Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I am interested in wind. So, those are things that I'm interested in. I may be interested in things that other people are. I know this was originally well, that's it. So I'm I'm flexible, but those are things that I'm interested in. If all of those things are not in there, doesn't mean I wouldn't vote for it. But Right.

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: That's what

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I'm interested in.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Bram, what do you think?

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: I think I agree with the rep's child support. Just the narrower the mandate, the more likely we are to get something actionable and useful. If we give the if we if we provision this committee to figure out any one of those three, figure out nuclear or Vermont, figure out wind, figure out biomass, any one of them, I think we would get something useful. All three of I mean, those are sort of the three controversial ones.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: No. Solar sighting is

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

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

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: with that said, I'll just lay all my cards out is citing. Energy citing in Vermont is where I ended up with my thoughts over the last week. And that's where I was. It's just citing Because that seems to be the highest controversial thing that we're dealing with is sighting in solar. We've had discussions within here that have, you know, been controversial. Nuclear, that's controversial. Biomass, controversial. So if we narrow it to citing homeless, is that the best avenue for health? That's interesting. It's broad in terms of types of energy, but just that first step, how do we figure out where we build this stuff, whatever it is?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: There's gonna be lots of room in Morrow over Morrow. So

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I was trying to go last. Sighting is where I landed. It's so I think you and I have been on the same path here.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That is still incredibly broad. But I I would I I wouldn't personally be okay with just picking one of those and having them do just the one. I I think if we say the sighting of generation facilities in Vermont, we've pointed them down a very clear path. And I still think that we need to know that their first report could be higher level. We but but we would be reinvigorating this committee not just for a one time study. But, you know, once they once it gets appointed and they do work all summer that would probably be pretty high profile work, people would have a lot of interest in It's the committee is not gonna arrive in January and then disband. You you know? So we would be we would be setting up. We could say we want you to work on sighting. And we could know that the you know, even if they meet six times, they could come back with a really detailed recommendation or it could just be like, here are next steps. I I would be okay. I would be okay with that. I think unless we pick a very, very small topic, which then will be so small that it's gonna leave out things we really care about, it's not like we're gonna get draft legislation.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I won't interrupt you. I'm sorry.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. And I wasn't gonna interrupt either, but I I've been thinking a lot about citing as well.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: And sorry. So let's say the mandate is make recommendations relative to each citing, and I presume that doesn't mean those specific addresses and parcel numbers that need

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: they tell us how we

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: should go about Mhmm. This. Mhmm. And it's the thought that that then lead to legislation or rule making. Legislation. That then leads to legislation.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. So that it would be session long for sure. Like, I I I do strongly believe if we're gonna do anything, we need to leave the duties really high level so that they live on beyond whatever conversations we have about sighting and they can turn to new topics, you know, to buy any of down the road or something. But in session law, which is just for right now in December, you know, we want to see a report on, you know, with recommended action steps on-site. They probably would not get as far as draft legislation.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: That's Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: It's too much But to hope then, but then all these committees would receive the report and you would hope that committee members would be like, okay, we've got this. This is our bill. This is our committee. We've got this. We've watched all their testimony all summer long. We've got their report. Let's develop a draft bill.

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

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: it seems to me this is the Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction Committee and so there there the the focus of the committee sort of you know general is how do we achieve our emissions reductions right and we have a lot of we have a lot of guidance in statute in session law around around around site and our rule is around around site for solar. Wind is off the table at the moment. Maybe shouldn't be. And biomass is its own world. I guess I'm I'm it

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: seems to

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: me that the crux of the biscuit here is is nuclear, and how do we how do we handle nuclear? And that seems like a fruitful exploration. Although, I hope we have time to do something for that task or cross it by ourselves. So I'm I'm I'm wondering if that would be an appropriate focus for the committee. And it might and it might and I don't know if we have to do anything as far as the bill except perhaps to clean up the language of the statute. And and and maybe it's just a matter of a letter. And if that's the case, then we maybe it's a matter of a letter after we do whatever time whatever expiration we have time for this coming weeks after crossover.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I see your hand, but I wanna reflect on that, and then then I'll call on you because I will say I've thought from the beginning that that's our best path is to clean up this statute and just bring this to the floor with nothing attached to it. And just say we're fixing up this committee and then we can take testimony after crossover. We've got plenty of time and we're already planning on taking testimony on the future of nuclear power. I am very interested in continuing our conversations around solar siding. And we could really, we could give ourselves some time to develop a thoughtful letter, and it won't the letter won't be ignored.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. So I I just want to say that the name of this committee and what we are talking about in terms of, electric energy, I I just wanna make sure that I say that greenhouse gas emissions reduction, electricity is not our problem. And so I just wanna make sure that we pick a lane here. So if we're keeping the name of that, that's fine, but I think we should be specific about what the outcome is. So I am not interested in focusing a lot of energy on reducing emissions from the electric sector because we've done that. And, that's not where we have emissions problems. So, if that is if we're leaving that name, think it's important to be

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: careful. That's a very good point.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's a really important point. Yeah. The emissions are not coming from our electric sector. However, we were adding to the due we were considering adding to the duties and concerning the future of energy in Vermont. We could add to the duties and concerning the future of energy generation and psyching in Vermont, and then we have really pointed a direction. Yeah. I'd like to actually be very specific about

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: not looking to make I mean, it is so egregious. Emissions are heat and transportation. Are not electricity. That is not where our problem is. Right. And so I would actually have a problem if that's what we were spending time on. So I just like to

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: So, Rick, you didn't

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Are we suggest do you think that we

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I think we should I think the name of the committee, if we are not specific about what we want to have as an outcome. So I'm suggesting we be very specific about what we want. It's matter the committee.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And how do you feel about under duties adding and concerning the future energy generation inciting of Vermont? That adds a whole another official duty.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: But that's around the electric, which is not really where they missed right there.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Right. This is carbon emissions from our Vermont's electric residential and commercial buildings and transportation sectors. So, I mean, I would I would strike electric and so but that's actually what we wanna talk about. Think it's electric. So

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: To the extent that we're migrating from ice to electric vehicles, we are

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Say ice? Internal combustion engines. Sorry.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Now that does affect the carbon, the transportation sector, obviously. Or and same would be said for heating pumps. Right? So they're they are intertwined.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yes. They're very much intertwined, but, you know, we have a regulatory framework to reduce emissions in our electric sector that is being worked vigorously. Correct. We do not in our heated transportation, which is where most of our emissions come from. So that's

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: and

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I think we're talking about electricity here. I think that is our focus, but I

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: could be wrong. It it

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: and maybe it's citing, which is also that's great. I'm just saying if the name continues and the charge says emissions reduction, electricity, that's problematic. I would strike it, or I would change the name.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Can we do that? I don't even know if we can make

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: do whatever we want.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We can change the name of the committee?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: How would that affect funding? Yes.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I mean, you're striking the no. It's an existing committee.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Okay. I mean, it's just

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And the funding isn't, I remember Scott saying, it's not specific to this. They just kept like a bucket.

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

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: to be the Joint Energy Committee. It was renamed to this.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, maybe we rename it back.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Yeah. So just Alright.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I guess we can

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: do whatever. Joint Energy Committee.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Where would Like, very actually, that we it was the Joint Energy Committee when there when there weren't energy centers. Right? When there weren't standing committees, there were energy committees. That goes back to, what, 1978 or something.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And we can Well, the

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: name is same, but I again, my my point is we should be very specific about what

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: we're doing here because It's it's a bit hard to crack this. How do we how do we do with unregulated rules?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And that's not, I think, what we are suggesting this committee give to you, of us. Although, I'm happy to have that happen, but I don't think that's what we're talking about.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, that's not what it's yes. We're talking about generation. It's not it's all electric and everything. But if your point about where the emissions are in thermal and transportation is absolutely correct, and it's all on regulated fuels. So maybe that's a hard nut to crack, maybe that that would ask the community to

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Why don't we tell them something. It joint carbon emissions reduction and energy oversight committee. There you go.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: That's good to me. Are we are we gonna are gonna we fix the clean heat standard in there?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, you know, we're we're gonna we're we're gonna let them let them tell us what they what their recommendation is. It's a good thing you're writing pencils. I know.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Yes. Do you know what you're doing when you drop in those pencils? What

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: did I say?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Carbon emissions reduction and energy oversight. You know, with the thought of having an energy oversight committee is not a bad one because it's kinda bifurcating on the senate side.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: My plea is for specificity and being very specific about what we want as an. So I know

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: you keep saying that, but then it Then you need to also weigh in on specific suggestions I'm making to fix that.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Oh, I can be flexible. I mean, I'm I can be flexible on what we're talking about, but I don't I mean, if the committee wants to talk about emissions reduction in transportation and housing, I mean, that's great. I don't think that's what the I don't think that's what we're looking at here.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: If I just add, my hope is if we look at siding, my hope would be that that would make it easier to build clean energy projects. Okay. That you know, similar to building housing. We say, if you're building in this area, then you don't need to go through whatever whatever regulations we can do to reduce the regulatory burden on people trying to say, like, if Tier two? If you're gonna build nuclear, you wanna build it here. Whatever. Would also say that to the extent we make it easier to add generation in Vermont, we do address transportation in Vermont by making electricity more affordable and letting the market do its thing. Now if we can generate enough, we will put the price will go down enough, and it'll make more and more, you know, more and more economic sense to switch to electricity. It's Like in Texas. I would love to believe that.

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

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: are working against us.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: They are.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: What do you guys think about the calling it the Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction and Energy Oversight Committee? Just like a huge legislative mouthful. I mean, we'll have an acronym for it quickly, but you're correct.

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: That may be our great first. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Good idea. Alright. So I I guess my my proposal would be to amend the statute, keep the bill clean, take testimony over crossover and send a letter about what we actually think this committee should do. When we've had a chance to really take testimony, think about it, narrow it down.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: What would the energy oversight It function

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: would be to provide oversight when the general assembly is not in session of state policies and activities concerning and affecting carbon emissions from Vermont's electric, residential, and commercial buildings and transportation sectors, and to provide oversight concerning the future of energy generation and siting in Vermont. Get it drafted and see how it looks on paper. Gives everybody a little bit of time to think.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Can you know that you haven't spoken to have any past?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I like my research.

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: I don't do we wanna make it more clear about the future citing of perhaps nuclear fuel, nuclear generation.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, I think they'll go in our letter.

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: But not in not in the statue of the Right.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'm I'm recommending that we keep I think a letter is a better approach because I think we're going have a lot

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: more time to think about it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We can take testimonies, you know. May be able to get more and more and more specific. We've hardly taken any test, we haven't really taken any testimony on the future of nuclear power at all. We've gone walked through the statutes. I mean, I I feel like I'm flying blind a little bit on writing a thoughtful letter when we haven't taken testimony, and that that was always the post crossover plan. So a letter

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: would be after crossover and that sort of just in a direction of the standing committee to become active?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah, I think yeah. We'd write a letter to to the speaker and the pro tem or maybe just the speaker. I can't remember. I I think we could send it to both of And just say, you know, we we took a look at two VSAs, six zero one and six zero three. We think this committee really has value. We passed a bill. Know, I mean, bill, by the time we write the letter, the bill will be in the Senate or maybe it will pass. You know, we passed the bill to update the statute and make sure that this committee is relevant to how things have changed since it was first passed. And having taken further testimony after crossover, we would recommend that in its summer and fall meetings, the committee really take a hard look at x, y, and z. And we'd like to see a report due to the such and such committees on December 15 with and then we could say what we want, like, specific action steps for the legislature to take or something. So

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: you're saying a bill this week? Yeah. Yeah. We

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: have to do this part this week.

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Yes. Okay. Alright. Okay. Okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Or we just say we're okay with the statute and write the letter anyway, but I don't think

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: I think we wanna do a bill.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. So the the bill this week would just be to update the the statutory language. That's it. And I can't imagine that would be a big hoo on the floor. I don't know. And then and then after crossover, when the spills over, hopefully getting passed by the senate, we can you know, before we adjourn for the year, send a a thoughtful, pretty directive letter to the speaker and pro tem saying, you know, we hope you will appoint members and here's what we think they should do. And we can't make them do that any more than we can make any committee do anything, but I think it would be taken with great weight.

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: And

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: we can really give it some thought. But

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I'll have Ellen draft it with those final we'll change the name of the committee. That's fine. And we'll add the not just the future of energy. It'll be inner energy generation and siding in Vermont. And so they'll really have two broad areas of oversight. It'll be emissions reduction from not only the electric, but all the all the areas that really are of concern, the unregulated areas.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: that's about the other two.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: You have it. Look into good sites for data centers.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I am I am really I don't know if I could say it strongly enough, disinterested in spending any time focusing on reducing emissions in the electric sector. We have done so much work there. Yeah. Paying study committees to do work on that.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: That's that's

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: yeah. Why just to pose a hypothetical. Yeah. Why would any standing committee Mhmm. Made up of members of the legislature who serve on these committees Mhmm. Especially with, you know, one of us in the room Mhmm. Waste six summer and fall meetings. Why would they even do that? You know? It's a massive waste of time. If I had

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: an answer to that question when it gets asked on a regular basis, you know, I would I would not be here. Stranger things have happened, madam chair.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, you know, I I don't think we should strike electric from the duties of the committee. I mean, are you reading this? Or yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I mean, it's electric generation that we're looking at.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: So I would say, and affecting carbon emissions from Vermont's residential and commercial buildings and noncision of state policies and activities concerning electric generation and also affecting carbon emissions from residential and commercial buildings and transportation sectors. Maybe pretty Yeah. Like, maybe we'll put it in before we are talking about emissions reduction.

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: As a whole, do we think that we will gain from this? I keep going back to that one. Will we gain from this?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, if we don't do it, we definitely won't. Well

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: And it heard the conversation about, you know, members from committees going in there and just like, whatever. Are we gonna gain from it? I hate doing About something that

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: the problem we're trying to solve. So what is the problem that we're trying to solve? Right. Right. That you and I

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: are trying to solve different problems. I bet you were trying to solve

[Bram Kleppner (Member)]: a couple of different problems at the same time.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Problem I'm trying to solve. Yeah. Exciting. But also the fact that these issues touch so many different committees, and we don't have an oversight committee, and no work happens in the summer and fall. So, I guess I'm interested in

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: the structural problem. So, you

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: know, we've got an IT committee working all summer and fall providing oversight because that touches so many committees. And it just feels like this is a really urgent and will be an increasingly important issue for Vermont. We don't have a single oversight committee working across the House and Senate and across all our committees and across their committees to the do conversation just stops. So this continues to work over the you know, enhance something off to the next biennium, and the better a letter we write, the better report we'll get. It might be a bit hit or miss. I mean, we'll certainly get our best shot. Alright. Well, I'll get it drafted, and then we'll go from there. Okay. I think that we can oh, wait. Let's look to tomorrow. Alright. So we voted out a bill. Tomorrow at 09:00 in the morning, we're talking about our committee bill. Then we're gonna have a discussion of the data center bill.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: We we have ledge counsel. We

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: hope so. Alex, were you able to invite ledge counsel to our committee discussion on either of those bills tomorrow?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: We discussed 07/27, but I'm not not sure. I can

[Dara Torre (Clerk)]: check-in with them.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. If they're free, it's always great to have ledge council attend when we do a committee discussion. Okay. And then in the afternoon, we have pretty much every key stakeholder coming in to give us feedback on the latest draft of the data center bay. We added oh, no, she's on here. Yeah. So it I mean and that's gonna be fairly brief. Everybody's got, you know, fifteen minutes, basically. These folks have all seen the bill. And then after that, our agenda gets a little more vague. Okay. Alright. We can go offline.