Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Step out again, John, if my my phone buzzes. But remember on Friday, we were during all of that long afternoon. So many bills, thank you everyone for being patient. We don't usually see days like that. But when we got to the point in this bill where we're trying to decide what to do just to move forward, the suggestion was made that we could pass pass the bill and then come back and deal later with the formula question. And part of that was because in order to have ledge counsel take the time that we thought was necessary to get it right, we might be here later than we any of us wanted to be here. So we formula out at that point. Yes, right. So the bill that we passed goes back to getting the way we had it. That's the way it was introduced and exempts formulas. Over the week, a couple of committee members reached out as we had discussed, the elected suggested drafting and and and had her draft an amendment that we can now do the normal process put on the bill when it comes to the floor. It could be an amendment that everyone signs on to. It could be an amendment that two people sign on to. That's up to us individually. We don't need to vote on it. It's something that, at this point, is just you're on it or you're not, depending on how you feel. And then I heard, right around about the same time I was taking a look at the amendment, I heard from the Joint Fiscal Office, JFO, that the Department of Health had reached out with a concern after reading what we had passed. The Department of Health was concerned that if the bill passed the way it's written today, that they would need to add a staff position to do the work that the bill envisions they would have to do, which really is taking phone calls from people who are complaining, consumers who are complaining. And then if it got to the point where there was a need for the AG's office to get involved, then the health department would pass it on to the AG's office. Now that's oversimplifying, obviously. They would need to be trained. They would need to set up a system of some sort, presumably. I don't know. I can't really speak to what it would take. But they're saying that we would need to add a position, and there's nothing in the bill, of course, that says that position needs to be added. So joint fiscal office will be preparing a fiscal note that goes along with the bill, and they will address this question and do their best to help the legislature, us and the legislature, understand what it would really take. And that's just without the formula. That's just the way the bill was passed. So we've got a couple of options. Think one is that we ask the Department of Health to, in the bill, give us a report or let us know by the first of the year, for the next year of legislature, why it would require this. And that might help the legislature understand. We could also go back to an earlier draft and say the AG's office is just gonna handle all of this. I'm not sure how the AG's office would react to that. They might say we need I another think in reality, what we know is that the baby food companies are already complying and that for the most part, consumers are unlikely to have any reason to call anybody because there aren't gonna be people not complying unless there's a new baby food company that isn't yet on the market, doesn't know about it, or isn't selling into those other states that might not be complying as much as we pass the law. So those are a couple of options anyway. And then this gets back to Now we can get back to the formula question and whether we want to move ahead either with the amendment that's been drafted, I don't know that everyone's had a chance to look at it, or something else. John? Was the concern that there wouldn't be compliance

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: on the information side? So you pick up a product, you're like, wait, I looked at Gerber and this company has nothing, or was it more, did the product sales say it was, they thought it might be more on the, this is outrageous, you're selling maybe food with high levels of heavy creams.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The way the language is written, it is certainly, if the packaging doesn't comply, that's one reason. Where a

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: complaint might come in.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yep, that's just off the top of my head, what I'm recalling. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Health department The Does department base it on anything too, like

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: other states have done as the phone's ringing off the hook?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: No. And I think that that's something that we can look into. And I didn't have a chance this morning, but I can try and find out whether what we might know. But the language in the version we've passed says, if a consumer believes based on the information on the product, so on the label, that the product is being sold in violation of the section, the consumer may report the baby food product to the Department of Health. That originally said the consumer shall report, so we changed it from shall report, but it's to the Department of Health. So could you explain that? That sounds almost like this product said it had so many units of mercury that we know it's from. No. I think it's not even that. I think it's if the package doesn't have a QR code.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: Okay. But that's At least that's one word. Of information is somehow not

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

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: To the letter.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: The bill does say a person shall not sell, distribute, or offer for sale in baby food product in the state that contains a heavy, a toxic heavy metal that exceeds the limits established by the US FDA. So if FDA has a standard, the way I'm reading it is that if it's not labeled properly so that it can find the test or if it exceeds limits that are set by the FDA, then a complaint could be. That's the way I read it. Be that as in May, I'd have the chutzpah, but I'd come forward and say, well, babies might be poisoned, but

[Unidentified Member]: we don't have time to deal with it.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: It's like our most vulnerable. And also, don't understand how anyone could make an estimate because no one could know what's coming, how many complaints there might be. What are they basing that on?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, so one thing we could do, as I said, and this was suggested that we could amend the bill by asking the department or instructing the department to come back and give us by the first of the year something that spelled out their rationale and what they think they would need. And that might include, that gives them the time to do that research. The other thing that the health department is asked to do here, well, it's not asked to do. It's saying upon this is our bill. Upon request of the commissioner of health, the manufacturer shall provide the results of the tests conducted pursuant to this section. So it's not a directive, but it's giving the health commissioner that authority to request the results.

[Unidentified Member]: Representative Lipsky. Jim, it's the same department that couldn't provide any testimony or time for our committee to look at genocide bill? Yes.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: It is? I

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: mean,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I don't want to disparage the department or anybody who works there at all. I think that we did hear testimony originally saying that they thought the AG's office was better equipped. The AG's office came back to us then the next day and said, We think it should be the health department. To be fair, I don't think anybody asked the question, but we also didn't hear anybody say, We would need another staff person if you So made us do Greg, do you want to jump in here?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: I know the AG's office is the one that asked us to change to the Department of Health on that section of the bill to the bills or made a report that they need to put it to the Department of Health. But really, I mean, it seems like it's going to be a problem with labeling in the website as much as it would be like, long as it's under the threshold of the EPA. So it's either the EPA jurisdiction or the What's that? FDA. Or sorry. It's either FDA's jurisdiction or it seems like, I mean, I guess it's the AOG said it, but I'm just confused. I would think it would be either FDA or AOG. Dunno I where the Department of Health would come in. Because it's either miss a problem with labeling or a product problem or it's over the threshold. In between, it's like, well, that's the value of the that's the level of the heavy metal. If you're worried about it, go with the one that's lower. I don't know. Seems a little

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

[Unidentified Member]: In in my unscientific search, I won't call it research, but search, everybody was QR coded. I looked at two of them. Someone tried to tell me that there are no FDA standards on baby food,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: which I thought we heard there were FDA standards on baby food. They have standards, but not limits, I think. Yeah. This is the Toward Zero, I think was the name of their project, where they're trying to get it as low as possible, but they're recognizing impossible or virtually to eliminate it.

[Unidentified Member]: You know, and so I I I can't imagine unless they envision answering the phone and telling people how to take a snapshot of a QR code, but QR code, but if someone at 60 years old learned how to do that, I think young mothers would be more adept to it than I am for fathers.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I

[Unidentified Member]: I I just can't imagine them being flooded with phone calls, and I certainly don't wanna create more payroll burden on the state of net taxpayers in the state of Vermont, unless they say, hey, we're getting seventy eleven phone calls a week, you know, we gotta do something. So

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think that we can talk to a couple of things that I wanna do is talk back to the attorney general's office. We've already reached out to them or told them there's an issue here. So I'd like to hear what their thoughts are and then also check-in with the judge counsel and make sure the judge counsel and JFO are on the same page and understand what the what the issue is. And there may be an easy solution to this. But wanted to go back to the formula question. So does this impact anybody's feeling about amending the bill to include formula down the road if another state goes that direction, then we would be tacking on the way that this amendment was drafted.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Do

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: you think that that means they would say they need two staff members? I mean, honestly, it just seems ridiculous because the point of the labeling is so that people will look at the labels and then if they see that it's unsafe, they're not going to buy it. I don't think there's going to be that many complaints that are going to come through the channel. I don't know that we can just say we think that that's what it is if the Department of Health is feeling that it Yeah,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: no, think that they can make the case that I think they can plausibly make the case that it will require some resources. Even just answering a phone call once a week, somebody would have to do that. They're not saying that. They're imagining something much bigger than that, but it would take some resources. We can recognize that. And yes, if it's now expanded to formula, then presumably there would be more. If there was only one other state doing it, maybe there would be significantly more

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: possibly. Area I could see potential complaints coming in under the universe of baby food that says products sold specifically for babies and children younger than two years of age. So I'm sure there's baby food applesauce, for example. But then you can probably also buy just your regular Mott's applesauce too. So some parent might look into Mott's applesauce and be like, I'm giving this to my two year old. But there's no QR code on it. I don't know. I haven't bought baby food, so I don't know what the There's probably a section in the supermarket, but there are probably a lot of parallel foods that you could find elsewhere in the supermarket, and they were not requesting that they I mean, any food that could be eaten by a two year old has to have a QR code, right?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The parents might misunderstand the law and call somebody. Right. Yeah. And then somebody would have to answer the phone. So

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: where are we with currently, if you go into the store, are these products already labeled because they do

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: it in other states? Yes.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: So what I'm wondering is people aren't gonna know that we passed this bill. They're not gonna realize that, oh, now I can make a complaint. Look at that label. They're gonna check and be concerned. Wouldn't they be calling already? And they'd probably be calling the Department of Health. I just looked at this website. Look at these levels. The fact that we passed this, is that gonna really increase their volume? It feels to me that if they find that there is a really greatly increased number of volume of calls that they're having to deal with, come back next year and tell us they need a person. But don't tell us now ahead of time that, oh, just because this here, we're gonna get flooded with calls and we need somebody new. Exactly. I agree.

[Unidentified Member]: I agree

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: with that too. And I'm wondering if there's any other examples for folks that have been here longer where you might a bill that would be similar that would potentially increase the workload at an agency, but you just kind of got to wait and see or no.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think JFO is our best resource there. And because they have followed on to do this kind of thing. And if there has been something, I don't know that there has, but they would be able to use that to inform what they put in their fiscal note. But I think that's a good point.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Rich consumer doesn't spend a lot of time reading Vermont statutes. What's that? The average Vermonter doesn't spend a lot of time in the Vermont statutes.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: I think if there would be publicity about it, just spread the word and hospitals would also be able to tell people that babies. I mean, it wouldn't be that long until everybody would be up to speed and I it might take some, you know, weeks or months.

[Unidentified Member]: The the committees righty and lefty may stand together at the podium if I you know, I've already been asked to to do an interview with somebody from UVM or something, you know, that's gonna be here in

[Unidentified Member]: the building tomorrow. You know?

[Unidentified Member]: I don't and I don't need to, but can do it in conduction with all of y'all.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, let me go back to the formula question. Is anybody feeling so other than comment you made, Michelle would arguably would need even more people. And I think that that that is an argument.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm just wondering because if they said, Oh, you passed a bill about baby food, we need a new position. And then we said, Oh, guess what? It's actually baby food and formula. Then it just makes you wonder what they might think. But mean, I the original intention was to have the attorney general be the one that was gonna be where the complaints would go, because it's sort of a liability or malpractice kind of thing. And then it would only go to the DOH if there were something more serious, if there were some widespread problem that-

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's actually the other way around. And I know that I heard that too, but looking at the actual bills introduced, well, as introduced anyway, consumer was directed to call the health department and then the AG's office would get involved if they needed to prosecute. It

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: seemed like if there was a parallel, it might be to our timber trespass where maybe FPR would hear complaints, and if it rose to a criminal, then they

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It was the AG's them seems to be the AG's position. Yeah.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Greg? Yeah, I mean, if we can get an amendment that works where we piggyback on another state, I'm personally cool with that. And if we're concerned about volume of questions potentially coming from the public, guess my next, specifically with introducing formula as well, because no one else is doing that. So then I see a precedent for something being done to help address extra calls. And I think I wonder if it would be the best step would be to have a web page where that will answer people's questions. And then a phone number at the bottom of that or something like that where so try to reduce the amount of phone calls by giving information on a webpage. Obviously, that would cost some money too, but that would be less expensive than having somebody on a full time position.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. It's also worth, I guess, remembering that it's hard for any of our government agencies now to, can be hard, to staff any position. They're, I think, like of the rest of the employer world, dealing with workforce shortages. AI will do it.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: AI bot.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: JFL also pointed out, and I probably should mention this, that the attorney general's office has the ability to collect fines and the health department doesn't. So what that means here is that if it ended up requiring that they hire somebody or that they outsource it to somebody, and there's a cost. They could reimburse themselves through that type. Yeah. Through fines.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: The health department didn't have that

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: authority. So, okay, let's I think that I'm getting the sense anyway from the committee that we are comfortable with the amendment that was worked on over the weekend to expand to include formula once another state had done that. And then we need to determine whether there's going to be the language exactly the way it's written here, or if we ask the Department of Health just to give us a report saying what they think the requirements are, or just turning it all over to the AG from beginning care, which I think is an option. Let's leave that until we can have more information from the AG's office and We're gonna play kick kick the bill down the road one day? Maybe. Although, we don't have to. We could have you report it tomorrow, and then we could have the amendment on Yeah. Okay.

[Unidentified Member]: I got my list of witnesses now. Got to come up with a.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: So I do need to at this point, the the amendment is listed as John and me. So, I mean, it could be John and me, and then it'll come to our committee and we vote on it. Or or it could be Katie hasn't finalized the list yet. David had said, you know, there might be other people that would wanna sign on along with John and I as co sponsors for you.

[Unidentified Member]: So right now, it's John, you, Greg, John, Jed, and I.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I got the thing right here.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Okay. You're just oh, you're at you're at Smith? Yes. Oh, oh, oh. Yes. I I haven't been But I didn't see.

[Unidentified Member]: I think it'd be neat as bells that, you know, at the third reading or whatever, you or John get up and offer the amendment,

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: you

[Unidentified Member]: know, and now we strap all that out of here eight zero zero.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Since since we all signed out to it.

[Unidentified Member]: We have an answer for Jack. Got a radio email.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: But we could do it.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: There's almost two of us who aren't on this. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: How come how did you guys get on it? What'd you do to get on it? I'm not sure. How'd you get on it?

[Unidentified Member]: I I just I told emailed one we were talking about it, and I said, yeah. I'm all glad. I'm okay

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: with it.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Right. Let's vote. Can we let the chair be on this too?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. And I think that Jack, unless he objects, ought to be eligible to be on it as well.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Good. Think that's appropriate.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. But if you could on one. If you could say, Michelle, to Katie, that we're we're trying to figure out this issue. So it would be better if we had a single amendment that addressed the infant formula question and the staffing question.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Oh, okay. Yeah,

[Unidentified Member]: we'll add some more stuff to you.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: So so we were going to add on those other things are going to get added on

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: to If all eight of us can agree, I think.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Yeah. Okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And that's, you know, I recognize this is your amendment.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: I'm I'm trying to share the amending. We can we can can continue to amend.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: So on the staffing issue, would JFO come back and say whether it's a half position or 0.2? Yeah. I'd love to see I'd love to see a decimal point

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: on there. Yeah. And we can we can ask them to come in.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: So, Jack, do you wanna be added or you Sure. Okay. Alright. And is Jack your official name?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. For down here, guess. Okay.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: So not just down home.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: Possibilities are there of calling witnesses on a bill like this that hasn't reported, but there might be an amendment on.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Can we

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: call witnesses on an amendment? Yeah,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think so because the amendment would be brought to our committee, and I think we could call a witness to hear that. Couldn't we have somebody from the Department of Health come in and explain where this game runs?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Because maybe they'll withdraw. So

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: I'm gonna tell her to add Jack Bringham and David Durfee, and then say, may want to add some additional language as well. I mean, actually, I get into the content of it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. I think you could say so just so she's aware that the conversation you're having with her is the same one that we had with her. And yes, we can certainly and probably should invite the health department. Just in terms of the schedule, and now I'm going to step back and talk about all the bills that are out there that we passed last week. They're almost each a little bit different because the committee bills have a different schedule and the short form bills have a different schedule. So tomorrow, we've got a for action, this bill, second reading, and then right to grow vegetables bill, second reading. We might push that back because I'm not going

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: to be here in the afternoon

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: in the labor. So might get pushed back. And then we've got the short form bill that has to be on notice for two days. It's also So was that on notice today? Okay. So it'll be on notice again tomorrow. And then the second reading would be Thursday. '27? 07:39.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: 07:30. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The two the two committee bills, so that would be municipal ag bill and Housekeeping. The housekeeping bill. Those were you heard them today. They were they got billed numbers, so they now have numbers. And they will be on those That was first reading then? Yeah. Was first reading. Yeah.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Is it

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: 942? 942 and 43, I think. Yeah. You two are reporting this? Yeah. I have nothing new to report, by the way, on municipal ag. So nothing more to share today about that. They will be on notice tomorrow. So along with 07:39, they would be on action Thursday. And Michelle and so Michelle Michelle's bill would be then as well. She added the wood products bill in some ways and means, given their calendar, it might not be till the end of the week that that comes out.

[Unidentified Member]: So that would be the following.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. But They communicate with Ellen. Okay. Do you have the information you need?

[Unidentified Member]: No, but she said it's not gonna be. At one point, Warren got committed to wasting me, so I couldn't do that. Yeah, yeah. So I panicked on Saturday. Went through all my concussion protocols. I I could use it, one of these things. And she said likely next week.

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

[Unidentified Member]: It's such a. If

[Unidentified Member]: one pair of cloth is reported and people get up to interrogate you, don't be afraid to use former friend. Reporter and myself.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: I can bring in a jug if you need.

[Unidentified Member]: You don't dare.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Make sure it's sealed. It's never been opened. Sure it's sealed. Never been opened. I'm just

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Cina, oh, this one was leaky, so I didn't use it.

[Unidentified Member]: Is that a flowable powder or

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: is it a liquid?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: O'Brien has been giving flow reports for a long time now and he's an old hand addict, so yeah, no props yet. Is anybody stuck at all wherever you may be in the process of putting together your floor report?

[Unidentified Member]: I just got to write out my narrative. Okay. And then I think as far as on the bill goes, it's just give some highlights. Each section give a little description on each section. I don't wanna spend thirty seven minutes on a six page bill. Yeah. The

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: the bills, think I mean, the the there's nothing we passed. It's all that. And Greg's bill was up 15 pages. It's probably the longest. Yeah. You get the longest last year

[Unidentified Member]: too.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Which one are you doing, Greg?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: The miscellaneous.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Oh. But

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: Jack could do a section or two of that. Sure. Appreciate your attention.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I wanted I don't want Jack to feel like he's being thrown into the

[Unidentified Member]: We hey. We got the whole second half with the stuff coming from he can give the senate's s three twenty three. Yeah. That's looked like 47 pages long. What

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: the fuck?

[Unidentified Member]: They don't fall asleep reading.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: What's that about? It's not

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: It is a

[Unidentified Member]: balsam fir rather robust mini bill.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's got a lot in it. 45 inches.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Wow.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: Is that the money for me?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's yeah. The senate should have referred it this morning to senate finance, I think. Didn't I'm not sure they did.

[Unidentified Member]: What the? Up at Church Street.

[Unidentified Member]: Is that a bit?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: So our only money bill is Jed Loma?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yes. I think so. Baby 30. Yeah. So just

[Unidentified Member]: to share with the committee real quick, when I went to stand up earlier when they were talking about AI And rep Cina had said how Slovakia was using that to figure out their budgets. So I was gonna stand up to say, in reference to the representative from Burlington talking about AI being able to build budgets and the lack thereof of our federal congressional con you know, federal congress be able to do any kind of a budget, maybe we should urge them to use AI, but I thought better of it. If if she depict me first, that was coming out.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I was primed, and then I said Oh,

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Let him cool off.

[Unidentified Member]: That ten sec, you know, write it if you write it in a nasty email, leave it on your computer and wait till the next day. If you still wanna send it, send it. But, yeah. Yeah.

[Unidentified Member]: That didn't work out last week.

[Unidentified Member]: I've said none. David, what's the

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: do we have anything on the agenda for the committee tomorrow?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: No. At the moment, we don't. So we're reaching out to possibly schedule some testimony. John suggested that even though that Senate bill is still not ours yet, that we might be able to get some preliminary testimony on some of the things that are in it that we haven't learned about yet. Even if we never got the bill, I think it would be useful things to have a better understanding of. So we'll have that tomorrow, hopefully. The Forest Products Association is in the building for the day, meeting with people and having a table, I think, downstairs on Friday. Friday. Friday. Yep. And they asked to come in and testify just with an update on the state of the industry. So we'll do that. EFPA. Forest Products, yep.

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

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Don't imagine, just as far as the week goes, once we've finished with this conversation, we'll be wrapped up here. The floor, of course, starts at one now, but I think it's gonna be a long Wednesday on the floor, a long Thursday on the floor probably. Friday would be four in the morning. Until afternoon. Yeah. Depending on what that looks like. But we so I scheduled the forest products for the morning. If the house floor runs a little long, they might come right after lunch, but then we'd be done. So Friday will be an early afternoon anyway.

[Unidentified Member]: I think I know what Ruth Burtt's gonna be doing tomorrow morning.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Sceneless. Yep. Gonna be a lot of I've

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: got a full blast.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Miscellaneous bill Thursday. Yeah, okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And I'm not Jed pretty soon so

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: I can get ready for tomorrow.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: That makes perfect sense, yeah. Michelle?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Yeah, so I have an update. Mary Katherine did some checking with people from Virginia and in Maryland, and it said in Virginia, paid. So basically, the question was, did they have to do extra hiring? I believe we did not. It was absorbed with existing staff. I will send a quick email to my colleague in Maryland who carried the bill in 2024 and ask about Maryland. Stay tuned. And then the person says, just checked with fiscal impact, confirmed there was no new hire. Our Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs absorbed the duties in existing headcount.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: State was that?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: That is Virginia. It's all Virginia? Yeah. And they were checking with Maryland, but they hadn't got the Maryland information yet. In Virginia, they said they didn't need anything extra. And theirs, it was actually ag. So we haven't talked about ag being a place it could go on.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: I guess they are the testing labs.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, they're gonna test it. Virginia is a bigger state, bigger health department, or whatever that's More gonna people to call. More people to call.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: It's true. So there's a lot of people there and it's- The first state.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. They were one of the first states, right? Yeah.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: So that sounds like good evidence.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay, thank you, Greg. Yeah. Thanks, committee. Yeah.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Minute.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, good luck. Thank you.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: See you at

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: the Bills. All

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: right, John. I just wonder, Victor,

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: for the wise, whether there's a possibility, committee interest in any of these bills on the wall that we could look at at some point maybe this week and say some might be germane we could attach to the Senate miscellaneous ag bill, or they were interested, they might even take up some

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: of these. Yeah, yeah. Yes, if there's anything that anybody wants to look at, we do have time. I don't know what tomorrow is going look like at this point. Anybody have anything else? When you, on reports, is the vote the last thing you mentioned or is it witnesses?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: It's not

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You have some flexibility. I think that people either tend to say it last, or tend to say the vote last. Because

[Unidentified Member]: they'll remember.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Or earlier, much earlier, if you want to make sure that while people are still paying close attention, that you say it just so that they're not wondering. Right. On a controversial bill, perhaps, you know, was unanimous. Right. I think we can probably wrap up the meeting. If anybody has questions or wants to discuss the floor reports, I'll be here for a little while, happy to do that.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Vice Chair)]: And then we were talking about a list of witnesses from Patricia.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, so Patricia

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: will I

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: got on Patricia will send a list of witnesses to everyone. If you don't have that, just email her and ask. And she's, thank you, Patricia. For our specific bills. For your bills, yeah.

[Unidentified Member]: Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, good. So we are here tomorrow. Committee schedule start at 09:30. And we'll see everybody then.