Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Good

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: afternoon, members of the committee. Are we on the record already? Yes. Perfect. Dave Huber, Deputy Director of the Division of Plant Industry at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets. Just for the record, here to talk about h four zero three, which is an act relating to fair labor standards and housing standards for agricultural workers. And I think I was I'm here really because at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, we have a memorandum of understanding, an MOU, with the Vermont Department of Labor to conduct H2A inspections. The H2A, I'm I'm sure most of you are aware, if not actively engaged in that program, the h two a program allows for migrant farm workers to come over to Vermont and they're where they're assigned a farm. And some come back to farms that they like, mainly because they enjoy what they do. The farmer is nice to them where the housing is appropriate. And my staff conduct inspections of preoccupancy farm worker housing. So we don't see any farm workers. We see the farmer, and we see the housing, and we verify that the housing is adequate to a checklist that were provided by the federal government through US Department of Labor, through the Vermont Department of Labor, to us via the memorandum of understanding. This used to be done by buyer safety, but I think that it was just, it was a lot of work. It was a lot of effort. And so over the years, it became something that Department of Labor would handle, which again was a lot of work. I think they only had one individual who was managing that program, working in that program, doing inspections, and it made sense to partner with the agency of agriculture because we go to farms. And so we were helping out a sister agency, and we're in our second iteration of the MOU, it's a two year MOU. And through the MOU, we're required to in a timely manner inspect preoccupancy farmworker housing.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: There's a Thank you. You're pausing. We'll Okay, if I jump in? Absolutely. So there's a reference in the bill, Ben, and that's why you're here to the secretary, and it's referring to the agency, the agriculture secretary, conducting inspections of farm worker housing. It's not clear, I think, in context that that refers to housing that's related to the H-2A program specifically. So it sounds like you can confirm that that's

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: the case. Yes, that's how we read the bill as well.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. We had some testimony, coincidentally, before lunch on this bill, and we had advocates for dairy farm workers and they were talking about, thinking they about dairy farm housing, but I'm wondering whether Bill, as proposed, would he even have any impact on other farm worker housing? We know that we have farm worker housing, other kinds of farms too. Would it affect other farm workers?

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I would believe it would. The way I read this bill, it would be because it does define, I think, for MFO, LFO farms, and some of those farms don't necessarily have to be dairies. They could be other types of animals and or land, and or as designated by the Secretary of the Agency of Agriculture. So to give you some numbers, in 2024, through this MOU, which is fully funded by Department of Labor, pass through money from federal Department of Labor, we did 64 inspections. So that's with four staff and going through the whole h two a process. In 2025, we conducted 77 inspections. And so far this year, we completed 21 inspections. I would anticipate the number to be in the sixties and seventies for this calendar year as well. But from what I understand, this bill would also lump in a whole bunch of other farms, which could be dairies, as I'm sure migrant justice brought up earlier today. But I guess my question would be, how would this be funded? Because H2A is funded, and that's how we're able to do this. But I do only have four inspectors and

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: There's no funding available. So

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: current

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: inspection regime as it exists, you're not going on to a dairy farm to look at the housing.

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: We go to any farm that's enrolled in the H-2A program that has put in a job order through a US Department of Labor database called FLAG, the FLAG system. Once they put in that job request, which they outline how many months of experience their workers that they're looking for, and what the rates of pay would be, what the descriptions are, where they're located. Then that gets transmitted to Department of Labor, who then assigns locations to Vermont Agency of Agriculture to go and inspect. So say, representative Burtt, you have a farm and you have housing and you have two houses, say. You would put in an order for as many workers as you like that would fit into those houses. And then labor would let us know the addresses of those two residences, nothing more, nothing less. And we would go and inspect those residences. If we go to those houses and find that it's adequate, it meets the number of toilets, the whole code, which we're not experts on, by the way. Fire safety is the expert on code. So we're not code enforcers. We're, as you know, pesticide and feed fertilizer inspectors. But we would go through a checklist that we're given, and we would run through those questions. But those questions aren't the same as what's in this bill. These are more open ended narrative questions, as opposed to how many toilets do you have?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And you typically, I think you said that you're not encountering or you're not meeting with the farm workers themselves, and maybe not with the owners, the farm owners?

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: We do. For the most part, the farm owners are there when we start, and we like it when they walk with us because they know their heads. They let us in, they know their housing best, and any questions that we have, they can answer. And if they can't, then we can't pass them at that time.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. The sort of the whole idea, I think, in the bill for this part of the bill is while you're there, ask the farm workers to fill out this survey. And it seems like the farm workers won't be there to have you hand them the survey because they're doing they're out working. You're not coming in the morning or evening when they're most likely to be at home.

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: No. You're correct. Those workers may have to get called off, I would assume, in order to meet with us if they're available and if the farmer is amenable. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I resent a message.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Do you does the the agency ever receive complaints or and maybe complaints of strong word or request for action

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: on dairy farm housing? Sometimes we'll receive notification that there's been a complaint made about some sort of housing provided for worker at a dairy. And so it's important to note that we do have a robust complaint system on the agency of agriculture's website. I can provide that address to the committee if you like. But we also have a US Department of Labor complaint site, Department of Labor for Vermont complaint, and Vermont Fire Safety has their own complaint tool as well. There's no lack of ways to complain. It's just difficult to force somebody to complain about housing.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: So the

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I've got the bill in front of me and you don't, Dave, so I'm putting you at a disadvantage, or maybe you do. I do. Okay, good, good. So this is new proposed statutory language. I'm on page four, line 12. Adequacy of farm employee housing common inspection. And then so the next line is the one I was referring to. The secretary conducts a scheduled inspection of a farm under chapter two fifteen of his title, this title six. So we're talking about the same thing here. This is this is no. Okay. It's different. So What is this inspection?

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: This inspection might be when the water quality division goes out and conducts an inspection for MFOs, which I believe were every three years they have to conduct an inspection, LFOs annually. Whereas my team, when we go out for inspections, we usually do unannounced because pesticides are a different beast. And then when we do have an announced inspection, we're out there for a certain reason. It's for pesticide usage records, checking fertilizer, maybe sampling an incoming load of feed. But no, H2A is also a scheduled inspection, but I don't know that you would find that under chapter two fifteen.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, I wondered about that. Okay, good. Thank you. Representative Lipsky.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: You know, we took testimony on H2A, which from my recollection was seasonal agricultural workers. Yes. Yet, historically and you're leading this discussion for dairy, which we heard testing on this morning, and they are historically not seasonal workers because it's a three sixty five day, twenty four hour responsibility. So it doesn't seem like you've been delegated to do any of it. So h two a is for a very specific purpose. It is so, you know, why are we talking about dairy farms when almost no dairy farms are seasonal?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So so I think maybe the better question, I mean, to be perfectly honest, is why are we talking about seasonal when the bill is about dairy farms? Absolutely.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I think. Yeah. That's fine, but, you know.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Either It's always interesting information, right? Whatever it So I think that what the bill is talking about has to do with not generally speaking anyway, HOA visa rehearsal. The bill is. The bill is not. Yeah, the bill is talking about. And I think you're right.

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: HOA is a good example of a funded program that we have resource staff for, where if there is a problem that comes to light, there's money to be able to hopefully fix that problem or a triage process that we have in place with multiple agencies, the agency of ag, department of labor, and division of fire safety. So it's it's really three heads coming together here to to try to make something whole. I don't know if that would be the case.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: I have a question when there's a chance.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We're gonna let you jump in then, Rich, representative Basla.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah. So I'm wondering, so I'm hearing that the H2A visa program has a thorough house inspection program and it's funded. So how is it funded? Is it funded through the fees when people apply for their visas or through some other channel?

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Representative, that's a really good question. I believe it's funded through the US Department of Labor and then passed through Department of Labor through this MOU that we have with Department of Labor. So that's how we get that money. But I can't really speak to how the initial funding is. That would be a good question for the Vermont Department of Labor.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: But there

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: is Sounds like since most of the workers on dairy farms are undocumented, we're not going to have a comparable entity that could fund inspections. We would have to figure something else out on the state level, which will be more complicated, but we'll have to keep working on that. Thank you.

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Thank you, representative.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. You know, enough to trivialize it. I think that the bill envisions when the agency is already on the farm making a visit that it has to do anyway for other reasons that while they're there, they would try and find the employees and ask them to fill out this survey. And that might be even if the employees were right there, that would take time. So it would it would require some agency time that isn't currently being, yeah, used that way. Yeah. Representative Nelson.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Remember, chair, that last year in act 67 that the agency of agriculture is no longer conducting the cable inspections on the farms. It's ANR, so they really ought to get ANR in here and see what they got to put in staff to take care of those issues.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Emilie resource we have here, our our CAFO expert.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I was there all morning. Wasn't perfect.

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: You should also hear in addition to ANR, you should probably hear from Department of Fire Safety. Yes. Mike Tarosha would be an excellent resource for you. And there are some really good examples of success stories here. When VHCB and Champlain Housing Trust have come together, they have provided some funding for some farms, notably Dina Benjamin up in the Edensburg area. I don't know if he talks about that, but

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: They have. Yeah, we've we've we've had an opportunity to hear from them and and see actually before and after. Yeah. So we know that there are examples, yeah, of how

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: really, really good example.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Let's get at least one more question, representative O'Brien. Just

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: more on your MOU. I just wondered how this works. You said you had four staff who do this. Are those these limited service positions and that that's all they do? Is this sort of like, 0.25 of your FTE is to go out and do these and you'll be reimbursed by labor?

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah, these are my same specialists, field agents who go out and conduct all investigations, all inspections. So this is added to their workload as and and the MOU says in a timely manner, we have to complete this. So I received this and emailed with the job order. I divvy it out. Within forty eight hours, we've made contact with the farm to set up a time for an inspection. So it's we try to group them so that when we're in that area, visiting the golf course and, you know, Brattleboro Golf Golf Course, we also made up a Brattleboro H two A, but these are more time sensitive because workers are dependent upon getting approval in order to make that flight over into America, into Vermont. And so if that farmer fails to adequately have a decent inspection, then they run the risk of not having those workers

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: In a manner.

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: A timely manner or at all.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Let's see.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: My understanding is these inspections are a requirement of the visa Yes. In that in the h two. They are. That has to be if you want when workers are there, these have to be inspected before they're issued the visa which allows them to get. So it's a whole narrow scope.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Any other questions, come in. Any other questions? Just one more.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: So you mentioned it a little bit earlier, but when you do an inspection and you're like, actually, farmer John, you can't use it to be an email. Is there a process of working through that to be like, you need an apartment with this, this and this in order to

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Absolutely, absolutely. And we've been working with Department of Labor and fire safety to come up with more checklists and push that out to a broader audience of H2A employers so that they are ready for it kind of a what to expect when being inspected kind of thing. Because we don't want to show up, shut somebody down for the inspection and say, you're out of luck on having your employees come in a timely manner or at all at that point.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: You also look into transportation at all? Because just not part of it that you couldn't necessarily have a a dorm anywhere else away with no transportation?

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: We on the checklist, what we look for are, you know, is the ceiling height appropriate? Is there enough square footage per person? If you have bunk beds, it's different than if it's single beds. Are there enough egresses and ingresses into these these places? And if an employee who has taken a lot of pride in where they're living for HOA purposes builds a low partitioned off area. Unfortunately, if they don't have a window, I think that's 20 by 24 inches, they're unable to have that be an actual room and that work then goes by the wayside and they have to take down all that effort, which is usually funded by the worker themselves. And so there it is a rather strict process. Transportation, usually farms do help out with transportation. They also don't want their workers being too far from the farm, right, for many reasons, but one of them being productivity. You want to have folks really wake up and go to work and then come back to a nice place. That's the H2A program in a nutshell.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Transportation is the requirement of the H2A program, separate from the housing section.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Get people from the public. And then once a week to be

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: able to go thank the But

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: we don't inspect that. And

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: the last thing going, if our congressional delegation is listening, if they would expand the h two a program, it would be widely received Yeah. By all of us in the state

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: of Vermont. Yeah. I would obviously answer All all the the problems, yeah. Well, lot of things you can say. And

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: then Dave would have funding to get four more inspectors.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think thank you, Dave, for coming. Was good to know all of us, so appreciate your time.

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And we have, I think, next week, colleagues from the agency and Department of Labor are coming back to talk about other sections of the bill.

[Dave Huber, Deputy Director, Division of Plant Industry, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Next Wednesday or Thursday, I believe. Yes. Excellent.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Alright. We're gonna quickly pivot to wood product manufacturing, and thank you all for gathering. We invited the Land Use Review Board to come and comment on the draft language that we reviewed. It was just this week. It seems like it was a long time ago, but Ellen had come in and shown us language that she put together based largely, I think, on language that the board itself had provided us as a recommendation to basically enact some of the recommendations in the report that we've looked at a few times. I don't know who from the board, if anyone is eager to come up to the table.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Sitting here?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: No, that's All the chairs are free. Yeah.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Thank Chairs. You. There are people here. Okay. So would

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: it help I'm gonna just maybe say to the committee and anybody that this draft bill is on our page today. It's under Ellen's name. Yeah, it's right at the top of today's date, committee bill draft 1.2. It's the same bill, same version that we looked at earlier in the week. And, hopefully, what we'll do in the next half hour or so is just hear from the board your reactions to it. I will say and I have not talked to you, so I have no idea what your reactions are going to be other than that we tried, for the most part, to mimic what you were proposing. We had some feedback and as a reminder, were these, there are three parts here. We had recommendation, there were 10 recommendations and we focused on nine and ten. And then also for good measure, I added acting on recommendation number one, which is the fact sheet. And wanted to put that in there just to hear your thoughts on that, Billie.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Done. Check.

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

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: That's so

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: It's on our website.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So it's turning it over to you then.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Go ahead, Kirsten. Yeah. So the board had Well, let's introduce her.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Sorry. So just again, we've met with

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Kirsten Sultan. I'm one of the five board members. And Janet Hurley, chair of the board. So Yeah. Yes.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: So we we were able to meet and go over the draft that Ellen has prepared. And thank you for considering the board's draft as part of that background. And we don't have any objection to what's, you know, the the modifications and the current content. But just to note, as Janet just did, the last item, item three that you referred to, we've already completed it in coordination with ANR, both their planning and regulatory office, and including input from Forest Parks and Recreation. So that's done.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: So we would say, strike.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah. We we would think it's unnecessary. We did send a copy late yesterday, which I think is already up on the community documents.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Saw something. I didn't realize that's what it was. Yep.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: There's web versions on our website.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So good. We'll take a look at that. And did you do it just because we put it in the draft?

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: No. Because it was was a recommendation.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Well, right. I don't know if you remember me making known earlier that this was underway and we were in

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: the process of coordinating with department.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'm sure you said that more than once. Glad Yeah. To hear Thank you. So otherwise, no concerns, it sounds like? No. Supportive. Supportive, okay, all right.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: So not just no concerns, but positively supportive. Yeah,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: okay, good. While you're here then, maybe we could just, I wanna see whether folks have questions. I have at least one question that

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: and I have some questions from the rural caucus and an email and a letter that's been set up several newspapers that's away from wood product manufacture, and if I could ask those questions.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Do you mind just holding? I I do I do not mind holding. Okay. Alright. Good. Thank you. Is it about I'm not even gonna

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: say that. It's not about Paraquat, Jerry.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So one of the things that we've been wrestling with here is the, I don't wanna say the exceptions, but the situations where there's already a permit condition or a situation where somebody might come along and propose some development and there might be conditions attached to that that would restrict cutting theoretically. And I think we understand that the example that I viewed or that somebody used for me and it works for me anyway is screening. So if you've got a permit and it said, you have to leave these trees here so the neighbors can't see the building or something like that, that seems fairly straightforward. At the same time, the problem that the bill is trying to solve is allowing cutting to happen by and large, even if there is permit in place or could be a permit coming along. What I think I'm just a little worried about and others might be worried about too is where is that line going to be drawn? So how restrictive could permit conditions reasonably be for development on a parcel where the rest of the parcel is managed for, let's say, and somebody would like to be able to cut there under 2,500 feet without having to go back and get an amendment or something to

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: I think Kirsten should take that because for nineteen years, she staffed a district commission and might have a better idea of what kinds of areas might have that restrictive condition. Yeah.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: So a cutting restriction could come about as part of an Act two fifty permit condition decided by district commission if it has relevancy to one of the act two fifty criteria reviewed as part of a, you know, a project development permit application review. I guess I was thinking so it could be an aesthetic buffer. It could be a stream buffer. It could be some area of necessary wildlife habitat or other, but, know, other buffering, limitation on tree cutting that is a result of that project meeting the activity criteria that that tree cutting restriction is in effect on the property. And I thought I, if with your permission, maybe give a quick example, like, real life example of how it works now and then what this proposed legislation, how that would shift.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Real life example.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Sure. And this is, like, Northeast Kingdom. I think it was in the town of Reigate. It was a quarry. It was actually not one that I had staffed. It was still had an active valid permit. It was in operation. And the owner called the district office and said, I wanna do some logging on this property. You know? What are my you know? Can I do logging? And so what I did as the staff coordinator is I pulled out the file and evaluated it together with the owner, and and we determined that there was a buffer in effect around the perimeter of the quarry that was of some order of width of I don't remember. Let's call it. It was not insignificant. It was maybe a 100 or 200 feet. And so I could make known that your logging is exempt even on this property that is already governed by and under jurisdiction of an Act two fifty permit, except that you can't cut in that buffer zone for free. So that's kind of the current status of how that would work when you have commercial development and a logging forestry activity. What this language would do would allow an owner to come in and say, I've got a piece of property that I'm designating for logging forestry management, and I'm also planning to do this project. Maybe it's commercial. Maybe it's some residential thing. But for whatever reason, it's triggering at 02:50. And at this point in time, they can say, this land, this portion of the tract is I'm designating for logging forestry, and this other land is the Act two fifty project land. And the commission can recognize that as part of the permit decision. And they can say the logging forestry land is not subject to act two fifty jurisdiction. The permit conditions are not in effect in that area. And future, you know, changes or uses on that other logging forestry portion of the tract will only come into Act two fifty for review if they triggered into themselves under some other area of the statute. It's not part of the land under Act two fifty by virtue of the commercial or other Act two fifty project permit. So I don't know if that's explaining it, but the commission, as part of its review of determining the location of that logging forestry, call it exempt land, they would be responsible for making sure that there weren't areas where tree cutting would need to be restricted to meet the Act two fifty criteria for the Act two fifty project.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So the first part of the story, quarry part of the story was the way things are now, and then the second half was how it would be?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Oh, could be. You could do this at the onset, and then the person would know upfront that they could log or do other activities on that land. It's not under Act two fifty by virtue of this Act two fifty permit. Is that

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: But also the difference is that the other one was a preexisting project, not a new project. And it had an Act two fifty permit with that existing condition with that 200 foot buffer around the door. And it was a much larger parcel presumably, right? And the rest of it could be logged. No problem.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Right. So does that help your understanding a little bit? Like in the first instance, like all of the land ends up under Act two fifty and you have to consider the implication of undertaking logging activity over time because that it's under Act two fifty. Whereas with this proposal, it would provide the opportunity to designate and say, this is logging forestry land. It's not going to be under act two fifty jurisdiction alongside, you know, this other act two fifty project land use on the same tract.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Representative Brian? But the example you gave was an existing Act two fifty permit and then

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: This would be a new one.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Right. So in that case, though, if they already had a permit with this, if this became law, do they have to go through the permitting again to sort of get to debuffer?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: So there is this existing feature that I think has been made known or mentioned of, and is part of the fact sheet and guidance called Stony Brook. So that is an available avenue where people can come in, even if the land isn't designated for farming or logging forestry, they can come in and say, this subset of the land is the project, and it's the land that supports it under the criteria. And they can ask the commission to refine how much land is under act two fifty jurisdiction. I think I'd have to apologize. I I I think I I can probably look and answer the question if I do a little quick research, but I know I think there's a case that occurred for the farming exemption where it was like an the the language that's contemplated basically parallels the language that's already in place for farming. And I think there was an instance where that owner came in for a commercial project on a farm and then already had an Act two fifty permit and returned to Act two fifty and was able to avail themselves of that farming feature of Act two fifty after the fact. So conceptually, I wanna say probably this could occur for existing permits, but I can Yeah. Look that up and

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: it could be a new project, on a larger parcel.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: We just never I had a lot of the Stony Brook example with an existing activity permit and the owners sort of wanting to do something else on their end?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: You can definitely do Stony Brook with an existing Act two fifty permitted project. You can do that now. The question is whether or not this new language would provide a more simplistic opportunity to come back and say, all this land is logging forestry, all this land is farming, and ask the commission to make

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: that determination. Really, it'd be this land supports the development. And so this land is subject to Act two fifty and the rest is logging, forestry or farming, and it's not subject to the permit. But you would make that determination as the commission reviewed the project and and issued the permit. So, it would be part of the permit conditions would define the area that is subject to Act two fifty.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Representative Burtt is looking for.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You ought to keep looking or did you have?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Oh, go ahead and keep talking.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'm representing Burtt and then representative Lipsky.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I think I'm all set.

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

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, so Oh, sorry.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Just trying to clarify. My question is, at a 100 acre property, nine feet dedicated to active management forestry. You wanna take 10 acres out of that for a commercial use or another use that triggers active safety. Do you require that there be meets and bounds in a survey that's recorded, or you can just draw a sketch

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: A plan the

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: that says

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: this area along this roadway or access is what we're considering for development. That's not a big burden.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: No need to get a survey. No.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: No need to get a survey

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: you Or to subdivide the land.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's just

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: drawing on a map. Here's the subset of the land. Thank you. So the answer to your question is I believe that, yes, this could extend to existing permitted projects. This did at least once occur in Act two fifty for farming. It was the Boyden Farm in Cambridge, Vermont. I can give you the case number if you're interested, but they they returned to Act two fifty to ask Act two fifty to recognize that this acreage that was in farming was not, you know, under Act two fifty jurisdiction.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It's like The event fire required an Act two fifty permit to Boyden's, but the rest of the farm, the vineyard, the beef operation, the whole Yeah.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: It Yeah. I don't know. Was there other specifically. I think it was a shop at the time. This was back in 2006.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Whatever whatever portions of the property supported the jurisdictional project would would be under jurisdiction. And those that did not support the jurisdictional project Right. Are exempt farm

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Right. Lands. Which is how it is now for farming. It's just explicitly written in the statute that this can occur.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So the the 10 criteria

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: or however many we're talking

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: But about

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: then 30 p once we get seven criteria This

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: is not our committee's area of expertise. And I'm wondering just because you mentioned, I think wildlife and it has to do

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: with the deer and yard.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So how is that likely to, or how might that come into play and end up restricting logging in the what we might think of as the undeveloped portion of this hypothetical parcel beyond what a logger might think. So I'm gonna put in I'm gonna maybe put a house or maybe I'm gonna put a little sawmill on my 100 acres, and it's that's only taking up 10 acres. Am I gonna be able to log the 90 acres? Or is one of the criteria I'm gonna say, you know, you have to leave 30 acres here because there is wildlife habitat?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: So I think there has been at least one case that was made known to the stakeholder group where there was a situation where there was a tree cutting restriction on land that that was being developed with wood products manufacturing project, maybe it was a sawmill. And there was a resulting tree cutting restriction attributable to necessary habitat. I don't remember if it was deer wintering area or bear, what it was. I think the agency of natural resources came in and said, the timber from that area is going to go right into the sawmill on the property, and we're asking for that protection. And the commission determined that there was a nexus there and imposed that tree cutting restriction on that area. I think that has occurred at least once. Other ways that habitat could be impacted by project could be maybe a residential project where there's just the impact of people occupying land next to it, and there's a delineation of what it is. There's ANR, fish and wildlife department comes in and for some form of protection. Ski areas have run into and I feel like I'm a little I feel like the Agency of Natural Resources could much better speak to this, but they can sometimes make known that there's the sensitive habitat area that they think that an activity project may have some impact on, and they're asking that it be identified, protected. So if

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: that project has an impact on the

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: resource? A potential impact, and the commission recognizes that and determines as part of that planning. Sometimes it happens as part of, like, a master plan. They that can occur.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank Yeah. Representative. Somebody else want to say something? Let's let yeah. Go ahead, Jed.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Again, this isn't really a question what I'll present, so it's a clarification may help answer a chair to a piece of it. You're in current use and you have a management plan, it will show a deer witching yard that has to be known and protected. It will show that there are vernal pools or unique rare or endangered species. That's because it's under current use. You would need to get that plan approved by a county forestry.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Right.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: For example.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: So that don't know if there Was there a question there? No. I mean, like the applicant could provide that information to the district commission to show that there's some some other protection. And so it perhaps would be unnecessary in that instance to then prescribe that there'd be an additional restriction through Act two fifty. But it's fact specific and project specific. And

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I mean, I think you did help clarify for me that was what what you were Question we don't have that my inquiry didn't expose is if it's a 100 acre woodlot that's now being reduced to 90, but they're not in current use. Do they have to follow the AMPs and the commission required that they provide additional information on rare endangered species?

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Or So the the forestry and logging, unless it's over 2,500 feet, is not jurisdiction. So it's the jurisdictional wood products manufacturing proposal that triggers the need for the permit, it's only going to be on a subset of the prep. And so I think the question you're asking is, how do we know how far those permit conditions might extend into the rest of

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: that project? The question I'm asking, hypothetically.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Right. So if the designation of the area of logging forestry land occurs as part of that development application review or if it occurs afterwards, it includes determining are there portions of that land where there would need to be tree cutting restrictions to address all of the Act two fifty criteria. If so, right for the project. Yes. Right? And if so, then the commission could impose tree cutting restrictions. They wouldn't be eligible to be omitted from the Act two fifty project area.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yes, I see, Legislative Council might want to add something to the discussion.

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: To further clarify, you're eligible to get out to the Legislative Council, ANR will get notice of any permit application. And so they will get notice of this proposed area. And I think they would probably be the first ones to raise if they think there would be an issue with a sensitive habitat that would need the protection. And then also any other of the like budding landowners would also get notice. So there potentially would be as part of the application review back and forth with the other people who'd be raising these issues and say, well, AMR has concerns about this area. Perhaps we should actually have the buffer here. Landowner, is that what you see on the site? So there would be a back and forth that way.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yep, okay. Good, yeah, thank you. Representative Burtt. This might be, I don't know

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: who this is a question for, but is there a way to incorporate, like Jed was asking about, the land it's already in Kansas, how the forestry plan identifies these sites already, could it be wise to incorporate a little bit of that language into this bill to address that and say that that plan will be acknowledged. And instead of having this whole act, you know, having it be I-two 50 jurisdictional necessarily to say, part of the process of carving out the 10 acres, for instance, the forestry plan be acknowledged for its purposes and identifying those and not have to go through it. Is there a way

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: to I delineate the think

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: what Kirsten described is it would happen during the review and as Ellen was describing, it would happen during the hearing if there's a hearing or during the review if it's a minor permanent.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Something like that would already be. If somebody had a current

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: use plan, that would be considered My in the

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: own direct experience when I was a coordinator, when people had property in current use, they typically would make that known and provide a copy of the plan as part of their submittal. The language that is on the table is quite broad and so far as logging forestry, it doesn't prescribe a minimum acreage or say you have to be in current use. The board hasn't discussed if we think that kind of element should be recognized or incorporated into it somehow.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Without discussing it the board, I think it feels like it's not advisable because of the sort of case specific nature of these applications. And so it does routinely get submitted with the permit application if somebody has a plan in place.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, I think I can think of one instance when the applicant forgot to include it or just didn't make it known that this property was a cure use. It's not a a requirement. Typically, would be.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Can I just ask because we're about out of time and I do it? I and and we've got we don't have to He's

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: not here.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We're not making any final decisions today. But I did wanna ask about the two pieces of language, two expressions. One is the devoted to language, which so this is page one online, and I think it is similar language to what currently exists for agriculture. When I read this the first time, I thought that what does that mean? And that is that defined somewhere? But we do understand that since it's not new to the board, that it might make sense to stick with that same language even though it seems a little arcane or I don't know what.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Think was so the

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: farming language, I think, was put into the statute in, I think, 2002. And I'm not aware that it hasn't worked. I mean, I've seen it used, and it's similar to an applicant identifying these are logging forestry lands. This is the current planned use of those lands. If people have land and farming, I think it's worked fine.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I can imagine somebody thinking, well, if it's if it's if it's devoted to farming, you can see that it's, you know, tilled or something's growing there. Devoted to logging in first year might not be as obvious if you have a forty year management plan, and it hasn't been touched in a long time. So just wanna be sure that that isn't going to be misinterpreted in a way that we're not thinking about. Yeah. So just flagging that.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: No, that's great.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: You have an answer, I'm

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: not sure what you would be replacing,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: but can think about it.

[Andrea Burke, State Toxicologist, Vermont Department of Health]: Used for? Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. And I I don't have the suggestion either.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: That yeah. Okay. Representative O'Brien. Just another hypothetical. So we're talking about, you know, the 100 acres, 10 acres development. Stony Brook goes through the Stony Brook exemption. In future years, I wanna do another 10 acres with the development. Is that an amendment or do I have this sort of Stony Brook hit all over again, the whole lot?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: So you have a 10 acre Act two fifty project area and there's 90 acres that's not under Act two fifty and you want to expand the project?

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Yeah, but it's still part of the same parcel.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah. I think you would revisit that question. And by the way, this is it's a little confusing, but this actually is not Stony Brook. It's it's Stony Brook like.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Right. Okay.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: But it it's So I think the commission would reassess. Like, you're doing development activity in that 90 acre portion of the tract that has triggered Act two fifty review, then you would you know, if you still wanted to retain that eight remaining 80 acres in logging forestry, you would you would revisit, you know, sort of where that boundary is. Yeah. You'd have to do that. You'd have to update that.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Permanent amendment. So it's a permanent amendment. Yeah. It's not

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

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: But again, only

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Act two fifty per

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Only if what's happening on the 90 acres triggered Act two fifty jurisdiction. It's not under Act two fifty. Maybe, I mean, if this was the outcome, if someone wanted to put a couple houses or sort of buy two lots or something, if this is in a rural area and they haven't been doing a lot of lot or housing unit development activity, they typically wouldn't fall under active jurisdiction currently. So it would depend on the specifics of what was being undertaken. You

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: started by saying that you think this language is great. Why? You find it acceptable, maybe you didn't say it was great. And I'll just flag that we had some conversation about the two new definitions, forestry and logging. There are in other places in statute slightly different definitions of forestry and logging, and there was some suggestion that maybe we want to not reinvent these terms every time we are writing something new. So I think we might still look at that. I'm not sure who might specifically want to change something or just think maybe it'd be a good idea. But if we do anything differently there, would it be helpful for you to know that we're doing something different?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yes. I'll just mention quickly, part of the reason for providing those definitions was to underscore that those activities have the status within Act two fifty and can be mapped out as sort of happening on exempt lands, providing that Act two fifty permit conditions are met. That's kind of an important underpinning of how we've thought about this.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: So having the definitions in Title X, Chapter 150?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yep.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think we're in agreement with Sorry, say that again. So within

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: the Act two fifty statute, having those definitions in there is important for the reason that keeps Yes. Us

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: wanted to give recognition that the log yards would be be considered part of logging, providing they meet the AMPs, but also that logging as as a whole would not be something that contradicts or negates act two fifty permit requirements.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Think that we're perfectly happy and agree with having definitions here, just whether the definition should be the same definition that is used somewhere else for logging and We couldn't find a definition of logging.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Perhaps the issue that I'm mentioning could be accomplished a different way in the statute, but we would be happy to come back. We did provide our draft to ANR a few weeks ago, and they've been letting us know that they'll get back to us soon, but we haven't heard from them yet. So

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We're gonna try and move forward with this and see. Yeah. Go ahead. Go see.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Statute where you're talking about definitions section

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: 110

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: BSA 6,001, conditions

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: for development,

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: 44 Wood Products Manufacture is defined. The Addison 53 logging is defined. Right. Is that all in 10 VSA?

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: It's right now there's not there. This is what's being addressed. Otherwise, it's not there. Wood products is there.

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

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: But we're suggesting to to change Cross out the

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: the yard. Yards.

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

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah. But the other two aren't there.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Other two are new. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: This is what yeah. What we've got here is really now it's been informed by the LERB, but it's our language now. This this is legislative proposed legislative language. Thank you.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: You're welcome. Thank you for having us.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I'll step by and I'll wait and just ask him a couple of questions. No. Yeah. I'm sorry. No. That's fine.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, we're just setting up

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: the dance movie. Yeah. It could be just around those. Oh. I

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: haven't decided whether I'm

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Hi, Jessica. Is

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: there gonna be another meeting or is that it for today?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Bos- we are we have another several hours of

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: we're not very hot.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Won't be several hours from us.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We do sorry. We are here, I think, until three. And next, we're gonna turn to heavy metals and baby food.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Alright. Great. I'll I'll mute again.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. And please unmute at any time if you have a question, and we'll we'll be happy to take it.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Got it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Let's see. And we have represent so we have representative Bos-Lun online. I think representative Bartholomew is online. I'm just doing a quorum check here. I think we're still good. So but but hi, John John. Hi. What's that? I heard an echo.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I heard John. Okay. Not sure why, though.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: It's snowing in Hartland, John.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. It's starting to snow. It's coming down.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Great. Great. Well, let's move on. Why is that happening?

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: He's gonna He's off.

[Andrea Burke, State Toxicologist, Vermont Department of Health]: It shouldn't matter. He's not in the room for this. Here. Let's see.

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: Let's be.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Anyway, while we're figuring this out, welcome to We are joined by some folks who look familiar and some who don't. So let's start with some introductions.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yes. Hi. Thank you for having us here from the Department of Health. My name is Julia Rell. I am one of the deputy commissioners at the health department and the division of environmental health is one of the divisions that falls within my purview.

[Julia Rell, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: So that's why I am here today and I'm joined by my colleague, our state toxicologist.

[Andrea Burke, State Toxicologist, Vermont Department of Health]: Hi, my name is Andrea Burke. I'm relatively new. I've been here a year. I'm a state toxicologist.

[Julia Rell, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: Andrea is here to save me because I am neither a doctor nor a toxicologist, and I don't even play one on TV. So any technical questions, I'll defer to Andrea.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And I'll just ask before we start, I don't want to assume, but you've had a chance to look over the bill and thought that it would be helpful to have the health department give us any feedback that you might have on it.

[Julia Rell, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: Certainly, yes. So today we're really here to talk about the health impacts of heavy metals, particularly in baby food. So it'll be relatively high level and you may have already heard a lot of this information from some of the other people that you've had testifying, but we always appreciate having the health department have an opportunity to talk about health impacts. So heavy metals can impact a child's health. And the four heavy metals that we're talking about in this particular bill, lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic, They're all metals or metalloids, and they all can play a role in altering a child's development. And these changes can be permanent. Some of those changes may well be permanent. The metals that can cause these health problems, it can start in infancy and continue into adulthood. Long term exposure can increase or may increase the risk of cancers and cause damage to kidneys, heart, and central nervous system. And what's particularly important in this particular bill is that for children, they can be more vulnerable for adults because of their small size and because of the concentration in which they may be taking in this food. So we'll go through each of the heavy metals and just quickly talk about the individual impacts of the metals. It's also important to note, although each metal has sort of its own spectrum of potential impacts, when you start to combine two or three or four exposures of the different metals together, it can have a synergistic effect in terms of you may have two that impact the cardiovascular system or the heart of a child, but they may have different impacts. And so when they're combined, it sort of makes it even worse for the kiddo. So moving on to the health effects of lead, I think probably most people are well aware of the health impacts of lead and that there is no safe level of lead in the body. Even low levels of lead can impair development in children, and that can show up in injury to their brain, their kidneys, their nervous systems, It can slow down their growth and their development, making it harder for them to learn. It may damage hearing or speech, which also impacts learning and cause behavior problems. And you may know that many children in Vermont are exposed to lead in their homes. We have an aging house exactly. So there are still children that are getting exposed to lead paint. So that's the lead. Mercury, again, people are probably most familiar with mercury in fish and particularly the impact on pregnant women in mercury and fish was in the news for quite a while. But mercury in a child's body can affect their hearing, their learning, movement and coordination and balance, and also their heart function. Arsenic. Was in arsenic in an old place when I was in high school. You hear arsenic and you're like, Oh boy, I know, arsenic. But arsenic obviously can be very damaging to children. It can alter their neurodevelopment, leading to impaired memory, learning problems, and behavioral problems. Increased risk of cancer, including skin cancer, bladder cancer and lung cancer. It can cause heart defects and can increase the risk of early death. And some again, we can in areas of Vermont, there are higher levels of arsenic in some of the drinking water and so kids may be getting exposed in that way as well. And again, with all of these, it's sort of like the more exposure, the more intake, the more likelihood of health impacts for children. The last one is cadmium. For a lot of folks, that may be the one that they're least familiar with. Cadmium in a child's body can alter brain development in infancy and damage kidneys. And kidney disease, it is a rising public health concern. Ninety percent of adults with kidney disease don't know they have it. So really reducing heavy metal exposure for infants and toddlers will reduce the risks to pediatric health outcomes.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Questions okay? Sure. Just while you were there,

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: our four toxic heavy metals there. Once they're in a human body, do they not ever work their way out again? There's nothing with nutrition or exercise or life stuff that you can essentially purge them.

[Andrea Burke, State Toxicologist, Vermont Department of Health]: Well, land will go mostly into people's bones, and it can cycle out as calcium needs change, obviously during growth, or as you get older and a couple of bone thinning, it just stays in there and keeps cycling through. So it has many opportunities to do damage across the lifespan. Yes. Cadmium also tends to stay, and it tends to accumulate in the kidneys. Arsenic is water soluble and so it'll stay there for a shorter period of time. But while it's there, it causes damage. And what was the mercury? Mercury will also stay, depending on the form, that it's in like the form of mercury that's in fish, just the methylmercury that could stay a very long time and other forms of mercury to a shorter extent.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: So a baby in taking lead at six months may have it still in their bodies at age 50, 60?

[Andrea Burke, State Toxicologist, Vermont Department of Health]: Yes, yes. And you may have that. Interesting, men may have more because they're never gonna be breastfeeding. So there's an opportunity for women to pass some of that on. I

[Julia Rell, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: don't know that that's an opportunity. It's

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: a vivid point.

[Julia Rell, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: You know. Yeah, that's a great, thank you for asking that question.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I did an awesome, yeah, thank you, Jim. Well, lot of your symptoms up there describe all my problems, but

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: input formula wasn't originally listed.

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

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And that's it. I'm obliged and make perhaps the committees of mine to put input formula in there. Just your thoughts on that.

[Julia Rell, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: Yeah, so infant formula certainly these chemicals or these metals, excuse me, been found in infant formula And that can be particularly harmful for babies because kiddos who are eating the baby food probably have a wider range of food intake. And so it's sort of in environmental health, dilution is the solution to pollution. So the more you're able to dilute and not have sort of an ongoing concentration, the better. So again, with the kids with the baby foods, we don't want them exposed really to any, but at least they have a wider range of food. With babies and formula that is likely their sole source of food and so forth. Therefore, it is much more concentrated and their little bodies are really taking a lot in.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Bartholomew.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Am I still echoing?

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

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Good. Good. No. I was just curious. So one of the first slides talked about, impact on children from infancy. Does this, do these heavy metals also have an effect during pregnancy?

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Yes.

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

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: it's actually, we could be looking at problems even earlier than infancy. Mhmm. Yep. And the other question, just for semantics, we had someone point out in terms of referring to heavy metals that arsenic is neither heavy nor metal. Is that that correct?

[Julia Rell, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: That that's correct. But Yeah.

[Andrea Burke, State Toxicologist, Vermont Department of Health]: Oh, okay. Basically, a little bit. Sorry. Sorry.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I'm trying to make sure that we didn't misunderstand something from earlier testimony.

[Andrea Burke, State Toxicologist, Vermont Department of Health]: No. I I I think I

[Julia Rell, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: think he's muted.

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: John, can you mute yourself?

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Mute myself, yes.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Before you answer, just I don't know where the issue is. It's usually not a problem when the person is not in the room with us. John, we'll answer the question. When we're done, you can unmute and follow-up if you need to, okay? But we're still having some kind of a technical issue.

[Andrea Burke, State Toxicologist, Vermont Department of Health]: All right, let's go ahead with the Yeah. So you're right. Arsenic is technically a metalloid, and this might matter if you're an undergraduate chemistry student where you're gonna get asked that on the test. You gotta check the metalloid box. But in medicine and environmental health, they're usually grouped together. So when people say heavy metals, they will understand that arsenic is included. But it's just a word. And if you wanna phrase it differently, I think that would be fine.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: So the bill should maybe say, toxic heavy metals and arsenic in baby food products. And

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: so It's another phrase that you used.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I think we just discussed it.

[Julia Rell, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: There is another option. Heavy metals and

[Andrea Burke, State Toxicologist, Vermont Department of Health]: metalloids, I think. Okay. If I look them right, that would be that would work. It would maybe reduce confusion.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you. John, do you have more that you'd like to ask?

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: No, I'm good, thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Great. Let you continue that.

[Julia Rell, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: Great, thanks. We're wrapping up anyway. So reducing heavy metal exposure for infants and toddlers will help to reduce the risk to pediatric health outcomes. Research highlights again, there's no safe level of lead, even low levels can impair development in children and heavy metals can hurt children's brain, kidneys, nervous system, slow down growth development, make it hard to learn, damage hearing and speech and cause behavior problems. And chronic exposure may increase the risk of cancer and cause damage to the kidneys and central nervous system. The one point that I also would just like to call out, not about health impacts, but the role of the health department. It is written in there, I believe that the commissioner would be the one that would receive complaints and also take in the results from the manufacturers. Given that the AGO is responsible for the enforcement of the requirements of the bill, we would just say it feels more appropriate that those rest with the AGO's office than the health department. Other questions?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Otherwise, it sounds like you're supportive of the intent of the bill.

[Julia Rell, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: Anything that, again, reduces metals in children is going to improve outcomes or at least reduce negative outcomes. We're still researching like what is happening in California and the four other states that have this, what are they seeing? What is the impact of the legislation? So we don't have an official position at this point, but certainly I think the health impacts speak for themselves.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you. Other questions, representative? Just to point that

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Repression intake. Thank you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: We had some great testimony yesterday while you were doing unfair business and it was very compelling. Consumer reports and

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: things like

[Julia Rell, Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: Thank you. We appreciate you having us here.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I appreciate you being here.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Nice to meet you all.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We have one more witness this afternoon, it's on Parapat Hill, and I'm not sure, is he joining us remotely?

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Yes.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Not here yet, okay, well we can be at ease for a couple of minutes.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Thank you.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: I lost mine.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: David, can I ask a question?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yes. I'm sorry. The witnesses have left.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: No. No. No. Not of not of that. It's of you, actually. And and it doesn't matter if it's online

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: or not.