Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We're live. Alrighty. Welcome everybody to House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. It's Thursday, February 19, and we're here to talk a little bit about the Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction Committee. So I'm representative Kathleen James from Manchester.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: Richard Bailey, Lamoille two. Chris Morrow, Windham, Windsor, Bennington. Michael Southworth, Caledonia two. Christopher Howland, Rutland Four.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Dara Torre, Washington two. Bram Kleppner, Chittenden 13, Burlington.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Laura Sibilia, Unit 2. Great. And in the room.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Jeremy Perry in a classroom group.

[Isabel Walker (Intern)]: Isabel Walker, I'm interning for a Southern White degree.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Scott Moore, drive coach and walk.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Super. Alright. And perfect timing. Scott Campbell.

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

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

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Representative Scott Campbell from Saint Charles Bram.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Super. Alright. So just to bring folks up to speed, I think I've mentioned this to everybody or have tried to anyway. So we have talked in the committee a little bit about an idea of getting a task force together or some kind of body that would have time in the in the summer and fall to take a look at some of the more complicated, thorny issues around the future of Vermont's energy, where we put things, whether we put things, what we put and when. And so I had pitched to folks this kind of vague idea I had about a task force that would have members of the legislature, members from the Scott administration, citizen advocates. And my own concern about that was that task force costs money, they need appropriation, and it takes a little bit of political will to get one up and running. Laura Paltz, alleged counsel, pointed out to me the existence of the Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction Committee. And I thought I'd bring that to all of us for discussion because it exists. So, Ellen, over to you.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Ellen Czakowski, Office of Legislative Counsel. So yes, today I am going to tell you about the Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction Committee. I did a little research project on it. Thank you. Posted under my name today on your website is the statute that we'll be talking about, which is 2VSA Chapter 17. It is a very short statute that says the whole chapter is about this committee. So I'm gonna start though with the history. So I brought this prop.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Props are allowed in committee.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't. This is from the legislative council, Vermont Law Library. It is the stat it was it's all the the laws that were passed in 1978. And so I brought it because this committee was created in 1978. Wow. However, it was at that time known as the Joint Energy Committee. It remained called the Joint Energy Committee until 2019. So it existed for forty years as the Joint Energy Committee. It initially was set up with four members from the House and four members from the Senate. The statute is pretty close to the same as it was in 1978. There have been very few tweaks made. You will see if you look at the PDF I have of the statute, the second section, six zero two, was repealed, but that language was actually just moved up really into six zero one. Six zero one set out that there was this committee made up of eight legislators, that there would be a chair and a vice chair, and that they would alternate biennially between a house member being the chair and a senate member being the chair. And then there was this language in six zero two that just said that they shall conduct their business after they've been appointed, they shall keep minutes, the Office of Legislative Council shall be their staff, and that they get per diems when they're meeting outside of session. That is mostly what the statute still says. What has changed slightly is what the duties or the functions of the committee was. And so when it passed in 1978, there was no House or Senate Committee on energy specifically. And so the role of this joint committee was, both during session and off session to monitor the energy landscape in Vermont, the Northeast, and The United States as a whole, and be a resource to the rest of the General Assembly on energy issues that may come up. As I said, very few changes have been made since then until they were Oh, so another small change. In 2009, they removed the requirement that they annually provide a report to the General Assembly on what they had been doing. So for a while they were required to report back to the whole body of what they had been working on, but that was repealed.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So easy. Yes. Do July. Yeah.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so Reports. Okay, for a while the committee was fairly active. When I started here in 2017, I did work with the committee. That is the last time I found that they met was in 11/06/2017, and they were looking a lot at what what should be done with the Volkswagen Mitigation Trust

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh, wow. Okay,

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: yes. But prior to that, they also had a few other different types of projects they were looking at. So they would take testimony on, they took, I I found testimony on transportation issues, on energy efficiency issues. So, and I think that probably is in part at least because there wasn't necessarily a house committee specific to energy. And so, after that point, this committee has done work as well as the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy. So, in 2019, there was an amendment to this committee changing its name to the Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction Committee. It also changed the membership of the committee and its duties. So, I am gonna read you through the statute now as it reads, because there haven't been any changes since then, and I haven't found that they have met since it changed in 2019.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I have a question before you go on. I am wondering, and we might have people in the room who know, if the kind of the cessation of this committee coincides in any way with the energy technology committee in the house, which has come and gone a little bit.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I don't think so.

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

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: was on it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: You guys were on it. Right? Yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: In 2019, yes. But it but it had existed. I think the prior was when it started.

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

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I am trying to recall specifically, the change in 2019 to the name and the duties was in one of the miscellaneous energy bills, I suspect that there was a thought that because there is now a dedicated committee to energy that there doesn't need to be an oversight body that also does that, but perhaps, and I think around that time there was a lot of in 2019, looking at different climate change programs. This was before the Global Warming Solutions Act. Right. So I think, I think that is what was going on. Okay. And I think there was an idea about how this committee was going to be used, but I don't actually think it ever has happened. Okay. So, pretty quickly, two BSA 06/2001, the creation of the committee, Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction Committee, whose membership shall be appointed each biannual session of the General Assembly. Committee shall consist of five representatives with the following committees as memberships. So it's Committee on Appropriations, Commerce and Economic Development, on Environment, and on Transportation to be appointed by the Speaker and five members from the Senate. Again, Committee on Appropriations, Finance, Natural Resources and Energy, and on Transportation to be appointed by the committee on committees. Prior to 2019, it had just said four members from the House, four members from the Senate, with at least, one member from each major political party. So, it had not prescribed which Subsection B, they shall elect the chair and vice chair, and as I said, rotate biennially between House and Senate members of who is the chair. They may meet during the session at the call of the chair and with approval of the speaker and the pro tem, with their permission, and they can meet up to five times during adjournment. A majority of the members shall constitute a quorum. So, just want to point out, this was another change that was made in 2019. So prior, it did say that they were allowed to meet all year round. And so this is a small distinction, but it says now that this committee can only meet during the legislative session with permission, so therefore it is supposed to be mostly a summer fall committee, and that they're allowed to meet up to five times during adjournment. Okay. Sorry. I have another question. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: So do I.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Has to have permission No. To meet during this session? No?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't. I don't know. Mm-mm. I don't

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: think so. Okay. That was my question. Your question?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I think the language in there right now about appointments excludes independence. Is that right?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't It's not in there right now. Independents, I don't think, are considered a major political party.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yes. So if we were

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to move forward, I would wanna make sure that, of course,

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: unaffiliated members could also be.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Where does it say in there now? It is politically done. Who's reading from that? Okay. The the political party is not in there now. So it it would not an independent would not be constrained from being on there now. Right? Right. Okay. Because, yeah, that's that's important. Obviously, that major that it not be confined to just major parties.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay? Subsection c, the Office of Legislative Council and Office of Legislative Operations. Do not believe the Office of Legislative Operations still exists, so this will need to be changed. Shall provide legal, professional, administrative support to the committee. For attendance at a meeting when General Assembly is not in session, members from the committee shall be entitled to the same per diem compensation and expenses. Expense reimbursement is provided to members of a standing committee pursuant to section 23. So, flag here. So, every year there is a technical corrections bill that the Office of Legislative Council puts together and you all pass fixing tiny technical issues and bills. This section is actually currently in the SEER Technical Correction Bill because it references the Office of Legislative Operations, which does not exist anymore. And above, there is reference to the committee on environment. And I think well, I think you may want it to be this committee. And so, I think what I put in there was actually the Committee on Energy and Digital Infrastructure. Every time the names of committee changes, our office does go through and try to amend To find all those? Yes. So, we can take care of that. If you're interested in amending the statute, we can either take it out of the technical corrections bill or leave it. We can discuss how you wanna handle that. Okay. And then now for the sort of important part here. So, section six zero three are the duties of the committee. So the Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction Committee shall provide oversight when the General Assembly is not in session of state policies and activities concerning and affecting carbon emissions in Vermont's electric, residential and commercial buildings and transportation sectors.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And oversight there being similar to to JITOC. I like, JITOC isn't introducing bills, passing bills. I remember once we once they were given authority to approve and allocate like, to approve a previously appropriated expenditure during the off session or whatever. But so this would be similar to that. Right? This this committee wouldn't be voting on bills.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's just Joint committees generally do not have authority to do bills. Bills have to be in one body or the other. Joint committees don't function that way. So no, they wouldn't have authority So that that's pretty much it. The list of duties when it was enacted in 1978 was slightly longer, but again, it was looking it was about different energy issues. And I suspect strongly that this this was enacted before the Global Warming Solutions Act was enacted, before the Climate Council was created. And so I do think there was an interest to have legislators working on emissions reduction or looking at different emission policies before another entity was created to do that.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Are you on a do you have a sec to to stay? I was gonna see if Scott wanted to quickly talk about the money, and then maybe Scott could I don't know if he would hurry.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: I have another meeting tomorrow at noon. Plenty of time, R. Dara Torre.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Well then, Scott, do you mind coming up quickly? Because I had also asked Scott and JFO whether we would need an appropriation.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: I'm

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'm here. She's gonna come back.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: So there are only there are five committee members, but only four committees specified. But it it would we still wanna keep somebody from environmental and all and make it five out of five committees on the house by adding energy and not have any per se at large?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It does say at least from each of those committees. You have whatever you can change it to stat, whatever.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Right. You can. But

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Let's let's come back to that. And let I wanted Scott to have a chance to talk about the money, then we'll get it all back up.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Sure. Let me just let me share my screen real quick just to have it defined as we start talking. For the record, Scott Moore, legislative finance manager for the joint fiscal office. As part of my duty, I take care of making sure I do the legislative budget. So I'm in charge of all the expenses and salaries, and I'm sure you've seen my name at least once a week when you go get your expenses approved. So you'll see an email from me saying I approve your expenses. So part of my role is to look at the budget and figure out what the expenses could be for the next fiscal year. Mention I'll talk about first how we calculate the expenses and what the expenses might be for this particular group just to have that role. So as Ellen had mentioned, when we look at well, we point out this slide too. Joint fiscal office is nonpartisan. We're here to just give advice. We're not partisan or political. Disclaimer, make sure you all realize that this is not meant to make any calls for recommendation. This is just letting you guys know open numbers and fees. Because Allen did talk to to BSA section 23. This is what that is. And this just basically says the expenses that you're entitled to for things that are off session, basically. You can find it online. I went online and grabbed the snips so you can see it. And basically the daily compensation that you'd be entitled to at the rate we have currently and actual mileage, lodging costs, and then other actual expenses being reasonable, necessary, something like that. Doesn't happen that much, but occasionally, we had one meeting that was I think it was up in Canaan, but it didn't have as much broadband. So we had put in the expense to pay for getting a hotspot on a on sugar that you should actually have a meeting. So that's where that might come from. Most of the time, though, it's miles of meals. So here are the rates that I go by. So you all make a certain amount each week, divide that by $5.189 for the twenty twenty six rates. The mileage comes from the GSA and current mileage is 0.725 reimbursement mileage. And we look at all the different meetings that happened last year, year before, so forth and so on. And the round trip typically is about 120 miles on average. Now I come to Essex every day, so for me it's only 72 miles, but I know Senator Brock comes from way up north, but he drives even more every single day. So the average is 120 mile round trip. Then the average cost per meal, this is again a GSA rate. Sometimes people put in for breakfast, sometimes in all day long meetings, have breakfast, lunch, dinner. Sometimes they don't have any meals at all. So this is a little bit of an art, little bit of a science. We look at, I used to be a damages expert for securities litigation and we always look at past performance is no guarantee of future results. So past expenses is no guarantee of future expenses. So this is where the higher income statement can be averages. So how do we calculate this? What we do is we look at the total number of legislators for any particular committee, task force, working group, study committee, multiply that for the legislators by the $189 per day. We look at that times the number of meetings. Then we look at mileage and the $87 is the average mileage of 120 times 0.725. And then the total number of lifts, there's well planned number of meetings, well planned by 23, and 23 is the meals. Then we added another factor of 0.754 miles of meals because oftentimes people can zoom in. So we've seen the average attendance in person for some of these things happens to be about 75% and then 25% of the time people will zoom in. So if you're gonna zoom in, you don't have miles or meals. So that's the basis of how we calculate hemi study committee. I looked and the total number committees that qualified over the last summer, I think was 87, something like that. Have to go back and double check. And then the number of committees that unique committees that people I did put in for last session, between the session on January was 52. So a lot of these are in fact, people are asking for expenses. Not everyone does. There are some legislators that say, I know I'm entitled to this. I don't want it. Don't bother giving me that particular per diem. But you're perfectly fine. You're entitled to do that. I'm not gonna force giving the money. I mentioned earlier I'm in charge of paying the bills and if I don't have to pay the bills, I'm just as soon happy not to pay the bill or not have a bill to pay, I should say. So that in mind, looking at the current statute for this committee with 10 total legislators in five meetings, I came up with about $13,500 give or take for the cost of this committee if we had 10 members that came for up to five meetings. Should that change and go down to only six members and up into 10 meetings, the numbers would change. We have a calculator at the Joint Fiscal Office where we plug it in and if you want, gonna stop sharing this and this should be on your page. If anybody's interested, I could do math in public, which we never try to do, but I have a calculator up and ready that we could actually look at. So if we wanted to see what the total costs might be, I'm happy to do that.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Was the number you came up with again?

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: $13.05. 13.5. Yeah. And that's an estimate. I don't know, not everybody's gonna put in for a meal, 13.576 to be the second. We changed that to only eight meetings and three legislators. Changed over some person.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: you said that seems that everybody's attending in person, right? Putting in their mileage?

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Well, doesn't include that 75 factor, 75%.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Oh, right. Does include that. Yeah. Okay.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: So we talk about Any questions on that before I go on to the budget, the money in the budget? Mm-mm. When we look at how we budget, the short answer is yes, there's money we budget for these things. Can we know there are 80 to 100 different meetings that are or communities that are potentially gonna meet. So that's the short answer. The long answer is it's one big bucket. And so the more that we do for these different things, sometimes if it's a brand new work study committee, we're going to have to add appropriations. This particular one has it as a joint committee as well as, for instance, the joint legislative management committee. Those that we already build into the the base budget when we do the budget. If it's a brand new committee where we're gonna say, I don't know, I'm trying to think of something energy might do if you all wanted to do the study of nuclear fission in the ocean committee or something like that, I don't know. That would be brand new and you would have to think about what would the corporation be if it's not going to fall into the joint carbon study. In that case, the same thing. Dollars 189 per day, per legislator, per meeting, and plus mileage you need. So that could vary. So short answer, yes, I build in money. Long answer, I don't want to spend it because taxpayer money, but there is some money built into the budget for these things because we know for instance, the E board's always going to meet, JLMC is always going to meet, ALCAR is always going to meet. So we know there are some meetings that are going to happen all the time in modern work. Any questions about how we get to where we got?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I don't think so. Anybody have questions? Money questions because I definitely have questions for As

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: long as you all put your expenses in every Friday, you're good in my book.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Awesome. Bad problems.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. Do folks have questions about the the money part of it? So that it's this is sloshing around in the base budget.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah. There's there's money in there that would go toward this. We wouldn't have to appropriate specific money for this particular committee, but I would estimate 13.5 the way it is currently built. That could change depending upon if you change the membership and the number of new things.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Did you have your hand up for me? Okay. Wonderful. Alright. Thank you so much for being here. Do have questions for Ellen and other folks.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: I'm happy to hear you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. That'd super. Thank you. Okay. So I I have no issues.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So can can I ask Scott a question first? Mhmm. So I think in how it's freezes, like, it's, per diem for up to five meetings during a during a period of time. That means so that they could meet more and just not get paid.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: If it's during the session they could meet, they wouldn't get a special per diem that would be considered part of their salary today. Right. So if they had a meeting this afternoon, they can pay for this week.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But off session, if we had language like that, like, I'm not sure if they're gonna wanna set a number of meetings off session and where the per diems qualify.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yep. It's the the off session per diems is that that $189 per per legislative per meeting.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so I do think I have had instances where committees need to finish something, but they've used all their meetings and then yeah. You do try to Zoom or something because that money has been accounted for, but you're allowed to still meet if you have work to do. So it's just a small clarification.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Without without

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Without getting the per diems. Right. Yeah. Okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alrighty. So I have a bunch of questions, and I'm sure other folks do too. Would it be helpful or because I did not take time to do this ahead of time. Do we try to bring consistency to how joint committees are set up and structured? Like, should we look at JITOC, for example, and be like, okay, JITOC is this?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Or does that not really matter? Consistency is good, but the joint committees that exist are all very different. Okay. So LCAR is very different than JLMC and JITAC. Okay. And so usually these are for, like, very special specific purposes, and so I don't think they necessarily have to. But you can look at other statutes to see how they've done things. You know, like, one example is, like, the prior statute did say, like, four members from the house with at least one political party, but it now says, you know, five members and it lists the specific committees. You have options if you wanna look to other statutes on how they do it. You can. You don't have to. Okay. And then

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: if we had this be okay. And then it would be up to us if if we wanna change change the statute in any way we want. So we could tinker with the list of represented committees. We could tinker with the numbers appointed by. Okay. And then okay. So then my question is so say we the committee decides we think this would be a useful committee, we wanna, like, jump start it. So we would we do a committee bill, bring this to the floor, try to push it on through the senate, and have it be effective on passage. Okay. Because the goal would be I I see that new members are appointed every biennium. Obviously, the goal would be or at least in my mind, the goal is that we get members appointed in their meeting this coming summer and fall. So we could do effective on passage. Wouldn't have to be, like, effective July 1 or whatever. Okay.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then And you could also include in session law the directive to the appointing bodies to make appointments by a certain day.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Ah. Yes. Okay. Because I I noticed there are two people on this committee. Yes. And not sure how that happened. Okay. But there are two people already on there. Yeah. And that's it. So, alrighty. And then if we want to direct their work over this coming summer and fall, is that session law? Because what they wanted to do every year may change. Right? So we may not want to change the underlying statute, but we might want to put in session law that this is what we want you to work on this summer and fall, and we want to report from you due December 15 or something. So that would

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: be session law, not changing the statute. Well, so what I would suggest is that if we would look first at what's in six zero three on the duties. Okay. If what is there is broad enough to cover what you're gonna ask them to do, then you don't necessarily need to amend it. You can amend it if you'd like to be specific or make sure that what you're gonna ask them to do is covered. And then, I I do think you would wanna do a session law provision of like, this is a one time project that the this committee is going to work on. Here's the due date for the report. I I assume you're gonna want a report or something. Definitely. And so you're gonna want to have a provision that specifies what is it they're doing. Do you wanna specify how many times do they meet? Do you wanna specify who they hear from? Do you wanna specify the due date of a report? So, yeah, I think a session law provision here would be good if this is a if this is, like, a one time thing they're gonna do.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. And we would then wanna make sure that we're dovetailing a specific a specific topic or whatever that is in session law while trying to keep the the statutory duties broad enough so that we don't have to amend the statute every year. Okay. Those are my questions. Do folks have questions for Ellen?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Have a question about where technical updates to the statute would be made. Would that be something that we do in this committee, or is that is that something that's handled elsewhere?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, so if this section is in the technical corrections bill that that gov ops has, but if you wanna make if you're going to work on a bill based on this, can just do that in whatever bill you have. Alright.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. So we would have our own bill. Yeah. And then would that have to go to gov ops? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Obviously, would give them a heads up, but I'm

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just Yeah. You would put that if depending on the timing of this, you may there may need to be a floor amendment to remove that section. That's it. Okay.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: From GovOps as well. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Was just thinking of if if our committee is interested in doing this, obviously we need to move up for crossover. So what do folks think? Because we we can get this scheduled. I I don't really think we need to take have witnesses. I I think it's this is just committee conversation type stuff. And we could certainly make time for it. I know I'd love to. I think we should do it. But I wanna make sure everybody's on board because we're gonna need to, you know, make time for it.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: And what is the specific charge this committee would have this summer?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, that's what we have to talk about. But one of the things that I think is, you know I mean, I'm interested in citing, s I t I n g. And, you know, I wanna make sure, like, I started making a list of things that I think it would be really useful to have an oversight committee reporting on. And quickly, I was like, oh my god. I've lost. You know, I've lost I've made it too big. So I think we would really wanna think about that. But, you know, I know there's a lot of interest in this committee on the future of nuclear power. We had had a bill on the wall about whether we should have a study committee that would look at siting in Vermont. So, I don't want I'm

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: to surface the fact that there's a lot of interest in this committee and across the legislature about what do we do about what's the future of nuclear power and SMRs? What's the timeline on those? Would we ever want one here? Yes. No. What are the benefits? What are the hurdles? To me, that

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: would

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: be important. I'm solar sighting. I you know, wind? I don't know. Yeah. But I'm interested in sighting. Yeah. Rick Southworth.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: Yeah. I think that we ought to somehow figure out how to put in there just looking at Vermont's energy future as a whole, including biomass, nuclear, including solar, including wind, including whatever else is out there that we're not thinking of?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I I think that's a really good idea, and that's where I started also. I got worried about the scope of the work, so I I would just wanna think that through as a group. Like, I don't have a set. We would just need to make sure that our charge to them is not like, do do a report on the future of energy in Vermont by December 15. I I think we would need to be more focused. Like, procure like, where we bought you know, where we buy it maybe. Or I I don't know the answer, but I think that's a really important point.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, another thing that we talked about is relation to age seven sixteen and how complicated it is to try to tweak this or that, element of, of, net metering, and how we sort of of get into batteries and all of that. That's another big topic that maybe we could ask the Joint Committee to look at it. Maybe the role of the Joint Committee is to resolve these things, but to get nuclear and net metering, sort of the future of net metering, get those those things, do some testimony that we haven't had time to do and and get those things and make some recommendation for legislation for the next next session. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I definitely had in mind that they would do recommendations if they recommendations would be the most useful. My if you know, I've only been on one of these committees for one summer. So all I have is this past summer's worth of. And we met, like, maybe six times all day meetings, and it went so fast, and we didn't even have to write a report. So that's that's my only, like, caution about this is that I think we should be really thoughtful. If we want good work delivered to us in December, I think we need to deliver a very clear and concrete Yes. Assignment because the JITOC time went like that. There was there were no report or recommendations. It was more like oversight. So we had all these hearings about, let's learn about this. Let's hear about this. It was more it was more bringing people in to be like, hey. We're we're still on this. And even that just flew by like mists in the wind, and we didn't even have to try to allow time for other other summer committees I've been on, two full meetings were dedicated just to reviewing the report, talking about the report, revising the report, voting on the report, drafting the report. So we're gonna have to that's the one thing we really need to think about so that this is not just a a waste of time.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: Who's already on the committee?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Representative and representative. So I don't know. I'm a former member. Scott's a former member. So I don't know what It's

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: true It's Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. They've it's you know, the other the other beauty, I think, of of actually trying to pass a committee bill is that in my mind, it it definitely plays our our hand. Right? It isn't just knocking on on the the door of house and senate leadership and saying, hey. We've got this committee. Can you please appoint people? Like, this is teeth, you know, saying, hey. We're energy and digital infrastructure. And

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: Like, who gets to appoint leadership committee?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: The speaker appoints and the

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: Committee on committees.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And the committee on committee appoints.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: I think we heard we can require them to appoint by a certain date. Isn't that what Ellen said?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Uh-huh. Yes. So Which I thought was useful.

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

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I have something to add. Yeah. So I do want to just flag that I'm curious more specificity on the topic you're going to be interested in giving this committee. I do want to just remind you that the state comprehensive energy plan does exist. It is produced by the Department of Public Service, but it is produced every six years and it covers the twenty year period. It is a future looking plan about the energy in the state and where they think it is going. And it does include recommendations about necessary actions, regulations, legislation. And so you may wanna consider hearing from them and what they already do as part of their report so that you're not duplicating efforts. That's things they're already working on.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That could be a really good idea because their next plan is due '20 it it might

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: be 2028. Yeah. That'd be good.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Lost train of thought. And I'll

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just say, as part of that, they do an extensive, at least eighteen month ramp up in drafting that report. So they take a lot of input and do a lot of research. And so that is a huge report. You could potentially be more narrow given that your time scale is shorter.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: So what about working that in as they're tasked with reviewing that report, their recommendations, and then coming back

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: with Recommendations on their they

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: feel is appropriate.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. I think syncing syncing it up could be really important. Are you saying take their most recent recommendations and make recommendations on those recommendations?

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: Committee would take the report, dissect them, look at their recommendations, supporting or not supporting or having more questions and getting more facts that they

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: can put through to us.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That could be really doable because we've got their report, that's a very specific starting point. Thanks for reminding me that. You flagged that for me earlier, totally forgot. So, we take their recommendations, and the charge is basically like, hey. We're not gonna have an update on this until 2020 when? '8?

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Think 2028

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

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: next one.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Until 2028? Why don't you guys take the summer and fall and see what can happen in the next biennium? Because that that's the gap year. That's those are the gap two years, '27 and '28. That could be that could be really great. And that would that could help solve my concern about not sending this committee just spinning off into the cosmos.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: Right. It gives them a clear path

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. And what they have to give up.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So should we get is the next step then sounds like okay. First of all, are people are interested in trying to move this before crossover?

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. First, you wanna just remind me on because it's joint, like you've gotten buy in from your senate counterpart? I have talked to Senator Watson. I have not talked to Senator Baruth, but I've talked to the speaker about this probably eight times at this point. I just wanted to make sure we weren't going to the office on Don and the Libby thing. Okay. So I think we need to hear the testimony from the department then. Well, did we already go over no. We didn't

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we took testimony on the. Yeah. I'm just I'm looking right now.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I think Last year. Yeah.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It was at last year? Okay. I'm looking quickly to see. I thought I wasn't sure if you got a presentation from TJ at the beginning of

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: this year. Last year.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. The comprehensive energy plan, what their recommendation that it were. Mhmm.

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: So Yeah.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I have a question for representative Southworth, So do you do you understand this, maybe, too, to be a charge, which sounds good to me, but that would have the committee be able to think about nuclear, biomass, and wind, the future of those in the state?

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: We look at energy for the state.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: So So that's your understanding of what this charge would

[Scott Moore (Legislative Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Okay. And, Helen, do you think that that is what that charge would do?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We left out solar. Well, and you haven't put any words on the page yet. And so I think you can so those are all topics that are covered in the last comprehensive energy plan. Nuclear? Yeah. Nuclear's in there. Nuclear's easy. I mean and when you have me draft the the the charge, we you can be as specific as you'd

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: like. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Well, was interesting. Alrighty. So, if folks don't have questions right now, I would like to take a break before our 02:00.