Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Got to unmute. Okay. Pretty well set.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: For the record, James Duffy, joint fiscal office. It's good to be here with you all today. I am on the joint fiscal office budget team. I was on the revenue team last year. You may have heard a testimony or two from me last year on the fiscal note back when I was on the revenue side of things. But this year, I'm staffing house appropriations, which brings me to you all today. And yes, you may have all heard that house appropriations chair shy is looking to improve the communication both that you all and we all receive from executive branch departments and agencies for the budget cycle this year. There was a new memo that went out in the fall to executive departments and agencies, giving them more instruction, detail, more clarification about what is a useful format for policy committees and appropriators to receive budget information. And so she's really, Esme Cole and is really hoping that that sets all the committees up to receive more responsive information from departments and agencies. So we're working on that side of things. And then also, Chair Shai had prepared the memo that I just passed out to all of you, which it sounds like many of you have seen before. Guidance, talking points, things to keep in mind for policy committee members and chairs, as you all are hearing from executive branch agencies and departments this year for budget testimony, as well as outside advocates, folks who may come in and have fiscally related requests, to help guide all of your thinking and the information you gather. I think the intention behind this memo is such that you all, you know, you have your own committee, you run it how you see fit, ask questions how you see fit. When it comes to appropriations requests, house appropriations is often at the last minute, late at night, looking at the 30,000 foot view of the state budget, right? They are not operating at the same level of policy area expertise in detail that you all do and are able to work at. And so the appropriations committee relies on all of you in the policy committees to help inform the prioritization that they do often on very compressed time schedules, as always with finite information so that they can make informed decisions. So that's the intention behind this memo. You all will be hearing from the Appropriations Committee, I believe in the next one to one and a half weeks with a request for your committee letter, for your budget, your committee budget letter to house appropriations, which will provide kind of more instruction on what information you're hoping to get from you all. But this is to kind of aid you in putting that together. I think the first point in the kind of main thesis of this whole memo is to the extent that policy committees can prioritize the funding requests that you all pass on to the appropriations committee. Actually, I looked at your all's budget committee letter from last year and you didn't do this. I think this might be something that you already have a really good grasp with. To have a tiered or prioritized approach to funding requests, right? We know it's going to be a tight budget year, perhaps tighter than we've had in a couple of years. And there will be some hard decisions to make to the extent that policy committees can say, hey, listen, we know that money is finite. We think all of these requests that we received this year are worthwhile. But if you have to make decisions to not fund any of these, here is how we're thinking about how to prioritize these requests. And here's our framework for thinking what we fund, what we don't fund. I'll just pause. I won't go through this memo exhaustively. Kind of review all to review and feel free to pass on questions. But any questions on the guidance that was sent out to agencies, departments, this from house appropriations about your committee letter?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Just curious who has seen this so far. Was a meeting. Sure.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: This was originally rolled out at committee chairs meeting a couple of weeks ago, I wanna say two or three weeks ago. And it's been shared on the House Appropriations website since then. So it's been circulating, I'd say, for the last two or three weeks. Certainly chairs and vice chairs have all seen it. And this is posted on the committee page for appropes.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: How many committees have you been into to talk about this?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: You all are maybe my fourth or my fifth. I'm coming in purely at committee's requests. And I anticipate we might have some more questions too once the solicitation from HAC comes out asking you all for your policy for your committee letter, excuse me, committee letter.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And just to have a time frame in mind, will it be asked for that letter sometime before town meeting week?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes. If past practices followed, I think February, the week before town meeting week is usually when those letters are due to announce appropriations.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And we're also thinking seriously at that point in the schedule about what bills are we going to try and get done when we come back from town meeting week. So that could be a busy week with a lot to

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I know February is a funny month. Hack, we're going to ensure you all too, we're going to hear a couple of weeks of testimony and get a lot of information. And then the rubber hits the road really in the last week of February, I think, the Yes. And I would say one thing I'll add, would it be helpful to talk a bit about one times versus base appropriations? That's been useful for some committees, but I also know folks have varying degrees of preexisting knowledge

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, about know. I was actually going to say that I think we have a pretty good grasp of base and one time. I mean, I think of it as the there's a base budget that we passed last year, and we're going to be funding all of those things again, except in rare exceptions. The And governor's budget is gonna be funding them, except in rare exceptions. And then we have perhaps new things that might be proposed to go into the base as well as new things at a runtime. You can correct me if you think that we should be thinking about it differently. But then beyond that, for the purposes of this new approach or this exercise that we're all gonna be going through, I mentioned this yesterday to representative Stevens that it seemed to me that we were being asked to look at not just what's a one time request, but what's in the base budget perhaps. Not necessarily salaries and staffing levels, but other things that might be ongoing that normally we wouldn't be really looking at.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes, I think that is the intent of both the guidance that was sent out to agencies and departments and the conversations that HACC is having with committees. Each committee will run things as they see fit. But I think one of the hard things about base appropriations is one times are easy to scrutinize and give attention to because they are presented individually as a line item each year. Base, it tends to accrete over time. That onion can be hard to peel back the layers of to get a really good understanding of what all is wrapped up in a department's base budget. And it's often during tighter budget cycles that the base gets examined more granularly. And that's where some of the questions presented here can help be useful to cut through those layers that have accreted over years in departmental basic. What is this program? What does it do? What is the need it serves? Why was it originally established? What happens if it was cut or reduced or if it was expanded? Departments often in the past have focused, from what I've heard, the budget conversation on the ups and downs. Here's what we did last year is what we're preparing to tinker with. And I think part of chair shy's guidance this year has been help departments do a more holistic storytelling about what it is they do and why their programs exist and the needs they're serving so that you all can have a more informed prioritization conversation about base. Because if you're just looking at the ups and downs from one year to the next, there's a certain amount of inertia in decision making that that kind of implies. Whereas these questions are meant to help kind of get to the meat of how we build our base budgets. And again, not presupposing any agencies that you'll be hearing from deserve or will need extra digging into their base. But just as guidance, I think something HAC has heard is that committees often feel like, how can we make sense of a base budget that's been hasn't been dived deep into in some time? Like, how do you start to peel those layers back?

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

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. Yeah. Two two things. One, I think when we have the groups that come in to advocate for funding, we should really look into and I asked John Sales of the food bank, you know, what's your efficiency? You know? And, you know, and I I had looked it up, and he confirmed it. It's about 15%, takes 15% of their money, you know, what they get from the state and everybody else to run their organization. That's incredibly efficient in the philanthropic world. Know, Ducks Unlimited runs on about 15%. HSUS runs on about 80%. Not so good. So I think we should ask more of these groups, you know, how much does it cost? You know, how much of our limited resource are you using to run your group versus getting the money where it needs to be. Am I wrong with that thinking?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No, I wouldn't disagree with any of That's your discretion, right? Like what kind of questions you want to ask if you're appropriate to outside entities, but I certainly efficiency program delivery, right? How much of this money goes towards things directly, for example? I I think those are all very good questions to ask both agencies and and outside.

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

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And and the second thing is how many I'll serve on school board? And at the end of the year, when there's three percent of the budget left over, and you have two options. You spend it within the school or you send it back to the state. And I have seen some awfully fiscally I've seen some fiscally conserved people do some awful crazy things So that money is available. And they're almost like they're planning to have a budget overrun Surplus. Surplus. So then they could do the projects they wanna do without getting them approved.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And Probably not just true of school boards, but Yeah. Yeah. That's that's what I'm driving at.

[Unknown committee member]: Yes. But like grants, oftentimes, you'll lose, like, you don't spend it all, then they clap. Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: But, you know, there could be a program and, hey, I'll take a bullet for the agency of agriculture, and they're probably watching and gonna throw darts at me. But do they have a program that's getting funded? And and I'm sure they're they're spot on with their programs, but do they have a program that's getting funded that is not being utilized, and then they could take that program money and move it within our AOT or or any of the other agencies out there because they receive money because we ran them their request, and then they take that money and they can move it over here

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: put over there. We're maybe sort of all thinking, oh, well, the directive here is to go in and see whether there's a place where you can save money if it's not being used wisely. But I think there are also instances where we might feel that there should be more money spent on an existing program or maybe something that doesn't exist in theory, that the staffing levels aren't enough to, for example, enough state foresters, that one that comes up. John, did you have a hand up?

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: think so. Maybe it was Greg. Yeah,

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: mean, small engineering background, we always studied lean manufacturing, which Toyota developed years ago and became the leading manufacturer on the planet because of it. So everybody started emulating their model. All the drug companies started doing six sigma and all that stuff to try to make their companies this. Really at the end the day, they're looking for profitability, which comes through efficiency and comes through creating a better product in a better way. I think it's a great thing to be doing in this committee to just challenge every corner and facet of our government to be doing the best job it can with what it has. I mean, that's not something, yeah, mean, might be trying to save money, it might be trying to take the money they have and use it better, it might be expanding something to service more people in a greater need. Yeah, that general idea that I don't like the idea of a culture where we just try to get as much as we can in our corner, and every year, end goal is to expand that. We don't want our budget to shrink. How do we dispel that type of culture?

[Peter (Committee staff/IT support)]: Everybody's taxes go up.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Exactly. The culture of you don't spend it, you lose it. Yes. We need

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: to get we need to it needs to be a culture of we're one big happy family actually. We are at the of the day here as a team trying to work together to make our state better. And so how do we foster that? But yeah, there needs to be these these conversations, asking and, you know, what the program's doing needs to involve accountability and and fostering that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. And I I suspect that we'll find like, we're sitting sitting here four weeks from today getting ready to leave for town meeting. Right? I think we're yeah. Today's our fourth week, so it's four more weeks. And we'll have finished our work on the budget, and I said, yep. Wow. We barely scratched the surface. Realistically, there's so much. So I think we should really be thinking, what can we do? How can we use this time that we have? We have lots of other things to do too. How can we use this budget time most effectively? And hopefully, the agencies that we're working with are They got them, not this memo, but the same story asked of them back in the fall. So I think that won't come as a surprise to them. And hopefully they'll be coming in with in a way that will be helpful so that we're not just trying to scratch away.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah. And this is the first year that this updated guidance went out to agencies and departments. It'll take time. I think the committee, HAC, would love to hear from you all about how it goes, right? Like what worked and whether you saw a difference in the testimony this year. House Appropriations Committee, apologies. Yeah. House Appropriations. And only You made a point that I think is a good one, right? The questions that this are presented to on this memo, they're outcome neutral. I think the advice and the guidance from corporations committee is outcome neutral, right? Maybe you ask some tough questions about priorities and program function and efficiency, and it leads you to say, wow, this is a really good effective program. We recommend increasing or respecting or accepting this recommendation to increase this funding. Maybe it leads you to reduce funding, right? It's meant just to help guide you all in reaching those priorities, whether that's an up or a down.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Somebody got asked a question yesterday, I don't remember who it was, getting to the point about no one has given us an amount of money or a box and said, this is how much money your committee's jurisdiction has to work with, and you decide how to do it. It's not the way it works. At the end of the day, appropriations has to, we collectively have to decide across the entire state government. So not by design, but just by the way it is. It's not a perfect approach, a system. But we are being asked to make recommendations on the areas that we have insight into. So I think we will make priorities, we'll list priorities, and other committees will list priorities too. How strongly we make the case for our priorities matters, I think also. And we saw that in the BAA. I think we were able to say, here are a couple of things that we think are important and why. And it seems to have been We'll see. So far.

[Unknown committee member]: John? Just reminding me, bringing up school boards, mean, one thing that I never remember happening in our policy committees is that sort of school board model where you have to level fund your budget, or it has to be at 85%. We always have recommendations of our six or 10 things, usually one time that we're asked to push forward as priorities. But we've never been on the other side of that, where we're like, what are our priorities if we had to cut 10 or 15%? What would those programs be? Opposite of the low hanging fruit, the things that should probably go, even though it seems like the agencies do agriculture and FDR do a pretty good job of justifying what they do. There's not a lot of fat there, but it would be interesting if all the policy committees had to say, these are our priorities for cuts.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So this year, are wages and health insurance going up to the agencies? Is it 4%, 5%, 6%? Increase? Yeah.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Oh, yeah. I'm not prepared to answer that question right now. I have that number in front me.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Are you a lawyer

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: or a student? Yeah. Yeah. Sent you a lot of testimony from lawyers, so you pick up

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: a few percent, Richard.

[Peter (Committee staff/IT support)]: So it's probably higher than that for state employees. I can't imagine that they got a a much better deal.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Well, it's it's not a small.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So what I'm saying is they were given a directive. Their budgets could only increase 3% this year.

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

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So they they are Constrained. Within their budgets making the hard decisions of where they're trimming and, you know, you know, and then you have a and r looking to put on more people to manage your KFO programs, and I can take this rant up

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: later. Well, go ahead.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: To take and they're an agency that employs probably more people than AOT. 600. Yeah. And so why can't they move people within their department to fill those roles to be capable inspectors? Yeah. And and, you

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: know Maybe they can't. We don't know what their Mhmm. Yeah. What what what their proposals look like.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: At least okay to ask those questions. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Mhmm. What's the do we know what the overall increase is compared to the governor's proposed budget compared to

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: the Overall increase from last year? Yeah. The instructions or departments were to keep, which I wanna say, 3% increase, but I I would let me I'll follow-up with the

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: out to be is that it's the it's the bottom line, 3% more.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I'm sorry, man. I've been on the BAA this last week. I'm doing my homework on f y twenty seven. We've gotten the BAA out of the house. I wish I had that information for you, but I I could follow-up for you and and like you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: That's that's called young person speak for chair on burn right now.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I I'm sorry. I shouldn't know that answer, but I don't know off the top of my head, but it was the instructions. And I think the outcome were the I think the outcome was fairly close to the instructions that were given to the individual part. So I want to say it came up close to a 3% overall increase.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Does the legislature have the actual governor's executive? Yes. Yes.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And that is posted on the JFO website. For anyone who cares to look at it, we have the governor's recommended FY twenty seven budget live on the JFO website.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We have FPR, Forest Parks Integration coming in next Wednesday, I think, and then the Agency of Agriculture the next day. So we'll have both of these, both of those branches that we work with, the agencies that we work

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It's great that you guys have all heard from Representative Stevens already, he's your liaison appropriations. So he's a resource for you in terms of follow-up committee and questions you have. Also, JFO, if there's any assistance you all need in getting information for agencies on the fiscal side of things, I definitely encourage you to reach out to myself. And if I'm not the right person, I'll make sure that it gets to the right person. Yeah.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Just point out, I think these are really good questions for us to keep in mind, try to keep in mind every time anyone comes to ask

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: someone. Yeah, that they seem really, really, agencies, mean, but anybody. Yeah, yeah. And

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: you said this was sent to agencies too?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No, this was circulated among legislators here in the building. There is another memo which is posted on your webpage. I have a double check, I see it. But a separate memo was sent in October to the agencies and departments, providing them detailed instructions on what they should include in their budget presentations to the legislature this year.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Were these sent to all of those little various committees that come before us as well that are looking for money asks.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Other policy committees? Yeah. So every chair has access to them. I don't know who's circulated it to their membership. It is posted on the website. It's certainly not embargoed information. I don't think it's been systematically distributed to every committee member.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think maybe I'm not sure if this is what you're asking, Greg, but organizations like the food bank, anybody who is coming in and saying

[Unknown committee member]: Hunger Free Vermont. Our usual Yeah. Yes.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah. Outside entities. Not policy committees here, outside. No, no. This hasn't been circulated outside of the legislature, at least not by myself or anybody I know. But I would say feel free to take inspiration from this and either share these questions with folks ahead of testimony and say, hey, FYI, have these questions in mind or be prepared to answer these questions when you come in to testify. I think communicating witnesses in advance about what you expect to hear from them is a great way to set yourself up for a successful half hour if that's all you get with them that year.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Good. All right. Anything else in this topic?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I I would just say you'll be hearing from the Appropriations Committee, I think, in the next week or two with follow-up about the committee letter for this year. Please feel free to reach out. I hope this isn't a full note. I'm really glad to. Appreciate

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: your follow-up.

[Unknown committee member]: Is there a deadline on our letter?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So you can reach your necklace there.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Not as of yet. If it's like previous years, it'll be February. You're heading into meeting week.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Maybe Wednesday of that week.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: That's what it was last year. Yeah. It was the Wednesday of the February last year. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Why don't we Let's not take a break. Since Mike's here, I see Mike got here a little bit early. You can come up if you want, Mike, to the table. And I just want to mention to you, both of all, being given, Patricia, if we can make sure we note on the agenda that before we took our last break, we spent fifteen minutes having a committee discussion about municipal ag regulation, which was not on the agenda. I want make sure that that is there so that anybody who's looking at it can go go back and watch if they want to. So had we asked Mike to come in because yesterday we had heard some testimony from the ANR Council on H-six 32, which is a committee bill coming out of environment. We heard that testimony. We actually looked at some of the language. We had it up and Patricia was scrolling through But I thought it might be good, Mike, to just have you come in as a follow-up to point out anything that maybe independently, I don't know if you watched your testimony, some things that you think we should be aware of, Ms. Bill. Chair Sheldon asked us to look at it. Okay.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I need the Zoom link if I could get it.

[Peter (Committee staff/IT support)]: I need you to get right now by email.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Richard, does legislative council have somebody working with that capable? But

[Peter (Committee staff/IT support)]: I'm not seeing you in Zoom, so I wonder

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I need the Zoom. I need the link.

[Peter (Committee staff/IT support)]: I was thinking about permission.

[Unknown committee member]: It's like when we were working on wetlands.

[Peter (Committee staff/IT support)]: You have it now.

[Unknown committee member]: Right. Thank you, Peter. Which helped a lot.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'm finding it hard to deal with and I need to be at those meetings but I'm finding it hard to be at those meetings and not be in the same time. Yes. That's right. Next, we meet with the pathogens again, I've asked John O'Brien for potential questions

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: for me and our Can I share as well?

[Peter (Committee staff/IT support)]: Yeah, I'll give you the information.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this version of the bill is on. On the House Environment Committee website, they have asked for changes, there are going to be at least one change to the language related to concentrated animal feeding operations, and I'll point that out to you. But just background, I know you heard from Catherine yesterday. Catherine got guessing. She probably put this in context for you, reminded you of last year in response to the EPA order, in response to the CLF petition, the state had to enhance the authority of ANR to do permitting of discharges from CAFOs. Unbeknownst to you all and to me as well, apparently, EPA provided some input on the language last year, and it didn't make it in to your bill last year. And this is being offered to reconcile what EPA requested. And a large part of it is just, I would call technical, but maybe like, maybe a little oversensitive of EPA to to request some of these. There is a provision in here that I know the agency does not like and does not want. And the the committee house environment has agreed to remove. But I honestly don't think it makes much of a difference, and I'll talk about that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Agency of Natural Resources does not want.

[Unknown committee member]: The Agency of Agriculture Agency Agency of Agriculture. Okay.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I don't think it really makes much difference if it's in or if it's out, and I will explain why. So there are about 14 pages, that are amending the concentrated animal feeding operations requirements, and it's sections 16 through 21. The first changes are in title six in the Agency of Agriculture's Authority. And this is really to clarify that the the authority that they have is over large farms, and it's not over CAFOs. Remember, CAFO is an ANR program now. And so ANR has the large farm operation permit. And then there was this debate that I probably caused. When you see the the slash there, that's called technically a vergoule. And a vergoule, courts interpret a vergoule to mean or. But most people think it means and or. So we don't use the vergil. So I replaced the vergil with or, and it turns out that it should be and. And so that's a change that the environment committee is going to make, and they'll make it several places because even if the language hasn't changed, there's multiple references to cow or calf pairs in the language. It should be will become cow and calf. Yes. Greg?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Yeah, probably, I just Before you said and, out of my mind, was thinking with. Repeat what? The word with instead of and. Yeah,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: cow, cow.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They talked to Laura, to Petro, and Laura would prefer burgul, but we just don't do it. And I have I taught a continuing legal education class on the use of conjunctions, and one of the train wreck examples I gave is a case out of Tennessee where they were using the vergoule, and it led to a person convicted of drunk driving with manslaughter to be found innocent because the court rented vergoule as an oar, and they couldn't show all of the components of the offense and the person got off. So we we don't use the vergoule because of its how it can be subject to interpretation.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you for our new $5 work. Exactly.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: That's really what I thought of you.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: If you actually wanted it to mean both, you'd have to use it for the rule of half and Use

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it. We we would say Tau, comma, Cath, comma, or both. Okay. Okay. So moving on from there. There's just a reference that when the Secretary of Natural Resources is issuing a permit, it's gonna be the NFTY's permit, the federal permit.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then in the discharge permit, now moving away from title six to title 10, this is ANR's authority. One of the things that you required last year in the bill was that ANR is going to issue a CAFO general permit by 12/15/2025. They have not. There's been testimony that the stakeholder process involved in coming up with that permit has been vigorous and that the agencies will need more time. I don't know if Catherine spoke to that yesterday. The house environment was discussing whether or not they should shorten that time frame or grant the time frame. For the time being, they're leaving it at 09/01/2027. Moving on from there. There is language in the bill last year that says a large CAFO shall not be required to have a CAFO permit unless one of the following conditions is met. And ANR in the bill, as introduced, proposed that there be the language that say the secretary determines in the secretary's discretion that a CAFO permit is required. Now, this is the language that the Agency of Agriculture has asked to be removed, and that the committee has for the time being, I can't, I say for the time being because I can't commit to what they're gonna vote on. And for the time being has agreed to remove. I don't think this makes a difference. Because in this bill later on in the agency of natural resources authority in the actual permitting section, it says that they already have the authority to designate any AFO that meets the definition of a CAFO as a CAFO to get a permit. So I understand that the language that the Agency of Agriculture wants to remove is not not well drafted. It's not harshly drafted and can be subject to confusion. But the Secretary of Natural Resources already has the authority to designate any CAFO that is meets the definition of a CAFO that would need a permit, which means that they are discharging to get a permit. And that's consistent with federal law. This is the rule for EPA rule for CAFOs. They redid their rules a couple of years ago in this question and answer response format, because we're too dumb to read and understand it. We have to do it. And so how may an AFO be designated as a CAFO? The appropriate authority, I. E. The state director or the regional administrator or both, may designate any AFO as a CAFO upon determining that it is a significant contributor of pollutants to waters of The United States. So that's there. ANR already has that authority. So I don't think I understand getting rid of this language. It's not well drafted. It can could lead to ambiguity or confusion, but it really doesn't change the underlying authority.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: President Nelson? Yeah. Thank you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I I think the the issue is the secretary determines in the secretary's discretion that a KFO permit is required. And, you know, up above, you know, it shows where a will be required to become a deputies. Okay? If they're having a discharge into the waters, and it's not the in this case, it's not the waters of The United States. It's the waters of the state. K. We made that determination last year. Correct?

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. But I I see your point, but I think really it's just not drafted well. It it should say the secretary determines in her discretion that they're a significant contributor of pollutants.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It it Right? Then that that is a 100%

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: With what we passed last year and what we're talking about in the stakeholder group. Agreed.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And you should also be aware that under stormwater law, if the discharge from the CAFO is purely stormwater and it's coming off the production area, then they have that authority there to say it needs to get a permit there. If there's processed wastewater that's mixed up with the stormwater, then you're in to the authority that I just referenced. So there's just there's a lot of overlapping, like, Venn diagrams here that but if you if you take this out, I don't think you change the Venn diagram.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: At one of the meetings I think a Zoom meeting that I was in here, not on Zoom, they talked about intermittent discharges. And they have spent an exhausting amount of time talking about intermittent discharges. And I said, there is no such thing as an intermittent discharge because an intermittent discharge is a discharge. Simple.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. And then even if it's not continuous, the secretary can say it's a significant contributor to

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: You think

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the pollute.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You need to get your nifty.

[Unknown committee member]: Right.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So you have protections until you fix the problem to not have the intermittent discharge again. Is the language that we're looking at here language that the, agency delivered developed? Or is this

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It was proposed ANR sent language to be added to the miscellaneous environmental bill, and this is what they said. Whether or not the Agency of Agriculture reviewed this beforehand, I am aware. I don't know.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: John? Yeah, just quickly, what was the there

[Unknown committee member]: was a reference to a large CAFO. That just seemed

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: are different tiers of CAFOs. There's the small, medium, and large. So the large for purposes of dairy is 700. I'm sure dairy

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: comes first

[Unknown committee member]: to the LFO, MFO.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The LFO numbers were drawn from Remember, like back in 2004, the state program was set up to avoid going into the NFTIS permit But they modeled the LFO, the numbers on what the NFTIS numbers would have been. So it's who went first, doesn't really matter. It's the same numbers now.

[Unknown committee member]: Does it just seem redundant in that, certainly in the media world, if you say case is coming to Vermont, it's a large widespread animal feeding operation. It's not like 100 sheep, it's 700 cows. And even can't even remember what

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the sheep numbers are. Are a lot of sheep.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: 10,000. So

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: can you have a 500 sheep CAFO?

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. That would be a small CAFO. I never heard that small CAFO. Yeah. But whether or not it will require a permit, small CAFOs have a different threshold.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: In a small KFO or animal feeding operation, a small one has to be a significant contributor to discharges to the waters of the state.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. So why don't we keep going? Okay. And I I think that when we went through it yesterday, that seemed to be the one, the the number four, that was, you know, of most interest to the committee and or that Catherine thought would be of most interest to the committee yet. I don't know if there's others that are that sort of jump out or if there's others that you wanna focus on or just go through it.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will I will skip over the technical ones. There's, like, technical language changes. And then, like, this one where EPA wants their language for when two or more CAFOs are considered one for purposes of permitting. I don't know why they needed to change that, but it was it does the same thing. And then, like, these, instead of cross referencing the definitions of LFOs, they're like, No, you have to put the actual definition in in the statute because we have to be clear. It's Title X authority, not Title VI authority. I mean, this is a little bit of unnecessary bootstrapping, in my opinion, but that's what they did. Same thing.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I have a question here.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I think this was a question I asked yesterday. I think we were told that this is put in here to match a federal definition.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It is. It it it is, but it's the same language almost almost. It's not entirely. It's almost exactly the same as what the definition of LFO, the numbers. And so it's what EPA wanted. They want this to be their language. They want it to be clear in in the natural resources title.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I'm wondering though is what legislative council is recommending now in terms of when we're referencing federal language that could change, then all of a sudden the state language is out of date unless we go back and change it. Wouldn't it just make more sense to reference federal statute?

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I understand your point. But later in this bill, there's actually a section that gives agencies emergency rulemaking authority if the administration repeals federal programs and the cross references in state law are dependent on those repeal programs. The air pollution control regulations are a great example. Our state has pretty extensive air pollution control regs, but they are almost they're largely based on cross referencing federal law. Well, that federal law is changing, and that's throwing our state air pollution regs out of whack. Like, are they even enforceable, potentially? It's like, so when you do that incorporation by reference I recommend that you're confident that the program is stable. I wouldn't say water law at the federal level right now is stable. So maintaining your law and what you want the law to be in statute without reliance on federal incorporation by reference is something I would recommend at this point in time for water.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Rather than trying to repeat everything you just said and and digest it, I'm gonna just assume that there's a good reason to do this.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, a, EPA requested it and b, you can't necessarily rely that the water regs are gonna remain what they are.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The irony is that we are doing this because the federal government is asking us to do it. So there's that. I see, I'm not gonna suggest that we stop and have another conversation about whatever that word was that's new to

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: a child.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Cow calf pairs are changing all throughout. As it says cow or calf

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Lambs are treated differently. That was the thing that I thought was interesting. Sheep lamb pairs are not We

[Unknown committee member]: don't use that phrase.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's a 10,000 cheap farm in Vermont, is there?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I know.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So fly under the radar. So

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: moving on from there, you again, this is in the medium farm operation. EPA wanted their language. Didn't want to cross reference. Same basis. Same discussion. Anything to point out? I mean, this is the language we already discussed that ANR already has the authority to designate a NAFO as a as a NFTCE CAPO if it if it meets those federal regs or the fifties requirements. And then they can establish technical standards and require a CAFO to comply with them, provided that they're consistent with USDA nutrient management buffers and any other CAFO requirement in the Clean Water Act and some of the Clean Water Act rules.

[Unknown committee member]: And

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that's really a technical kind of clarifying. Oh, the last the last section is really remember how the agencies, both agencies had an memorandum of understanding

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: of

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: how that they were going to coordinate enforcement and and inspection, etcetera. And EPA said get rid of the MOU. You need to be clear that ANR has that overlying, controlling authority for discharges. And you struck the MOU, but they still have execute a document about how the process for implementing the two programs would work. In the a and r in the a and r appeals section, there was a reference to the MOU that was never changed. Actually, a and r enforcement chapter that it was never changed. And so this is just changing that that reference of the MOU to the document that was sufficient for EPA. And then that's that. But for representative Bartholomew's knowledge, you can see the authority for the emergency rule where an agency may adopt an urgency rule of amendment to federal statute rule of policy will materially conflict with or threaten the ability of the agency to implement statutory regulatory program in Vermont. So largely technical. The one substantive piece of language that was at issue is, I is, for the time being, as far as I know, is going to be removed. Doesn't, in my opinion, affect the authority of either agency. Doesn't undermine what EPA wanted. And I think these are relatively harmless.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: That's what we like. And are you back in house environment next week? Are they taking this up again?

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Tuesday afternoon, I will have a redraft that takes out a bunch of sections that they're not going to do. Okay. Takes out the language that we discussed. That was at issue. And that's that's it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We Maybe once they've made all those changes, I don't know whether it would be necessary, but having us take it for approval, it's probably a good idea.

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think the committee downstairs would appreciate that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, is there anything else on this topic?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: More come to a stakeholder meeting?

[Michael O’Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, man. I've been to those meetings before. It's like,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: we're back here on Monday. Sorry. Not Monday. Tuesday at 01:00. And we've we've got testimony Tuesday afternoon on the working lands program. And it can be an opportunity for us to think it not this is not a budget presentation. We will be getting every budget request for working lands, but we can be thinking about the fact that that budget request will be coming in, we can ask questions during the presentation. All right, anything else anybody's got today? Have a nice weekend. Thank you, John. All right,

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: you too. Have a very good