large farms to maintain documentation of a nutrient management plan and practices and make that available upon request. And, provided that if the agency of agriculture determines that a farm may be discharging waters to of the may be discharging to the waters of the state, that the agency of agriculture has to notify ANR for a response according to the federal clean water act, CAFO rules. If a farm is required to then obtain a CAFO permit, the agency's vegetative buffer requirements no longer apply, and the farm must then comply with the federal buffer requirements.

[Unidentified Member]: So, Brian. So, Bradley, that top bullet point, when it says the management plan approved by the secretary, so that's AAFM. Right? Yes. It is. Okay.

[Bradley Sheldon, Office of Legislative Counsel]: This bill amended the ban on land application of manure between December 15 and April 1 to allow for emergency exemptions. This clarified that the agency may require any new small farm to certify compliance with the required agricultural practices, and that the agency of agriculture may require any farm to regularly certify compliance with the RAPS of the RAPS. And establish a community stakeholder group on agriculture water quality to engage engage key agricultural stakeholders as part of a pre rulemaking process to gather input on proposed CAFO rules and how best to implement ANR's CAFO program, and they should be reporting to the general assembly. The last bill, here is, senate bill 60, an act relating to establishment of farm security special fund to provide grants for farm losses, due to weather conditions. So we discussed this yesterday and or or the committee discussed this yesterday while I was watching. But, basically, this bill would create the Farm Security Special Fund to award grants. These grants would be up to 50% of the uninsured or uncovered losses due to eligible weather conditions up to a maximum of a 150,000 per year per farm. This would create the farm security special fund review board to review applications, make recommendations for awards, and annually review the application process. The status of this bill is that it is that's house appropriations as requested an amendment that is largely technical, but would include language making the program contingent on funding. I get scheduled in house appropriations on Tuesday, thirteenth at 01:30 to discuss.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: That's the end of the presentation. Great. Back to the long one, f one twenty four. So one yeah. The stakeholder group and the report. Yeah. I I know we went back and forth a little bit on, or there was some discussion about the timing of the report and when it should be delivered. I honestly don't remember what we ended up with, but in reality, reports are always coming out time anyway. And we will be hearing, I think tomorrow or Friday, about reports. We'll go through a whole list of all the reports that were scheduled to get or have gotten since we were at VLS. But maybe representative Nelson has something that he can update us on.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: We're meeting the stakeholder groups meeting tomorrow in Williston. And again, January in Williston. We were meeting over here for my wife, and now they've maybe it's because I'm too close. They want me to make me drive to Williston. Anyway Yeah. And we're supposed the the report's supposed to be done by February 15, I think. And, Lord, I don't see how that's gonna But we're working on it. And and matter of fact, I was just maybe talking to the DEC commissioner about it just now and putting our heads together to make this go in the proper direction for the environment and for farmers and all kinds of things I could talk to you about at another time. Well,

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: we will await that proper time then, and good to know about the timing. Thank you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: The work's going on started off maybe a real little slow and we've taken a little different direction now, whereas the farmer the stakeholders are gonna have more time to talk first before we have agency people come in and talk at us. Mhmm. And and that depending on the problem, we've had people talking at us. And and we have good leadership amongst the agriculture contingency, and people understand it and get it and why it's important. Because it's not a it's not like it's gonna be twenty something years ago where you're not you're not gonna do this to us. No. We're gonna we're gonna take we're gonna do it and take care of it.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: Thank you for being part of that group. And I think that just in terms of the timing, limited in experience, reports tend to take longer than we expect them to take or or ask them to take. And it might be good for us to next time we're asking for something new to be conscious of that.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: We we didn't start until this summer. Yeah. We we should have started in, you know, October. Probably a reason for that. I I don't know.

[Unidentified Member]: Representative O'Brien. Maybe Richard would know this. So so what definition of CAFO are we working? Is it an EPA definition? Oh. I know we had with LFOs on that. So

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: no, it won't be with it has to at least meet EPA. Uh-huh. And, of course, you understand maybe for the next three years, there would be the wild wild west, if you know what I'm saying, and people aren't gonna accept that. So we met with New York farmers Monday on Zoom and learned about their program, which isn't a whole lot unlike our program now. It's just clear little clearer on the frame. It's kinda sort of what we're trying to do now. DEC will be in charge of the production area and agriculture out in non Out in, you know, where we're growing crops and whatnot. A lot of the rules are similar. They have some practices, though. They do over there and work well that we are not allowed to do here that perhaps we'd like to as farmers, we'd like to be able to in implement those practices here. The other thing is their funded program, and that's the big difference. When they need to fix something, they can fix it. And we would like to have that same opportunity for all size, animal agriculture. So these are things we're looking at.

[Unidentified Member]: So New York's been using that

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: case

[Unidentified Member]: definition and expression just in farming in general.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. So they they started they they questioned they were talking amongst themselves. They don't even know if they have a single capo over there right now in New York because they've got this. But when they started it, they said you have five years to do these practices. And they went through the five years, and they said, well, it wasn't quite long enough. You you have another five years to keep coming online. And they've at it for twenty something years, and now they're aware. So for farms expanding over there, they come in and they look, alright. Do you have enough storage? Do you have this? Do you have this? And this is gonna go here, there. Yep. You're you're good to go. They've got it all figured out. And and and not to say we don't have that here because I really believe we do, but it's just maybe defined a little better. K. And it's taken us twenty years to get so. You know? It's just it's it's subtle changes, and and I think it'll be good. I really do.

[Unidentified Member]: I was just trying to find out who's on that working group.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: Yeah. Who else is on that?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Stakeholder group. Well, there's people from the environmental side, which we have not met with yet. Jared Carpenter and people from CLF and VNRC, And they've had they're having their own meetings. On the ag side, myself and Tim and Walter Gladstone and someone from the Saint Pierre firm, Pleasant View firm. I I John Lucas is on it. There's our our technical service providers, there's three of them on it. Heather Darby, Keith Sprague down your way, Paul Dothan. Yeah. So we have large farms, small farms, medium farms, extension, technical service providers, and of course, you know, about 17 people from NRDC and 17 people from you know, there's not that many, but and we have everybody but Ledge County.

[Unidentified Member]: Where do we find them? Working groups and stakeholder groups like that on our you know?

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: It would probably be under the under the agency

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: We would

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: page somewhere. Okay. But which agency?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It should be it should be under the under it because everyone gets paid a, you know, stipend. Right. And all the meetings are public, and they're all recorded. Is it ANR or or I think it's ANRDC. Okay. Because I Abby Paycheck leads the meetings. And and doing a good job. We're just need and we have a great facilitator working with us, and I think they saw a need to change things up to move the process along. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Bradley about all the

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: good work we did last year? And I hope it was helpful for you, Bradley, to

[Bradley Sheldon, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It was. It was helpful. To pilot. Yeah.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: Alright. We are to be on the floor at 01:45, which gives us a couple minutes if anybody has any other business. Hi, Gregory. Hi. It's we're front parking right now. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I know

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: that they property or or Burttown. Jump behind the Ag. Jump behind the Ag buildings, go to Waterbox. Thank you.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: Thank you, counselor. We can go I think we can go off the livestream then. K.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I think we have some mail