Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Kathleen James]: We're live. All right. Welcome everybody to House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. It is Tuesday, February 24, And we are taking testimony on our committee bill, 20 six-seven-eighty one, an act relating to miscellaneous public utility subjects. And we are here today to hear from Peter Walk of Efficiency Vermont and then as the afternoon goes on we're going get more feedback on this draft bill in hopes of wrapping up testimony so that we can vote it out. And then we're continuing to work on our data center bill in hopes that we'll vote that out. So I'm representative Kathleen James from Manchester.

[R. Scott Campbell]: Scott Campbell, Saint Johnsbury. This is Morrow, Windham, Windsor, Bennington. Michael Southworth, Caledonia, Sydney. Chris Howland, Robbie on the floor.

[Bram Kleppner]: Sam Kleppner, sitting in 13 Burlington.

[Laura Sibilia]: Laura Sibilia,

[Bram Kleppner]: my name is

[Kathleen James]: Great. And in the room?

[Peter Walke]: Back coder of Meadowville.

[R. Scott Campbell]: Great. Jonathan Wolfe from our pipe on behalf of Electric. Super.

[Peter Walke]: Dana Lee Perry from the Craftsman Group. Great. Richard Bailey from a little while too.

[Kathleen James]: Awesome. Alright. For the record.

[Peter Walke]: For the record, I'm Peter Walkman, an interim director of Efficiency Vermont. I am trying to get into the Zoom, but that's mostly because I was logged into a different account before, and I'm trying to figure that out. But I will get on there.

[Kathleen James]: Actually, that's okay. We have a I just noticed that repertory is here too. Dara, I know you are feeling unwell and didn't wanna turn your camera on, but we see you, and thanks for joining us.

[Dara Torre]: Thank you.

[Kathleen James]: Yeah. Feel better.

[Peter Walke]: Join just so I can share my testimony with you. I'll just walk through it all. So thank you for having me and madam chair and members of committee. Specifically, you asked me to come in and talk about your work in the in the draft committee bill around Energy Digestive Modernization Act and the continuation of that work on behalf of Burlington Electric Department, which we are very supportive of Burlington continuing to do that. I did listen to your testimony. There was some question about should we is there an equitable issue that we needed to address about expanding that statewide? I'm happy to provide a little bit of the history of our interaction with the Energy Efficiency Modernization Act programs. There's been two iterations of it. It was a three year pilot in 2020, and we are in the second three year pilot ending at the end of this year. Efficiency Vermont has primarily run two programs through that process. One was dealer support in the electric vehicle space, helping with training, equipment, charging infrastructure at at the dealers across the state who are interested, essentially an extension of our contractor support network. Right? Thinking of them as another purveyor of high efficient equipment. So Gotcha. Work closely with the dealers in in Matt Kota's network, to to get them, ready for, anything that they need. Because as Matt will tell you, they you know, the OEMs put the, you know, the hoards and Chevys of the world, put the requirements on the dealers, and the dealers have to supply the equipment, and it's expensive. And and so any support we can give them helps move that market forward. But with where the market is right now in terms of, federal tax credits going away, state incentives drying up, the utility tier three incentives are kind of the only game in town right now. So the market is a little quieter than it was. And so we are not pursuing that program for the next three year performance period. The second program that we ran was called the Low Income Fuel Switch program, which is a great collaboration with the WAPs, with the DUs, and with us. What happened is you got weather you know, you're a low income Vermonter who had your home weatherized via one of the WAPs. You're then handed off to us to have a heat pump installed free of charge. If you needed a panel upgrade, that happened. Any sort of fixes along the way, and the DU supported that through their tier three incentives. So we split that effort over the course of time. That has been very effective, and we're gonna keep that program going using traditional regulated funding sources. So we did not feel it was necessary to continue the energy efficiency modernization act program. We're certainly supportive of BED doing that. I think the fact that you've created sort of a separate piece of Green Book Law or are down going down that path is the right approach. So it's clear to everybody that it's EDD specific. But we have we were given the opportunity in the last extension to both pursue another three year extension if we wanted to, but also to propose it as an alternative analysis as part of our demand resources plan. We chose not to, and we have been communicating that to stakeholders, all of last summer and fall. And so this sort of just kinda submit this testimony system at the fact that while it had it was been a great program and something that we've been happy with, where the market has gone, we're gonna keep one program and move away from the other and feel pretty good about where we're going.

[Laura Sibilia]: Is your hand up or It was not. My hand was up.

[Peter Walke]: It was up.

[Kathleen James]: I thought we both knocked at the same time. I have a question about the about the this journey. So there was three year pilot, and then it was renewed for another three years. Yes. And you guys participated in both of those rounds, I guess I'll say.

[Peter Walke]: Yes, we did.

[Kathleen James]: And my question was, the Low Income Fuel Switch and the EV Dealership Network program, were those two programs kind of the brainchild of the original legislation? No. Or this program, this pilot program was created and you guys received

[R. Scott Campbell]: a lot

[Kathleen James]: of money and it said, what do you guys wanna do with it? Come up with some creative ideas?

[Peter Walke]: It was a carve out of the existing energy efficiency charge dollars to be used for Oh, that's things that primarily had a greenhouse gas benefit associated with them.

[Laura Sibilia]: That's right.

[Peter Walke]: It was a way to sort of test different options that were out there. There were a fair number of strings attached to it, so it wasn't, you know, the easiest program to administer. But we're really happy with the outcome of the low income fuel switch program and think it's a really good one to get going. And as the EV market kind of changes and comes back over time, I think there's opportunities there. But for now, we don't see a major need for efficiency Vermont's involvement in that process. And as a reminder, VIC, our parent company, does run the Drive Electric Vermont program on behalf of the state. And so our we are doing a fair amount of promotion and other things and education around electric vehicles that's separate from this program.

[Kathleen James]: Okay. Back to where you were. Sorry about that.

[R. Scott Campbell]: Oh, you were we didn't miss something. You weren't Okay. I just wanna add more about about using you're gonna be using EEC money then instead to support the fuel switch portion of this. Is that

[Peter Walke]: I think we're gonna use a combination of EEC and TPF dollars Okay. To make that work. Depending on how works, I can provide some more information for you. But, yeah, we we believe we can do that. The the thing about the program is it's very expensive on an individual unit basis. And so as reminder, you all have asked us to be overall net cost effective at delivering energy efficiency. Every dollar we spend that is sort of underwater in that way, need to make up from a a very efficient investment elsewhere. And that's possible and important that we do that, but it is more expensive than other programs that we run.

[R. Scott Campbell]: So how are you budgeting for for that program? Is it a certain number of units that you're budgeting?

[Peter Walke]: Yeah. We we sort of assess what the what the total budget is and then try to kinda back into what the calculation is. We've yeah. We have five years worth of data now to look at in terms of, you know, what's the average cost per install, how many of them need panel upgrades Right. This and the other thing along the way. And so that's very useful to have that information at hand so that we can better

[R. Scott Campbell]: Yeah. What I'm really getting at is is is what's the availability around around the state for people to access this room? This would be people who are getting service from the weatherization program. Yep.

[Peter Walke]: Yep. So it's it's it's exactly the pipeline we've all talked about wanting to create. Right? Mhmm. Weather nation Yep. Fuel switching, you know, future proofing for other electric investments in the future. Right. Right. So it's a great program, and, you know, and if we had unlimited you know, if there were unlimited resources out there, I think we could do a lot of good work, but, you know, we balance those things to make sure that we're providing net positive economic activity to the state.

[R. Scott Campbell]: Yeah. Well, also, it's a matter of of of of of many people are willing to to do that. Mhmm. And what is it? How's this? Are gonna sort of incorporate for it. Yep. But I get that you're trying to get a sense of how that's distributed around the state. How many how many in

[Peter Walke]: the Northeast can come from? So so we so the there were a lot of geographic distribution requirements associated with the EMAS. So and DU coordination requirements. And, essentially, in many ways, we were beholden to the DUs in terms of what they had in terms of their tier three budget to invest.

[R. Scott Campbell]: I

[Peter Walke]: see. And so if we very much balanced the geographic equity component and the DU territory equity component Yeah. It's been pretty complicated to run-in many ways, but it's important as we're trying to get more and more to folks who are all over the state.

[R. Scott Campbell]: Could you share some of that information about that program and what you're anticipating? I'm happy

[Peter Walke]: to do that. I don't, you know, it's probably, but yeah, let me, let me, let me send you something on it because probably not relevant to the purpose. For the purposes of the bill, I think you're doing the right thing by creating a carve out for BEV and we're supportive of that, and we're happy not to be in here asking for an extension of the program Right. As it stands now.

[R. Scott Campbell]: Yep. Yeah. It's a side issue for Yeah.

[Peter Walke]: No. It's a great I'm happy to provide more detail, and we've got all that. I can tell you where it's all been and, you know, who's where the installations have been by town and by the territory and what I've talked to. Thank you. That's that's no problem. Madam chair, I would if if you wouldn't mind, I have some comment a couple of comments on other bills you are working on.

[Kathleen James]: Yeah. I thought that was

[Peter Walke]: going mind?

[Kathleen James]: No. I

[Peter Walke]: think that's Time for

[R. Scott Campbell]: it. We're we're in time for

[Peter Walke]: it. Yeah. So there are three other bills that I just would like to flag. In my testimony, I did provide some some information on the the data center bill. One of the things that we noticed that was missing, and I I will apologize. I'm not sure if we match this up with the comments from the public service department or not, but I can go back and double check on that. Nowhere in there has mentioned the idea of, creating energy efficient data centers.

[R. Scott Campbell]: And

[Peter Walke]: though we if we can get them in on the front end, then everybody saves a lot of money in the process, and we don't have to have as much power going into it. Seems like a no brainer. Huge part of the load is cooling. And so how do we make that as efficient as possible? So requirement to come in to one of the the relevant energy efficiency utilities seems appropriate to me.

[Laura Sibilia]: Are you envisioning this in the intent

[Peter Walke]: language, or have you offered language? We've offered language in in the testimony that I submitted. There's some language in the equivalent, you know, appropriate sections. What I do need to go back through and summarize them in Sibilia and double check that it, as you mentioned, aligns with where the public service department's comments were so that we can I can make sure that they're to go in the right place? But, essentially, it's a one two two things. One, a simple requirement that they that the, you know, creator of one of these data centers comes in and works through the appropriate energy efficiency opportunities with their appropriate energy efficiency authority, whether that's BEV or Us or if it's a entirely thermal matter in VGS's territory than than VGS. And then the second piece was, you know

[Kathleen James]: I just wanted to clarify, just so you know, I think you know, but the the version of the bill that we posted with comments from DPS, those are just suggestion. That's not like the latest draft in Yeah. Okay. So important to look at, but those are just suggestions from DPS that we're taking a look at.

[Peter Walke]: Yeah. I think it's was to my question, it was more around, like, if if you were following along in that building, numbering might be challenging. And so I just wanna make sure if because I saw a lot of strike throughs in there, and so I can I'm happy to work with a member to make sure it's in the right spot. The second piece is you've created several different programs for Vermont businesses to manage their own energy efficiency dollars. We're not sure that's appropriate for a new data center that comes in. Right? The energy savings account program or, you know, the Smeep program that that some folks are in doesn't feel to me appropriate for a data center that's gonna come in and use a significant amount of electricity. We would recommend that you exclude them from participation in that program, those programs.

[Laura Sibilia]: Do you have a question? I have a question. I do. Yeah. Oh, does that make these? So if we were to look at a gold foundries model Mhmm. You are We are saying

[Peter Walke]: We are saying that we don't think that's appropriate. That GlobalFoundries model Well, the GlobalFoundries is, like, a is the, like, Cadillac of this model, but there are similar models in the energy savings account program and the customer credit program that you made up to dates to, I believe, last year that allow for a businesses in Vermont to maintain control over a certain portion of their energy efficiency charge dollars.

[Laura Sibilia]: You wanna have profit, which is what you said before.

[Peter Walke]: I I think it I think it, you know, makes sense since these you know, we don't you know, these aren't businesses that are necessarily going to be in Vermont forever. Like, you know, this is the, you know, the GlobalFoundries, the, you know, the some many of the ski areas, things like that business that have had a long history in Vermont, are part of those programs, and that seems appropriate. But I'm not sure a data center that, you know, is gonna add significant load and has a shelf life is the appropriate

[Laura Sibilia]: So let me just make sure. I think, actually, those other participants, we are supporting their kind of self trans transformation, participation in the energy transformation. And, I think what I'm hearing is that should not be necessary if they work with us on the front end.

[Peter Walke]: Essentially, yes.

[Laura Sibilia]: So

[Kathleen James]: then sorry. Go ahead.

[Laura Sibilia]: So then they work with you on the front end, and they've got they work with you on the front end. We figure out the power, purchasing agreements, and the emissions, all of that. They would still pay pay the charge.

[Peter Walke]: K. As as everyone else does, as major energy users in the state, would pay the charge. Yes.

[Laura Sibilia]: I just wanted to roll it through and make sure I have that.

[Kathleen James]: Okay. And I needed to roll it back because you guys started at a level of talking about these programs, and I don't know what these programs are.

[Peter Walke]: So I

[Kathleen James]: should have gone first.

[Laura Sibilia]: Sorry. There are

[Kathleen James]: I'll I'll interrupt more handily in the There So what are we talking about?

[Peter Walke]: There are three programs that the legislature has authorized over the course of time to allow Vermont businesses to retain control over the investments of their energy efficiency charge dollars. There's the self managed energy efficiency program, which is the SMEET, which is the kind of the global foundries model, which is much more full control of of all of it similar to how they're now a utility. Right?

[Kathleen James]: So I'm sorry. So they pay the efficiency the efficiency charge, and then they retain those dollars, and they have to invest them in energy efficiency projects themselves. So it's, like, kind of like a circular thing. It's, like, here's what you would be paying. You will not have to pay that, but you have to invest that much in your

[Peter Walke]: own Effectively. And and there

[Kathleen James]: get that right?

[Peter Walke]: Yep. And there are two other types of programs, the energy savings account program, which is somewhere you get to keep 75% of your overall energy efficiency charge, but you still get support from efficiency Vermont or BD or wherever you are to be able to do the engineering work for your project. And then there's the customer credit program, which is 90% of the EC, and there are some distinctions there. But

[Kathleen James]: Those are for big

[Peter Walke]: They're the for the largest energy using businesses in the state to have the opportunity to enroll in those. And I would say it's a mixed bag of whether they decide to or not. Many of them prefer to work with us on a more detailed basis because they may not have that expertise in house. Mhmm. But so the so there's different ways to look at it. Our our This is a recommendation. You can take it or leave it, but it doesn't seem to me that as we're worried about the energy use coming online of these large data centers, that having them pay into the energy efficiency charge, which supports everybody's bill ultimately being lower through investment in efficiency from the board seems more appropriate than creating carve outs for them to invest themselves.

[Kathleen James]: And just back to these programs for one sec. So for the for the big count like ski resorts or or whatever, if they opt to do that, who has oversight over how they spend their dollars to make sure that it's being properly invested?

[Peter Walke]: The the UC and the public service department still have the same sort of oversight, and they're required to submit plans and

[R. Scott Campbell]: Showing what they've done. Exactly.

[Kathleen James]: Okay. Thanks. I'm back up to speed. So

[Peter Walke]: there is there is oversight of it, but it's it it you know, there's an equity question, frankly, in my mind of letting solely the large energy users be able to reinvest their dollars directly. That's one piece. Those would be our comments on the data center bill.

[R. Scott Campbell]: Can I put one more question on this? Yes. Are there limits? Sorry. These other programs are self managed, energy efficiency program, the energy savings account program, and customer credit. Are there limits which does on businesses can can participate and how many businesses can participate? Yes. Right. There are.

[Peter Walke]: So I I I can send you the section of statute that that details that, but it's, you know, has to be a user of us above a certain level, and there's a cap on how many people can yeah. And how much monetary value can participate in that over

[R. Scott Campbell]: the course of time. Okay. Great.

[Peter Walke]: So so that's so then there are two other bills that you're working on that I just wanted to quickly flag. The one is the appliance standard bill that is looking to sort of make sure that the federal standards that Vermont's been relying upon for the last several years remain in effect. It's a you know, it's a lot of a date extension. We are generally agnostic. I'll say that, you know, one thing I want us all to be careful, these aren't news new standards. But as you're thinking about potentially new standards at some point in the future, we run into issues sometimes on the back end of people actually being able to comply with those new standards and kinda leaving them hanging and expecting that transition's gonna magically happen when it doesn't always. I'll give the example of of fluorescent light bulbs. In 2020, you all banned fluorescent light bulbs because of they contain mercury, and there was a desire to move away from those. That is an appropriate action on one level, but it left a lot of people with four foot fluorescent light bulbs holding the bag because that meant incentives went away because you raised the bar for code, and therefore we couldn't help them get into LEDs. And so the transition, it would have been better if we thought about the transition period and process more directly so that we could have helped people move faster in the direction away from those bulbs rather than be left with them and not being able to easily afford the transitions to. So I'm sorry. I didn't understand why the legislature's action prevented your supporting people in moving to hardwood LEDs. So once we have a new either a blind standard or a ban on the use of a less efficient technology, the whatever is the replacement becomes the new standard. And so we can't incentivize anybody to move to a standard that's already, you know, to a baseline that's already the baseline. And so we can't we couldn't provide we're we're phasing out the incentives for for light bulbs as we speak now because of that ban because they They raise the floor. You can only incentivize moving better than the standard. Yep. Got it. So it is it's an unintended consequence of these such things. This bill does not do that. Just would be remiss if I didn't take the opportunity to flag that as you're thinking about it to think about the transition for other pieces. And then the final one I'm gonna just chat quickly about was, representative Campbell, your code enforcement bill. Very supportive of code enforcement. I would love to see the state do that work as we've talked about many times. I don't think I have questions about whether municipalities are able to take that on, but I have more of a concern of the funding source because those are that that is the limited funding that is supporting Vermont's thermal work. And so as we think about the RGGI funding and the poor capacity market funding, which is what feeds efficiency Vermont, the MEDs, thermal programs, we need you know, that that funding is very limited, and there are a lot of draws on it. You know, you've heard there's an article in Digger just the other day about heat pumps and the challenges with getting them to work as effectively as possible. We are working on a transition to a whole home heat pump program, but that's gonna be a draw on resources. Right? And those are the same funds that those things would come from. All of the moderate income and market rate weatherization programs, same pot of funding. So we just we yeah. I I understand that it is a penny pinching year in this building. I'm simply not supportive of the use of those funds for for that purpose. And I think this is a a state activity that the state should take on, and has the expertise and knowledge to be able to do it. So I I would encourage you to continue down that path. But so those are the I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to go field a bit. But given that I haven't been with you all very much this year, I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity.

[R. Scott Campbell]: Just to react to your last point about using some reggie and some money for supporting folks' clients. First of all, for context, as I understand, there's something in excess of $8,000,000 accumulated in the from the RGGI revenues in the last three years that have not that were not expected. And and and that's that's a great thing to have a a pot of money to put towards weatherization for the next three years and through efficiency from my gas and Brinton Electric. The bill in question, h seven eighteen, does seek to use about 5% of that money, $400,000 within the bills, support creating more market incentives for builders and and designers to learn learn more about access existing training opportunities, learn more about co compliance for the purposes of minimizing the nature of retrofit buildings that they're building now in the future, and really, ultimately, to understand the dynamics that are involved when you're when you're insulating and air sealing the building better than than in the past. So that that's the nexus, I've read, as I've explained before, between using that money for support weatherization after the fact for existing buildings and, in effect, using the money to support weatherization before the fact so that we're building buildings that don't need to be very, good in ten years or something. Again, to put that in context. Very

[Peter Walke]: supportive of the overall effort to increase the level of code compliance. However you get there, think carrots and sticks are needed in that regard. But given the and you, you know, mentioned the the additional RGGI revenues, I will say this that, you know, sort of we we, along with public service department, kinda combined on a forecast that was very conservative in nature for the first few years of couple years of reggie prices going up significantly intentionally so that we could make sure that it was real Yep. And then develop the forecast. So we have near complete agreement over how to spend continue to spend those resources. So when so there may be a a perception of a kitty somewhere, but that's part of the next three year plan for all that all to be spent. Yep. And direct agreement between the administration and efficiency fund over over the doll the, like, the total of that funding. We're working out

[R. Scott Campbell]: the details. It's always Understandable. Just wanted to Thanks for counterargument as well.

[Peter Walke]: Yep. Without further ado, I can leave you to the rest of your business. Great.

[Kathleen James]: Thank you so much for being here, Peter. Appreciate And our next testimony is not until two. So maybe we could take a minute and talk about this week's agenda and cross over. So thanks so much. Direct your walk.

[Peter Walke]: Thanks, Richard. Thank you all.

[Kathleen James]: So, Dara, are you still here?

[Dara Torre]: Yes, I am.

[Kathleen James]: Okay, great. We've got a minute, so I thought we could take a few minutes and talk about this week's agenda crossover, etcetera, etcetera. This is different from our experience last year because we've got a lot of bills that we've been taking a lot of testimony on and they're all kind of circling the runway and we don't have a whole lot of time left. So, just to remind folks, I know everybody knows this, but crossover is Friday, March 13 for policy committees. So that is the last day for our committee to vote out any of our bills that we want to, you know, meet the official crossover deadline. So, the bills that are kind of queued up for between now and March 13, so that's this week. And then we have town break, town meeting break obviously. And then we come back and we have that one week after we get back. So this committee bill, I feel like we're getting pretty close to a wrap. And we're trying to make sure we had talked last week about who all do we need to hear from and what testimony do we need to take before we can get this ready to vote out. So I took notes on everybody we needed to hear from and tried to get that scheduled basically for, like, today and tomorrow. And so this is scheduled for a vote on Thursday morning. And just to go back over, last time we talked, We wanted to hear from from DPS, and they're coming in this afternoon. We wanted to hear from Efficiency Vermont, and we just did. We wanted written testimony from Vermont Gas and I wrote to them and requested that and that's in our inboxes and or posted. Some folks wanted to hear from RPCs And so we put out that request. And we have Janet Hurley coming in from the Land Use Review Board. And then we have the RPCs two RPCs coming in tomorrow morning. And then just to be really thorough, I wrote to the to, and I asked them if they would please write us a letter asking to be disbanded. And they did. And did I send that to the full committee yet? Okay. Remote. So I will. That's the poor board that's been trying to disband since 2021 and hasn't met. But instead of taking everybody else's word for it, I thought that we should perhaps hear directly from them. So if I didn't forward that, I will. They wrote to us, and they want they wanna be disbanded. So that's the committee bill, And that vote is scheduled for Thursday morning. So that's bill number one. Data centers, seven twenty seven. We're also trying to bring that down to the runway. So based on all the testimony we've taken and testimony requests from the committee and from the bill sponsor, R. Sibilia. We have a national expert on data centers and water use, right? Testifying this week. We wanted to hear from the land use review board and they're coming in. And just a little note on that, we'll hear this directly from Janet, but Janet's gonna come in and talk a little bit about she's gonna provide feedback on the bill as introduced. And then they are also taking a look at some of DPS's suggestions. Because I think it's important we have a lot of comments and ideas from DPS. And I wanna make sure that we don't take a bunch of testimony from everybody, then change parts of the bill based on some ideas from DPS and then have to get everybody back in. So Janet's aware of the DPS ideas. She has talked with TJ. She's going bring this to her board. So we're going to be hearing from her again, I think later this week on this bill. And then we have some of the environmental advocates coming in. TJ's coming in to talk about DPS' suggestions. Is that who? Presumably, then we would have So, select a but that's it for testing for you, right? Yeah. Okay. So we're trying to wrap up all the testimony. Oh, and we have another water the Lake Champlain Committee, a water protection advocate coming in later this week too. So the idea is to wrap up testimony this week, get everybody looking at all the different versions, then that would give rep Sibilia some time over town meeting break to get us a draft for us that we can look at when we get back. Okay. So and if so that is bill number two. So that vote will be after we get back, but that's another one that I definitely feel like we can get done before crossover. Seven forty greenhouse gas. That is we've taken all the foundational testimony we need. We have some written testimony coming in. I sent a letter to the committee today from Suburban Propane. That's posted. And I have been working with the agency of natural resources to make sure that they are supportive of the language. Because I think it's really important that ANR be on board with the language that we're proposing. So, I should have it draft ready to post tomorrow, I hope. And I'll send that out to the committee. We'll get it posted. And I have not scheduled that vote yet. I didn't know how long the second draft was gonna take. It's not that different from from the first draft.

[Laura Sibilia]: You have a vote scheduled on

[R. Scott Campbell]: Thursday for seven point eight.

[Kathleen James]: And that vote is scheduled on Thursday. So that's bill number three. Bill number four. Alright, that was three. Okay. The Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction Committee. I think we walked through that. I think that we agreed as a committee that I think that I think the idea here, and I can't remember if we had this conversation with Ellen in our committee discussion. I think we did. Was that we probably do wanna, as a committee, revise the statutory language to update it, get ourselves on there, for example. Maybe have a talk about whether we have the right amount of members, talk about the number of meetings. So I think we talked about updating that statute as sort of permanent ongoing language and then maybe having a session law provision if we're interested in being like a little bit more directive about what we might want the committee to work on over this summer and fall with some kind of report due back in December. I talked to I checked in with director about this yesterday because we were curious about how this work would intersect, support, clash, fit with the ongoing work of the Department of Comprehensive Energy Plan. And he is going to talk to us about that. Tomorrow. No, when, yes, tomorrow. So, when he's coming in at 02:00 tomorrow to talk about the comprehensive energy plan, he's gonna go over some of their key recommendations, and he he now has the heads up that we're curious about how this might fit or not fit with this idea we're kicking around. I sent him the link so he could look at the Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction Committee. I told him about the session law idea, and we talked a little bit about what the capacity of that committee would be, like if there's six meetings, how we are probably gonna have to be really focused about giving them one you know, a a doable thing to do. So TJ is coming in to talk about that. And then I think I scheduled, yeah, I scheduled a discussion of that at 02:00 on Thursday, and that could be when we really mark up the bill and try to hammer this out. That's bill number four. Then we have net metering, h seven six p. And as promised, I know rep Morrow was working on an amended draft. And we scheduled a final round of testimony based on everybody's suggestions about who we would need to hear from on draft two. So, Chris, do have an update on that?

[Christopher Morrow]: Ellen got me that this morning.

[Christopher Morrow]: I forwarded it to Alex. And, yeah, and it's just what we talked about in the last session.

[Kathleen James]: Okay.

[Christopher Morrow]: Took out the the negative adjuster and added language on things that you see might should consider.

[Kathleen James]: K.

[Christopher Morrow]: They do their next round of adjustings. Left the the behind the meter as was and added a little battery storage combined with solar junk. Okay. So it's three elements.

[Kathleen James]: Okay. Do you want, is it ready to send send around and all that, or is it not quite signed off?

[Christopher Morrow]: You know, I think it's she considers. There's one statutory language question, but I think in terms of

[Kathleen James]: Getting it out there?

[Christopher Morrow]: Getting it out there and understanding what it is, it's fine.

[Kathleen James]: Okay. So, Alex, you can post that and send it to the committee. I just didn't wanna jump the gun, Chris.

[Christopher Morrow]: Yeah. I shouldn't be. K.

[Peter Walke]: Where where will that be posted?

[R. Scott Campbell]: On our

[Kathleen James]: Our website. Uh-huh. In in the eight seven sixteen folder, and Alex will probably just send it to the whole committee. Disconnects. 753. Dara, I know you have also been diligently working to try to get this kind of streamlined and pulled together. And what do you think?

[Dara Torre]: Yeah. I think that I could use I have a couple more people to get some feedback from. If there's still a little opening on Friday for, witness time, there's I

[Kathleen James]: left Friday open, until we could have this conversation.

[Dara Torre]: Perfect. Okay.

[Kathleen James]: Friday afternoon could be last testimony on bills and maybe even another vote. I don't know.

[Dara Torre]: Okay. Well, that'd be great because there there's a couple witnesses that hearing from the department and the PUC. And then I would depending on that, how that goes, I would proceed with a new draft over the break as well.

[Kathleen James]: Great. So can you send the suggested witnesses to me and Alex?

[Peter Walke]: Be.

[Kathleen James]: Most of can come in Friday afternoon? Yep. Okay. 67, residential energy code. So a couple things. On 07/18, this bill has an interesting journey ahead of it. So house general and housing wants to do a flyby, and they have time this Thursday and Friday. So that means we don't vote it out. They don't take possession. What they need from us is basically final language. You know, not like, oh, we're still working on this and that and this and that and this and that, but like something very close to what we think we're gonna be voting on. And how that works is, and we've also never done one of these before, so how that works is that Scott will have a draft. We should probably find time to show that to the committee first. Because you said it's not much different from the one you walked through. Right.

[R. Scott Campbell]: I think there might be a couple of weeks. One is to take out the general fund appropriation since since there is money in there from the regional greenhouse gas initiative revenues despite Christmas Eve Vermont's not being supportive of that is the legislature's responsibility to to appropriate money. One other one other minor quirk, I think, will be in how the $200,000 dedicated to or allocated to office professional regulation, how that's described. Right now it seems to imply that OPR has to set up a website and they don't want to be required to do that. So the intention was to have it go to support the task forces to get the website, to decide where it have it happen to get the website approved. So I'll try to come up with some clarifying language on that.

[Kathleen James]: Okay. So when do you think we could have just a quick walk through as committee before we send it off?

[Peter Walke]: Well,

[R. Scott Campbell]: I guess ideally Wednesday if there's time or

[Kathleen James]: How long do you think Doctor. Rutland? Well, thirty minutes. Could you do it at 01:30 tomorrow?

[R. Scott Campbell]: Sure. Say yes.

[Kathleen James]: Okay. So how this works, the guys, is that Scott will show us, you know, what he has, and then, we don't move. We he'll go over and he'll he'll basically walk it across the hall and, walk house general through it, and then they'll take a look at it, and they'll probably they'll get back to us with either this looks great or did you think about this or, you know, we recommend this. And then we take that under consideration and, Scott would have over break to work on a draft. And then that bill has to go to probes also. And then I would like to to mention that h seven forty, the greenhouse gas bill, that also has to go to probes. So when we voted out here, its next stop would not be the floor. It would go to probes, to meet its funding fate, whatever that may be. And, you know, sometimes the probes will strip out the money and vote on it and send it to the floor, or sometimes it will just hang there. So we don't really know. But that is definitely the next critical stop for that bill. So that is a lot, and we're just gonna have to keep cracking on. Alright. So if you I guess if you guys have any questions about that, catch me anytime. But that is that's what we're trying to do. And can go off guard if oh, yeah. R. Sibilia. Well,

[Laura Sibilia]: Next, when we come back after town meeting break, what are the floor times?

[Kathleen James]: I think it's moving to one. I moved to one on the week of the seventeenth. So not So Oh, good. After. Great. It's not moving one. That's good. And you know that that week after town meeting break, we've not had to do this as a committee, but we very well might have to we might have to have some long days and do, you know, do a Voto Rama or something. So I would just be ready that week to we'll, you know, keep on we'll stay in touch about the agenda, but we might start early one morning or we might go late or, you know, come back after four or whatever it is we need to do to make sure that all of these bills come to their natural conclusion.