Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: We're live.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. Yeah. I guess I can guess I'll

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: do my usual duty. Oh my. Scott's here. Weird.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Scott. That's okay. Welcome, everybody. To

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: house energy and digital infrastructure. I'm representative Kathleen James from Manchester, and I'm sitting at the other end of the table because I'm about to do a bill intro. But, anyway, why don't we go around the table and introduce ourselves, I'm gonna turn it over to Rick Campbell.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: K. Who's everyone? Scott Campbell, representative from Saint Johnsbury.

[Rep. Richard Bailey]: Richard Bailey, 102. Chris Mara Windham, Windsor, Bennington. Michael Southworth, Caledonia, Richard

[Rep. Christopher Howland]: Howland, Rutland Ford. Dara Torre, Washington two.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: Bram Kleppner, Chittenden, Burlingfish.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Laura Sibilia, Windham.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And I'll call Randall. Hi.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I'm Sibilia. An intern for Senator Michael Mike. You. Alan Chittenden. All

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: right. Take it away. All Good to

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: right. Thanks, say,

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: for the record.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. For the I'm representative Kathleen James. And I'm here today, we have about twenty five minutes. So I am here today to give a little bit of an introduction to H740. And we have Ledge Council coming up next who can answer specific questions about the legal language. And we've got, a bunch of witnesses coming in later today and later in the week, to talk about some of the, policy details. And so I I wanted to, guess I guess I just tip you guys to the fact that we've got a lot of folks coming in who are going be able to answer a lot of questions that we may have about this bill. And so I thought that I would start by talking about why I'm sponsoring this bill, why it's actually my personal top priority for climate action during this session, and why I think it matters so much, and as we often try to make sure we talk about the problem we're trying to solve. So, I was gonna wing it and I sat down to jot a few notes and I I found that something just, you know, I wrote something. So So we often talk, or we frequently talk, about climate action in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. And it's true that this is how we measure progress. This is the data point that we use to see how we're succeeding, how we're failing in our commitment to reduce the pollution that's caused by burning fossil fuels. And these are the emissions, the pollution that are causing serious harm to our environment, for our weather patterns, to our cities and towns, to our public health, to our communities. And Where I feel like the conversation often bogs down is that greenhouse gas emissions feels like a very distant metric. Vermont's contribution doesn't matter. Anything we do to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions doesn't make a dent on the global stage. So, why do we care? Why do we want to spend the money to make this transition? And I understand why people ask that question. And I understand why greenhouse gas emissions are important number, right? It's how we measure whether we're going up or down. But I think about climate action at a much more grassroots level. Because we reduce carbon pollution by helping people people become less reliant on fossil fuels. And that work happens one house at a time, one person at a time. So we've got a 100,000 foot metric that happens one home at a time. And we help you know, we weatherize cold, drafty, leaky homes. We help people get into EVs. We put in a heat pump as a as a backup or a supplement to a furnace. We help people buy a gas powered car that uses a lot less fuel. So this is really person by person work. So these are really important investments because, and I speak from experience here and statistics show it, these investments help people save money in the long run. So often a lot of money in the long run. So these are durable savings that help people save money on their hustle budget month after month and year after year. They look to the future, and they're better for people on the planet. And, you know, I can tell you, personally speaking, that I have an old farmhouse. I live in an '18 56 farmhouse. You know, way back when weatherization incentives were much more available and much more attractive, I weatherized my entire home. And I used to have to crank up my furnace to 85 degrees in the winter just to keep my kids in my bedrooms warm. And the minute I put in that money to weatherize, I was able to turn down my furnace 60 degrees, 62 degrees, 65 degrees. My fuel bill dropped radically. But I was able to weatherize my home. So that is the rub, and that's why we often run into a brick wall with climate policy. It's not free. So Vermonters who can afford these investments are doing it. They're buying an EV, they're weatherizing their homes, and they are reaping immediate and lasting savings. And Vermonters who can't afford to do this work, they are left behind. So they are stuck using fossil fuels, the polluting fuels of the past, and they are paying whatever price is being driven by an unregulated global fossil fuels market. So this is not only unaffordable for the people who need this help the most, but it is so profoundly unfair. So I've served in the legislature for eight years now, and I've been closely involved in many attempts to try to pass policies that would help Vermonters systematically make this transition. And the fight always comes down to upfront costs versus long term savings. Know, in our protracted conversations about the clean heat standard, which we all know is not moving forward, if there's any confusion about that, that was one of the key debates. Right? Upfront cost versus long term savings. Is this progressive? Is this helpful? Is it regressive? Does it help? Does it hurt? And one of the sticking points about that policy, which isn't happening, was that experts in state government, and in particular, the Agency of Natural Resources, were concerned about the data. What is this gonna cost? What are the benefits? So in this year's climate plan, and that's where my notes run out. In this year's updated 2025 climate plan, we have a proposed solution. And I gotta tell you, if it is the smallest step that we could take this year to listen to what the folks on the climate plan are telling us, The climate plan passed with a near unanimous vote. There was only one dissenting vote, and yes, I invited that witness into to talk to us. So we're gonna hear, you know, hear all sides. But there was a near unanimous belief that we need better data in order to build effective, equitable, useful policies. So, will be hearing later from the Agency of Natural Resources. I want to talk about their signing statements, which all agree that we need a better reporting framework so that we can build better policy. So this bill, and this is going to be a perfect transition to Legis Council, is pretty simple. The Agency of Natural Resources, in saying that this would be a foundational step, says, but you know what? We really need the legislature to just go the extra mile and pass a bill making it super clear that we have the authority to adopt these rules. So, in this bill, we say, ANR, you have the authority to adopt these rules. They've asked for money, we're going have to talk about the money. They've asked for what in this budget year or maybe in any budget year is a big ticket item, so I know we're going to want to talk about the cost. But that is the problem. I believe this is the solution and I just want to reiterate that I feel like if we can't agree that better data is a step that we can all get behind, Maybe we're stuck. So I I'm happy to I have a comment

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: before we go to. And it is that the question of whether we need better data reminds me exactly of a line from a colonist in what used to be called New England Builder. It became general like construction, sort of the House Journal for Small Contractors, I was one time. The columnist wrote about financial matters for small contractors, and I was always really interested in stuff because I I'm not oriented towards finances. At least I didn't come from that that part of the world. But, anyway, what he said was he was arguing about the need for basic financial documents, an income and expense statement every month, a balance sheet every month. The balance sheets are kind of mysterious if you're no if you're not familiar with them. But what he said was, if you don't have these documents every month, you're flying blind and due for a crash landing. If you don't have data about your business, you don't know what you're doing. You don't know where you are. And this issue about obtaining data about where we are, how much we're using in in in fossil fuels is just fundamental to where we are. So my comment, that's a good idea. Yeah, I will just add that, one of the of the incredible value incredibly valuable things that we

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: have learned so far from pursuit of market mechanisms like the clean heat standard is how urgently we need this data. And I agree this is a very important step.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: You know, I hadn't followed the adoption of the current version of the climate action plan closely enough to know that it had passed with only one dissenting vote. And I just, would like to point out that that 23 member body is made up of seven or eight members appointed by the house, seven or eight by the senate, and seven and eight not seven or eight, and eight members of the administration, including the heads of transportation, ANR, ag, and a number of others. And it felt like a lovely bipartisan vote when we passed the first climate action plan on the Council. And I think that was 19 to four or 20 to three or something like that. So to have it be 22 to one carries a lot of weight with me. Southworth.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: So this is a reincarnation of the clean heat standard?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh gosh. Not not at all.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: So but it touches on the registry and all that, which was part of that brand.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: The the I I just wanna emphasize this is not in even remotely a reincarnation of the clean heat standard. The clean heat standard was a proposed market wide mechanism

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: To trade

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: credits. To trade credits. It was a, you know, it was a broad plan.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: But the

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: But the clean heat standard one is part of. Yeah. The clean heat standard included as one component of it, the establishment of a fuel dealer registry. And what that and and that briefly got off the ground. So the clean heat standard included a requirement for fossil fuel dealers to register and to report their sales. And that was in effect, I think, for one year. There was no very low compliance. There was no enforcement mechanism and that has now been suspended.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Your comments or questions? Alright. Okay. Thank you, Doctor. James. Sure. Thanks. Okay.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: So overview. I'm checking out the office of

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: the legislative council. So I'm here on page seven forty. It is an accolade to the Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Registry. There is an existing Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Registry that comes that the agency produces, Agency Resources. They do it for every year. Going back a number of years, it is a different registry fuel dealer registry under the Cleaning Standards. This is an entirely different long standing program. ANR has been gathering data from different sources currently under the existing Greenhouse Gas Registry, and I'll walk you through some of the language on that. It comes from a lot of different sources, including a lot of data from the federal government. Then they put that together to create the greenhouse gas inventory that does provide the information about the emissions in the state of Vermont based on a number of different data sources. So, section one amends the statute related to that, 10 VSA five eighty two, Greenhouse gas inventory. So the only part of the statute that is being amended right here is the rule making section. So the secretary, which is the secretary of ANR, may adopt rules to implement the provisions of this section and shall review existing and proposed international,

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: federal, and

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: state greenhouse gas emission reporting programs, and make reasonable efforts to promote consistency among the programs established pursuant to this section and other programs, and a streamline reporting requirements on greenhouse gas emission sources on the page two. And nothing within this section shall prevent the state agency from adopting any rule within its authority. So they've already had rule making authority on greenhouse gas emissions data as part of this registry that they have been doing for a number of years. This is adding new language on page two to be more specific about the rules they can adopt. The secretary shall adopt rules that create a comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions reporting program that covers all sources of emissions, including fuel suppliers. Suppliers of transportation and heating fuel covered by the rules shall comply with requests from the secretary for information. The information collected shall at a minimum include the types and volumes of fuels sold by sector transportation, residential, commercial, and industrial sectors by county. ANR already had some authority related to their greenhouse gas inventory process that they've been doing. This is specifically directing that they adopt rules on comprehensive reporting requirements for suppliers of fuels. Section two is the session law provision of when they need to do this by. This is on or before 03/01/2027. The Secretary of Natural Resources shall submit to the legislative administrative rules, proposed final rules for the greenhouse gas reporting as required in that section I just read you. Then there is an appropriation. As Representative James mentioned, this proposal is based on one of the recommendations of the Climate Council. They said that there needed to be these rules adopted. I think you heard a little bit from the Secretary of ANR earlier this session about it, but you will hear more from them coming up, including about this appropriation, which is an appropriation for this program that the Secretary put in their recommendation about these new rules. So, at the bottom of page two, section three is the appropriation. Dollars 800,000 is appropriated from the General Fund to the Secretary of Natural Resources to be used to draft the greenhouse gas emission reporting rules, develop a greenhouse gas emission source database, and fund staff time on emissions source data collection. You will hear more from the secretary about this proposal, but the plan, as suggested here, and in the climate action plan proposal, was that ANR create this new reporting scheme for greenhouse gas emission reporting from fuel suppliers. The agency will collect their data, establish this database, and then have that be available to provide more specific data on the greenhouse gas registry of inventory. And that is it, that the date is on passage.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I have a question. Know you and I have obviously talked about this during the drafting, one, helping me to understand, and I still want to continue these conversations to deepen my own understanding, but in understanding what's different, better, more helpful about this reporting framework than the greenhouse gas inventory, which I know you had mentioned, and we're going to, I think, learn a lot about that later, but you mentioned is how they're reliant on federal data sets, which are now changing, shifting, less reliable. This has us gathering our own data in state from our own sources. That's one thing I want to make sure I understand. And then to rep Southworth's question, the now suspended, not happening fuel dealer registry that we had proposed in the clean heat standard covered only the heating fuel. And this covers a broader, this is more all fuels. Okay.

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, so the Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Registry is a long standing program that ANR has been doing, and it serves a few different functions, but one of the main ones is to determine what the emissions are for the state of Vermont, what sectors are they in, and are they decreasing as part of the Global Warming Solutions Act process. There was already this data collection going on that the agency had been monitoring data about emissions coming from a number of different sources, including a lot of federal sources. This is giving the secretary additional authority to require specific data for that registry, which is related to whether or not Vermont is meeting its Global Warming Solutions Act emission reductions. The Clean Heat Standard was a single program that was supposed to be part of meeting the Global Warming Solutions Act process, so even though they both use the word registry, these are separate things that would have potentially fed into each other, but this is about the existing long term greenhouse gas emissions registry that the Agency of Natural Resources has already been producing for a number of times. This does cover fuels from the fuel suppliers, including transportation and heating fuels.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: The question is, is the existing registry the basis for assessing whether from the law desk meeting to those departments? Yes. And

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: it's on a lag right now, I think you've heard this before, but ANR produces it, but it usually has a two to three year lag, or eighteen months to three year lag, because they have to get the sources of data after that year ends, and then they work with the federal government and then compile the sources from other places as well to produce the greenhouse gas inventory. And they have staff that do that and do some calculations based on the data that they receive.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: Slide five on page two says covers all sources of emissions. Is it our intent to include people's wood stove chimney emissions in this?

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: Possibly. It's not specific. It does say all fuels. So, to take a step back, as part of the Climate Action Plan, the Climate Council asked, requested ANR to come up with a proposal on what they would do with these rules, and ANR did produce a report, so you've heard a little bit about it already. They talk about some of those issues about wood fuel as being a source. I think you could ask that question of them. They also may have suggested language on what this directive should say. You can choose to be more specific here, and I do potentially think INR would have something to say about if they wanna be collecting wood field data.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I have a

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: James, may I ask you a question?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, was going to respond to that. Okay. So, it would as the bill sponsor, it would not be my intent. And I think it would be unenforceable and, trying to gather data on Vermonters who are buying a quart of wood or out cutting wood on their property to burn wood at home, think is far beyond the scope of this reporting requirement. It's nothing I ever contemplated including there. So if the language would imply that ANR is supposed to go out and get that data, I would want

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: to fix that language. Thank you. That makes me happy because I do agree that it would be problematic on many levels to

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: try On every level.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: On every level to try to track that and collect the data, and it leads to all kinds of problems. I think we should be explicit about excluding private residence use. And I would I would suggest also that we be explicit about including biomass electric generation, which is to say McNeil and Riegade. And we have heard that that would make our data inconsistent with other states who exclude and some include and all all those things. That seems like an easy fix. You sort of just put it in a separate section and say, here's all the apples to apples, and here's the separate electric generation section. But I think McNeil is the single largest source of c o two, single largest point source of c o two in the state, and feels like we would simply be missing a big piece of data if we didn't include that. So

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: with that, so now we're mixing electric generation with heating fuels. That that to me is outside the scope of the bill, and I don't believe that we should be including that piece of that because that's something else to deal with.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: And line five says all sources of emissions. It doesn't say only fossil fuel sources of emissions. And the I mean, I think that's the ambiguity that all of us are trying to get clarity on. I would say that the the goal of this inventory is to understand our sources of greenhouse gases. And as we've discussed, I mean, this doesn't speak to this, but setting aside our contribution to climate instability, There are economic and health benefits to Vermonters to reducing c o two emissions. And I think to that end in particular, understanding where where combustion is happening and where stuff's going into the air in the different categories is valuable. And I would also ask what harm is there in knowing? And as I said, it can be a separate part of the report, so we're not mixing transportation fuel, heating fuel, and electric generation, but I really can't imagine any harm it would come from tracking how many tons of CO2 we put into the air and irrigated in McNeill.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Rectory and then Sibilia, and then I know we have we're gonna have plenty of time to talk about this.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I was just gonna add that because those are stationary sources, we can track that equipment, Right? Versus, you know, mobile, like transportation, it's mobile. It's hard to track. Yeah. But I also wonder in terms of the information collected, is it it says by county, are we going to potentially be able to have town level data that would help energy committees and, you know, town plans understand their progress? It's well, it says it says count date. It does say at a minimum two. So it just I just wonder how the data collection how granular it can get. Repsibilia. So just note the appearance of a slippery slope, rep webinar here. And I appreciate wanting to count all and then ask, you know, it's not what about methane? How do we, like are we just picking one and and doing a bunch of other, or are we really trying to get that some discrete numbers here? So I think there's I think there's a lot of other places we could look if we're gonna track every

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's interesting too because and I know we need to move on, but I'm thinking about how do we wanna use the data. Well, the ultimate idea would be to design policies that really work for Vermonters across the heating and transportation sectors, which is where 70% of our emissions are. And so I kinda hear rep Southworth's thought about, well, you know, we're not we're not envisioning, you know, an ag policy that's gonna

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: get I I don't know. I yeah. So the greenhouse gas registry, they have the agency has reduced documents back till at least 1990. They do this process every year already, and it does cover many more sectors than transportation and residential RCI here. ANR has a lot does have existing authority around air pollution sources. Point sources are under their their permitting scheme, so they have that data already. So I think some of the stuff you were just talking about is already covered. And then mobile sources are one of the issues, but it's actually more about sort of the indirectness of fuel selling as opposed to point sources. And so I think you will hear from ANR more about that, but they do have a number of permissory issue for air pollution, and they have that data potentially easily available to them because they're already regulating those sources. So, some of this already does exist and has existed for a while, but the ANR is looking to have additional specific authority to fill in some of the gaps that will be useful to the additional climate action plan work.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Rutland, and then we need to go.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: Yes, sorry, this will be quick. Did you say they've been collecting and reporting since 1990?

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: I believe. On their website, the greenhouse gas inventory goes back to 1990. We don't know in what year they put that together, but you can hear from them.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: Which is to say it far predates the Global Warming Solutions Act.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Correct, it did, yes. Far predates Okay,

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: so we'll hear more from ANR, but it sounds as though they may already have the data from McNeil and

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Rheingen. Think so, yes.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: It's just a matter of reporting it, which I would see the value too. Like the cost benefit to me, if they've got the data, they just add it to the report, there's almost no cost and it feels like there's benefit.

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, so there is already an electric generation emissions part of that report, and so I don't know, I haven't looked at it recently, so I don't know the level of detail they get it to, but that is one of the sectors they report on in the existing report.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: Great, thank you.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We'll be back.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: Yeah, so, okay. We'll get it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: All right, thanks Ellen.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: Thank you. Thanks Ellen. Thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: All righty, so walk in seats. We have already had a sponsor intro on age 73, so we now proceed to our walk through.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I love the new table.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: You have reps up. We're tight for that.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Really think it over. And I'm sure you do because my stuff is always It's not. I feel That is I feel recovered. Recovered.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thank you, representative Southworth.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Made my day. Okay. So, again, Maria Royal with Council. And I know you already got an introduction, to h seven fifty three, by representative Torre last week.

[Maria Royal (Legislative Counsel)]: So I don't wanna repeat some of the things that were said, but at the same time, I do wanna talk about the context only because there are some resources that are online that I just wanted to make you aware of. Big picture. Broader context, this has to do with affordability, energy burden

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: on

[Maria Royal (Legislative Counsel)]: Vermonters, energy burden can be defined as the percentage of household income that's spent on energy, typically electricity and heating. So one report is I wanted to draw your attention to is Efficiency Vermont. That was an energy burden report. The last one came out in 2023. I believe they also include transportation costs as part of their energy burden. But that's now online, so if you want to get a better sense of how they determine the burden relative to household income, I think they do it by town, maybe census block. So, That information is there. Then in terms of looking at energy burden rates in the context of your climate energy goals, obviously pursuing some of those goals might result in capital investments and infrastructure to promote or facilitate renewable energy or to provide the power for electric vehicles, there are costs affiliated to achieving those goals and those typically get folded into rates, which increase rates for ratepayers leading to affordability issues and ultimately some cases of disconnections. So really trying to align your climate energy goals with some understanding for the impact that it might have on some Vermonters. So, as you know, because this came up, in 2024 in Act 142, the legislature, you all asked the PUC the question of should Vermont have a program to help reduce the energy burden on low and moderate income households. That report was filed with the legislature in December 2025. So just try something

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: to juggle.

[Maria Royal (Legislative Counsel)]: Have you had a walk through of that report

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We actually or you have.

[Maria Royal (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, you know all about it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: It's on our website, we've

[Maria Royal (Legislative Counsel)]: had a good discussion Great, of okay. And then the other report, I don't know, this is just something I can reflect that I found helpful. That same issue looking at climate goals, energy burden is from the Energy Action Network. They do a consumer protection report and that was in 2024, probably know about that already. And then finally, because it's on my mind about the resources, we're gonna talk about PUC rule 3.3, which has to do with disconnections, residential utility services. That is also posted. If you want to look at what the current rule is. And, I'll also just mention with respect to that rule, it was last revised in 2024. There's not a rule making in process currently, but I understand Kathy, others may have some ideas for revising that rule, but of course, you can direct the PUC to revise the rule whenever you want. So, that's mostly what I wanted to say just to more situational awareness. And just to make

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: sure I understand the situational awareness. So, disconnections are currently really governed by that rule, which was how and when they can happen. That's PUC rule thing, 3.3, which was recently adopted and this would propose asking them to update it further. Okay. Yes, recently revised. It's adopted. It's been adopted, I think I meant updated.

[Maria Royal (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, and actually that last revision came about through legislation. The concern there had to do with authorizing utilities to do remote disconnections. And also providing, making sure utilities provide notice to the property owner. There's a tenant in the house not paying bills. Landlord, property owner, property manager is aware of potential disconnections, particularly that might cause freezing pipes or something like that. That was what spurred the last rule making, which they did. In looking at the bill, just walking through it, the short title is that they decided as the Vermont Energy Equity Law. The First Amendment is to Section two zero nine Subsection B of Title 30. This is a section of law that pertains to the general scope of the PUC's jurisdiction with respect to things such as rates, quality of service, reliability. So, in that section, as you can see in subsection B, there's already a requirement that the PUC adopt rules and this is where you get your rule making authority for the disconnection rule. In addition to disconnections, it has to do with when deposits are required, payments of any required deposit, returns of deposits, and that kind of thing. And then on line seven, regulate and prescribe reasonable procedures used by companies disconnecting or reconnecting services and billing customers. So, the proposal is for the PUC to offend that rule as follows. And so, subdivision A, as you know, this pertains to limiting disconnections if there's an immediate serious health hazard. If there's a member of a household that might be of some health risks if there's a disconnection. Under the existing rule, there is already an exception or a limit on disconnections if you have a physician certificate explicitly saying that there is a potential health risk, that there are some time limitations. So I believe the certificate under existing rule cannot be for more than thirty days. It can be renewed once, but you can't have more than the thirty days. You can't have more than two consecutive months with no disconnection, and you can't have more than three months in a calendar year if you meet this standard. So, the proposal here is to basically say that the certificate on online 16 shall remain in effect for the time period specified in the certification unless the commission rules are realized. Leaving it more open ended. And again, this would be something that would go through rulemaking consistent with this charge. Then also, subdivision B, no gas, electric, or water utility may involuntarily disconnect service to any residential ratepayer during periods of extreme heat as defined by the commission. I know you're all aware of eight eighty eight, which is a bill on your committee dealing with this subject. Looking at how other, I just did a quick search of how other states have dealt with the extreme heat issue and typically there's temperature, sugar. Usually it's between ninety five and one hundred, but there are outliers. Page 88, I believe the temperature is 92 is the trigger. Also, some states just do if there's a heat advisory or warning and that's and h 88 has both, one or the other, if I remember correctly. And then one at least one state does a seasonal ban, and that's Arizona, and it's like June through September, which is similar to what Vermont currently does for winter months. I think November through March or something like that. And there's some other criteria that must be met, which I'm not recalling off the top of my head, but I do have the rule. You want me to look at Windham limitations. And then on page three, PAC shall also adopt a rule requiring gas, electric, and water utilities to establish strategic and realistic plan for achieving the lowest, critical and feasible number of monthly and annual involuntary residential service disconnections in the utility service territory and includes a plan in a new or revised service quality and reliability plan would just submit it to the PC. So, the electric utilities are already required to develop such plans. As the name suggests, they relate to service quality and reliability, operational metrics. So, these performance metrics are outlined in the plans. They're reviewed by the PC and I think it also specifies what happens if you don't meet the metrics, whether your rates are lowered, so your return on investment might not be as high or okay, fine, I'm not actually sure. So this would be a new metric to be included in the plans that are already reviewed by DEC. And then section three, this is proposed amendment to section two eighteen d, title 30, which is the authorization for alternative forms of regulation for electric and gas companies. This is the proposal that allows utilities to basically disconnect sales with profit. So typically, utility and electric utility, they wanna generate sales because that's how they make their money. At the same time, Vermont has goals where they wanna lower energy costs, do weatherization or whatever so that people aren't spending as much money. So this authority to do alternative forms of regulation allows the utility to maintain its profit provided it meets certain metrics and goals. Right? So disconnecting that. Right, Morrow. Yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: It was my understanding, because the utilities are CapEx instead of OpEx, that they that they actually are not making money off their electric usage. They're making it off. It's mostly a pass through, and they're making money off their capital investments.

[Maria Royal (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. That makes sense. You're probably right about that. That that's their cost of service is less operational, more their investments in infrastructure and maintenance. That might very well be true. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. No.

[Maria Royal (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. So there are a list of findings that must be made to for the PUC to cruise an all break plan. I think I'm not sure, but I think Green Mountain Power, maybe natural gas too, Vermont Gas, and I think Vermont Electric Co op are the three utilities that operate under an alternative regulation plan. I'll try to confirm that. In any event, there are a number of findings that must be met for a plan to be approved and as you see on slide nine, in addition to the finding that says that the plan will promote improved quality of service, reliability, and service choices, It now goes on to specify including a reduction in the number of monthly and annual involuntary disconnections to the lowest prudently feasible number in a company's service territory. Linking back to the metrics that they would have already developed, but just ensuring that if they're gonna be permitted to operate under an alternative regulation plan, they would continue to meet those metrics. So that is a walkthrough of the bill. It's effective July year. So, Maria, can you section three? A little lost on that piece. Can you just walk walk me through again the change that has happened there, section three? It's only adding one more finding to any outright plan that a utility submits to the PUC and says, this is this is what we wanna do. These are the investments we wanna make, and we're promoting energy efficiency or whatever. But we're also gonna try to do that in a way that's not increasing cost for ratepayers. So, in addition to just, you you still have to deliver safe and reliable service, the rates have to be just reasonable, it's just adding another finding as part of this plan that's reviewed. Okay. And the in section two is, okay. I think I understand such thing. So so the alternative rate, then I have a lot of that. So I think next is to just better understand what the change would be for utilities in terms of I would say it's not a big change to existing long. I'm not familiar with that existing already plan in detail. So, I mean, I can learn more about that. You could also have or the PSC of the department talk about exactly how to implement and what it looks like. That might be helpful to understand Albright generally.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: You know, I would be interested to hear probably all of the utilities to see if their service quality and reliability claim already encompasses some of this for all this, we don't know unless the those sponsors dug into that and found that out.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Doctor Torre and have been working on a witness list, so newly noted.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. In terms of in terms of witnesses, I mean, I would like to understand if we have data about the problem we're trying to solve.

[Ellen (Legislative Counsel)]: Disconnections cold weather distribution rates, you mean?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: It's not not just what a dispatching. Yeah. Yeah.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I think some of our just today might be fine. And the only thing that, you know, just related to that, think, in the governor's budget address, I don't know if this is accurate, but I think you talked about the disconnections increasing by a third or something from one of those lines. So, there is data out there with the department who would better be able to inform you about what actually Yeah. And and so along with that, you know, so if that's the problem we're trying to if if the problem that we're trying to solve is increasing disconnections, you know Decrease. Decrease in disconnections. Is that what you said? Is the fact that there are increasing disconnections.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: You know? Just like to understand more from the utilities what is happening. That's just what's going on. Professor Kleppner?

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: Does anyone have a clear sense their definition of when it's okay to disconnect a customer and when it's not? There's sort of a not example in here when an occupant of the residence would suffer immediate and serious health consequences. I think everyone thinks it's fine to disconnect someone who can afford to pay the bill that just chooses a preload. Go a few months without paying, you get a bunch of notices, you get disconnected, but that feels perfectly fine. There's a big gray area in between that I just don't have a clear view on. For instance, a family has a medical emergency that takes up all their cash, so they can't pay their electric bill that month, and they may recover. The mortgage companies say, hey. If you're having trouble paying, let us know. We'll work out a plan, and I just don't know what to do with that in between area where it's obviously okay to disconnect. It obviously would be harmful to Vermonters to disconnect. And in between, there's this big gray area that I think I'd love to have more clarity on before we finalize this bill.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: So, Seth?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. And I I know

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: you just do a little of that, but I my feeling is that utilities already have something with this, and they work with their customers. I don't think they arbitrarily just go shut them off unless there's been issues. They haven't met whatever plan they put together. I just that's why I'd like to hear from them just to make sure that

[Rep. Bram Kleppner]: Yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: What they do.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: K. And I'll I'll just add, and thank you, Maria, for putting this in our folder. The rule that exists, 3.3, has a lot of detail. It's a courtesy date. So it's probably it's 11 pages, but it's probably worth perusing, especially before we have the department. It's good.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I know I haven't I haven't had a chance to read it yet. So And

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: and we will be hearing from the consumer, Kathy, is there consumer assistance person at the at the department on Friday.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So our next folks are here. I'd like to go off live and take just a quick five minute break, truly five minute break, before we restart again. If we Thank could you, Maria. We could go off live.