Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Got it. Handy. And, Alan, you don't need to put it up. Alright. So there there is an amendment proposed to h nine forty one legislative council that's joined us to walk us through it. It's got my name on it or expediency just to move it forward. Doesn't have to just be my name on it. Last time we had to move it on the committee sign on, but sometimes wrangling everybody at the last minute is difficult. So the moment just got my name done.

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

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: any case, good morning, Ellen. If you want walk us through, I think everyone's had a chance to look at this, but maybe not really absorb it. Helpful to have you here too.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All right. Ellen Tchaikowski, Office of Legislative Counsel. So today you're looking at draft 3.1 of an amendment to H nine forty one municipal regulation of, of farming. And so it's dated last night at 04:00. It is fairly close in a lot of ways to what this committee passed out, except that it doesn't have any reference to tier areas. And so I'll walk you through it. The changes are primarily in the section three, where there's the language on 4412 about what limited things a town could regulate that would also be farming.

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

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Been thinking a lot about taking out tier areas. And I I really support that because there are a lot of communities that may not opt into a or b, and they still have zoning and and whatnot. So it just gives the protections.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, we heard that from the environment committee. I think that was their concern. One of their big concerns, yep.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright, so section one is still the findings section and this has not changed. And section two is very similar to what you pass out of committee. So section two amends 4,413 of title 12. Four thousand four and thirteen D is the section that states what towns cannot regulate through zoning. So they cannot regulate farming that meets the minimum threshold criteria and required agricultural practices rule, and is therefore required to comply with that agricultural practices rule. Onto page two, except as described in forty four twelve, which is what you had set up originally also. It then goes on to say towns can't regulate the construction of a farm structure as defined by the wraps. And then it does add here also towns can't regulate the cultivation or other use of land for growing plants for food, for personal use donated in our sale, including orchard crops, viticultural crops, and maple sap. And then it has the definition that food means an article or agricultural commodities for human or animal consumption. So that provision has been in your bill, but it's moved a couple of times. And so now it is part of the statute that says towns cannot prohibit the growing of plants for food. The next subdivision is new. So Subdivision D on page two, towns cannot regulate the cultivation of ornamental plants.

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

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: was I'll just interrupt and say this was a request of the environment committee, and originated with somebody who grows flowers. So they thought, let's add that too. And we talked about it briefly. If there was any strong objection, that's in the environment committee requested that. John.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Just wondering, could that be construed to mean you can have invasive plants?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Invasive plant could be an ornamental plant.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Regulate Yeah. That. That's

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: that would so that would mean that they that account could not regulate an ornamental plant that happened to be invasive.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Should we just put a little thing in there and say cultivation or ornamental plants not considered or not deemed to be invasive? Possibly. Yeah.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Let's get into the definition of that. Really cut down on it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Greg? Is there anything in

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: statute right now that addresses invasives in the Congress? Does the state have authority to?

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I believe so. Go ahead.

[Bradley Sherman (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can't see that. Bradley Sherman also, legislative council. ANR does regulate invasive species, including trying to offer mitigation efforts to remove them. I'm not familiar with an issue of someone affirmatively growing an invasive species or coming into that. So I'm not familiar with how that might play out, but

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: the state already does have

[Bradley Sherman (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a authority to control invasive species through ANR.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thinking about a shrub that- Fire bush shoots. Yeah, yeah. I mean, stop all

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: the bamboo. It's like half the invasives for all nursery plants originally or more, maybe 90. So the request here,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: and this may or may not help, but the request was about flowers originally, so growing flowers for cut flowers, a farmer who isn't, or somebody who had a small business.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Ornamental plant is defined in six VSA eleven oh one. So it is defined there as perennials, annuals, and brown cover purposely planted for aesthetic reasons. Could consider adding the cross reference there to be clear.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Could we just change it to flowers? Set up another

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so I thought flower was vague. And but you I'm not aware of a definition for flowers. But

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: What line is that on?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It's that is on Nine.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Page two, line nine. Yeah. There are a lot of flowers that are invasive. I don't know why invasive flower.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's okay. I thought about that too, flower. When

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: you think of ornamental plant versus flowers, flower, I think of flowers, I think of perennials, and someone wants to propagate rose bushes, and and, you know, and then sell rose bushes to people, and someone may wanna propagate other ornament, you know, nursery crop type plants to sell to other people.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So, I think somebody was envisioning a specific going concern in business where the person raised flowers for cut flowers that sell that way.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: I'm personally of the opinion, let's not worry about the invasives in this right now. I think we need to get this through real soon. And I think that unless I think we could do something at state level. I don't think municipalities should really be the ones that are governing invasives anyway. It should be the state. Like Helen's idea of the cross reference to the definition. Okay.

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

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: When you said maple sap? Yeah. For food, you know, on our some of our sweeps, you got all these big maples and you just tap them and they boil it and the turkey baster on the back lawn till make a little syrup. Does that preclude that?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: No, so we're not gonna pivot that. Not on my watch anyway.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: And just one last thing from our wedding business, I know the specific flower farms that grow flowers for events, flowers don't really work because when you look at their design sometimes, half of its various or rashes or bowels or things like that. It's just a rat hole. So

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: ornamental plants leave this, but add a cross reference to verify. Okay.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Yeah. I have more information on

[Bradley Sherman (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the access feeds if you want it.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Let's not, yeah. Weed up for the garden. Good.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All right. So those, that's the list of things that are prohibited, that towns are prohibited from regulating and zoning. Then I'll say also that the section for the farming study hasn't changed, although I can read through that if we have time. But section three is where the changes are. So section three on page three is amending 4,412, which is what towns are required to do or what they're prohibited from doing further. So subdivision 15, line 12, no bylaw shall have the effect of prohibiting the raising, feeding, or management of chickens, excluding roosters, for personal use, donation, or sale. Then 16 is no bylaw shall have the effect of prohibiting farming, but may regulate the following for a farm or farm structure subject to the RAP rule on a parcel of less than 0.75 acres that was not operating as of 07/01/2026 and not on conserved land. It has then regulate, even regulate egress ingress and egress of vehicular traffic and ensuring pedestrian safety, including regulating parking signage, pavement markings, functional enclosure of livestock adjacent to roads. That was in your prior language. Then at the top of page four and site, citing and setback requirements. Which is you had that also in yours, but there was some additional language about fire safety. So it just says now they can regulate sighting and setbacks.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Did we lose anything critical by using this language? Just justice sighting and setbacks.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So what you had included, I think you had some discussion about in here that perhaps it was confusing. Your prior version said, citing and setback requirements for new infrastructure, including farm structures in a manner that does not create public safety concerns, including fire safety concerns to neighboring buildings. So I don't think that additional language is necessary unless you're trying to be narrower. Like, that language said for new infrastructure, but we didn't know what that phrase meant. So that's why I didn't include it. Now just says that the town for these for this subset of farms can regulate siting and setbacks Okay. Which is traditionally one of the aspects of zoning.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Let's keep going and then come back because I know that 15 is maybe this issue.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So those are the new sections, then you have the farming study, the the regulation of farming study, and it's pretty close to what you passed, but there was some additional I think there was additional language added since last time I was here. Okay. So the secretary of agriculture shall convene a stakeholder group to examine options to address conflicts between landowners. So sorry, this is on page four, section four. Conflict between landowners that involve agricultural livestock activities in densely populated villages, towns, or cities in Vermont. At a minimum, the stakeholder group shall include membership based agricultural organizations, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, Vermont Farm to Plate, and individuals with expertise in local and regional planning, as well as zoning administration. The group shall consider options to address conflicts, including establishing or expanding the required agricultural practices rule to regulate livestock, particularly addressing stocking densities on parcels of less than 10 acres, utilizing ordinances to address livestock, protecting the right to grow food for personal consumption, including livestock and creating rules like the cannabis control board rule to enforce against an operation based on health, safety, or the integrity of the broader industry. On or before 01/31/2027, the secretary shall submit the report to committees on ag environment, Senate committees on ag and natural resources that summarizes findings, considerations, and any recommendations of the stakeholder group and offer a recommendation from the secretary on solutions, including recommended statutory changes or rulemaking that would best support municipalities when significant landowner conflicts arise regarding livestock?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So before I take questions, just context here, was the stakeholders originally had asked to have in the bill some way to formally continue the conversations they were having. So we had put that in our bill. And then the environment committee looked at and they wanted to do a little bit more specifically partly to address you saw the part about stocking density and that it's 10 acres rather than four acres, something else. This is entirely There's nothing here that would change the law. All they would do is make recommendations, and they would have to come back to the legislature.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: With that. Stakeholder group, does it go without saying that there'll be a representative from the agency Yeah. Of They're They're convenient. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Thank you.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Yeah. Good. Yeah. John? I just wondered, is there a statutory definition of densely settled, densely populated villages? No. Okay. So that it's up to them. This group to sort of define.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Yeah, I live a beholder.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Or cities too. Mean, Virginia is a city, right? And Colchester is a town.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, it says cities are a town. Villages, towns are cities. I

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: think that the stakeholders have been identifying issues that have come up and what they have identified as densely populated or just where the conflicts have been occurring sometimes correlates with denser population than other places?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Let's just go back here. So a concern that was raised after I distributed this last night and the environment committee folks looked at it and I'm distributing it to, I think, was that where we had poultry originally, now we've got chickens. And so I think we may wanna change that back to poultry. I asked Ellen a couple of questions just because I wanted to be sure I understood what we were actually saying about a town's ability under different circumstances to control, for example, how many chickens or how many tinny hens or how many ducks. Depending on whether you are farming or whether you're not farming, depending whether you're more than three quarters or not. So Ellen, can you speak to that or talk about what you see as possible concern here between 15 sixteen?

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So you start by saying towns cannot regulate farms that are governed by the RAPs. You then go on to say, however, towns do have some authority to regulate chickens on a property. And so I guess I was wondering and then if you change it to poultry, I was wondering if there was going to be a point at which someone the line and maybe this is not a huge one the line at which a town can say how many of a a poultry or chicken you can have on a property. And then if that prevents someone from becoming a farm, like, there's a cap of only I don't know what the chicken number is in the wraps.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: A 100, I think.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's a 100. So if a town says you cannot have more than 30 chickens, is someone then going to claim, well, if I can't have more than 30 chickens, how am I ever gonna become a chicken farmer? Well, this is a bad example. I was gonna say there's a chicken and egg problem. But I'm wondering, and maybe this is not because I'm just thinking about this, but, like, is there gonna be a is is a cap a municipality could set gonna prevent someone from becoming a farm that could be regulated? Maybe not. Shit.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Where's the cap on this?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So the cap is completely hypothetical.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's hypothetical.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The town could the town here can't prohibit, but it can regulate.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Which could include setting a cap on the number of birds.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And as success. A success from regulations.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Does that only apply if you're less than three quarters of

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: an acre, chair? So you're less than an acre. No.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I think you're close to a solution here. And maybe that isn't fully an issue because But we fully talked through this, I think. This structure in this field, I think, is different than ones we had talked about before. And so I think you're close, just talking through what might be would come up. Yeah.

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

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Schedule F. That's all. If you file a schedule f, you can be under the wraps. Correct?

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

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that would be like a

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: necessary to be able to file a schedule f. Isn't it like $2,000 or ish?

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: $2,000 of sales is one of the thresholds, yep. So that would get you

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: also a threshold.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Yep. It's all separate threshold, I'm not familiar with, in my mind, the requirements for filing a Schedule F, if that pertains somebody, we need

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: to know from the facts.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Because if a schedule F is relatively easy to be able to file in terms of like I made $50 on selling eggs, I would assume that then you could be under the wraps and then you could have as many chickens as you want.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, yeah. Right?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I get the same, a similar thought. Yes,

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: I won't speak too much more to, because I'm of such things, and I have nothing else that's against.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So when you say you think we're close, do

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you think Yeah, and part of it is because I have any background really on the raps. I've been learning, so that's where my knowledge gap was. It's possible that it's fine.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: what is that three quarters of an acre trigger then if Richard's example does not, it doesn't matter whether you have chickens on under three quarters or over three quarters. There's no potential municipal regulation, right?

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, so this is saying that this town still can't prohibit farming, but they may apply some regulation if it is a farm on less than three quarters of an acre and wasn't operating as of 07/01/2026 and not on conserved land. So if they are a new farm, not on conserve land, the town and on the smaller parcel, even though they're farming, the town may still be able to regulate them.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Even though they're following the wraps.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, but only for the traffic and the siting setback requirements.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: John, so does that mean if they have

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: 0.8 acres, they can't regulate the number of chickens?

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that's the tension. Well, so they can't regulate farming. This is this is the tension I was just trying to say I'm a little bit concerned about, that larger than that, towns cannot regulate farming. They do have some ability to regulate number of

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: birds. Well, I don't see what I get that's where I'm having the trouble. I don't

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: see where it's saying they can regulate the number of birds.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it's in Subdivision 15. It's not specific about the type of regulation. So it just says towns are not allowed to prohibit, but they're still allowed to regulate poultry, which I do think could include number of birds.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Greg? I and this isn't necessarily related to

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: what you're just talking about, but why do we have a lot of piece of land

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: in here?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Because if you are in land plus side front down in Newport has been bought by the land trust. And say they sold a a parcel to somebody down there to do some farming on, and it's right in the city of Newport. And it's all conserved by land trusts. They can't tell them, you can't farm here because it's conserved land. That's where that works. And and there's not a lot of examples like that. That land was worth. The soils are deep, deep, deep to get the lung. I I could go on forever.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: But, anyway, that's the long and short of it hit.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think the intent here was to restrict as much as possible places where towns could regulate. So it added it was like after we had talked about the grandfathered properties, the towns couldn't regulate those. Right there. The also saying, well, okay. If it's conserved land, even if it's not being farmed on July 1, if it's conserved, we would also want to sort of give that the same special treatment.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I think it would help if on page at the top of page two, it says, you know, can't reg the towns can't regulate farming under the RAPs, except as described in section four thousand four twelve. I think perhaps if I said 4,400 twelve-sixteen, then there was a clear link between these are the types of farming only that the town has some limited regulation over. And then that would prevent hopefully 15 from coming into being part of that.

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

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Hey, that last section down here about forming the stakeholder group, that's the safety hatch on everything. So as they go forward with it and they see certain things arising, whether it's the league of cities and towns or some farmer groups, we can always make adjustments. I if we don't do anything, we're all subject to zoning

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: now. So poultry, go back to poultry instead of chickens. Poultry is what everybody has said all

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: the I agree because if someone wants to have 25 chickens or raise six turkeys to sell for Thanksgiving.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So so I will say and, Ellen, I think maybe you answered this, but I want to ask it publicly. The way that this is currently drafted, if somebody wanted tomorrow right up the hill here on a quarter acre lot, they're pretty small, Decided they wanted to have, I'm gonna say turkeys. And so let's say the wraps say you need a 100 turkeys. And that person bought a 100 turkeys. The town has zoning and maybe says, you can't have you can only have five turkeys. He's got a 100 turkeys, so he qualifies for the wraps. What how is that gonna be handled?

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Under 16, the town would have authority to regulate their traffic and their sighting. Can the town control the number of birds? I don't think so in that situation because they're already under the wraps.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Just buying under turkeys would put them under the wraps.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think so. Not necessarily. Okay. So then they haven't sold any yet.

[Bradley Sherman (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Can explain? So to be subject to the wraps now, you need to have 100 turkeys, if that's the number, and then also be on four contiguous acres. So there's two requirements of the animal piece section of the wraps, and so we have to keep that in mind as well. However, there is a catch all provision in the wrap saying if you're causing a problem with water, cause the water quality problem, the secretary can come in and after opportunity of a hearing subject you to the wraps if you're raising animals foodie birds.

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

[Bradley Sherman (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: need four acres

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: and if you have less

[Bradley Sherman (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: than four acres, the secretary has to make an individualized determination. Okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right. This may or may not be perfect, but I'm sort of thinking, echoing Greg's sentiment earlier, we need to probably move things forward and the good thing, and if there's the Senate and all that, so. House Environment then looks at this? This is their amendment nominally.

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

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: only. To be fair, Section four is theirs, really, and they wanted the flowers and we had a lot of conversation. They're okay with this. And by the way, so are the farmers.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And what's the Chapin amendment comment or is this it?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: So you've mentioned poultry a couple of times, but it says chains.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, so you changed that. Okay.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: And what does poultry encompass? Any

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: domesticated birds. That's the title six definition, which I was gonna put in there.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Those are ratites. Think.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: World experience with filing Schedule S for really small farms. All I mean, from what I'm reading, all you have to do is show that you are in the business of farming.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Mhmm.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: On schedule f.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yep. You might have to net less than 900 and some odd thousand dollars from other efforts beside agriculture. Think I had to check a box

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: on that. I'd have to show a profit in at least three of the last five tax years or two of the last seven years. There's Do you have what

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: you need from us now? Yeah, I'm gonna make you

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: change this right now and then send it back to you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You can change the

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: whole tree and the cross reference to our definition.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I was going to also add at the top of page two that reference the 16.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Three Just a quick straw poll. If we make have Ellen make those changes, is everybody comfortable with my saying we pulled the committee and everyone was supportive?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Yeah. If you remember by the changes, poultry and what you said?

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Ornamental plant definition?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Putting rocks, right? So it's putting a No, it's a fresh reference.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Fresh reference and And there is, by the way, there is a change here that is the definition of farming, I think, that cross references the RAPs rules. This is a section two. And I'm not sure whether we had that originally. It's actually farm structure at the bottom of page two. Farm structure was defined and then it's now has the same meaning as defined in the wrap tool. That's not functionally a change, is it? No. It's the same definition.

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, don't think so. I think you had talked about that a while ago. The process has been is that the Agency of Agriculture has used their process to verify that a structure is a farm structure and that qualifies for this. And I do think that is part

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: of the RAP rule, and that's why

[Ellen Tchaikowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it was more of a clarification than a change.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right. We're done here. We gonna head down to the floor. We are supposed to be on the floor for quite a while today, like after Yeah. I know that we had been looking forward to having Forest Products Association come in and give us an update. They know that we're running late. And I said if we have time, if the group here wants to stop in for a few minutes during lunchtime, if the committee would like to do that and give them a chance just to say hello. Otherwise, I think it might be quite late this afternoon and they may have all left. So this is not a critical thing. But at lunchtime, maybe we can just check-in and and one another and see if we've got ten minutes or so.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I I would eat. If I slept fast, I'll eat fast, and I'll check