Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified/Mixed (multiple speakers on this channel)]: We're live.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. Welcome back everybody to House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. It is Wednesday, February 18, and we are visited in the State House today with leaders from some of our town energy committees. So they've arrived to give us some updates, tell us about their work, comment if you guys want to on any of the bills we're working on. We didn't really talk about this ahead of time. But anyway, so we've got about forty five minutes to hear from all of you. And I think what we'll do is we usually go around the room and introduce ourselves. And then we introduce any folks who are in the room who are just visiting, like not testifying. So here to just kind of observe, so that would probably be just Jack, right?

[Unidentified Huntington Energy Committee member]: Yes.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Alright. And then since you're each are each of you gonna speak? Yes. Great. Then we'll just have you introduce yourselves when you come up to the table. So I'm representative Kathleen James from the Bennington Ward District.

[Rep. Christopher Morrow (Member)]: Chris Morrow, Windham, Windsor Bennington. Michael Southworth, Caledonia two.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Christopher Howland, Rutland four. Dara Torre, Washington two.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Brown Sloppner, Chittenden 13, Burlington.

[Unidentified/Mixed (multiple speakers on this channel)]: Laura Sibilia, Windham two. And then Jack?

[Jack Pitland (Burlington; Natural Resources Council observer)]: Jack Pitland from Burlington from an active resources council.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. Alright. Well, thanks everybody for driving up and being here. Stephanie, are you first?

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Just be sure to identify yourself for the record.

[Stephanie Moffett Hines (Chair, Arlington Energy Committee; Member, Vermont Climate Council)]: Well, you. Thank you, James, Chair James. It's nice to be here. It's nice to be here with all of you to be able to talk about the important work of energy efficiency. So thank you so much. My name is, for the record, Stephanie Moffett Hines. And although I am not representing the energy committee from Arlington, I am the chair of that committee. So I'm here as an individual, but I wanna share with you some of the things that we're doing there. As you know, there are over 120 energy committees throughout the state, and we see ourselves as just important partners in the grassroots efforts that are happening all over the state to help our towns and the states reach its renewable energy goals. And, of course, the work we do depends upon the work that you do. So it's really wonderful to be here and actually be in the same room with you today. And thank you so much for all of the really good important work that you are doing. It helps us a lot. So while many energy committees are ad hoc, ours is actually an appointed committee at Arlington. So there are seven of us. And so we work in support of our our town in service to our town, but we're there primarily to advise our select board and trying to help the town become as energy efficient as possible. So the things we are doing like weatherizing our town hall, it's an ongoing process, never ending, but that and our town garage, all kinds of efforts are aimed at lowering taxes, reducing the cost to our taxpayers. It's been really important to do that. But also to make, you know, the town hall a more comfortable building to meet in and work in. So we're we help with all kinds of things like that, identifying projects, and also to lower our carbon footprint. That's an important thing that I'll come back to. Also part of our stated mission is to be a resource to our fellow townspeople. So we're always trying to help them to find out how I lower my bills, how can I become more energy efficient, And how can I lower my carbon footprint as well? Any of those things, all of those things. And we're determined to also help our neighbors to become as resilient as possible in the face of mounting climate pressures. We're, like many of you, we're in a town that has a river that floods and we've had some really serious problems down there. So we're seeing things happening and we're trying

[Unidentified/Mixed (multiple speakers on this channel)]: to find ways to help all with resiliency.

[Stephanie Moffett Hines (Chair, Arlington Energy Committee; Member, Vermont Climate Council)]: This year we're going to be doing our sixth window dressers community build. You're probably all very familiar with that, I would assume, where we come together to build highly efficient insulating window inserts. And it's really a wonderful thing because we the people who are ordering these windows, they're coming to work with us so it's volunteers and the clients and we work together to build these fabulous inserts and they do, definitely lower bills, They lower heating and cooling if you keep them up in the in the summertime. And they make homes more comfortable to be in and they lower the carbon footprint. So that's great. But also, it's a potluck. So it's really fun. It's nonpartisan. So it's just it really is a community built. I love that. Obviously, could talk about that a long time, but I'll move on. So we're gonna do our sixth one this coming fall in October. Quick word about carbon. About four years ago, I think it was, few couple of residents in our town, private citizens, decided that they wanted to put three articles on the ballot and they got enough signatures, they did that. Two of them passed and with very healthy margins, which really I think kind of reflects what's happening in the state in general that the the majority of Vermonters really need guidance, want guidance on lowering their energy bills, becoming more efficient, and, you know, really facing what's what's happening and also lowering lowering their carbon footprint. So these the two were there was a a a sinking fund, the the two that passed called the Arlington Climate Mitigation Fund. And the purpose of that is to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuel usage by the town or to look at offsets. The other stipulated that the town seek to do this, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels used by the town through energy efficiency, carbon sequestration, and adoption of renewable energy with the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2027 relative to just 2020 baseline levels. So those two things did pass. But then so then the question is, so how do you do that? Okay, that's nice. How do you know what your carbon footprint is if that's part of it? So the only way we could do that is to, the energy committee created something called the carbon tracking tool. And it is essentially a spreadsheet and we've put every single warrant, every single invoice for all of our energies for the past five years into this spreadsheet. And then there are formulas in there that will then take whatever that energy, is, whether it's diesel or gas or whatever it is, and then it converts it into what that would be in carbon. And then it can calculate if we do this, what would be the savings? So all of this is something that our select board can now use and they use to see, okay, we see it all, we know exactly what's coming in, what's going out. We know what our biggest emissions are and in our case just like the state it's transportation. So our diesel trucks are our biggest thing. Some of the things that we see we can change and we have actually helped physically sometimes implementing some of the upgrades. Some of the things we can't yet. We aren't able to to trade out our diesel trucks at this point. We have electric school buses, but our our diesel trucks are are are there. We need them right now. We can't transition. So what do we need to do to offset that? So these are the kinds of conversations and things that we're doing, and we're always looking for guidance from whatever is happening on the state level to help us to get there. And the nice thing about this template is that we created it but it's free for anybody to use in the world but any other energy committee in the state. We wanted it to be free on purpose. No point in anybody having to spend money doing something that we've already done. So, that's exciting for us. I just wanna mention one other thing, I was appointed to the Vermont Climate Council also last, just this last spring. So it was a part of, but really tail end, but a part of making sure that we got that updated by the Climate Action Plan last July. So as part of that, as you're well aware, we came up with a lot of recommendations and they were our top 10. And the one that I'd love to emphasize today is the one that helps Vermonters transition away from imported fossil fuels by having the greenhouse gas emissions reporting and inventory bill before you now. It's just so important. Just like Little Arlington, we need to know

[Unidentified/Misattributed fragments]: what we're doing. We need to

[Stephanie Moffett Hines (Chair, Arlington Energy Committee; Member, Vermont Climate Council)]: be able to measure it. You know, we found that data are everything. If you can't truly manage unless you measure. You have to do that. We do it as households. We do it as in businesses. We do it in our towns. So the state has to do that. We have to know what where is everything going. So that would then we can say, okay. Given this, then we can do the next thing. And also the climate council determined that in order to do this, it would require $500,000 to stand this up, stand this program up. So I really, really hope that you'll you'll give that serious consideration and and make that happen. And there are so many other things I'd to say, but also so many great people here who have their time. So I would just thank you very much, and I thank you for all the good work you're doing. But also, I do wanna say this. I appreciate it when in spite of everything that's going on that you take the long view. And to me, that really is moral courage. And that means more to me than anything. And it means a lot to my kids. So thank you so much.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Stephanie, sorry. Just one question before you escape. Arlington's obviously my district. Just a

[Unidentified/Mixed (multiple speakers on this channel)]: single ZIP code in Arlington. Right? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Mhmm. Oh, I

[Stephanie Moffett Hines (Chair, Arlington Energy Committee; Member, Vermont Climate Council)]: should have said too that I represent rural communities on the I forgot to say what my designation was on the climate council. Great.

[Bill Laberge (Grassroots Solar; Arlington Energy Committee)]: Good morning. So my name is Bill Laverge. I have recently retired. Last ten years of my working life were in solar. I had my own company, Grassroots Solar, in East Dorset for eight years. I served on the first Governor's Climate Action Committee in 2017, representing small businesses in Vermont. I'm now retired, still interested in energy. We have a solar customer now, I serve on the Energy Committee for Arlington as we figure out how to help our town save on expenses and also cut their carbon. So, I'm going to come out with a little bit of a different lens than some people on the committee because I've got the solar in my brain. So, I want to thank you for moving H710, the single plant Smart Growth for Solar, go forward. The single plant issue was an unnecessary hurdle that we had in the industry. In solar, we always said we're on a solar coaster. Raise the tax credit, then they get rid of it. So, it's like you're going up, going down, you're going side to side. Single plant was one of those hurdles. It added expense, added time. So to be able to move that away, would love to see, I'm happy to see it go the way of the dodo bird. Because you're to save time and money on projects. Now, obviously, the biggest hurdle we're facing right now in the industry is the attack from our federal government. Countries around the world are moving forward. Obviously, China leading the way implementing renewables. They figured out that it's the cheapest and cleanest form of energy and we seem to be with the EPA now getting rid of the engagement finding and ditching all the greenhouse gas standards, We're gonna be paying more for fuel, breathing dirtier air, and we'll be more vulnerable to climate change. So I think what we're doing now, it's imperative that we act at the local level. That's why I'm involved with the Energy Committee and I appreciate the work that you're doing. I'm just going to touch on a couple bills. I see that you're about to discuss after this session, H716, is freezing the negative adjuster on net metering for Vermonters who have invested in clean energy. The federal government wants to gut the industry, and we don't need our local utilities cooperating with them. This bill is going to eliminate the negative adjuster on behind the meter consumption. I think that we should encourage people to generate their own electricity, not penalize them. That 4¢ negative adjuster is a tax on people who are trying to do the right thing. And I know we talked about good tax and bad tax and bad tax. So, I'm happy to see that that discussion is going forward. And then likewise, see a bill in the Senate, S-one 170 to freeze net metering rates. I think that may be a pause, but I think these are going to go a long way to give a reprieve to the Vermont solar industry. We want to help with affordability. The anti renewable energy campaign by the federal government is going in the opposite direction, making everything more expensive. And then I'd like to optimize support for S202, which is the portable solar bill. It passed unanimously in the Senate and I think it's now here in House Energy. Right there. Literally. This will allow access to affordable solar without consumers having to jump through permitting hurdles. There's expenses, there's time. It's simple, affordable. It removes barriers. This is what we should be doing. Obviously, there's some technical things Inverter manufacturers are gonna have to work out so that you can plug it in to your living room, whatever, wherever you plug it in and it's the right breaker and everything. Those things can be worked out. This this is the technology. We have that. After hurricane Maria, I was down in Puerto Rico and their grid was wiped out. Every single one of them could have used this portable solar. Just a couple of solar panels, they're all just like this mother and daughter. Their whole day was they have a little Honda generator, two kilowatt generator. They figured out kilowatt hours they can run their refrigerator and one other appliance while they're both plugged into this 2,001. Then once the gas ran out of that, they plugged into this one and then they had to go find gas. This was their life. That's not necessarily what we're talking about here in Vermont but people should have access to affordable, simple energy that they can gain access to anytime. I see there's an appliance efficiency standards, H600 coming up. When I was up telling people about solar, the first discussion I would have with them is how much energy do you use? Are your units? And the reason why is that is because I could put up 60 solar panels on your roof, but if I only need to put up 20, then let's just put up 20. The first thing you should do is go look in the basement and see if you have a twenty five year old freezer. Guess what? You're losing money owning that thing. Unplug it now. Efficiency Vermont will help you get rid of it, give you a new one, and you're literally going to pay for it in a couple of years. So I think we all kind of get used to our appliances and they kind of hang around and next thing you know, twenty five years later and still have you don't know what's at the bottom of the freezer but it's still there. We should have a program that encourages people to update those so we're not wasting that money. The law was passed in 2017 signed by Governor Scott I think it makes sense to update it. And then just the last thing I want to touch on, I see that data centers starting to come up, H-seven 27, and it's going to be the 800 pound gorilla in the room. It is everywhere now. We're talking about how it affects communities, water supply, PFAS, electricity. This bill looks like it wants the parameters about the potential deployment of data centers in Vermont, welcoming them, but ensuring that Vermonters are insulated or protected from all the rate increases, the water supply challenges, etcetera. So I thank you for taking this on. We we appreciate your guidance in in all of these age matters.

[Unidentified/Mixed (multiple speakers on this channel)]: Great. Bill. Thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. Rev Morrow.

[Rep. Christopher Morrow (Member)]: Yep. From your experience running your solar company, now that the federal tax credit is gone, How would you evaluate the impact on this solar residential solar industry in the Allstate? In terms of jobs, you know, projects?

[Bill Laberge (Grassroots Solar; Arlington Energy Committee)]: Jobs are gonna be lost. Installations will go down. What's happened now is the solar installers that I talked to having solar panels, well, we just had battery installed, and now solar panels going up. They're trying to keep busy installing batteries. Green Mountain Power has a battery program, so they're keeping busy that way. The solar industry in Vermont had historically really good jobs, good paying jobs, plentiful. You know, we had a great crew. You're gonna start to see that go down. What hap my my guess is that there's gonna be some you know, the the pricing on

[Unidentified/Mixed (multiple speakers on this channel)]: the solar panels is gonna start to

[Bill Laberge (Grassroots Solar; Arlington Energy Committee)]: come down now that there's the 30% tax credit might have kept things high a little bit, the price high a little bit, just so they can try and get some money out of the projects. You're starting to see solar panel prices come down. But it's still going be hard to pencil out, especially if you have a 4¢ negative adjuster. So yeah, I think you're going to see jobs in the industry starting to go down.

[Unidentified Huntington Energy Committee member]: I'm retiring. So Yeah.

[Bill Laberge (Grassroots Solar; Arlington Energy Committee)]: So Monday morning, I don't have

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: a crew of people that I

[Bill Laberge (Grassroots Solar; Arlington Energy Committee)]: have to worry about how how to keep them busy, but I

[Unidentified Huntington Energy Committee member]: think that is gonna be something that the industry is gonna have to deal with. Thank you.

[Unidentified/Mixed (multiple speakers on this channel)]: Alright. Thanks. Hi. I'm Mary Ann Holmes, and I'm a citizen of Arlington. I'm a member of Arlington Energy Committee, but I'm here as just a citizen.

[Mary Ann Holmes (Arlington resident)]: I moved to Vermont in 2020, not that long ago, and I am so impressed with the forward momentum that you have on climate issues. It's really something to be proud of. I'm proud of Arlington and their three initiatives, and then if only two passed, And trying to reduce our our carbon footprint and make life more affordable and cleaner for the citizens of Vermont. You have a lot to be proud of. Especially, I was looking at the Global Warming Solutions Act, the Climate Superfund Act, the Renewable Energy Standard, and I could go on and on. But I'd also like to say that you have the support of your constituents around climate change and the decisions that you make here, as long as those decisions are based on science and not on talking points provided by PACS and foundations that really don't employ scientists. So the science comes from peer reviewed journals and wading through those is onerous and difficult, but you have citizens who are here ready to volunteer and help and make sense of these things. So, for example, up with an idea like carbon is a nutrient. Yeah, okay, it's a nutrient, but you can't use it if you don't also have nitrogen and phosphorus and potassium and so forth. We wouldn't feed our babies lots of carbohydrates if we didn't also feed them protein and expect them to thrive. So it's not just a matter of a single nutrient which I see was in bill seven sixty seven. So you have the support of your constituents. We're here to help. And I also wanna make one more comment, and that's on the bill six zero one about nuclear power. When I first started studying science, I'm a geologist, I don't know if I mentioned that, a retired professor from University of Nebraska, Kathleen's home state. And Wild.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That was a weird connection to me. Yeah. Raskans don't get out much. So

[Mary Ann Holmes (Arlington resident)]: since I started college in geology and studying the Earth and all of its processes, I've been in multiple, multiple discussions with all kinds of geologists about nuclear power. And many of them are very supportive and for it, but not one has ever come up with an answer to where do we put the waste. Waste is forever waste. I can't think of one geologic environment in which I would feel comfortable putting high level nuclear waste. So now we've got it parked all over where plants used to live in the country. Let's not make any more. So I would support not passing bill 61. Thank you. Thank you.

[Unidentified Huntington Energy Committee member]: Lincoln or Omaha? Lincoln.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: U N L.

[Duncan McDougall (Chair, Waterbury LEAP)]: Hello. My name is Duncan McDougall. I'm the chair of Waterbury LEAP, the local energy action partnership, which is the town energy committee for Waterbury. It's actually not formally affiliated with the tenant. We're an independent organization. And out of the 120 or so tenant energy committees, I believe we're the only one that's actual five zero one c three nonprofit. I and and what we do is we have educational events that we run all year long, including the LEAP Energy Fair, which is the largest energy fair in Vermont, coming up on April 11. We'd love to have you all come. So I first testified here about seventeen years ago. And in those days, a lot of the legislators felt that human caused climate change was a theory that needed to be proven, and we should think about it. Well, hopefully, have changed. There are almost 3,200 counties in this country, and my county, Washington County, is number one. That is in 2024, out of all 3,200 countries counties in this country, it had the most disaster related events of any county in the country. And Montpelier is no stranger to that as well. Human caused climate change is not a theory. It's here. It costs a lot. We're talking about affordability. It's a very important issue. 2023, 2024 floods cost for more than a billion dollars with a fee. That doesn't even include Irene. So it costs all of us a lot of money. We need to do something about it. In Waterbury, it costs us jobs. We lost a couple 100 jobs due to flooding. All the camp houses, they were flooded. We have people who are financially underwater, physically underwater. We have businesses closed. It's just a huge, huge impact. And all of you in this room, can make a big difference in that. So, LEAP Energy Fair. Every April, it's it's one of about six or seven events we have every year. Every April, we have about 60, green energy exhibitors come to Crossley Brook Middle School in Duxbury. We have we've had over 700 people from more than 50 Vermont towns come to that. It's an interesting experience because we've been doing this for seventeen years, and we can see physically every year the impact that you guys have in this room. Okay. Because every year, it's like the tide. Sometimes it flows in, sometimes it flows out, and it's directly related to the efforts that you guys make to encourage green energy, renewable energy, energy efficiency, or to pull back on those things. So we've had some years where it's just the room is packed and other years where things have been pulled back here in the state house. And it makes a difference because when we hold our events, we always talk about saving energy and saving money. Don't know of anyone who doesn't wanna do those two things. But often, it takes a little bit of extra money at the outset to save money over time, and that's a lot of what you guys can help. So for example, we're h 600, the appliance efficiency standards. People may end up paying a little bit more for an energy efficient appliance, but over time, you know, in a couple of years, you're gonna pay for that, and it's gonna save you money over time. Building efficiency, h seven eighteen. Again, it costs a little bit more money at the outset, but that's an investment that pays for itself year after year after year. So investing in upfront on some of these important energy things really pays off, and we see it in real life at the REAP Energy Fair and at other of our events. Net metering. Net metering is so important. And I know that there's a proposal to freeze the rates, which is great, so they don't continue declining. That's something that we really see a difference in. We have at our energy fair about six or seven solar providers. And, course, Waterbury is the home of Sun Common. Sun Common was had to cut jobs because of what's happened recently. And we see the impact on the solar providers and the jobs and the work that they do based on those changes to net metering. So please do what you can to help freeze that. Part of what we do in Waterbury is we support the Select Board and the Planning Commission. And over the years, they've asked us to help them write the energy plan, and we help them also with the the upgraded energy report. And this year, for the third or fourth time, we've been helping the town do it. And what we wanna do is each time we do it, we wanna know how we how we compare to the previous time. Have we made progress? What else should we do? And it is really, really hard to do that because the data are not available. There is not enough granular data to let us know how much fuel did did Waterbury use did our residents use this year versus five years ago. So the the greenhouse gas emissions reporting inventory bill would be extremely helpful because we're sort of grasping at straws. We wanna make progress. We wanna know what areas we make progress in, what areas we need to focus on. We don't we don't have those answers. And we told you we've been calling companies. We've been calling state organizations. They're like, sorry. We can't help you. We don't have it. So we're just guessing. It would be a huge, huge help if you would support that bill. I'm a father. Maybe one day I'll be a grandfather. I'm extremely worried about the world, and we don't even have our kids. I've had conversations with 20 kids who are wondering, should they ever have kids of their own because of the world believing them? It is just shocking. The last little comment I'll make is there are a 195 countries in this world. Our leaders have forcibly taken out the leader of Venezuela. They're talking about possibly invading Iraq. Don't think it's any random situation that Venezuela has the number one oil reserves in the world. Or well, I think And Iran has number three. So when you think about the cost of green energy, energy efficiency, and cost of fossil fuel, you have to factor in global events as well. And our countries, and our people, and our military are involved in that and our tax dollars too. So this is a big, big issue. It's one that our future generations depend on us to step up, and I know you guys will, and I thank you for your work.

[Unidentified/Mixed (multiple speakers on this channel)]: Yeah. I'm sorry. We are taking questions. We have a few minutes. Sorry. We have

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: a question. Absolutely. And and, you know, it could be for your other folks as well.

[Unidentified/Misattributed fragments]: Yep. Just most regard

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: to the solar industry and net metering, which is pretty difficult to engage in for me. I wonder if any of your communities are thinking about or actually are doing tax credits for solar. I don't know. Yes.

[Unidentified Huntington Energy Committee member]: Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

[Stephanie Moffett Hines (Chair, Arlington Energy Committee; Member, Vermont Climate Council)]: That local test?

[Unidentified Huntington Energy Committee member]: Morning. My name is. I'm from the River Sound Of Huntington. It's flooded quite a bit. Okay. I am a member of the energy committee and have been for a little over a decade. I'm also a recently retired farmer. I did a three year term as a zoning administrator, and I'm a small landlord. So energy has hit me everywhere. And when I first got involved with the town of Huntington in a serious way concerning energy, it was around Act one seventy two and the enhanced energy plan that we needed to put together in order to get differential siting for renewable projects. We're redoing the plan. It's eight years later, so it's time for for us to update that. And we've noticed that we've done an awful lot in the plan, a lot of it that has been done is because of some of the work that folks in this room or who have held this space before have contributed to. We've done a tremendous amount in terms of rooftop solar for our town, our municipality, and we are appointed, although I'm representing myself and not the town. And we've added basically 80 kilowatts of rooftop solar power, which has allowed almost 100% of the town's municipal energy needs from an electrical standpoint to be satisfied. The buildings that we put them on were our town hall, which was virtually unusable in the summer because it was too hot and as a result of insulation and heat pumps and some electric backup. That building is now generating income in a season that it couldn't. So our revenues are up. In terms of resiliency, we've got huge concerns because we've had dozens of buyouts along our floodplain that runs through our wonderful town. So we've seen a lot of houses disappear and tax base disappear as a result. So we all believe that in Huntington that climate change is a real thing, and it's it's kicking our butts. We've got lots of roads that we've had to deal with. And so taking anything that we can do towards mitigation and resilience, we take it very, very seriously. To that end, we ended up adding large solar array on top of our library. And with battery backup, that allowed us to increase the number of warming and cooling centers in town while reducing the overall electrical costs in the town substantially. And we were able to take a federal credit, the indirect credit for that, so the town was able to do the project and get 30% roughly back from the Fed that we were able to use on other mitigation projects along riverbanks and things like that. Having having spent three years as a zoning administrator, I saw a lot of houses built. I saw a lot built well. I saw a lot built really, really poorly. And in that role, part of what I tried to guide folks to was building according to the RVs to the extent that that's possible, and it's very possible. I've done that myself. Having a net zero farm that I don't have to worry about fuel bills or utility bills or any of that type of thing is something that I'd like to share with as many community members as humanly possible. So I know you're going to be bouncing around with age seven eighteen and anything that we can do to sanely keep the current RVs and CVs levels and not the twenty twenty ones in front and center is something that's going to save all of our constituents and our neighbors some real money. Towards that end, and I think Duncan touched on this, protecting ourselves also against some of the nutty stuff that's going on at the federal level, having H 600 be something that happens, that essentially adopts the federal energy standard that exists today as a state will help us further roll back in moving us in the long direction as a nation and as a state. So all that having been said, this year, our energy committee is going to be focusing on a tremendous amount of its efforts on savings for last mile folks. And this ties into s two nineteen. I don't know that there's a companion bill yet. It's the energy navigators.

[Unidentified/Mixed (multiple speakers on this channel)]: Oh, we do have it in here.

[Unidentified Huntington Energy Committee member]: I don't know what the number of that is.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Neither do I, but it's over there.

[Unidentified Huntington Energy Committee member]: Huntington is basically going to up slum what's been done in Addison County before and not wait for anything to happen. Because of a pilot project that we started about seven years ago, working with individual homeowners who are typically burdened and income challenged and lower income and working with them one on one as trusted neighbors. Personally have been involved in that program with several households, and some of the obstacles are not the technical ones or bureaucratic ones that you'd expect. They're issues of pride and not wanting to to to be a part of some social welfare system that is a is a much harder animal to overcome, especially for multigenerational families. And the ones that I work with for the most part are, you know, seven to 20 generations with names at road names after their family names who weren't taking a handout from anybody. And it took a friend and a neighbor, somebody they grow bread with, to be in a room and to help walk them through how they were helping their state and how they were helping their community by reducing the likelihood that they would get ill in a drafty home, that they would be in a comfortable environment as they age. So I I think that that's something that I'd like to see pushed as much as humanly possible. Thank you.

[Unidentified/Mixed (multiple speakers on this channel)]: Thank you. So do we have one? Two folks left. We have two folks left. Okay. Yeah. On we go.

[Roland Davis (Shelburne Energy Committee)]: I'm be very, very brief. I'm Roland Davis. I'm from Caledonia. I'm a member of the Climate Energy Committee there. Will be pretty, I I think what I will say is thank you for your work for what you do what you do help us in community move things on the ground as far as we can. Biggest Our focus in Shelburne is working with the municipality to make sure their capital projects are lined up. We were able to raise our hand when they were about three place, 12 rooftop units with a in kind gas. We said, you know, let's look, let's make it hybrid hybrid type heat pumps. And, that's the way we went. We got some financial support from Vermont Gas, Green Wound Power, efficiency per month I think in that project. So that was a major success story. The other thing is working with the community on thermal building, heating and so forth. It's at the biggest hardest nut to crack in here, so we have a heat pump workshop, we're having a weatherization workshop, we do window dressers. Mostly just thank you for what you do, keep it up.

[Unidentified/Mixed (multiple speakers on this channel)]: Thank you.

[Catherine Crawley (Chair, Stowe Energy Committee)]: Good morning, everyone. My name is Catherine Crawley. I am from the town of Stowe, and I am chair of the energy committee in the town of Stowe. We're a seven member appointed board by the select board. So I will be brief too because I know we're running out of time. But I just wanna mention a couple of things that we've been working on that relate to some of the bills that you are looking at and things that would be helpful to our work. And so a large part of our work in 2025 was revising our town plan, the energy chapter of our town plan, which is an enhanced energy chapter, which gives us more standing for the PVC in certain situations. To undertake this work, we worked with the Lamoille County Planning Commission. We worked with Snow Electric, great partners to help us do that work. One of the things that would have helped us tremendously happens with h seven forty, and that's getting that granular data to we need the metrics. We need the measurements to make our policies make sense. So knowing the types and amounts of feeding and transportation fossil fuel usage would be helpful to make those policies in our plan. The other one too that is relevant to your committee, think you're taking it up next, which is h seven sixteen, the net metering rate increase on residential rooftop solar is something we're looking at on historic buildings. And so it's critical to making solar affordable to more families, Vermont families. So it would be really great to have that that rate freeze on net net metering. So we support that. And I'll just close by saying Duncan mentioned that Washington County was number one with the climate related federal disaster declarations, and the Long County was number three. So we're quite familiar with the weather carnage, and we expect more to happen soon because we're getting ready to go into an El Nino weather pattern. So it's gonna be another hot phase. So appreciate so much that all that you're doing to support our work in our community. Reps Sibilia?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Just very briefly, I want to in a in a state that has no county government, and you're always or I am always thinking about capacity particularly in our rural towns as well as the energy transition. Thank

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: you. Thank you all. Thanks so much to all of you for being here. Hope you're having a great day in the steakhouse. And let's take I don't wanna run out of time for our upcoming discussions,

[Unidentified/Mixed (multiple speakers on this channel)]: but we do have we

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: need two minutes of flex. So let's go on fly. Take a three minute break.