Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Monday, 03/09/2026, just after 01:00. And we are going to hear some bills this afternoon. And the first one is H-six 32 related to miscellaneous environmental amendments. And we have Michael Grady from Legis Council with us and on online on Zoom, is Ted Barnett from Joint Fiscal Office keep us in the hospital now. So I

[Unidentified member (possibly Tiffany Bluemle)]: hand it over to you.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Good afternoon. This is Michael Grady with Feltus Head of Council. How would you like me to proceed? Do wanna walk through the entire bill? I also gave a section by section that I can walk through.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Ah. Why don't we start with the section by section? Okay.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Sounds good.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That seems like a to it.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: There's section one. It relates to the battery extended producer responsibility program. There's a report back currently from ANR about how to deal with difficult to recycle or manage batteries like your car battery, like, an electric vehicle battery. The, the product stewardship organization that runs that EPR program, they volunteer to do that report. But if they want an extra year, which do it. And that's what section one does. It switches the report responsibility from the ANR to the to the product stewardship organization and gives them another year to do that report.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Section two Can I answer the question of who's what's organization? Who's on it? What's the hub?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It's it's made up of battery manufacturers. Those who are responsible for paying for that program, they hire basically a manager to manage the program. So that's basically So they definitely get the best technical knowledge. Yep. Section two relates to underground storage tanks, category one tanks, which are basically fuel tanks, motor fuel tanks. ANRs wants to change the inspection standards slightly so it's easier for them to regulatorily inspect, and that's basically what it does. Section three does have an appropriations connection. You appropriated money from ARPA for something called the Healthy Homes Initiative, which provided low and moderate income assistance to those people who wanted to put in wastewater or storm water systems, drinking water systems, etcetera. The federal law requires the applicant information to be confidential. And it's not clear from what was enacted by the state that it was confidential. And so section three clearly provides that that personal information provided by applicants is confidential.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So there's no money involved. Won't be appropriated, but it's just about clarifying it needs to be kept confidential. Right?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So how do we get around the Freedom of Information? It's

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: at the federal level, under FOIA, it's already exempt and supposed to be exempt. In the state, that's what you're doing here. And under the public records act, you're making that in that information confidential and exempt from your public records. Yep. Perfect. Sections four through seven relate to the flood safety bill that you enacted, in 2024. That program had multiple aspects of it, some of which were permitting deadlines, most specifically for the river corridor protect protection program requiring development in river corridors to be permitted. This pushes those dates out, pretty much all of those dates out, by a year to to a little bit more than a year. So you're not gonna get the permit fee revenue from that until an extra year. They haven't even set the permit fees yet, so you don't know what you would be losing. But there won't be permit revenue for an additional year.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I'm noticing, I think, a typo under the section six extends from 08/15/2026 to 08/15/2026? Yes.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: That is a

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Should that be '27? Yes.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So this is lost 2020 It's '5 to August 2026.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, okay. So this is essentially lost revenue. Haven't set the permit fees yet.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. I believe Ted addresses that in the fiscal note.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, okay. We'll get to that.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: It's not anticipated that the fees would be

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: pretty large. Right? Pardon me? Do you anticipate big fees or relatively small fees? I can't even I can't even guess predict. The type of ANR fees can run from relatively nothing to $2,500 No. It can be significant.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so that's four through seven.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Section eight and nine relates to clean water service providers. Those are the entities that are responsible for a watershed and doing non regulatory projects in the watershed. Watershed. So if you are regulatorily required, something you're a farmer, you're a discharger, that is something that's covered by ANR. The clean water service provider tries to find those projects that no one's regulatorily required to do to fix them, like armoring a stream bank or stabilizing a stream bank, replacing a culvert, things of that nature. What this relates to is the notice that is required when the secretary approves a project or categories of projects or approves the, basically, the priorities for each watershed. The notice requirements currently are different, and ANR wants them to be the same. So those sections doesn't change anything substantively besides just making the the notice requirements the same when they have to go out to notice. Sections 10 to 15, last year, after EPA, effectively a warning letter to to ANR and the agency of Ag said, you need to start regulating concentrated animal feeding operations farms more appropriately underneath your delegated federal clean water act authority. You made multiple amendments to state statute to do what EPA wanted. EPA followed up with some additional tweaks that they wanted, but some of them are really, I wanna say petty, but, like, that's not

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Pretty minor.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Pretty minor. But one of the things that they request, what the the ANR and the agency of Ag is requesting is to move the date for the concentrated animal feeding operation permit back by by over a year.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That Push it out further? Yes.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: They've been going through a public process with farmers and advocates and other stakeholders, and that that permit was supposed to be issued on 12/15/2025. Right. It wasn't, and they are asking to push that date out to 09/01/2027.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Who's asking for that?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Both ANR and the Agency of Agriculture.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we gave them a lot of money for this last year.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: You gave them positions. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Did they hire people for that? Or are they still open positions?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I believe they've hired people. The delay is not the staffing. The delay is actually getting through this public participation process, which was required last year. It's just taking them much longer than expected.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: It's all administrative, the notices, and setting up the meetings, and all that.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Trying to find consensus about how to do this regulation, it's not an easy subject matter. And there are people that are They're resistant. They're resistant to change and resistant to some of the things that they would have to do. Go ahead, Tom.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Who is resistant? The people who would have to not the administration people or the people who I have to be a

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: think it's a mix of that. I think it's you can probably

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: it's a mix of that. Well, that's important to I I guess we'll have to ask the committee. I think that would be the right question to ask for a committee because if it's the administration not executing the wishes of the general assembly, then they're and for four reasons, that would be one thing. If they were if they were reluctant to crack the whip because they didn't really agree with it and they just assume push it out till '27, that's a whole other question.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think it's really either of those. I think this is a difficult topic. You're talking about how people run their farms, how they're gonna be regulated. They're very invested in that. The two agencies are very invested in what they're supposed to do under statute. And they also want to support farming. And so it's just a sensitive, difficult topic, and it's taking longer than expected.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Trevor?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah, just to follow-up Mike's point to you, Tom, it's how it's being manifested as tension between two agencies on a part of the distinction, so agency VA and AMR, so that's really what it costs. To me, a lot of it comes down to that. Perf, literally.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Although they've been go ahead, Brandon, and I'll ask.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So there's also lost revenue here. The fees for this program have been set already. For a medium concentrated animal feeding operations, it's $1,500 a year. For a large, it's $2,500 a year. You wouldn't

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Are those the fees that they want us to remove? The other

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: program. This is the ANR program. The fees that they want to remove are those in the that's the Agency of Ag, LFO and other things.

[Unidentified member (possibly Tiffany Bluemle)]: So is this

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: are these fees that were the look it's lost revenue because we haven't completed the conversion yet or because they're not gonna charge these fees?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Haven't completed the conversion.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. Okay.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: And part of what needs to be done is ANR needs to go out and determine what farms need this federal permit and what farms don't need the federal permit. Because under federal law, you only need the federal permit if you have an actual discharge. So the agency needs to determine if there's an actual discharge.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Especially. It hasn't been any I'm just getting to the other pushback from the industry, of course. But then, has an industry had an opportunity to know anything about this yet, such that they could get some pushback? They are very involved.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: From the last recount I received is that they are now working directly with the advocates, with the agencies to decide to try and get to consensus between the industry and the advocates without them.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: It's more complicated than just two agencies pushing against each other.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's three-dimensional. So I'm assuming that the cow calf thing is one of those minor differences that we had to clarify. For example.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So the slash, when you say cow slash calf, quartz interpret that to mean an or. The proper term for that is a virgule, V I R G U L E. And so a virgule means cow or calf. But technically, what they want is cow and calf. And so you replace the virgule with an and, And that's fixed the test.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm glad to know that.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Not a secret. Your second syllable is spelled G H O U L. And that would be a vermad

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: zabi. Yes. Okay. It's also a first day then.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Section 16 relates to the dam permitting program. Whenever you need to build a dam, remove a dam, repair a dam, breach a dam, you have to go to ANR, and there's called a there's basically a certificate of public good process. One of the things that the advocates are looking for is that a a person who is applying for this permit should be notified when removal of the dam is an option. And so that is what section 16 does. When removal is an appropriate alternative, the agency is directed to notify the permanent applicant about that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And so that ties in with the DAM Safety bill that you were in,

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: John? Yep. Section seventeen and eighteen relate to emergency rulemaking. I think several of you have served on LCAR. Is a process for adopting rules that generally takes five to eight months, but sometimes you need to do it faster when there's an emergency. That's usually when there's going to be something that's an imminent risk to public health or the environment or safety. But there's one other way right now where you can go to emergency rulemaking. It's when your program is based on the federal government and they issue the requirement late in the game and you can't actually comply with state rulemaking. And the example of that is what used to be the migratory bird treaty rule because the federal government would issue the they issue how many birds can be taken during hunting season, but they would not issue it until, say, like, August. And hunting season, September, October, you couldn't get to rulemaking. So what you did is you circumvented that, and you said that when that type of thing happens, an agency can go to emergency rulemaking. Emergency rulemaking is only valid for a short period of time, and then the agency has the ability to adopt a permanent rule. This adds a third category of emergency rulemaking. It's kind of the reverse of what that migratory bird rule situation is. It's when the state program, the state rules are based on cross references to federal programs and federal rules. Your state air pollution control regs have about 70 cross references in it. The public drinking water rules have 30 or 40 cross references in it. Your Medicaid rules have cross references in it. The concern is that with the federal government after the Chevron decision, since everybody knows what the Chevron decision was? So for decades, federal courts were directed to provide public agencies with deference when the public agency was interpreting an ambiguous language in a statute. So the agencies could go to rulemaking, say, This is an ambiguous term. We're defining what that term is. We're defining what the standard is. And the courts were required to give deference to that agency interpretation. Well, the Supreme Court, about two years ago now, said no. No more deference. It's up to the courts to decide what the language means. And, subsequently, the Trump administration issued an executive order directing all public agencies to repeal any rule that relied on Chevron and other standards that the Supreme Court had changed for rulemaking. Well, puts a lot of doubt and a lot of anxiety into state programs that are based on cross references to rules. So they don't know what public what the federal public agencies are gonna repeal and when they are going to repeal those rules. And if they did repeal those rules, the state programs would basically fall apart because the requirements that are cross referenced would no longer be valid. What this does is it allows the agencies to go to emergency rulemaking to effectively keep what is in their rule, those cross references, until they have time to adopt a permanent rule to make those cross references permanent in rule.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. Does

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: this require any change in mod's APA?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It does amend the APA.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: This is at it can do that. Okay. This is amending

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the APA.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It's amending the APA to provide a third emergency rulemaking alternative. It's only going to be in effect for until 07/01/2028. And in that point, there's a sunset built in. You could repeal the sunset at that time if you thought it was worthwhile. Or maybe by that time, the federal public agencies will have repealed all the rules that they were directed to repeal, and the state agencies have amended their rules to no longer need this emergency rulemaking authority. But that that's why it's there, to ensure that these state programs that are that are based on federal law and federal cross references don't fall apart if the feds appeal rules.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: What's the Administrative procedures.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Sounds like a guy's been on health care.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Functionally, there should be no problem doing what needs to be done.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Honestly, it's a timing issue because if the feds start repealing rules now, I think you don't have this in place. So you could see issues. If the Fed start repealing the rules after you enact this, I think you have a safety net. And then they have their opportunity to go to federal, I mean, to permanent rule without the program falling apart.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Something you can do with

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that. Okay, go ahead.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah, just to respond back to your comment, I mean, Algarve, our chair, there's certainly been circumstances where emergency rulemaking has come with us, and we sort of scratch our head a little bit. But there's been generally a good reason why, even though it didn't quite fit that construct. Even if something was to happen prior to something being changed here, I can see the committee taking it under consideration.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. You could make a case that there was an imminent threat or imminent emergency, but I've also seen Al Carr saying, No, this isn't imminent. Do

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: anticipate a big low going on to these guys?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't I don't you know, again, that's a timing issue. It all relates to when the feds start repealing these rules, and if they do it in a coordinated way where they all repeal them at the same time, or if they do it in a way where it's staged. I I I can't can't predict what the what the workload would be. And it would all come all the environmental ones will come through me. This isn't just an environmental authority. This is for all state agencies.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Tom?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: The notion of struck by the cut off the head and all of the little pieces that Croft referenced, mean, everything just sort of comes down. Is this one of it, has this order, has this thing been challenged like many of the other orders, I mean, because of the chaos that it can create?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So the aspect of the order that's being challenged is the president directed that they do the rule, feel under what's effectively called a good cause provision, where the federal government doesn't, the federal agency doesn't need to go through the Federal Administrative Procedure Act to repeal the rule because they have good cause. And that is There's challenges to whether or not these rules meet that standard or whether they need to go through full APA rulemaking. Because full federal rulemaking can take a long time, a long time. And there's often challenges. But if you go to the good cause exception, you accelerate that repeal and you remove opportunities for challenge, you remove public comment and participation, that's

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: what's being challenged. And with a challenge in place, are the old rules still in Yes. It hasn't come tumbling down Not yet. Until after there's a decision as whether the

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: And it's possible that some of these agencies don't go through good cause, that they go through the normal rulemaking, and you start seeing repeal that way. But that would take time. And so this is kind of both a bridge and a safety net. You know? It it will allow you to get over any repeal, but it's also there just in case the repeals start happening. Thank you. Section 19 relates to waste tires. You, the general assembly, enacted a statute that gives enforcement of solid waste laws largely to municipalities, littering, burning of waste, issues like that municipalities have the ability to enforce as well as ANR. One of the things that is a chronic issue are waste tires. And one of the kind of issues or things that have arisen around waste tires is that people are are basically selling themselves as waste tire collectors and charging for that fee, but they are not getting, the required solid waste hauler permit. And so this requires or authorizes municipalities to, basically enforce when a person is transporting waste tires without proper authority. Section 20 relates to that waste tires as well. It's just a stakeholder process on on how to manage waste tires. There was in house environment, an effort that established an extended producer responsibility program for tires, but that met some it just didn't move forward. Many decided not to move forward with it, but they still wanna look at the issue of waste tires. Most states have some sort of program, whether it's a fee per tire or or an extended producer responsibility program. Vermont has debated that issue for for years. The the issue with the the fee per tire is that that the tire dealers think and car dealers think it puts them at a competitive disadvantage with neighboring states, neighboring New Hampshire. So it's never really moved, so section 20 is really about a stakeholder process and what recommendation that stakeholder process would make to you for managing waste tires. And then section 21 has some appropriations issues. When you, the general assembly, enacted the emissions inspection requirement for motor vehicles. There was concern that low or moderate income people wouldn't be able to afford repairs for emissions failures, and you created this emissions, repair program at ANR to provide assistance, and you based that eligibility on the LIHEAP income criteria. Well, it turns out nobody's been applying for the program because DMV had authority to waive the emissions violations, and they have been waiving them. But their waiver authority is expiring, and ANR expects the need for this program to increase. And so they want to make the eligibility determinations administratively easier. They're moving away from the LIHEAP standards and are instead putting in the statute the specific monetary thresholds for eligibility.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Explose our plans for something. Let's see about this. Okay, this is interesting.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Don't know what You don't know.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We've been having discussions about that program.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So it's just interesting that this is cropping up at the moment. Wayne?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I don't see the number, I read that the scholar values in the bill. My question was, is the whose budget does that come out of? I assume that they're paying that to the

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It's in ANR's budget. It's part of their budgeted, their annual budget.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: A carry forward of about $500,000

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Closer to 600,600

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: thousand

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: dollars General fund, as well as two ninety five total.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: 895,000

[Unidentified member (possibly Tiffany Bluemle)]: carry forward

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: from from the a program that we started.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: We found some money, right?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah. Well, that's right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We have other plans for that. This is going to be further discussion, so it's very helpful to understand. So DMV has been waiving.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It is waiving the violations. Yeah. And that waiver authority is expiring.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Extend waiver. White, go ahead.

[Unidentified member (possibly Tiffany Bluemle)]: Again, this is maybe a

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I know this is we're brainstorming right now. We're not yeah.

[Unidentified member (possibly Tiffany Bluemle)]: But I think that it's a little, I mean, are reasons that this program has not launched and

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I think this is a

[Unidentified member (possibly Tiffany Bluemle)]: big piece. There are other factors as well. Apparently inspections are incredibly down from pre pandemic times. There's simply a lot less folks even getting inspections. That's a separate issue that maybe doesn't even, but I think it's still, there are still questions about how much need this, there is for this program, which essentially despite starting in 2021, really hasn't started. I think there's been three Vermonters Three Vermonters have taken Since 2021 when this program was committed

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to program COVID. Started. The program started in '20 Right. '20 It just hasn't the take up rate hasn't been.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: And there's been a combination of that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Pardon? Has it been well advertised?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It has been advertised, but I don't know how well advertised.

[Unidentified member (possibly Tiffany Bluemle)]: There's only two places in the state you can even that can even do the work under the program. And how many people have done it

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: in five years? So all inspection stations can't do it.

[Unidentified member (possibly Tiffany Bluemle)]: So I will just say that I have been of the thinking that this is one of those programs that's at a point where it's worth considering. Is this still priority?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. Given the other priorities that we have and the issues that we have about other critical things that are affecting people's safety. It's not for you. It's just us having I this

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: was just going say house environment and house transportation had similar conversations. But because of the expiration of the waiver authority, they're letting it continue.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I think Mike's had conversations with transportation already. And yeah, anyway, that will be our problem, but it's helpful to hear Is

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: this a federal waiver?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: No. State. State. State inspection. But but it's related to the state's what's called the state implementation plan under the federal Clean Air Act. K. Because mobile sources are a significant part of the pollution in Vermont, Vermont is what's called out of attainment, there has to be this plan to address those sources. The inspection and the emissions testing is part of that state implementation plan. So if you were to waive inspection like a lot of people have been discussing, you might have to revisit that in the state implementation plan. And the and the plan is not tied back to the feds in any way. It's just the state's plan. Right? Right. It's it's the feds approve it, but it's for state implementation.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So if we modify it, it has to go back to the feds for reapproaching.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, if you change your SIP, you have to get it reapproved.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I mean, more to come on that from our state.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Well, that's the bill.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, that was it. You saved the best for last. So there's no new money.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: No new money.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And it's just because of healthy homes that we're getting.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: And as Ted will tell you

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh,

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: yes. Essential permit fee loss by pushing out those deadlines.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. Thanks.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: And then the eligibility for emissions repair.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. So if you don't mind just staying there, and let's get Ted on the screen. Ted, if you're available. Hello.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Hello. Can you all hear

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: me? Yes. And we have your fiscal note.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Great. Would you like me to do it?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You can put it up on the screen. That would be fine. Thank you.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: will do so. Trying to figure out, is this large enough for everyone?

[Unidentified member (possibly Tiffany Bluemle)]: You can make it bigger.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Let's

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: see if I can figure out how to do that. It's a nice, seamless stretch apart on when I'm on my laptop. This is new. Okay. Let's actually I will just do it this way. Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, perfect.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes, so as Mike mentioned, there are the extensions of setting up new permitting processes, and these would extend collection of fee revenue for permitting of development in mapped river corridors. That would change fee revenue realization from starting in fiscal year 'twenty nine to fiscal year two thousand and thirty. Similarly, the discharge permit for CAFOs would extend to 09/01/2027, so that is fiscal year 'twenty eight. I will note that this last sentence here probably needs to be adjusted because, as Mike mentioned, that there are fee amounts, you just wouldn't realize that fee revenue until later. And then finally, you all had a pretty, I would say, all the bases on this emergency emission repair assistance program. Very kind of really dotting our I's and crossing our T's if we are making eligibility for the program administratively easier. Maybe some folks are, you know, they qualify at 185 of federal poverty, but, you know, before they weren't able to get their LIHEAP documentation in, so you could be making the program easier for folks to access even beyond ending of waivers. So there could be more vouchers given out to the program. But yes, as folks have mentioned, right, there have been three that have been given out thus far since 2021. So it's not a huge fiscal impact. So, yeah, that's what I have for you all in the fiscal note.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so it's mostly about lost revenue at this Potentially lost revenue, but we don't even know what that is because we don't know what the fees are.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: We don't know what the fees are or we don't know which farms would require the discharge permits.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Do you do you know if, DEC is gonna determine the fees. Correct?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: For cable, they've already been set for River Corridor if they have to come to you Okay. To get those fees.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But DEC is doing all the fee setting in here?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I I mean, technically, the general assembly will set the fees Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They recommend. But

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: they're gonna recommend them. Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's not ag. It's DEC. And do we know if they've started work on any of these fees? Just even do we have anything set up?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: They have started work on the rules that are required in order to implement these permits. It'll be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: a little while. It's

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: not going be a massive amount of money, though. I can't imagine. Because if you had 100 farms, a $2,500 a piece. Yeah.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Well, then there's also the river corridor development and how that's gonna roll out. That will probably be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And development in river corridors isn't we aren't supposed to be doing that, are we?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Sure,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: sure. I'm making you sigh a lot. I'm sorry.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So so you can develop in flood hazard areas right now, but those require FEMA flood insurance.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay.

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: And your municipalities have to have adopted a bylaw that complies with FEMA's requirements for that. It is not easy to develop in a flood hazard area. So that's and the cost of flood insurance and those requirements generally keep people out of flood hazard. River corridors are broader than the flood hazard area, and therefore, it could involve land that has been developed or is proposed for development. So you could see more permits there than you do in the flood hazard areas.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And would flood insurance be required for that also in the quarter? Is that too early to know? Well,

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: technically, no, because so flood hazard areas that are those are regulated by the feds and FEMA, and they map inundation flooding the slow rise of a water. You know, like, it rained in Minnesota and Arkansas is gonna flood in three days. Like, we you can predict that that and Vermont does have inundation flooding. You know? The lake a couple of years ago, that that's inundation flooding. But most of the flooding that Vermont has been experiencing is called fluvial erosion hazard or fluvial erosion flooding. It's when you have these major but discrete events of large amounts of precipitation. And instead of slowly rising, it scours out the land that it runs over. And that's what River Carter mapping and River Carter development permitting is is going to address, where you shouldn't be citing something where there's a high risk of that fluvial erosion flooding. And I'm sure you all live in towns or seen issues where that happens.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. Yeah. But this is gonna allow it in certain

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, there's gonna be rules. And just for example, if you're in that flood hazard area and you wanna develop, you have to raise that structure by two feet so that it is out of the what they consider the the kind of immediate threat from from that inundation flooding. What the rules will require for river corridor, I don't know yet.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. Given our history of the last three years alone and what's happened and the fact that FEMA doesn't want to support us for things, I'm just having a high I'm not counting on a lot of fees for that. Let's put it that way. I just can't imagine that there's going to be a lot of developers who are going to choose to or people who would want to buy in that area. Not that there won't be any, but I think that's really

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: easy to build in floodplains because there's not a lot of rock. There's

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: developed holes to gamble. Yeah, great. We don't bail out. Go ahead. Has Ways and Means Committee went to peace fees and the impact on fees?

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: The bill went through Ways and Means. There wasn't a lot of

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They just acknowledged there would be a delay in meeting. Do you happen to know the vote counts from Oh. And from Ways and Means? And I'm sure I have a text somewhere that tells this to me, except you'll find it's not

[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: 927-4994

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: and environment and 92 in okay But there's no money involved. Okay. Alright, does anybody have any more questions about this? Seeing any, this is Trevor's. We're not going to vote today, but we've now had her walk through. Thank you very much. Ben, thank you very much. Yeah, so if we have other questions or thoughts, we'll go through Trevor and that. I think we'll be discussing the issue further. There's a couple of lines we can come to. And

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: okay,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we have the parole board at two, so shall we, why don't we break until 02:00? 04:00, thank you.