Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Kathleen James]: Jarb. Okay. This is a really low seat.

[Christopher Howland]: That's what

[Richard Bailey]: I originally

[Kathleen James]: thought. Said said that?

[Christopher Howland]: We need to find our stolen chair. We're lucky. We had a chair with the wheels on it.

[Kathleen James]: Oh, a regular chair. We're live. We're Talking about important things.

[R. Scott Campbell]: We are live.

[Kathleen James]: Are we live? Yes. We are. Okay.

[R. Scott Campbell]: Alright. Good morning. This is the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee. It is Friday, January 16, I guess. Yes. Right? I am Scott Campbell, representative of St. Johnsbury, and we will go around the room here and introduce ourselves and introduce the witness. Alright.

[Richard Bailey]: Richard Bailey, Lamoille two. Chris Morrow, Windham Windsor, Bennington.

[Christopher Howland]: Mike Southworth, Caledonia two. Christopher Howland, Rutland four. Dara Torre, Washington two.

[Bram Kleppner]: Bram Kleppner, Chittenden 13, Burlington. In And the room we have Dara Torre, Nekrasinger. Alright, thank you.

[R. Scott Campbell]: You may witness.

[Kathleen James]: For the record, I'm representative Kathleen James from Manchester, and I'm here to continue our committee practice of giving bill sponsors a few minutes to pitch their bills, kind of high level. Here's what, you know, here's what we're thinking. So, I've got two bills I'm gonna run through. And then if and when we take these off the wall, obviously, alleged counsel will come in and do an actual walk through of the statutory language, which I really can't address. Obviously, we would get a wide range of witnesses. So, I've got two bills that came to our committee. I'll start with H-five 98. That's a plug in solar bill. And H598 is pretty simple bill. It would allow Vermonters to use portable solar energy generation devices, which is commonly called plug in solar, balcony solar, without having to get a certificate of public good from the Public Utility Commission. So I I think the most important context for our committee is that this is a companion bill to a senate bill that was introduced on the senate side. And the senate is working on this bill right now. They are taking testimony. They're tweaking it. They're revising it. And so I'm actually not thinking that we're gonna take this bill off the wall. I think we should wait and see what the senate does because I know they're hearing good testimony and making changes and see what comes over after crossover. But I still wanted to give you guys a heads up. So the plug in or balcony solar units are they're small solar systems. They're typically no larger than three typical solar panels. And you plug it into the wall. And so they're great if you have a small home, if you don't have roof space, if you don't wanna do a ground mounted. So they're typically used for people by people who you live in apartments or have a small home or for renters. And so you plug it in, it generates a little bit of electricity. It helps bring your energy bill down or your energy usage down. And they're really they're not different from typical solar panels. So my understanding, and believe me, we'll get folks in to talk about the tech. I'm sure people have questions. It's what makes them different is the inverter that allows you just to plug it into the wall. They can be no more than 1,200 watts, and what this bill does is that it simply says if you buy one of these and plug it in, you don't have to get a certificate of public good from the PUC. The unit has to be certified as safe by some of the national testing organizations that make sure that these units are safe. I know that's something they're learning more about on the senate side. The building has to be connected to the grid, and you have to notify your utility, but not get their permission. And they would not be eligible for net metering.

[Bram Kleppner]: Question? Yes, I do have a question and a related comment for those who aren't fully familiar with this technology. The power never hits the grid. It stays in the past. And cell power has the witness said, not eligible for net metering by rule, but also technologically impossible because you can't feed power backwards into the grid with these units. They can be paired to the battery. It's a minimum of systems, a panel and an inverter, but you can also pair it with a battery, which functions the same way. It stores the energy you get during the day. You can use it at night, but it does not hit the grid at all. Which leads me to my question, Why does the building have to be grid connected?

[Kathleen James]: I don't know. Yeah. Is a question.

[Richard Bailey]: Great question. In order

[Christopher Howland]: to be regulated, if you've got a can. So, anyway, we'll do that in testimony.

[Kathleen James]: Okay.

[Christopher Howland]: But there's a lot more to this than, you know, statements you've made. And we'll take that up. We will. So

[Kathleen James]: And my understanding is that these are I don't think these are that widely available yet. Right? I mean, it's sort of an emerging technology.

[Bram Kleppner]: Right. Don't really know you're available in Germany.

[Kathleen James]: Okay.

[Bram Kleppner]: Is what I understand.

[Christopher Howland]: We would we would excuse me. Go ahead. That's good.

[Michael Southworth]: Have they been tested under underwriters, laboratories, or the UL? Yeah.

[Kathleen James]: I think that's what just actually from an article I read, I think that was what the senate is taking testimony on because and revising the bill accordingly. And I'm sorry I don't remember the details, but something that they learned in their testimony about how it works with UL means that you might have to require an electrician to install it, would make it more expensive. So they're they're trying to tweak that or fix it or looking good on the senate side. I don't know the answer.

[Michael Southworth]: Yeah. And just one other quick question. Land landlords, how does this affect them? What are their rights now allowing it or not allowing it on their village? Because Yeah. They own them. I don't know. Just just food for thought.

[Kathleen James]: Yeah.

[Christopher Howland]: So when that so this comes across from the senate. Mhmm. We will take additional testimony

[Kathleen James]: here. We'll take all of the testimony. I will start I just don't think it's worth it to start with this bill because they've already found out something about UL and how that works. So there's no point in taking this up. I think we should wait and see what the senate does. And then

[R. Scott Campbell]: We got a lot to do between now

[Kathleen James]: and just call Yeah. Yeah. Anyway,

[R. Scott Campbell]: and one of the things that I recall being concerned about is is there any chance this these things would energize the system when it was otherwise shut down. Offline, perhaps with an outage or circuits. Somebody going into the panel to do something and apparently there isn't fail safe about that. I don't know exactly how it works technologically. I

[Kathleen James]: saw the same Yeah. Mention that that would be an important safety consideration and there's some text built in, but I don't I also don't know about that. Yeah. One thing one thing that I think would be cool is that VPRG has one. Mhmm. And so we were I don't know who was in the room, but we were looking out the window the other day, and they were hauling something into the building, and I think it'd be neat to to get it in here when the bill comes over and see what they look like and check them out.

[R. Scott Campbell]: Yeah. See if we can like to hear ourselves.

[Laura Sibilia]: I think climate solutions caucus is planning to have that bill. We're gonna have, like, a Okay. A field day. Yeah. One question for you on the senate. Do you have a sense of how quickly it's gonna move out of there?

[Kathleen James]: I don't know. I mean, they're already working on it. I I mean, let me put it this way. I'm fully expecting the bill's gonna get here. Yeah. Don't think it's gonna be April

[Laura Sibilia]: or something.

[Kathleen James]: Seems like they're moving it along.

[Laura Sibilia]: Yeah. And then so it should be shorter in our if they've done more of the

[Kathleen James]: Yeah. I guess it depends. Yeah. You know, we wanna hear from there's a lot of people we'll need to hear from. The we wanna understand the tech. We wanna understand the safety. We're gonna need to hear from the PC. We're gonna need to hear from utilities. I mean, we'll start from scratch, but it'll be from a bill that's already taken some of this stuff into account and hopefully fix it.

[Bram Kleppner]: Mike, we have a question on cost.

[Kathleen James]: How much do the units cost? Just

[Michael Southworth]: wondering cost versus the end result of savings. Are are they financially a a good thing for people, or are they just something that's another flash in the band where, you know, these are great, but the end result is you're not offsetting costs as much as you should in order to make it viable. Yeah.

[Kathleen James]: I think the point of this bill would be to just allow people to do it if they want to. So I suppose that would be their their decision. You know, they could crunch their own budget numbers.

[Richard Bailey]: Yeah. I don't know what

[R. Scott Campbell]: the costs are either except that PV panels have come at drops with the floor cost in the last, you know, ten years. They're 95% cheaper than ten years. So something that's like that. So I I I think my my guess is the cost in putting in a PV system on your house is is not the panels themselves. It's all the other stuff. Right. Right. Right. So just a panel and inverter and a wire is probably time. Perhaps

[Bram Kleppner]: Google's Google's AI says they cost between 400 and $2,500 depending on size, between 400 watts and 800 watts.

[Richard Bailey]: So you're believing AI again.

[Kathleen James]: Thank you.

[Christopher Howland]: Body defrockets. I

[Richard Bailey]: to was

[Bram Kleppner]: cite the source before I cited any of the information so I could be appropriately discounted.

[R. Scott Campbell]: I

[Kathleen James]: mean, I you know, I to to be honest, I I think this is a really interesting concept. I, you know, I love for people who want them to be able to get one, but I haven't done a summer long deep dive.

[R. Scott Campbell]: You know? Representative Bailey. So, yeah,

[Richard Bailey]: I my question is is how does it not how do they use the and I know this will be in further testimony. But how you get that in your apartment and not screw up what's going on in the whole building? Yeah.

[Kathleen James]: Yeah. That's a good question because they're supposed to be, you know, great for renters. Right?

[Bram Kleppner]: Right.

[Kathleen James]: So I don't that'll be something for us to learn about. The when you when you look them up, you know, the the pictures often show, an apartment balcony. Right? It's

[Richard Bailey]: Right. I understand that, but you're trying to use the electricity in your apartment, and how does that not go into the whole system,

[Bram Kleppner]: the whole building? Yeah. Unless it's individually metered, unless each apartment's individually metered up. That's in

[R. Scott Campbell]: most of cases, the apartment is part of the. It's it's easy. There

[Christopher Howland]: There's a lot more to it that I think we have to Yeah. Wait on testimony because of having been in the other side of the meter chart and having been involved with photovoltaic since the 1998. We'll wait for test to month. Yeah.

[R. Scott Campbell]: It will be interesting to delve into it. Yeah. Alrighty. You have another bill.

[Kathleen James]: I do. So H600, this is about appliance efficiency standards. Another thing that I have a high level understanding of. Again, we'll need to do a walk through and take this. This one will especially need a walk through because there's a lot of strikeouts and stuff that Ellen can explain because she drafted this. But it boils down to a nut. So, now the nut. So, there's a federal program. It's an existing long standing program. It's been in place since 1987, and it's administered by the federal or national Department of Energy. It's called the Appliance and Equipment Standards Program. And it covers about product categories. And together, these 70 product categories account for about 90% of the energy that we all use in our homes for our appliances. So, talking about your fridge, your freezer, your dishwasher, your washing machine, your dryer, your microwave. And this federal program, you know, for the last however many years, however many decades, has been setting minimum baseline efficiency standards that are uniform across the country that all manufacturers are required to meet. So, you cannot sell a fridge or a dryer or a washer in The United States that doesn't meet these minimum baseline efficiency standards. That's the current world. So, and I will just say, because I got confused about this, it's different from Energy Star. So we have these baselines, right, like you can't sell a fridge, Whirlpool can't sell a fridge that isn't at least x efficiency. And then Whirlpool can also go for the voluntary ENERGY STAR certification that's a higher threshold. So, you know, it can sell, it can try to meet that higher ENERGY STAR thing. But this bill is not about that. We're talking about the federal baseline. So, the reason that The United States has this program in place and has for a long time is that, I'm sure most of us know, more efficient appliances save money on your electric and water bill. So we're trying to help to help customers save money on their energy bills and on their water bills. There's some stats I looked up. In 2024, as a result of having these standards in place, the average American saved about $576 on their annual energy bills. That's per DOE. It also sets a level playing field for manufacturers. They're sort of like a uniform baseline. You gotta hit the standard no matter what the state. So it's more of a level playing field. And if you don't hit that, you get something rather. So we have this program. The standards get changed and updated from time to time. Manufacturers have to comply. And then this is where my bill comes in. States are allowed to establish or set their own standards only in product categories where there is no federal standard. So if there is a federal standard, that's what we all do. If there is no federal standard in a particular product category, states can set them. So, right now we have a broad range of these appliance standards in place at the federal level, but the Trump administration is trying to eliminate them. So, there's action at the federal level. The Trump administration has started a process to try to eliminate the appliance efficiency standards in The United States. And if that happens, there won't be any minimum baseline that manufacturers are required to meet. If that happens, Vermont could keep our standards in place. So, I know this is a 12 page bill, but that is what this bill does. It says that if and only if the Trump administration eliminates the efficiency standards for appliances, we will keep them in place as of, and the date in there you can see is as of, it's basically the last day of the Biden administration. And we do this by asking the DPS to write rules. So, and I'm sorry that was so long, but I had to wrap my head around this too. So, we did this once. We did this during Trump one. So, this is not a new or novel concept. This legislature, the legislature passed a bill in 2017, accomplishing this. We passed it. Governor Scott signed it. And the goal, obviously, is that is that our marketplace doesn't turn into a patchwork of, like, substandard appliances. So the bill and this is where, you know, if we take this up, Ellen will come in. So pages one through four strike out some old language. Happy to have Ellen explain that. That's a cleanup. Page five, you can see the actual thing happening. It says the commissioner shall adopt standards, as they exist on 01/09/2025. That was what I mentioned as of the last day of the Biden administration. DPS would only do this if this happens at the federal level. There's a trigger, right? DPS doesn't just go off doing this. Mentioned that we did this before, then there's more cleanup. Then, one thing I had to understand, on page six, I mentioned earlier that if there are product categories where there aren't any standards at the federal level, states can do them. Vermont has done that. So we did that for and we have them currently in place right now in Vermont. There are no federal standards, but we have standards in place and and have had. I'm not proposing this is new for commercial dishwashers, commercial fryers, commercial steam cookers, etcetera. So that's a place where this is already what's happening in Vermont, but you just, you know, sometimes we just see the full statute. Page eight and nine, more cleanup. Page 10, more cleanup. Page 11, this is how it is right now. And then the effective date, this would take effect on July 1, but the work wouldn't actually happen unless the standards disappear to federal level. That folks is my understanding of the faucets. Any questions? Yeah, Rick Southworth.

[Michael Southworth]: So this would be a multi committee bill because I'm feeling to make the connection between urinals and faucets with energy and digital infrastructure?

[Kathleen James]: Well, energy use. So I think urinals and faucets would be, I don't know, your water bill. Right. So, I mean, the the broader point of the spill is energy. Yes.

[Michael Southworth]: Well, that's what I mean. I mean, that's why I mean, I I look at the other pieces as water use, which would pollen to environment.

[Kathleen James]: Don't know

[Bram Kleppner]: if you

[Michael Southworth]: can. It just I can't really make that correlation unless somebody can make it more clear for me.

[R. Scott Campbell]: But

[Kathleen James]: It's basically an energy affordability.

[R. Scott Campbell]: Utility matter.

[Kathleen James]: Yeah. It's an utility thing, I guess.

[Richard Bailey]: Well, and because we

[R. Scott Campbell]: need utility. And in the case

[Richard Bailey]: of a private well, the cog might have run your pump.

[Michael Southworth]: Like, it doesn't mean that's a stretch. Yeah. Yeah. Same problem.

[Richard Bailey]: Anyway, I'm just I yeah.

[R. Scott Campbell]: So who whose jurisdiction is that? I mean Right.

[Kathleen James]: I don't know. Yeah. We do we do utilities, so I guess water water use. But I I hadn't thought about that. I

[R. Scott Campbell]: don't I

[Richard Bailey]: don't know.

[Michael Southworth]: Yeah. I would really just like to hear a little bit more clarification on how that would fall into that. I understand the electoral part of it.

[Kathleen James]: Yeah. I don't know.

[R. Scott Campbell]: I I didn't think about that. If

[Bram Kleppner]: we did this during the first Trump administration, why do we need to do it again?

[Kathleen James]: That is a great question for Legis Council. I think I know the answer, but I'm always really hesitant to say when I think I know the answer. I think the answer might be that they have been updated since then.

[R. Scott Campbell]: Okay. Any other questions?

[Christopher Howland]: My thought process is just how long does it take in the manufacturing process to make a change to something that wouldn't meet the standards that are in place today. And

[Kathleen James]: Yeah. I mean, I think I know what you're asking. One thing I was wondering about was if they get rolled back at the federal level, are manufacturers gonna suddenly start making less efficient substandard appliances? I I don't is that what you're getting at? Because

[Christopher Howland]: I wondered about I would you know, if I've never done a manufacturing engineer, but you make a model. You take one. You test a bunch of them. This is the meaner of thing. You start selling them. You know, we all gotten consumer reports, and they say this car is wonderful, but you got the car that the ball joints went out on.

[Michael Southworth]: You

[Christopher Howland]: know? And so but so you could they don't test every everyone, but maybe they know Maybe a manufacturer knows when a puncher substandard, so let's they may make ones that they intend to sell under the federal standard that don't meet the federal standard that they sell somewhere else. I don't know. I don't know either. But I don't think I don't I don't think they'd openly reduce the quality in

[Kathleen James]: You would hope not.

[Christopher Howland]: Quick amount of time to make a difference. And then the other point is that are you limiting the marketplace of what's available to the public? I think you When you're Probably would be. Yeah. Holding the state.

[Bram Kleppner]: I suspect that the risk is a manufacturer will lower their standard. I think the risk is someone will start importing stuff that doesn't meet the current standards from a market where the standards are lower. Oh. You can immediately have Now

[Michael Southworth]: with the tariffs in place.

[Kathleen James]: Yes. Okay. Legit.

[Richard Bailey]: I'll look at the tariffs. Alright. Anyway,

[R. Scott Campbell]: Any other questions?

[Kathleen James]: Okay. So TBD, does anybody else wanna go? We have we have ten minutes.

[Richard Bailey]: I can go.

[Christopher Howland]: Okay. Great.

[Richard Bailey]: Less than ten minutes.

[Kathleen James]: Thanks, Chris. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for the good questions.

[Richard Bailey]: K. For the record, Chris Morrow, who's presented in from West End here to discuss page six fifty one. This bill is to start a discussion related to 30 VSA two forty eight b and the Public Utility Commission's mandate with regarding a siding, especially solar facilities, and the aesthetics criteria. So it's a very simple bill. It's basically a page and a quarter, one page to remove the aesthetic criteria from the public utilities commission's criteria for evaluating projects.

[Christopher Morrow]: Theory behind this being that aesthetics is a very subjective criteria, and I question I wanna hear all your input on whether few lawyers in Montpelier should be making the aesthetic decisions for various communities around Vermont. And, you know, as we heard yes in testimony, they're they're related to telecom. There are pros and cons to this conversation. Just for reference, I will pass around the actual rules. So the the Public Utility Commission did rule making around the aesthetic criteria. This is also available online on their website. Is just they've developed something called the Queechy test, which is how they internally assess aesthetics. This is just for reference when we know if we if the one we start taking testimony on this, this rule will be the will be pertinent to our conversation because this is how what they use for evaluating aesthetics. So it's very simple, though, in concept. It's complicated in in practice, and I look forward to having a discussion about it.

[R. Scott Campbell]: We're gonna keep going, Erin. Here. I'm sorry. Can you keep going, Anita? Are there any yeah.

[Michael Southworth]: Do you have a sense or know of how many cases have been denied, fixed on the aesthetics?

[Christopher Morrow]: I I know of some. I don't know the numbers. No. Yeah.

[Bram Kleppner]: Yeah.

[Christopher Howland]: Oh, sorry. Is this addressing some of the questions that were raised in Bennington or that's very exciting, a large Well, they very large solar plant, I think, of 20 megawatt Mhmm. Plant. They

[R. Scott Campbell]: they did

[Christopher Morrow]: assess aesthetics in that. In all all solar siding, they have requires you

[Christopher Howland]: consider aesthetics. And the aesthetics and those the aesthetics of that site passed the present test. So will this bill make it more restrictive, or just does not look at at all? And

[Christopher Morrow]: It wouldn't be a criteria for them to use. Like yesterday, for example, we heard in telecom, they're not allowed to to assess health effects because of I think it's federal exemption or something. Yes. And so so, you know, their process would just not involve aesthetics. It would involve the more concrete criteria that or it's more data driven. And so, you know, there's pros and cons to this clearly, but I think it deserves a conversation.

[R. Scott Campbell]: The chair has a question.

[Kathleen James]: So just bouncing off what R. Allen said. So and and, Rutland, you and I have even really talked about this bill. I mean, I knew it was coming. Thank you. So it would by removing aesthetics as a criteria, the PUC and and that would just no longer be a consideration. So how project looks would be off the table under the PUC process and for community members who wanna engage. Right? So it would just be like, sorry. We don't consider how it looks. Correct. And I wanted to know your your why. I think I know it, but I don't wanna speak for you. Because this is, you know, it's contra this is a controversial notion.

[R. Scott Campbell]: So Yeah.

[Kathleen James]: I wanna know your why. I'm pretty sure I know it, but I speak for yourself.

[Christopher Morrow]: Yeah. Well, there's been some examples of including in your district, madam chair, of of projects that have been denied solely on the aesthetic criteria. Not you know, there was no other criteria that they used to deny a a solar project. And that was the original impetus of the bill to know, you maybe we should shift the language to say that you can't deny solely on aesthetics. That would be another consideration. But, you know, given the highly subjective nature of this and the another bill I'd like to introduce would be to discuss who gets standing in in these hearings about I think that it might be too wide a group of people who get standing in these hearings to to contest various, sighting. But, yeah, that was the original impetus. And and, you know, to rep represent as Howland's point, you know, you have a small project in a brownfield that nothing else can be used for that's denied on the aesthetic grounds, but then you are allowing a mountainside to be deforested to put in a huge solar array. You know, it it's it it doesn't pass the smell test on some level, and it just I think it deserves discussion.

[Kathleen James]: No. I'm you're just have it. You're in charge. That's okay. Well,

[Laura Sibilia]: I appreciate this, Bill, and and and the timing of the discussion yesterday. Like, being an infrastructure committee, like, this is this is it. Right? It's like public good of of infrastructure, having enough power affordably, having cell coverage, like, all these really urgent important public needs and trying to do that in a way that acknowledges place and preserves character. And it's just it's a big challenge for us. And at some point, I feel like we could face in Vermont such spiraling cost that we might have to, you know, have something like maybe only criteria just because we get to a place where we're getting in our own way so much that we're all paying too high a price. So it's it's a challenge, and I I you know, you know, we'll be talking a lot about this stuff

[Kathleen James]: in this committee.

[R. Scott Campbell]: I I think it's it it it might be a hard sell if I said, man, it's billboards. Anyway,

[Michael Southworth]: I'm sorry. Any thought or there's any information given on how this, a, would affect hound claims, and, b, how it affects landowners of the

[R. Scott Campbell]: state of Omaha? Did you say the first one again? Like, town plans, how it affects town plans? Oh, town plans. Okay. Yeah.

[Christopher Morrow]: I believe this wouldn't, as far as I know, affect town plans.

[Michael Southworth]: This is But it have it built into their town plan aesthetics. Mhmm. That's gonna be an issue with gravity.

[R. Scott Campbell]: There is there is a It's in hand. The sound pack. Yeah.

[Christopher Morrow]: It's moved very well. Yeah. We'd love to dig into that one. Yeah. Yeah.

[Bram Kleppner]: To continue to raise your point, a lot of the decisions we make involve trade offs, and having a clean process for getting to decide who decides and how we decide, how we move forward, because many of these things are going to be people in favor and people against. There's going to be pluses and minuses, and hopefully someone's weighing out where's the balance for the public good. And as R. Campbell pointed out, we do have a community interest in the beauty of our state, both because we'd like to live in a beautiful place and because much of our economy depends on other people coming to visit our beautiful place. You know? And it is also true that whether a solar field is beautiful or ugly is entirely indie I of the beholder. On many levels. But I think for us, conceptually getting clear that we are going to be making decisions about trade offs, and we're gonna have to accept you can't have everything. You can't have a state that looks like wilderness and have a place where people can earn a living and afford to live. Those are just in conflict And, you know, we're as a state trying to sort through it, and we're trying to encourage compact development to keep the hillsides forested. And what we do with ag lands that are fallow, whether we put solar on them, whether that ruins them or enhances them, and how we trade that off is They're complicated. It our job. It's what we have been hired to do.

[Kathleen James]: Hire?

[Bram Kleppner]: Engaged. Engaged. Engaged. Any

[R. Scott Campbell]: other thoughts? Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Rutland. Thanks, Great. So we're yeah.

[Kathleen James]: I guess we're ready now for Well, why don't we take it why don't we go on slide? Yep.