Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Sign up.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We're live. Alright. Welcome back everybody to House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. Running a few minutes late. Apologies to our guests. We have until 02:30. And I sense that at 02:30, we're gonna need to do a hard pivot. We are continuing our did I already say that? Our conversation about h seven forty and act relating to the greenhouse gas inventory registry. I'm representative Kathleen James from Manchester.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Scott Campbell from Saint Johnsbury. Richard

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: Bailey, Lamoille too. Chris Morrow, Windham, Windsor Bennington, Michael Southworth, Caledonia too. Christopher Howland, Rutland Ford.

[Lauren Hierl (Environmental Advocate)]: Dara Torre, Washington two.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Graham Butler, 21013, Burlington. Laura Sibilia, Windham two.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. And in the room with us,

[Lauren Hierl (Environmental Advocate)]: Alice and Jessica, the Vermonters for a Clean Environment.

[Iris Chung (Vermont State Treasurer’s Office)]: Iris Chung, treasurer's office.

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: Justin Johnson from.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Dana Lee Perry, the group.

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Great. Joanna Miller, Vermont National Research Council.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Glad that you're well to be first.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. Alright. For the record, we've asked for your reflections on h seven forty.

[Lauren Hierl (Environmental Advocate)]: Great. Well, thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today in strong support of h seven forty to create the greenhouse gas inventory and registry. For the record, my name is Lauren Hurl, and I'm the executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council. And for those not familiar, VNRC is the oldest statewide environmental group, and our mission is to promote a healthy environment and resilient community for all Vermonters today and into the future. And we are a group with thousands of members across Vermont who care deeply about clean air, clean water, flood resilience, healthy forest and wildlife, and sustainable communities. And for them and us, the urgency of addressing climate change only continues to grow. I'm also a resident of Montpelier, and my community here, as you all know well, was absolutely devastated by flooding just a couple years ago. And I was a city councilor for six years and was facing how a small community like ours needed to be wrestling with the growing and harmful impacts of climate change right in our communities, impacts on our taxpayers, our local budget, our businesses, our residents, and it's just increasingly clear. So we need to continue doing our part to reduce climate pollution and build local resilience. We also know energy affordability is a major concern in Vermont and across the country. And today, clean energy is the most affordable energy, but it takes good data and good policies to make a fair and equitable transition. Unfortunately, our federal government is focused on rolling back clean energy progress. Just this past week, there was a Washington Post story about how the pro coal directives coming out of the administration could raise energy prices by billions of dollars. The federal government has eliminated subsidies and it's even trying to help clean energy projects that are already almost fully constructed, including in New England. And these actions harm ratepayers and are making energy less affordable for everyone. But Vermont is a state trying to take a different path forward with solutions that can benefit our communities, our health, our resilience, our energy independence, affordability, and do our part to address the climate crisis. H seven forty is a simple but meaningful bill. Creating a greenhouse gas inventory and registry will provide basic but essential information about fuels being used across the state, and therefore, it can help us craft solutions to help Vermonters have affordable and resilient energy sources. H-seven 40 was included as a top priority of the environmental community in the 2026 Environmental Common Agenda, which hopefully you all received in your mailboxes earlier this year, but there were 22 organizations who signed on and have collectively identified this bill as a top tier priority of our organizations. And these are groups with deep ties in communities all around the state. The NRC has been very active since the original enactment of the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2020. Johanna Miller on the NRC team, who you'll hear from shortly, was appointed to the state's climate council and has worked incredibly hard with the other volunteers of that council to craft our state's climate action plan. And to us, we knew that the Global Warming Solutions Act was essential because we had been working for many, many years on climate and energy issues and policies. We knew that having goals, which we've had since 2005, were not translating into enough action to actually help Vermonters. By creating a robust set of pollution reduction targets paired with a broad group of stakeholders to shape solutions,

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: we can take on this huge challenge in

[Lauren Hierl (Environmental Advocate)]: a very Vermont way. One thing we learned from many years of this work is that good data is invaluable for helping understand what is happening for Vermont families, businesses, and communities, and therefore what types of solutions could most benefit Vermonters. At the NRC, we do a lot of work with local communities, and they are also trying to do energy planning. The energy data that we can collect through h seven forty will be incredibly useful to them to help inform global strategies to help take charge of their own energy futures. In this bill, we support the inclusion of regional and potentially even municipal level data. The more granular we can get, the more it'll help inform, just get more transparency into the system and help us shape the solutions and where we want to go from here. We support the scope of the reporting program outlined by the agency of natural resources, covering the suppliers of transportation and heating fuels for transportation, residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. Knowing this covers about 70% of the greenhouse gas emissions in Vermont. And finally, we know this work will take resources. So we urge the committee to, in your budget letter to the appropriations committee, to support funding this important initiative, figuring out what the right amount is that we will need to make sure this we have the resources needed to put this into place. So I'll keep it there, short and sweet, knowing that you've got a couple other witnesses you can round out. Really appreciate your time and consideration that you're giving to this and hope that you will advance this bill.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Super. Thanks, Lauren. Why don't we hear hear folks' testimony and then save time for questions that you guys can decide who feels. Maybe that's the way to go? Okay. That's great. Who's up next? Joey? Okay. Excuse me. Thanks, Lauren. Thank you.

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Good afternoon and thank you for the chance to testify this afternoon. Appreciate the opportunity. I'm Johanna Miller and I lead the Energy and Climate Program at Vermont Natural Resources Council. I'm really excited to be here testifying in support of h seven forty, to establish a greenhouse gas emissions reporting program. I wanted to offer my testimony today based on two particular perspectives that I bring. First, as you just heard from Lauren, as a member of the 23 member appointed Vermont Climate Council, which is charged as coming up with a plan to ensure Vermont reduces carbon pollution in line with agreed upon climate science, established climate science, while also helping ensure that our communities and all people in them can adapt and become more resilient in a warming world. So, that's one particular perspective I'm going bring, and then I also serve as the coordinator of the Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network, which as you may know is a network of over a 120 mostly municipally appointed town energy committees in Vermont, many of whom you may very well represent. But I work with partner organizations to support that grassroots group and all of their important local led work, which means I've had the opportunity to work closely with communities in my professional career on their projects, programs, planning efforts in their communities and their important work to help their communities and people in the cut costs and carbon. So I just wanted to offer my perspective on this bill from those two lenses in particular. So as you know well, and as many of you may have helped make possible, Vermont turned our 2,005 statutory goals into requirements in 2020 with the Global Warming Solutions Act. It put together that 23 member climate council that the initial climate action plan was implemented or excuse me, rolled out in 2021. And the climate council just finished another robust process with significant public engagement and input to craft the updated 2025 Home and Action Plan. And as you just heard from Lauren and as I'm sure you've heard already from the Agency of Natural Resources and others, one of the top recommendations of the 2025 plan, one of the top 10 was to establish greenhouse gas emissions reporting program. So it's a really important priority for the climate council for us.

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And just wanted to say we

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: think it's really important, foundational actually, and why we strongly support the bill in front of you. In part because you cannot manage what you don't measure effectively. And we are not effectively managing cost saving pollution reductions in the transportation and thermal sector in particular. These two varied sectors, which are highest polluting and often the very highest cost that Vermonters are paying for their energy. So a greenhouse gas emissions recording program is really important to help us meet our state climate commitments, help our monitors reduce their energy costs. It's also very important, but I want to speak to a little bit more, what Lauren alluded to, to local and regional planning. Again,

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: as

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I noted, a big piece of my work is to coordinate and support the network of community energy leaders. These groups have and will continue to be partners to the state in meeting our climate commitments and reducing our fossil fuel consumption. They're also really important partners to their communities, and they've been really important to helping craft both the regional and local plans, including through the Act 174 enhanced energy planning process, which as you know, 174 requires regions to craft plans that demonstrate how those regions are going to help the state reduce climate pollution and achieve our comprehensive energy plan commitments of a renewable energy future. We obligate regions and we enable municipalities to do that deeper energy planning, but it's hard work and it's made

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a lot

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: harder because regions and communities lack useful, timely,

[Lauren Hierl (Environmental Advocate)]: and

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: granular data when it comes to the types and amount of fossil fuels being used for heating fuels in particular. We have a good electric sector data, but thermal sector data in particular is something I have long and often heard municipalities asking for. So a greenhouse gas emissions reporting program could help change that, and we think it's needed. And as you may know, relatedly, currently regions and by extension, communities rely on modeled numbers and estimates for the thermal sector in particular when it comes to putting together their enhanced energy plans. They get actual data in the electric sector, but in the transportation thermal sector in particular, we lack granular exact data. It's an estimate. It's a snapshot in time. So unless regions, communities, and the state start to collect this data, it's going be impossible to craft the best plans and to measure progress over time. We think the statewide greenhouse gas emissions reporting program is really important for supporting good local and regional planning. Also because I know this committee does really important work grappling with energy, energy affordability, and climate issues more broadly, I want to speak a little bit to what I heard you discussing a little bit earlier today and more in general related to the appropriateness and need for regulation of the fossil fuel sector in Vermont. So lack of climate and cost saving progress in the transportation and heating sector stands in stark contrast to the significant progress we've made in the regulated electric sector. So as you know well, and many of you helped make possible, we've obligated our distribution utilities to develop more renewable resources, procure more renewable resources. We've also required our efficiency utilities to help their customers cut demand. So, we've done a lot in the electric sector. That regulation also means we have good data for the electric sector, again, which is helpful for the required regional planning and municipal planning that's happening. But that regulation also means that we have accountability and transparency in the electric sector, including when it comes to managing costs. So there's a cost effectiveness bar that our distribution and efficiency utilities must meet and a level of transparency and accountability that they are held to, which serves Vermonters well. That regulation of our distribution utilities, our electric sector, the standing up of our efficiency utilities has helped keep Vermont's electricity rates among the lowest, if not the lowest in New England. So with Efficiency Vermont's programs, that regulation has also helped dramatically cut costs by reducing energy demand. You may have already heard this fun fact, but I think it's really important that over time since Efficiency Vermont has been established, their efficiency programs have helped save Vermonters collectively over $3,500,000,000 So we've done a lot in the electric sector. There's certainly more to do. But we just don't have that same level of data, data sharing, transparency, and accountability when it comes to fossil fuel and heating. So and that has its significant shortcomings. So as a side note, one example relates to my own recent personal experience. So while while my home doesn't have fossil fuels for heating, we have an attached small ADU that's heated by propane heater, Renni propane heater, and when I called the provider the other morning to inquire about just the cost that day for propane to be delivered to us in Montpelier, she quoted me $2.99 a gallon to fill our 120 gallon tank. When my husband called later that day to schedule the delivery, the cost for delivery was 4.99 a gallon. So same day, same product, same place. Why the significantly and higher price? Unclear to me and unclear to many, but we paid the higher price and I feel privileged to be able to afford to, but that story is not unique to me, my family, and to Vermonters. There are wild discrepancies in prices, transparency, and data access for different sectors of our energy economy. In our view, we think greater transparency in the fossil fuel market will be better for Vermonters. It will better support more informed local and regional planning, required regional planning. It will better inform future policy and regulatory action in the space where the vast majority of our pollution and costs come from, transportation and heating, again, you know well, and it could lead to strategies that lower energy costs and address current inequities and how the current system works. So it's why we strongly support H-seven 40 and why h seven forty was strongly supported by the climate council across the board, save one lone voice who I anticipate you will be hearing from tomorrow. But specifically, we support the ANR and Climate Council's recommendation to implement a standalone reporting rule. That's really important. I think you heard this morning from the ANR team that they're strongly supportive, and that was what makes the most sense for them. We support the ANR's primary focus on transportation and thermal as a minimum, as a foundational place to start. Again, that's where 70% of our pollution comes from, and where the lion's share of the cost that Vermonters are paying for energy comes from, so really fundamental place to start. And we support finding the funding necessary to help ANR actually do the work. So identifying what they're gonna truly need to stand up and implement a successful program is really important and we hope that you, in very challenging economic times, we very much recognize that, can help support that appropriation in your budget bill and in your work more broadly. Just in closing, Oh, yeah. One thing I just encourage you to consider and potentially change related to the data collection at the county level. I'm not sure if you've heard about this yet, but I urge you to consider instead of directing that collection at the county level, consider collecting at the RPC level because as you probably know, RPCs, it's not a tight geographical boundary. Some RPCs serve more than one county. So again, we fast require RPCs to do enhanced energy planning. I would encourage you to think about that data collection happening at the regional planning district level. So and I just would say, just thanks again for the chance to testify. In this day and age, you might expect more acrimony when it comes to standing up a program like this, but as you heard from the ANR today, there's broad support, nearly unanimous, and I hope your community and the full legislature will support and fund this foundational effort. As Lauren just said, as you very much know, with a pretty radical, and I would say, shortsighted retreat, the federal level when it comes to clean energy, renewable energy, The most cheapest, easiest to deploy in this moment. Our federal government retreating from that puts an obligation and an opportunity before us as states to step in, step up, and fill that gap. And that's not only good for the planet, it's also in Vermont particularly good for economics because we don't mine, frac, or drill. We import every little bit of the fossil fuels that are contributing to the climate crisis and sending over 70% of the cost of those fossil fuels out of our state annually. So we have an opportunity to help Vermonters get off of fossil fuels. We need to do that strategically and cost effectively and greenhouse gas emissions reporting program that gets us the information and the good data that we need to support good planning, good programming, and good policies is really critical. Very much appreciate you guys taking up the bill, and I hope that you'll take our input and some of the potential recommendations, including the recommendation related to RPC territories, or you can accept the boundary for data collection.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I think we're gonna go on with the end or

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: What am I thinking? If you have Okay. Yeah. Questions specific to Joey's testimony, maybe that'd be best now. Okay.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I don't know if you all are. Grace turned at first, but Okay.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: I don't know who's first. Well Go

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: ahead, Sue. I was just asking. So you recommended that we, instead of collecting data on a county level, collecting more RPC levels, I wonder if you talk a little bit more about that on instance. As we have listened to testimony today, it seemed to me that if we set any geographical area, then we're gonna have to collect information about where this this could be on the heating fuel side. Yeah. Where that heating fuel was delivered. Yes. So if we collect that at an address, say, of where heating fuel was delivered, then then we would know down to the town of where it's going.

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I mean, to be frankly honest with you, again, having worked very closely with a lot of communities across the state and very closely with RPCs. I spoke to some RPCs about this bill. I mean, we hear time and again. We want this we want this data as granularly as we can get it. So down at the municipal level would be extremely helpful. I know that one RPC was gonna submit comments to you related to their recommendations on this in particular. If you haven't gotten them, I'm sure you will.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Could be in my inbox. There's a little tiny little glut there.

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: That's no worries. I I

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: But I get I mean, I guess the question is, if we collect the only way we're gonna know what hard to see it falls in is to collect geographical information. If we collect geographical information, why would we just collect geographical information?

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Very supportive of you collecting it to to support municipal planning. Again, we require enhanced energy planning in regions, but a lot of communities to get that enhanced planning

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Yep.

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Nomination and in general are doing the work. Right. And we'd like to support them doing the work without one hand tied behind their back.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Yep. Great.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Thanks. So just a quick question because you are on the climate council and I neglected to ask Jared this this morning who's also on the climate council. We have a discrepancy in how many people were not in favor of this proposal. Do you understand that? What that discrepancy is about?

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I do. So, what I understand is that there is a difference between how many counselors voted to adopt the Climate Action Plan in the June.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So that was broader. Think there

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: was maybe Jane said four. I don't know. I'd have to go back and look. I can get you that. But what I do know is that when we were discussing this top one of the top 10 recommendations of the Climate Action Plan, The ANR put forward their, you know, good research and memo making a recommendation for what they would suggest is the way to do it. We talked about that as a climate council, and there was strong, nearly unanimous support with the exception of the fossil fuel industry representative. So two different things different things. There's one on the full plan adoption. More than one person, I think, posted. And then for this, there's only one. Okay. Thank you. And just

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: thanks for clarifying that.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Further clarification. Where was that near unanimous support for including the ANR recommendations in the priority

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: That was debated in the actual adoption of the climate action plan.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So it was whether to adopt that particular recommendation.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I have it right here.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: You do?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I just found it. Yep. So, yeah, it's a letter of support to the General Assembly from the Climate Council. And this is already posted in our testimony from, I think, from when Jane and Julie came in earlier. But it's dated December 22. And it says it was a cover letter for the memo from ANR. And it just says this memo is consistent with one of the top priorities from the 2025 Climate Action Plan. We therefore strongly support it. Our reporting program is a foundation for future policy, regulatory and planning process. We also firmly support the request of the Agency of Natural Resources who have the necessary resources to implement this effort. This letter was approved by all Vermont climate counselors participating in the council's December 15 meeting with the exception of MAT COVID. So, is, I think, pretty sure this is already on our website. In fact, I know it is, but I will make sure the cover letter is there along with the '20 December 22 memo from from Julie and Jane. Okay.

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: But if it is helpful, I can go back, refresh my memory. I mean, it was, like, June to to see who among the climate counselors did not vote to support that entire plan, if that's something. Sure. It might be of interest. We're focused on this one particular piece, but if

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: folks want that info, I'm sure we can get it. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah.

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: Good afternoon. For the record, Ben

[Ben Edgerly Walsh (Vermont Public Interest Research Group)]: and Julie Walsh with the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. I will be brief and mostly spend my time underscoring, emphasizing some of the things that you heard from other witnesses today. I don't think it should come to any great surprise that the group is supportive of this bill and the recommendation from the climate council. You've heard the phrase you can't manage what you don't measure a number of times, but I bring it up again because that really is the core of this. And I also want to touch briefly on, the greenhouse gas inventory that we already have. So I think it would be not unreasonable for someone to look at this and say, hold on. Aren't we already measuring things? So, you know, what more do we need in order to be able to manage things? As I was thinking about that question yesterday and this morning and preparing for testimony, you know, Vermont is a a large business, came up, as an analogy, and representative Campbell also brought something similar up this morning. So I'll build on that just a little bit as a parallel. You know, if you think about Vermont as a, you know, large multibillion dollar business with lots of, you know, branch offices and individual departments. And what we have right now is the sort of spreadsheet that includes all of the top line numbers that you might report to the board. But we don't have the details for what exactly has happened at each office within each, you know, subsidiary of that business. And this would actually drill down and get that. And I think if you were talking to somebody who who, you know, ran a business of that size and you said, we're gonna give you the top line numbers, you're gonna know how much profit you're making, how much money you're spending spending in the aggregate, but you're not gonna know anything about the actual operations on the ground. They would tell you that that would be an incredibly difficult business to run and that optimizing, you know, improving things at the office level so you could really save the money you're trying to save, make the money you're trying to make would be, you know, very close to impossible. And that's essentially what we've been trying to do on greenhouse gas emissions all these years. Obviously, we're not without any information at the granular level, but we don't have a comprehensive program of collecting and reporting that kind of data. I might also just briefly touch on something else that came up this morning, and that is the reliance on federal data. Obviously, that has become come sort of more into question as a reliable source of data. Not questioning the numbers they are putting out. I'm questioning how much of a guarantee do we have that that information will be there in the future. And so building more data from the ground up here in Vermont, I think, makes a lot of sense if we are serious about this project of energy affordability and reducing carbon pollution. I want to, before I I wrap, just touch on the sort of price variability piece that Joanne Miller from the NRC mentioned and sort of a per personal anecdote. I know that's not the primary thrust of this bill, but as we're drilling down and trying to get more granular information, I do think it's important to recognize, and perhaps in a separate conversation down the road, dig more into how, opaque and variable prices in the fossil fuel sector, are in Vermont. I was corresponding with a member a couple of years ago who really had personally just taken it on as a passion project to to look into that more and then been talking to some of his neighbors and other people in the sort of Burlington area about that question. And he had spoken with a landlord who had, I think, just a couple of units, but, you know, one small building with a couple of tenants. And somehow, you know, had had spoken with those tenants, had a little bit of information about their fuel purchases, And what he found out was they were all buying propane from the same supplier. This is in 2022. He was paying $1.76 a gallon for propane. His two tenants who were buying dramatically less than him were paying $4.71 and $5.00 1 respectively. Now there's real variable costs. Obviously, if you're driving a truck and delivering very few gallons, the the cost of driving that truck is distributed across fewer gallons. That's real. But because the decision on what the ultimate price is gonna be is solely in the hands of a private corporation, we have wound up with a system where unlike in the electric sector, you have a very significant contribution to the high cost of being poor and that if you cannot buy, you cannot afford to buy very much, you are going to pay the bills. And that is not a given. That is a a policy choice to leave that alone. So I'll I digress. I'll sort of get back to the core of this bill, and I know you need to pivot shortly. I wanna end on that discussion that you've had a minute ago about the near unanimous vote. Again, it's come up a number of times, but I wanna return to it because I think it is hard to overstate how unusual that is in this day and age. I've been working on climate policy for around about twenty years, and I have seen personally, and if you look at the data, it become more and more and more polarized over time. If you look at polling, there's still very broad support. If you look at the way these conversations play out in the sort of political realm, it is one of the most polarized issues in this country right now, and that is in significant part true here in Vermont as well. I think if you told people about how conversations about climate and energy policy have played out here in Vermont and around the country. And then you describe this and say, Hey, we go to climate council and there's a bunch of appointees of a Republican governor, a bunch of appointees of the democratically controlled legislature, what do you think the vote was? They would almost certainly tell you that it was going to be along those lines. So that's what happens almost every single time anyone votes on anything in this country on climate, and it didn't happen on this. In fact, it was nearly in. So you had every member of the administration supporting this. And that gives me a a little bit of hope that maybe we can find a path through, that we can really work together to to solve these problems here in Vermont. I don't wanna overstate the case, but I do think that it is a good sign. I hope that the legislature will similarly be able to back this as a common sense next step on energy affordability and climate policy.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thanks so much, Ben. I did find that testimony. It's on our website. Just so folks know, it's in the bill folder seven forty and the little things things that I was waving around. The the letter support and the memo are both posted on January 13 under secretary of the board. Do folks have, questions for Ben before we move to our next topic? Great. And you submitted written testimony. I

[Ben Edgerly Walsh (Vermont Public Interest Research Group)]: I did not. I can't if that's the request of the subcommittee.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: But Written testimony? Great. We always love it.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Alright. I have to

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Yeah. Brett Kleppner? So I'm looking at our greenhouse gas inventory. It says electricity accounts for 3% of our greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions are, roughly speaking 8,000,000 metric times c o two equivalents. Burlington Electric is reporting that they're throwing off 350,000 tons, which is itself more than 3%. That concerns me, and I would love to reconcile those numbers and have an accurate statewide

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: inventory. I can speak to that briefly if you'd like.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: That'd be

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. We can check.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Essentially, that comes down to how you're doing the accounting. Imagine most member all members of this committee probably understand this, but just to briefly summarize, when you're looking at the electric sector, the accounting is sort of done two ways. There's where the power is coming from and then where the who gets to claim the renewability of the power, the renewable energy certificates or how that's tracked in this country. And so if you're purchasing renewable energy credits, then there is essentially no greenhouse gas emission that goes along with that. The other thing that I would say, and this is really specifically related to biomass broadly and certainly in the electric sector as well, there is there are two ways to account for biogenic, that is to say, you know, emissions from plant matter in this case. And there is internationally sort of standard way of doing that, and that is because you have sort of different types of fluxes like where it's coming from and where it's going to in a different way than fossil fuels. Right? It's coming out of the ground. It's going to the atmosphere, and that's that's that whereas forests are growing and being put down all over the world. And so, essentially, the idea is you wanna be aware of what's happening in that space, but it's not accounted for in the same way. And so if you look at the geo greenhouse gas inventory, you have these the sort of standard way of accounting for all of those emissions, which is the million tons that you mentioned. And then if you dig in further, you can see the biogenic emissions being absorbed and emitted on top of that. So we have that data, but we use the standard approach that the EPA and IPCC endorse in terms of how that how biogenic emissions are accounted for. So that's not to say it's the best way, but it is accepted practice. Though I would say I also agree that having really good information in terms of the accounting both ways is really important as we're trying to figure out how to solve these problems.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Well, say I did look at the mix pre and post break, and that does not resolve.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Yeah. I think in this case, it's more the latter issue that I described.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for being here. And we need to I think we need to well, are they gonna be? We were gonna try to do a quick walk through. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thanks, guys. Sorry. Take a picture. Oh, here she is. Perfect. I'm here. Do we do we need to I'm a little concerned about taking a quick break just because we have a lot we're trying to do. Okay. So I think I feel like we need to forge ahead. So alrighty. So we are going to do a couple things. We have until four. We have, I think

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

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: You can leave it in door open.

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I'm just trying to get air.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So, it's so hot in here. Yeah. I think what we're trying to accomplish here is that we have an updated draft of 05:27 based on our committee conversation yesterday. That is unbelievable. So we will walk through that draft and take a look at the changes which I thought would be helpful to do with our colleagues here in the room so that you guys can see how draft has evolved since yesterday, but it was just based on our committee conversation. Then, we want to get feedback from mister favor in the PUC on that draft and on the bill in general. And we've also asked your McNamara to come to talk talk a little bit about the PUC's FY twenty seven budget, which broadly seems to fall under our purview and our our letter that we write to the appropriations committee. So definitely can have you guys decide what order you wanna go in. I know you've come over. I wanna make sure we don't run out of time, but that'll be up to you. But I thought it'd be important to go talk to ledge council first so that you guys were here for that draft. So with all of that, for the record,

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Ellen Chittenden of the Legislative Council. I'm here on H 527. Today you have draft 4.1 dated last night at 04:19PM. The changes from yesterday's draft are highlighted in yellow, and I think they capture what you all were discussing. Let's make

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: sure everybody can find that first. So if you go to our website, I can't remember. I think it went around by email, but if you go to our website, under bill, under the h five twenty seven folder, drafts, amendments, legal documents. You said it's 4.1, Ellen? Mhmm. Draft 4.1. Dated yes. Yesterday at 04:19PM?

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Yep.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Betty, good.

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, section one hasn't changed. This is still pushing back to sunset on section two twenty eight a to the 2029. And then there are a couple changes in section two related to the workshop process we want them to go through. So, section two asks the PUC to hold at least two workshops on the following topics. And so, you direct them to invite at a minimum the following. And so, the changes on page two, you have added the Regional Planning Commission, so the list of people to be invited. Next, there are a couple of changes in the list of topics and procedures to be discussed during that process. Subsection B, the advanced notice process including the contents of the notice, the length of the notice period, distribution requirements, and then jumping down, whether municipalities should be required to hold a public hearing on an application and whether the Department of Public Service should be required to attend. Those are two of the suggestions you all discussed yesterday. The last change is on page three. In subdivision six, evidentiary burdens for section two forty eight A criteria, including rebuttable presumptions of compliance with agency determinations, how and when municipalities are given substantial deference and if other parties such as adjoining neighbors should be given sufficient deference. Those are the only changes I heard yesterday.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Are folks seeing the changes that we talked about or the things that felt important to people reflected in the draft? My my stuff is there.

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: So you removed the part of the seizure and the visibility determination.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I did. We don't normally use bread seeds. So Yeah.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: I'm good with that.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: K.

[Rep. Christopher Morrow (Member)]: You don't wanna put him back?

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: No. That is fine. Okay. So

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: we've got yeah. Representative Howland?

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: I can't find it here. There was yesterday on page two, line 17. I don't know what I've turned it to today. This is a comment. There's a difference between comments, public comments, and recommendations that there is apparently different levels of recognition of the their comments from, I guess, the party and public comments that were perhaps not being given full consideration, then recommendation for participating parties.

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: What was in yesterday's line 17 is down on line 19, I think. I do not recall that conversation.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Think that after that, too.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Yeah. I mean, I'd love to get your opinion. So we heard that using EPUC, I guess, there's confusion about where which button to hit because they have the municipal recommendations. Are they comments? Are they public comments? Where do they belong? And so there was a suggestion from an advocate that we that that issue of recommendations versus comments be clarified. Think was comments. Do you remember those recommendations? It it does say recommendations in both. When it talks about municipalities, it's recommendations in the statute. Mhmm.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: And

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: then when you go to the e p e EPUC, apparently, there's enough of that.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I was working in patients here.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: You know what I mean?

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So there's people are confused. So on page two in subdivision one, there is

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: language regarding

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the main well, some of the municipal recommendations for municipal entities and regional planning commissions. And then subdivision three does also talk about consideration of comments.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So you are you looking for it

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to be more specific?

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Now on line nine now on Yeah. Line 19. Eight to line 19. Again, I felt that there was some of the testimony that we have received from the down level that the or a lot of the the public comments and recommendations for wanting to be spelled out more clearly that comments from that level should also be considered. I guess I've kind of paraphrased it. It's a word of substantial deference of difference that there's difference difference wasn't substantial. Could eliminate that comment from participating part.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I feel like what did you have a response? I I feel like on page three, we've added pretty clear direction about substantial deference, which is already I mean

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Therefore, I mean, one question is, are the are comment public comments and recommendations handled differently?

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Yep. Mister Clayton? For you, Nancy. Perhaps I can speed this along a little. So right now, there's a thirty day every time a petition is filed, there's a thirty day comment period. Those comments from the town can be filed as public comment. We still consider those the comments of the town, and they are given substantial deference. Okay. That's that's it. Sometimes a town can intervene. All they can also have the opportunity to intervene in the case and file as a party to the case as well. But if they just file public comments, then those public comments are given substantial as long as they're timely filed.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So how they how you're saying that how they appear on EPUC, whether they appear as they may appear on EPUC as public comments, but they are nonetheless considered by the PUC to be the recommendation of the town and they are given substantial deference.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: As well as the regional planning commissions as well.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Representatives oh, sorry. Follow-up. So, Greg, is there any difference between comment public comment and recommendation?

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Not at the town or regional planning commission level. We accept those as the comments of the town. If you're just a regular person, a pro se litigant, or has intervened in the case, that's one thing. But if you're just filing public comments as a person in the town or whatever, that's

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: Or or the town official.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: The town official is different. We're gonna give that substantial deference. Public comments filed by just anybody else.

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: Evidence? Uh-huh.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: They're not gonna get substantial efforts. The substantial efforts only extends to the comments of the municipal select board and planning commission as well as the regional planning commission.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And what about the voters?

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: The voters would have to intervene in the case in order to have their comments considered as evidence in the case. Otherwise, it's just public comments. Yeah. And we take those and we use those to develop questions for the case, but they have no evidentiary valid.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So let's hear from Sorry, we've had a significant amount of input, I think, and we're here now today to hear from the piece.

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Representative Sibilia. Yep. So, this is for the PUC, Madam Chair, and and Legis Council, I guess. But, this issue where we are wandering around a little bit, have some concerns, what we are asking you to do, is to hold workshops, the discussion with all the interested parties. And so in b three, this procedure for the post petition comment period, including considerations to the comments, motions to intervene, request for hearings as well. This is all part of what will be workshop. Is that right? Yes. And so

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Yeah. Right. So this

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: is something that will be able to be discussed by the parties. And so you will invite to the workshop.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And so on that note, actually, if if folks are done with for ledge council for just our walk through, Ellen, I don't know if you are staying or going. I can stay. Okay. Great. It'd be great if you could stay. And I'm not sure what chair McNamara and mister paper are planning, but maybe we could turn to we have done we have taken a lot of testimony. We've had a lot of conversations, and we are now we would like to hear from you on the draft we have and what we're envisioning for the workshop process.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Okay.

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: Good afternoon, ma'am, chair, members of

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: the committee. For the record, I'm Greg Taylor with QC. So we've had a chance to review the, you know, the latest draft of the bill. So we don't we don't support this this process of youth that you added on here. It would it would require a significant amount of work at at the commission for a very low yield. It would only be recommended changes to the statute which would only be in place for potentially another two years at that point. If you want to make meaningful changes to the statute, you should do away with the sunset and actually discuss doing that. So we don't support this process. It's it's just it's tremendous amount of work you have here, and I'm not sure it's gonna yield anything. There are also things in here which are I can pretty much tell they were submitted by the providers. There's reference to eligible facility requests in number two b two here. Sorry. What? Sorry. I'm on page two. And this is the following topics and procedures to be addressed at this workshop or workshops. So if you look at to the last or next to the last line there, it mentions eligible facility requests. That is a code name for the shot clock violation, which we talked about earlier. You're basically putting a federal preemption into statute. That that would not be a good idea. Even if this is just session law, that would be a very bad idea. That that sort of legitimizes the provider's to the shock clock provision, which we don't really agree with. So you don't wanna do that.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: What line is that? Sorry.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Well, what line is it? It's a beam.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: What line put together? Yeah. Okay. Yes.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: It also mentions de minimis modification site visits. I'm not sure what you'd see other than people putting taking one antenna off a tower and then putting another antenna on. What is to see at a de minimis site? That makes no sense. So there's a lot of stuff in here. It doesn't make any sense. But overall, we don't agree with doing this process, given that sunset is still in place. This is a year long process. And then we come back, make suggestions to a statute that's only going to be there for another two years. And we start over with a new, potentially a new group. They start this whole process will start over. I guarantee that. I've been through this so many times. We have done so many of these workshop process and we come back and we suggest things, and then this whole thing starts over again. So we don't we don't support that. There's better ways to do this. We could talk about that. But, yeah, that's that's where we're at.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Rep. Sibilia?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I have several questions. One is thank you for the comments about the shot clock. I mean, that's really helpful. Thank you. You mentioned, and I I've been here a while, that you've done this process before. I'm not sure that I remember, and that doesn't mean it didn't happen, that we asked the PUC to provide us recommendations for changes in statute. We do you remember when that was?

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: I I don't off the top of my head, but we've changed the statute or we've changed our procedures, roughly seven times due to statutory changes. Those were based on us soliciting comments from the stakeholders and then coming to you and saying, here's the comments we got. And then the statute was changed and then changed the procedures order. So we've done this many times. But not recently Mhmm. But years ago. And even with the commerce committee, I think you remember those days. Mhmm. Yes. We used to do

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: That was a long time ago.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Long time ago. That was when we specifics. Did.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Mostly that pointed out.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Okay. I do recall us doing an EF report as part of this process. I do recall us doing, having you come back to us with a report as a part of this process. But I don't remember statutory changes. And what we have heard, what we have heard, we've heard the PUC, I think we heard the department, we've heard providers, and we've heard advocates all say that there need to be changes. We heard you say that we don't think that we can make changes because we don't know what you're gonna do, you're if gonna extend the sunset or not and seems imprudent. And so speaking only for myself, I would say, I think we need you to help us sort through what are the changes that everyone needs. And if we've got the timeline for that wrong here in this current bill Mhmm. I mean, it would be helpful to know and any other changes that you might suggest to make this something that we are not inadvertently putting federal preemptions into. You know, if you were to say we need two years to do this or, you know, we need to have a workshop. I I don't know.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: It all hinges on the sunset people represent

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: civilians. So explain

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: If you're saying Mhmm. To me, oh, would two years be better than one year? No. Because then you come back and statute's only in place for one year.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: So your perspective

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: is that an advice is that if we ask you to do this work and to solve this problem that you all have identified, we should get rid of the sunset in alongside that. We should say, go do this work and get rid of the sunset.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: I think you should get rid of the sunset and then request request party's positions on what changes they would make. We would certainly suggest changes if you ask us to.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: So you're you're suggesting we would do that. We would do this here.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Yep. Okay. You've heard from all the parties. You've gotten those tests. Most of it's written. Why not take that? Make the changes you want to make. Mhmm. I I don't see but for us, going through that again Mhmm. It's a significant amount of work Mhmm. And time for us. And then coming to you, I'm not even sure we're the best people to do that. Possibly the department would be a better place to do a stakeholder process like this. They do that all the time. We've done things like this before. That's that's for sure. But this would be more of a statewide process. You've added a ton of stakeholders in here, Department of Public Safety. I'm not even sure why they're here. But

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Well, I asked for them to be in there, mister Favor, and that was because we heard testimony that some of the towers that were going up were radio towers. So maybe it's a bad idea for Radio. Raid. Yeah. So maybe

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: What does that have to do with the safety? What do you I'm not sure what the next is.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Just in terms of those networks. And so maybe we did not understand. So a suggestion to take that out would be very welcome. Certainly, it's not relevant.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Yeah. So, yeah, that's our recommendation not to do this process at all and remove the sunset. You could certainly ask us to come back with recommendations for changes to the statute, but I would ask all the other stakeholders to do the same. Or you could ask the department to convene a stakeholder process, but you already have all the info you need. You have all the evidence.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: I don't think we have

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: suggestions from you about how to

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: No.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: You don't. Not yet.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Yeah. We're waiting for the sunset to go away.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: So that's that's where

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That feels like a catch 22. Rep or sorry. Rep. First.

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: If the sunset goes away, then all applications revert to active hunting process. Well Outside.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: You just never hear about it again. Okay. Yeah. Accept complaints.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: If we don't extend the yeah. If the if the sunset

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Yeah. Yeah. We thought we did. Yeah. That's it. Okay. We're

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: gonna clap it. That's a.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: So we've heard very clearly from Vermonters and municipalities that they feel shut out by this process. Unheard, ignored, local plans ignored. Yeah. There's something ignored. You know, we've heard that loud and clear from 100% of the people we've heard from down the municipalities. On the other hand, 100% of the tower riders and carriers like 48 a way the way it is. So that says something to me. We only have a few choices here. We can let it sunset right now. Everything gets dumped into two fifty, and then we can work on fixing two forty eight a at our leisure and then revive it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Between now and the end of the biennium?

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Or, you know, as many end of the decade. As many years as it takes. Right? We get it. As many years as it takes to get it right, to do whatever we need to do. Personally, I agree with mister Favor. We already know what to do. We've heard all testimony. I don't think we need to do that anymore, but I also recognize that people feel I may be hasty in that judgment. So we can do that, or we can extend it for three years and go through a process, whether it's the PUC or BS or us, figuring out how to fix it and then amend the statute to fix it and then get rid of the sunset once we feel it is right and doesn't need to be reviewed every three years. Or last and only only we only have three choices. Third choice is get rid of the sunset now and then let two forty eight a run the way it is while we fix it at our leisure. We

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: have a choice that we've laid out in the bill that's before us that wasn't anything. So No. You you left out a choice.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: The choice the choice that you have here is the second choice. Yeah. Then the sunset for three years and fix it in that three year period. One way or another. I mean, what we said was have the PUC do it. They're suggesting someone else do it, but he has choice two.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Rep Southworth?

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: Fourth choice. Send the sunset out a couple more years to give PUC time to do what's in the spill. I

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: wish the sun touched five years or something. It

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: still has that check back, but it increases the time for the PUC to do what's requested in this bill from the spine patient. And I see chair. She just she's waiting to answer.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, just to and I I see you're up, Torre, but just to comment on my very a concern that feels super obvious to me is that this is like a the the request that we're making here in this draft of five twenty seven is like a double loaded baked potato with everything on it, and we're asking that to be delivered to our table

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: right away.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So it it feels like important work to me, but it feels like a lot of work in a very short time frame, and that has been a real concern of mine. A significant concern of mine. Anyway, Reptory?

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Yeah, I just, I appreciate

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: Turn that corner, can you

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: shut the door now? I Sorry,

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: appreciate you calling out the fact that the PUC might not be the best agent for this stakeholder engagement. And we know the department has spent a lot of time upping their game on stakeholder engagement. They're the consumer advocate. So I actually like the suggestion that we pursue this work. If we don't think we have all the answers. I don't feel like we have to do the workshops but have a different convener. What that means in terms of the sunset is another question, but I think there's some irony here in that we have a streamlined process that everybody likes, all the developers, because of the predictability. And yet, you guys, are the agents of this work, don't even feel like you have predictability because of the sunset.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Oh, that's

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Do you know

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: what I'm saying? So you have been, it seems, in some way, constrained in your ability to to do your work because of the sunset, diminishing predictability for yourselves. So I I feel like that's kind of a an interesting thing, an epic in this situation. So I need to think on I need a little time on the sunset side, but I really feel firmly that we're going to do a workshop. The convener should be

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: the department.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Rep. Sibilia? Yeah. Greg, mister Favor, is there period of time with the sunset that makes more sense to you? Just a period without consideration of the rest of the bill, but knowing that we have problems to solve.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: I'll defer to my chair.

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: Ed McNamara, chair for the Public Utility Ignition. What I wanted to say before is you can remove the sunset and then you can always remove 248A later. The sunset, I feel like you're binding yourselves to the sunset. It happens to be three years, you can get rid of the sunset entirely right now. It changes a little bit in terms of presumption. You get rid of the sunset, the presumption is two forty eight stays. How I would approach it and I think that provides the certainty for doing a lot of additional work with some certainty that that work is going to then continue as it appears to do a lot of work. Mr. Faber was saying before, we present something in a year, you then spend six months on it and then a year and a half potentially. That's probably the most significant concern. If you got rid of the sunset entirely, it's still a fair amount of work. And at least it creates this presumption that work that we're doing is not just going to go away. So that's one aspect, one way to think about sunset. You have the authority to change laws including get rid of the sunset and get rid of an entire statue. The other thing I will say too is a lot of the concerns that seem to be arising here are the exact same concerns that I've heard on the two forty eight projects. So quite honestly, if you're going to be doing this kind of book, public engagement and public input into projects, it should not be limited to 248A. It should actually be all the solar projects, should be GMP transmission, electric transmission projects. It feels like we're really focusing here on this particular issue all because of the sunset and I fully recognize I'm adding more work but it feels like I'm throwing that out there because in my mind if you're going to do the work it should be complete and comprehensive. If you're getting everybody in the room talk about the relevant statutes because it's not just 248A. 248A procedures are different than 248A but there's still how much does a town get a say. I assume it's actually the towns get even less say in two forty eight projects due consideration only to their recommendations. So I would suggest and the reason I'm flagging that is because the chair's point of how much work, how much time you want this to be. If you're going to do this, I would suggest actually doing it correctly, doing it comprehensively, spend more time on that.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Just to respond to that, and I I know this is kind of a philosophical response, but it's really where my struggle with this bill is rooted, which is that the sunset is sort of a guarantee, you know, for an ever changing, ever evolving legislature with a lot of turnover that we're gonna have to return to something. And if we had heard across the board, you know, from all the witnesses that we've heard from that everything's working great, I feel comfortable. But but I don't because it's clear that it's not working great for a lot of people. And so, you know, after November 2026, we could all be gone. You know, who knows who's gonna be in this room, who's gonna be on this committee. And so we need we need ways of returning that of basically planting a flag in something and requiring action even if none of us are here. You guys are sort of you know? And it's it's this feeds into so much of our work, which is that we're trying to negotiate or collaborate or work with state government partners that are sort of just permanent. You know, I know folks retire, but, you know, PUC is not all up for you know, everybody in state government isn't all up for reelection. So so if we remove the sunset and February a just is now permanent statute and a report gets delivered next December or next March to whoever, They may or may not take it out, but so there there's a way of trying to make sure that our all the work here doesn't go to waste, I guess.

[Rep. Christopher Morrow (Member)]: Just a question. Does February have a sunset in it?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: No. No. Just 02:48 a.

[Rep. Christopher Morrow (Member)]: Okay. So there's well, why just a? We should be addressing all these things on a on a cyclical basis as circumstances change. Right? So we have this mechanism. I mean, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have it, but it's like it does seem like it's a little bit arbitrary that it's on one piece of statute, but not on other exist that Deserve equal consideration.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Rep Southworth?

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: Is it appropriate to see where the senate is at with this since they have a convenient bill to this and have a conversation with them, telling them what you're trying to accomplish, what the input from chair and and Greg are to see if there's a way that we can come to an agreement on wording so we don't have to do the back and forth of the senate to work with them.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Spoken all our hopes and dreams. It's not hard.

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: Well, this seems like it may be a bigger thing than what we had originally thought as far as timing and so on. So it just to me, it makes sense just to the chair of conversation with the chair were what do you think? This is what we're dealing with. I don't know. Maybe I'm out of that deal, but I still conversation with somebody is a lot better than just throwing something at someone and having it come back at you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. I can speak to that. So I I have spoken to the senate. Their bill is not moving because they know that we have spent five weeks working on our bill. But they plan to vote it over. So the I I think worst case scenario here is that we stop and wait for them to do something. They're not they're not planning to do it. And then all of our work goes to waste and and disappears in a in a pop of smoke. So they may very well change. They may have a totally different approach, but if we want action on this topic, this session, we gotta move our bill. And see see what happens over on the senate side.

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: Just not how misguided it was. I don't know.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: No. It's it's not so much misguided. It's just, you know, this is the ping pong thing where we have invested, and this is all the broader question of, geez, why don't we do all the 248A, or why don't we rewrite the statute entirely? These are the limitations, I think, of a part time seasonal citizen legislature that has two years to get its work done, and we're in the second year of the biennium. So that's when I get super practical and say, if we wanna do anything, you know, we need to figure out how to how to get this vote to the house floor and get it over to the senate to see what they wanna do.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Then we wait for the playhouse.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And then we wait for the playhouse. Yeah. That's just my very practical take on take on matters. So, yeah, R.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Sibilia. So Just to get super clear that the recommendation from the PUC is to remove the sunset period, the end. That's the recommendation.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: That would be our recommendation. Yeah. A lesser I mean, maybe have the department do something of this sort. Maybe think about including 02:48 in that process as well. I haven't talked to the department, so that's not great of me throwing them on the bus.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, they're not in the room. That's how they're not cheers.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: But they are better at stakeholder processes than than we are. So that would be my recommendation is get rid of the sunset. If you wanna have some sort of stakeholder process, have the department do it, give them some time to do it because the sunset's gone. And then it might be meaningful. That's what R. MacMorrow said. When we do these processes and then look at the there's a sunset there in a year, year and a half, you don't treat it meaningfully. Just don't even know it's going away. What's the point of spending a lot of time and effort on it? I think that's the best chance you'll have of of meaningful changes to the statute.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Absent us taking, like, you know, January to March and having to be a single issue that we resolve, which is not what's happening. Right.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Right. Southworth.

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: So if the sunset goes away, we're status Still, the concerns aren't going up.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Go into a process then. Jesus. They go into whatever workshop, stakeholder process, whoever convenes addresses their concerns.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. If we do nothing, if we don't pass a bill out of this committee, or if we pass a bill out of this committee and it dies in the senate, or if we send this bill over and the Senate changes it a ton and we go to conference committee and everybody gets pissed off at each other and walks away. So, in other words, if the legislature takes no action this year, 248A ends, It sunsets. Nobody can apply. Two forty eight a is over, and every every tower project goes to act two fifty.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Thank

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: you. What we're hearing is a request from the PUC to do the exact opposite, which is to stop this three year cyclical sunset period and just make February permanent. It just exists in perpetuity, and then we ask them to do we ask somebody to do something

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: to fix it.

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: But that that's what I meant, though, is all the enhancements that we've been talking about for the last few weeks don't get addressed. So everybody that has come in here and we've listened to, we've taken testimony from, we're not addressing any of their concerns at that point.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: We could still pass this to the department to and revisit it when they come back through their reports. We're pointing it to to the UC or the department to that point, and we we're only here for eighteen weeks, actually, a lot less. And so we don't have time to to to address this really any further is is what it comes down to.

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: I I understand that. It just, yeah, just seems like we've done a lot of work here.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: It ought not go to waste.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Even if we pass this as is, we're doing no more to address these than saying, can someone look at them and come back to our recommendation, Which which we can do regardless of what we do in the sunset. And, you know, in fact, letting 02:48 a sunset, since everyone thinks it's a almost everyone thinks it's a bad idea to have all these towers go through I 02:50 but inspire all the parties to work really quickly to come up with a fix to revive 248 a. I'm not suggesting that's what we do. It's just there's one possible outcome.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And Sounds super disruptive to me. Yep.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: I agree with you.

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Southworth (Member)]: It may be disruptive. And does x two fifty have the bandwidth to, you know

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Which we don't know. Right? Like They don't. Right. I mean, everyone thinks that's a bad idea. So so more or less everyone agrees we should not let 248A sunset right now, then you have the two choices, extend the sunset or get rid of the sunset.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So, I know we need to leave time for chair McNamara. I'm seeing a couple things. We definitely need to hear from the department about how they would respond to the request that they would be better Mhmm. At doing all of this than the PUC. And we need to think about the sunset. Obviously, we won't be voting on this tomorrow morning, but I will just encourage the committee to think about the fact that I do believe we have a lot of other bills that people are really interested in. We've spent a lot of time on this. I don't think it's wasted time, or I don't want to let it be wasted time. So I would propose that we all think about how we feel about the sunset while we wait to hear while we reach out to the department. If that sounds like a good plan, then we can proceed along those lines and hear from Chair McNamara about the budget. Thanks, Mr. Paver.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yep, thank you.

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: Okay. Good afternoon. I'm Ben McNamara, chair for the Work Utility Commission. This is just very high level overview. You're generally familiar with PVC, what we do, regulated electricity, natural gas, to some extent telecom as well, and private water companies. So there's, in theory, there's 27 staff including three commissioners. Two of those positions have been vacant for a number of years and we also have another position that we're holding vacant for some period of time. Our FY '27 proposed budget is roughly $5,300,000 an increase of 2.8% above FY '26. This is entirely special funded. The only general funds we've ever received was the one time, one year appropriation for clean heat standard study a couple years ago. So we are generally funded from gross receipts tax on regulated utilities. Electric is by far the largest contributor but also cable telecommunications companies, some water companies, and for some reason, coin telephone. I think it's like $5 or something. So don't mess with that jurisdiction on that, please. Grocery seed stacks constitutes 96% of our revenues. We also receive application fees as well for merchant projects, merchant projects or generation projects that are essentially not proposed by a regulated utility. So they are not helping fund us, when they submit a two forty eight application they include application fees and that is roughly 4% of our budget. Just roughly the Department of Public Service gets roughly 60% of gross receipts tax and application fees and we get roughly 40%. Also useful to know, salaries and benefits make up over 87% of the Commission's budget. We don't have, we're not like ANR, we don't own land, we're not paying taxes or, well, we're not maintaining, we don't have capital costs associated with anything that we do. It really is primarily staff who are getting paid the salaries and then benefits. FY '27 projected revenues, I talked about gross receipts, tax and application fees. So our projected revenues are $4,400,000 and that is roughly 4,100,000.0 for gross receipts tax and about 160,000 application fees. So, for folks good with math, a proposed budget of 5,300,000.0 is greater than our revenues of 4,400,000.0. Because we are special funded, are able to carry a reserve fund and this has been in place for quite a few years. It primarily is helpful in terms of fluctuation. The gross receipts tax can fluctuate considerably, depending it used to be primarily on the weather. Nowadays, it's how many sunny days a year do you get. That's actually probably the biggest change to the electric receipts tax. Application fees. I think we get roughly $40,000 application fee from a 20 MW project. Some years that's one, some years it's two, most years it's zero. So, we project out what the revenues will be. We are generally better at projecting our budget than our revenues. It is just we can't tell what

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: the weather is going be like.

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: These reserves have allowed us to basically exceed our budget over time. What we are starting to see is that the budget has been exceeding revenues much more often and we expect that we're going to continue to be drawing from the reserve as opposed to putting any money in. Yes.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So, how much do you have in reserves? I'm loath to tell you that because

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: I know you guys are looking for money. It's about $3,000,000.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: So it's $900,000

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Does it sound?

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Yes.

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

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: Yeah. That's not

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: FY '29 is when our reserves are not gonna hold out anymore, so FY '30 is when we're in serious trouble.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Taking.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Chair McMahon, are you going to submit written testimony? We do have our homework assignment, which is our budget letter to write.

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: I do have a rough draft of slides that I was preparing for house appropriations next week. I can clean that up a little bit and submit them.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That'd be great. Thanks. Yep. Yeah. I'll I'll start.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And I'll I'll be going to the. Go. Sorry. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Rep Campbell will probably be in a probes to hear. He's our point person.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Okay. No. I don't have a question. Okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I don't know who was first. I'm sorry. Rip's Morrow. So

[Rep. Christopher Morrow (Member)]: are you are you also presenting a plan for raising fees or other revenues to get the balanced budget?

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: I don't think that there is a realistic plan at the moment. They're simply increasing revenues. I think it is likely to be some combination of, this is a long term, don't expect people to fix this situation this year, just to be clear, asking for that. Instead it's going to need to be a conversation. There needs to be first, I would suggest a look at what it is that we are doing. What tasks have you assigned us? I will say that when we see some of the bills, and I'll talk to you Representative Sibilia, when I see things that look purely speculative and a considerable amount of work, I'm going to say, no thank you, we don't have the bandwidth to do that. So, I think it's cutting back consolidating some of the work that we do. That's going be one aspect of it. And then the other aspect has to be what is the long term future of all the different industries that contribute gross receipts to this. So, it is not, in my head it seemed like a relatively straightforward exercise. Last year, looking at the budget is significantly more complex and nobody is gonna like any of the solutions.

[Rep. Christopher Morrow (Member)]: That's clearly,

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: it's not

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: We're gonna have to

[Rep. Christopher Morrow (Member)]: have to stop start that process. 2029 is right around the corner. What is that? Is that gonna start It'll start your see. It'll And then you'll come with recommendations? Yes. That's correct. Yep. Okay. Thanks.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Along these same lines. So you're planning to come back with recommendations next year to the legislature? Yes. Okay.

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: Yeah. And we'd probably start having discussions with folks before then. I don't want to just surprise you on January 8 or whatever the right date is next year and say, here's big picture policy issue. I think it should be part of the conversation. There needs to be conversations across the board.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah, and I would just add, especially if there's a need for additional revenues or increased fees, it would be just great if the governor would include those things in his recommended budget and help lead the conversation on that because I I think that's been that's often been a barrier in the past.

[Ed McNamara (Chair, Public Utility Commission)]: Yeah. And, I don't I know that you know this, chair James. We're not part of the administration. Yeah. We This is something that I've never participated in a cabinet meeting in my life. We're gonna have a discussion with the governor. We'll also have a discussion with you folks as well. Yeah. So this needs to be

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I do understand that. It's just it's been it's it's just been a systemic barrier Mhmm. To having these kinds of conversations here in this building.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Yep.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Do we have we have Some more. I

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: could We do. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Thank you so much. We'll we'll look for your slide deck. I if folks have follow-up questions, feel free to send or ask, but feel like we're in decent shape for the PUC portion of our research paper.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: K. Thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. Thank you so much for being here.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Go ahead. I I

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: was gonna say we're done. We're done. We're Okay.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission staff)]: We can

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: go offline. Thanks.