Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: We're alive.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: Yeah. Don't fall out.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: know. Somebody touches me now. Push you out. That's what you have to say. We're Notice delivered.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: Oh, wow.

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: Like, if someone asks you to move, wants to go replay lives.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh, sorry. We're live. We're live. Thank you, representative Southworth. Welcome. Welcome to House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. It's Wednesday, March 11 at 01:00. And we are getting feedback today from key stakeholders on H seven twenty seven, which is our data center bill. I'm representative Kathleen James from the Bennington 4 District.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I'm Scott Campbell from Saint John Barry. Chris Morrow, Midland Windsor Bennington. Michael Southworth, Caledonia two. Christopher

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Howland, Rutland four.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Laura Sibilia, Windham two. Alright. And joining us in the room.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: T. J. Poor, Public Service Department.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Sharon Weisel, the knowledge and power. Brooke Finkelstein, Land Use Review Board. Great. So just to bring everybody up to speed, we've been working on this bill for quite some time. We've taken a significant amount of testimony over town meeting break. R. Sibilia is the lead bill sponsor, worked very closely with key stakeholders on the latest draft to make sure that we are advancing a bill that makes sense to everybody. So we do have a something closing approaching a final draft. We do have our friends in the environment committee taking a drive by, and they may be sending us some opinions on the bill, and we're gonna vote it out on Friday, period. So we've got a line of witnesses. Do y'all just wanna go in the order of Yes. Listed? Okay. Great. So Ben and Joey, I don't know if you're

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: I actually have sent you an updated witness list. Yeah. Some folks have to be out of here a little earlier for other testimony.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. Is there a new order? There's a new order.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: I emailed it to you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Well, you guys know. Who's up? Hi. Okay. Okay.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Candice Morgan, Green Mountain Power. Nice to see you all after the town meeting break. I wanna thank everybody for your time and attention on this issue. I know that there are quite a few moving parts and pieces in this bill and touches on a lot of different regulatory structures and other areas of focus. So I really do appreciate the time that this committee has spent and the feedback that you've been gathering and working with across the board has been helpful to follow as we're all learning and getting a handle on what this emerging industry might mean for Vermont based on the experience of other states,

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: based on

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: the different parts and pieces moving at the federal level and regional level. I think this bill is an important path forward in terms of highlighting and creating that framework for if they were to show up as Vermont, what are those things that are important to us? What are the guideposts and the protections that we want to have in place? And I think that this bill does a really good job of establishing that. As I had mentioned when I had testified here with my colleague, Cam a couple weeks ago, obviously are in a very, well not very, but a different regulatory environment than some of the other areas where we have seen data centers emerge. We do have some protections that are afforded to us by being a fully regulated state and having a lot of the provisions in place already that are operating under the tenant of the cost causer would pay for those costs. Things are not going to get shifted to other customers. But I think that this bill does helps really make that clear and also makes a point in the language around the large load service equity contract fees in particular, helps clarify both what the utility working with any data center would be constructing as part of that as well as what obviously the PUC would be reviewing whenever they receive one of those contracts to take a look at. So, it helps create some good clarity around what are those rules of the road that the data centers with a large load would be operating in with an electric utility. The other piece that I wanted to say is that I know there were some There was a little bit of discussion yesterday and others might have offered comments on this as well related to renewables or different types of resources that we want to attach to these service contracts. I think that that's a conversation we're happy to continue to have in the Senate as well. In the meantime, of course, any customer that's served by any utility in Vermont would be meeting for that power supply would be met by the terms of the existing renewable energy standards, so that would be what our supply feeding any customer would have as well. I recognize that there's been some discussion about how we might want to bolster that a little bit more as well for this type of larger load coming online. We're happy to continue to have those conversations once the bill crosses over in that space. Trying to think of the other main points that I wanted to hit, recognizing that you do have a long list of witnesses.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Why don't we put in a huge hurry? I mean, we're waiting till 03:30. Yep. I think Rep. Sibilia has a question. Sure.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: When you're done, I Yeah. Yeah. I can take a question now.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So we have added in here a report on the energy markets. Yes. Something Oh, yeah. That I feel concerned about. Mhmm. And that was kind of a late breaking addition. Do you have any comments on that, both on the appropriateness of the report and

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: the language? Absolutely. Thank you for that question. I was gonna mention that or wanted to mention that as well. I think it's a really important report that you're asking for in this space. As I mentioned when I've been here previously and I think even when the committee met in October before the session, obviously there have been a lot of changes at the federal level and regionally that have impacted unfortunately both the cost and availability of new regional resources, which are a key part of the updated renewable energy standard from a couple of years ago. So, think gathering some information and having that come to the legislature earlier than maybe had been initially envisioned is actually going to be a very important piece of information for folks to have as we are all evaluating in real time what those impacts are and what that means. One thing I just wanted to flag on that specific language that's in here.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Just refer to section four, right?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Yes, section four, yep. On page 15, I think, in the draft that I have. There's a lot of very specific language in there. I think the numbers one through seven. I might recommend just kind of keeping it in the part of sub A versus being very prescriptive in what kind of information the PUC is asking folks for just because they'll determine that. I think as they ask questions of the utilities and other stakeholders and whenever you make a list, always leave something off, right? And so, them a little bit more of that versus being very prescriptive, I think, might be helpful for them as they work through that report and gather that information from stakeholders. I might recommend striking lines 12 through 21 on page 15. Okay. And then leading subvene Yep.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And c has is. Yeah. That's right.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Those are the main things that I've had today and really do appreciate your work on it and happy to answer any questions that folks have and I'll be listening from afar, and you can chime in as well if that's helpful or stay for a little bit longer.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. Real quick.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: I'm wondering, in addition to your help with

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

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: legislation, what GMP is doing internally to prepare for the arrival of a data center application in your territory.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah, absolutely. We spoke a little bit to this when we were here a couple weeks back. And so, a couple things. We have been looking at certain parts of our overall service territory and different parts of our system and doing some stress testing of those areas, adding additional load and seeing what would happen and where it might trigger much more additional investments that would be needed to serve that. So, we're evaluating our system overall in that space. We also recently received approval for our 2024 integrated resources plan. In that order, the Public Utility Commission also asked us to consider this in our next IRP, which will be started very soon as well. So that will be part of that analysis and those engineering studies that we do to complete our IRP. And then in general, anytime a customer, whether it's a data center or a new business or a new residential customer wants to connect, we do our engineering studies as a matter of practice in that space as well. So, anytime there would be something like that showing up, that would be a part of that work in terms of what we would be needing to serve a customer in that space as well. So, lots of work on the engineering side of things,

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I would say, for sure.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Great, thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Any more questions for campus? Okay. Thank you all. Great. Thank you.

[VELCO representative (unidentified)]: Well, thank you for the opportunity to come back and

[VELCO representative (unidentified)]: have some comments on the draft as it stands. I wanna reiterate what Candice said in terms of this Velcro appreciating the committee's time on this bill and the attention to this matter and the stakeholder engagement process that helped inform this bill. That was really helpful to have those conversations. From our perspective, the existing draft largely reinforces and strengthens the existing regulatory and planning processes that we see and provide some additional safeguards for electric grid reliability. So in in that context, Belco supports this bill, and we recognize that additional refinements might be appropriate as some federal guidance as we spoke to last month, as that develops and as we gain a better understanding of what that might look like. So the federal energy just as a reminder, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is considering a potential rulemaking related to large load interconnections. To date, there has been no formal opening of that proceeding, so no action has has been taken yet. The US Department of Energy had encouraged FERC to open that proceeding with a April 30 deadline in mind. FERC's not required to meet that deadline, but it has signaled active interest, we'll say, in developing a framework for large load integration. That is something that Belco continues to monitor and coordinate with our state and regional partners. And we'll keep this committee and, other committees in the in the senate that are taking a look at at this bill comprised of any new information or rule makings that come out in the meantime. So I'll stop there to see if there's any

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: specific questions for Belco. Yeah. Can you remind me I know you specified about this at the get go. Can you remind me what the outcome of that, like what's the point of the rule making or what's the gist there

[VELCO representative (unidentified)]: of The Department of Energy had sent a proposed advance notice of proposed rulemaking to FERC outlining a framework of how data centers, large loads, more of a streamlined process for data centers to be interconnected to the transmission system. Right. And they had 14 principles that they were asking asking FERC to look at, review, and ask for public comment, which they've done through that advanced notice of proposed rule making process. The next step would be going into a more formal rule making process.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And you said the said the keyword that I

[VELCO representative (unidentified)]: heard was streamline. And maybe maybe a a better term would be building a specific framework for data centers as it doesn't exist today. And they're really responding to what was seen coming out of the PJM territory. Right. That's obviously a very specific example and not necessarily the norm. But because there was so much, data center development in that regional, transmission operating area, they were seeing certain, impacts to both from a reliability and customer repair

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: perspective. Just so I understand this is sort of a side issue, but who makes this who does this move? Would it be FERC? But do what's DOE's involvement?

[VELCO representative (unidentified)]: They were requesting rulemaking. That's right. A little bit unprecedented in terms of of how that happened, but FERC is the responsible and The case

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: of whatever. And Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It sounded a little strange. I guess it is a little. Okay. Thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Questions for Velka? Any yes. So and I'll ask the department this as well and maybe PC. The any New England adjacent things that you would wanna call our attention to related to this bill? So commissioner commissioner Johnson had talked about coordination amongst the states on, in terms of working with ISO. It's trying to get coordination with the states. I don't know if that's even possible in something like a signing bill because our Right. Policies are so different. Well, when I

[VELCO representative (unidentified)]: think about the coordination among the states through ISO's perspective, we're

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

[VELCO representative (unidentified)]: at the bulk electric system. And so, if Velco were to make any specific standards for large load interconnection Yeah. We'd be looking towards ISO to see what they would how what changes they would be making in their own planning processes, and we would likely follow suit with whatever changes they were to make to their planet because their plans inform our plans, and

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: so we need those to be aligned. Okay. And our large load contract language provides ruins of birth.

[VELCO representative (unidentified)]: I I think so. Yes. Yes. Thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Great. Thank you

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Good afternoon.

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

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Pete Gill, Executive Director for the Lamoille Tribune Board. Thanks for the opportunity to come back and and talk with

[Unidentified committee member]: you all. And with me

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Brooke Dingledean, a member of the Land Use Review Board. Great.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: So I think we will be brief. There's one section in the bill, section two, and I'll just say I'm I'm working off of the 1.19 ninth version here. So I think I've got what I need here, but I know there's an updated version. I

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: think 1.2 is pretty different. It's pretty different. Okay. Yeah. Let's make sure that you are looking at the right graph. Yeah. Let's go. Sure. And maybe that hasn't changed, but just wanna make sure. So we're in breath. I think I gave you 1.2.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Thank you. Yeah. 1.2.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thank you. Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: That's great. So let's see. Just one section

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: changes to your section. To that section.

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

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: As the committee will remember that yeah. I see it now here on page 14 of your draft.

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

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: And so as the committee will recall, you all asked us for specific language in terms of filling some of the gaps between Yes. Review our review process and this process. We supplied that language. I see it there in section two that that would, from our understanding, fill that gap, meaning that where there was a data center that might not otherwise trigger under the existing system of jurisdictional triggers for act two fifty, given its the megawatt threshold in this bill would also trigger a two fifty review. So, again, this section here in section two would fulfill that fulfill that gap as it's there. It would provide review under all of the criteria for act two fifty, which we've gone through with this committee previously. It would also provide the public outreach and process that act two fifty fulfills within its role that we have also gone through with the committee. Really, don't have anything else really prepared that way, but happy to take any questions you all might have.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So just two items to ask you to expand on with regard to Act two fifty. One, I received from, Vermonter is concerned about this ground noise and how that might be addressed with act two fifty and the other just this committee is deeply interested in the water issues. And so if you can just speak specifically to water with act two fifty. Yep.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: So first in terms of noise, criterion eight, aesthetics would deal with noise that is just colloquially annoying, has impacts on the aesthetics of the area. Criterion one, air pollution, if there is something that is a health hazard, it would address those under that criteria. Noise. Noise. Yes. Yes. So noise and then criterion Yeah. It would be both of those criteria. Again, under criterion eight aesthetics, it would be kind of that aesthetic impacts from those noises versus criterion one where there's health impacts that are resulting from those noises would be a thrust number of that. Under in terms of water impacts, there's a host of of water issues under criterion one and sub criteria within that, that would be addressed under that criteria. Ultimately, it's no undue impact from that project on water.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Existing water supplies, so if there are neighboring wells and there is going to be a significant drawdown at an aquifer or water supply, often pump tests are required so that it can be demonstrated that the neighboring folks will not be impacted. Or, so, there will be a mechanism to determine either a diminution in the quality or quantity. So, we have, you know, those kinds of conditions that make sure to create the safeguards so that if those impacts do occur, you're aware

[VELCO representative (unidentified)]: of them and it's a way to mitigate.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I'm just wondering about what we heard yesterday from about his maybe this is. Basically, high quality water.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh. Yeah. That was on a manage.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Sorry. Let me see it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'm I'm just seeing my mind. Okay. Page six at the bottom, line 18. Outstanding resource waters.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Which seemed to apply to a it sounded like a relatively small fraction of the waters of the state. And and it but what I see at What I what I just heard you say was concerned about neighboring wells, for example. And so that might be I don't whether that a well is considered a high outstanding water resource water because it's because somebody's drinking water, maybe it is, but.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Yeah, it wouldn't be, there's a special designation for that, but the impacts from withdrawals, as Brooke was saying, would be considered under Act two fifty under criterion one. Yeah. Storm water

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: the the percentage of the water that are encompassed in that two fifty review, is that what you're saying?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah, there are different criteria regarding impacts to water. So for example,

[Unidentified committee member]: we have

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: stormwater runoff provisions, you know, a criteria to make sure that the construction on the land does not cause runoff that would impair those kinds of waters that you're referring to. But we don't have I'm not aware of that designation for particular waters as being unique or within a criteria of Act two fifty specifically.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Would be added

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Right, right. It would be added language. Which actually brings up, if I might just make one point that I wanted to just be sure that the committee was aware of, and I have not followed this bill closely. So, forgive me if I'm indicating something that you're already aware of, but the Public Utility Commission review does incorporate notes with the Act of 50 criteria in it. Basically, like criteria one through nine. And so,

[Maria (Legislative Counsel)]: the only thing I just want

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: to raise is if we are triggering Act two fifty jurisdiction and the PUC is doing their reviews, it's different. Yep. Very good. I'm sorry if if I didn't know about that. Just wanted to be So sure that the these projects now are would be falling under act two fifty instead of pursuing a certificate of public health from the PUC. So the right. You wanna Okay. So to that, we have actually, alleged counsel has asked us if we want to continue to include on page six Yeah.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: That's what I was wondering about.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Sub three. So one through nine. One through eight. Line five. Well, one one through eight. I'm wondering if

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: So if we because that's under PUC that's under the PUC review currently as this is drafted, and that's I think what Brooke was alluding to. And it seems to still be in in this draft on page six line five. Right.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. The the reference 6,086 a one through eight and nine k. That's Act two fifty criterion one through eight and one k. Okay. So so that is line five. Right. That's a potential.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Yeah. So if the intent was not to have the PUC doing that the review of those criteria when act two fifty was also being triggered, then, you would wanna remove that and have some mechanism that

[Unidentified committee member]: they would

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: well, let's see how that would work. I guess you would yeah. You would need to remove it if you had active 15 involved in that particular project.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And and the language continues impacts to chronic soils, which is nine b Yeah. Criterium of nine b. So that would be covered as well. And then there is mention of community noise levels, which is covered by Criterion eight and one is Pete mentioned. Greenhouse gas emissions is not covered by Act two fifty.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: That is solely of the well It depends on where you're gonna go with that, but it could be under, criterion nine f.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That could be air pollution. Pollution. So Yeah. Or it could be air pollution, but there there is no language specific to greenhouse gas emissions language in act two fifty. Okay. Well, all of these things are

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: required in the contracts of the large names, low graphic, large large large loan contracts. So I think that's the it's not it's not that the commission is reviewing that. It's just telling it's just spec stipulating the contract needs to cover these. So in that sense, is it should he be removed?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, it's due consideration having been given to the criteria.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yes, but I'm going back to the previous page.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: So on page five, line nine. Yes.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: The definition approves a large service equity contract. The commission shall find the proposed date of September '93. Yeah. It seems like there's some missing floors here. It it addresses these these these items and seems like it's what it is what it's saying.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So, sorry, I I just need to understand here. So 10 BSA one one four two four outstanding resource waters, that is not Act two fifty?

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: That would be covered by Act two fifty under the water more broadly, so it wouldn't be so as specific as that. That's kind of a Okay. More specific drill down on

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: the water's types. Six eight sixty eighty six one through eight, the nine saying those are the active 50 criteria.

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And then 10 DSA six zero zero one, that's what I'm trying to figure out

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: is That

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: that would be nine nine b under active 50 criteria.

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

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: So that was one of the criteria under the current regime of PUC review that is not included in their review, and it's separately listed here

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: in slightly different terms.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Let let me just suggest this. If we back up and we look at the this entire paragraph, and, you know, these are the these are this is the laundry list of it shouldn't adversely the project shouldn't adversely affect these things. And in number three, will not have an undue adverse effect on aesthetics. That's criterion eight in the active history. Historic sites, that's criterion eight. Air and water purity, that's criterion one. The natural environment is number, is covered by a number of criteria. So, the language that the PUC had when this statutory language was created for their reviews borrowed a lot of the concepts of Act two fifty into it, including specific language and then referencing sixty eighty six a one through eight and nine k. For calves, it would be best to because if you're trying to avoid duplicity, duplicative considerations by active 50 as well as the PUC, Maybe a more comprehensive rewrite of this little section should could happen that would ensure that you are clear on the land use review aspects and criteria of Act two fifty that are covered. And if you wanna add to that, fine. But the PUC language is very duplicative. What ultimately is analyzed and determined under active in this It in this is in the two forty eight process, but this isn't this is a con you know, that's we're not doing. So because two forty eight is not gonna be involved here, I think what I think what we're trying to make sure is that the contract that the PUC is developing and renewing or developing and reviewing with these between the utility and the data center includes these things. I'm not really comfortable actually just saying like, oh, two fifty will take care of that. I wanna see it brought about in the contract too. So I've been describing

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Yeah. Apologies for not, having the updated draft, but I think is, I think that it hinges somewhere in in terms of page five line nine about what the commission is gonna be, what the what the impact of these, enumerated items, one, two, and then going on the next page, three is the one that we're talking about. Yep. Four, five. So it depends on what the impact of that is on the contract. And, again, apologies for not having my head around exactly how that works. It sounds like this is the you're ensuring that the contract Yes. Would include those things. Yep. But then separate from that, the Act

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: two fifty review would occur.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then So Again, I think I

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: was I that there's a little, like, board's missing here from this pronoun of section d. It should say something like, if the rest of these items are covered or something in my back. Sure.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'm sorry that I was I I did not review this particular one either before. I found the wrong

[VELCO representative (unidentified)]: we were looking at the wrong

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's right. Person. So I apologize. That's okay. So it says, yeah, before they approve contract, they shall find that. And then one, two, three, four, five, you know, six. So these are the things that they need to make sure are included and covered in the contract.

[Ben Walsh (VPIRG)]: I

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: think Scott's right that there are a couple words missing. The commission shall find that the contract for the proposed data center-

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

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: that. Before the commission approves a large load service equity contract- They

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: need to make sure the contract includes all this stuff.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: No, because the numbers are about the data center. Shall find that the data center does not affect, will result in an economic benefit, will not have an adverse impact. We're talking about the center. So they're reviewing the contract, and they need to make sure that the contract that the center won't do this, this, this, or that. Right?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: But this is a contract. Right? I know. Right? Well, should I know. Have Morrow to hear if you're talking about that information. Perfect.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: We're happy to review that language and provide you with some feedback on that down the road too. I know you're trying to get this voted out Friday. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Not prying.

[Unidentified committee member]: Well, I've tried. I

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Yes.

[Unidentified committee member]: Did

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: wanna flag that and and get a better understanding of where you're

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: where you're coming from.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: I think we understand that piece. I did wanna just flag that the the language on greenhouse gas emissions that is parallels act two fifty's nine as language as well. Oops. I I'm sorry. I did the wrong word. So I'm

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: sorry. Yeah.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Clear the record there. But, yeah, again, we're we're happy to look at this

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: a little bit more and and provide you some feedback if that's helpful.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. And it was just at page five, line 11, where it says the commission shall find that you're you're just discussing. That was the only piece that threw me for a loop because it sounded like you haven't figured out the answer, not that it would Right.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: It looks like they're refueling it. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I agree. Maybe the language is a little bit we'll get back to you if we can Okay. Give you a suggestion on that. Great.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So you put the the ingredients Right.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: To be with you. Alright.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

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

[Ben Walsh (VPIRG)]: Good morning. Afternoon. Sorry. For the record, Bennington, Julie Wallace at. I got warmed here on seven point seven. Mostly here today to let you know that I think that Vermont's gonna be better off if a data center comes to the state with this bill than without it. Really appreciate the committee's hard work on this. And, you know, I'll hop to it. I had a lot of conversations this fall, you know, essentially saying, feels like we're at least a few years off. Right? Like, they're looking at other places first, and we gotta we gotta get our, you know, ducks in a row. We gotta get our house in order. But, like, I was not feeling the urgency quite as much as perhaps I should have been. And I think the testimony that this committee took really brought that urgency to lighten. And so really glad that this legislation is on its way. I wanted to mention a few things. You know, a number of witnesses have mentioned and representatives have mentioned the possibility of additional work in the senate. So I wanna touch on a few things that we still have an eye on just so there's no surprises if we're suggesting additional language over downstairs as it were, and then touch on one change that you made in this most recent draft. And then I'll just since I happen to be going after your last witness, share a quick thought on the conversation you just had on that provision about what the PUC needs to sort of make sure has happened before they approve the contract. So the three provisions that I wanted to mention that we still have an eye on, one, this will bring your own power concept, which obviously is not incorporated into this bill as a grid non power testified to a minute ago. Obviously, the renewable energy standard is law. You don't need to reiterate the fact that it's law in a new law for that to continue to be true, and if this you know, it would be covered by this. The possibility of this, you know, data center being a self managed utility, I think, adds, like, a little bit of a question mark there that we may wanna look at in the senate. But, you know, primarily, you all passed a very good renewable energy standard a couple of years ago in that sense. This potential large load or any other new rate pair up to be a part of moving the state and the region towards renewables. Two, the bill has, I think, some very strong and, you know, provisions that were made stronger through this process. Protections around portability and any impact on rate cares as it relates to strain on the grid, resilient resilience and reliability of the grid, and any increase in peak data data center could cause. That being said, I think there could be some additional benefit, as I mentioned in my testimony, to tightening up language around peak in particular. But the core thing that you wanna do, ensure that ratepayers are not negatively impacted by an increase in peak. I think this bill does quite well. The the language is quite strong in that regard. And then the the last piece that I wanted to mention in terms of things that we still have an eye on, I mentioned very briefly my testimony. We've looked into it a little bit more since then, wanting to really vet this idea of relying exclusively and solely on contracts to enforce all of the very strong provisions that you have in this bill. The original bill obviously included a tariff construct. Rule making is also a possibility. Either of those would be a much more public process than a contract that's negotiated amongst, you know, private parties even when one of those private parties is a regulated utility and the contract itself is has to be approved by public entity and the Public Utilities Commission. The contract is sort of inherently less transparent. And so we want to spend a little bit more time understanding the PUC and the department's position and why they felt like that was the right way to go here and, you know, if there's any additional refinement that could be done on that front or transparency that could be brought to that process. Last thing that I'll mention in terms of what's in the bill is the provisions around efficiency utilities and not allowing these potential data centers to participate in the Smeet program or the energy savings account or the customer credit program. These are all programs that exist under current law that allow larger power consumers to operate sort of adjacent to outside of the standard efficiency utility process that most ratepayers have to participate in. You know, just pay your efficiency charge and then get benefits from the fact that we have a great efficiency utility doing great work. So really requiring them to to stay in that standard lane unless and until they choose to come to legislature and make the case that they are in some way different and should have some sort of a different program the way that, you know, Global Foundries and IBM before them did. So I think that was a a very good improvement to the bill. Really appreciate your

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Question about that, Ben. Yeah. So how the construct we have here is that they work with efficiency Vermont on the design of the building. They pay their efficiency charges just like everybody does. They cannot participate in these kind of existing programs that we have for kind of larger power consumers. And can you remind me so what we left sort of open in

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: way is the thought that they could become a self managed utility. And can you remind me how that process works? Does that have to come to the legislature? I I've not been involved with that.

[Ben Walsh (VPIRG)]: It does not. You could hear and I know you're hearing from the department and many you could hear from them as well. I think process is perhaps a bit strong. It's something that Global Foundries decided they wanted to do. There's a provision in law, which I could pull up quickly, but don't have the citation off the top of my head, that essentially says if you, you know, wanna pull out of being a customer with existing utility, there's a process for that. And then there's a, you know, process essentially to create a new utility, which obviously doesn't happen very often. The concern there and what happened with global foundries is they initially made the case that because of the wording and a lot of different Vermont statutes, they were sort of a special case and as their own utility wouldn't have to comply with things like the. Obviously, we and many others have a lot of concerns on that, and ultimately, you know, amicable agreement was found sort of arrived at. I don't wanna overcharacterize that, but, you know, landed in a place where they are continuing to basically play by the same rules with some provisions that, you know, are customized to their more specialties. And there's a specific, you know, as with all the other utilities, sort of lane that they live in in the renewable energy standard, and they were part of the negotiations on and all that.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I think it's a PUC application. Yes.

[Ben Walsh (VPIRG)]: Yeah. They would all have to go through the PUC. So the the reason we have our eye on that is, you know, Vermont's actually really isn't crafted with a utility that is its only customer is itself its only customer in mind. And so there's a lot of terms like retail electric provider that are perhaps not really descriptive of that kind of special case. You know, again, this would have to go through the PUC. This is also something that can be looked at in the senate. And, you know, I will say, I don't think the language that we brought initially, which just would out and out ban that kind of construct is the only way of addressing this. I think you can also put some strong parameters around that in a way that allowed us possibility, but with fewer question mark than that makes sense. That's what I that's what I have to say about that one.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: So the language that we have here doesn't pretty much ban the scenario? Seems like it's pretty

[Ben Walsh (VPIRG)]: No. There's two self managed things that are coming up, and they're they're completely different. There's a self managed energy efficiency program, SMIE, which is addressed in that, and and it very clearly does say a new data center can't participate in SMIF. That is the efficiency program that was created for IBM and now you know, and that sort of carried forward to global foundries and essentially says, like, hey. You're so big. You get to do your own efficiency thing. You don't have to, like, do this this standard efficiency thing. The construct we were just talking about is a self managed utility, which is would have some impacts on how they operate as it relates to efficiency, but it's really about we don't actually wanna be served by one of the utilities authority in Vermont. We just wanna have our own power contract, Dara utility, and her provider ourselves our

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: own power. We we do say data center shall be served by an electric utility company pursuant to the the contract approved by the PSC. Yeah. I think It doesn't seem like there's a lot of wiggle room to do a self managed utility.

[Ben Walsh (VPIRG)]: Think the argument would be and perhaps there's some gray area there, and you could certainly hear from counsel on this. But if they became a utility, then they would be served by utility by serving themselves. I think I think you could argue a a data center company could argue that that is a possibility. And now we might just be found at the DOC, but I think they're certainly could be a negative. I see. Interesting. Thanks.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: I have another question about something you said previously. Do you wanna finish this?

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I think we're done. I I mean, I'm done talking about that. Okay.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: Transparency. Is there if the contract is automatically to be approved by the PUC, does that make it public document or not? I

[Ben Walsh (VPIRG)]: am not gonna offer any of that. I'm not an attorney, and I don't have enough expertise in that area to say.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: But, yeah, we should find out.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: That's coming in.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: Yes.

[Ben Walsh (VPIRG)]: So the last thing I wanted to speak to, I hadn't been planning on saying anything about, but since you had such a good conversation about it's page five. No. Yeah. Five, line nine, and onwards. It's just a couple of thoughts on that. One, broadly, I think having the I mean, we talked you talked a lot about act two fifty just now because, obviously, you had experts on act two fifty in the chair. There are other provisions down here that are covered by other parts of law. I would just, as a broad principle, say, I think having the PUC do its due diligence to sort of double check to make sure, like, all our bases are covered makes a lot of sense. I also think something like the language that representatives Campbell or Kleppner brought up or something like the contract includes shall ensure the contract includes provisions necessary to basically something that that right now the language says they need to before approving the contract, they need to double check that all this stuff is happening. It doesn't actually say anything about contract itself needs to make sure any of that's happening. And so I think there could be more of a tie there. I don't think there has to be. The PUC just double checking all that stuff before it signs off on the contract is still good. But I think you could have the PUC also as part of that process say, hey, it looks like actually we need another provision in the contract because, like, sub three isn't quite covered by other things. So just a just a thought.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Is that what you guys are saying?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. The one was yes. I I mean, I think that's the intent.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I don't think I was quite cluing in. So let's talk about this.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: The intent to have all this stuff in the contract, or is it to have all this stuff be stuff the PSC has to check before approving the contract, which may not include all this stuff?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I don't know.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay, I didn't understand that.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I understood that this would that this was a a list of things that the BEC was stipulated should be in the contract.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: And if that's the case, then we should rewrite the language a little bit.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. If not not that they're reviewing all this stuff necessarily, but it's, like, as part of their approval process, they would check to see if these items are addressed. In the contract. In the contract. But

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Yeah. I guess I wasn't There's a missing

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: missing verb or something in this particular paragraph. Needs to be. We need to talk to Maria about it.

[Ben Walsh (VPIRG)]: May, and then I'll thank you one more time, and the AT and state bluffs. I am struck by the fact that this provision immediately follows another provision that says it is basically a list of things that need to be in the contract. So it seems a little odd to have two lists in a row that are, like, things that need to be in the contract. The way I had Where where is the other next? Well, the the first Page two lines up large load service contract approval, and then page three at the top, the large load service equity contract shall. And then that's all the things the contract needs to do is accomplish. So I guess the way I heard the conversation was perhaps a little bit between the two interpretations, which is to say the PUC could double check all that, and most of it is in the con is not in the contract because the active 50 is covering it or something else covering it. But perhaps they find there are a few few things that are a few bases that are not covered. A few sort of gaps that are in that second list that perhaps there should be a provision in the contract around. But like if something's covered by act two fifty, stopping into additional life in the contract may not be necessary. Again, I'm out over my skis a little bit here, but I just wanted to offer that as a thought.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: These are good Maria questions, think, because you're right. What we have here is a first list of things that PUC needs to guarantee are in the contract. And then we have a second list that seems to be things that they're just going to review and make sure sort of happening or in place.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So In order to get the report. In order to get the Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Greg has arrived, so that's good. Okay.

[Ben Walsh (VPIRG)]: I I apologize if I stirred the pot more than I intended to. I mostly just really appreciate this committee's work on this. Like I said, this old bill passes with improvements or without improvements. Vermont's gonna be better for one of these things, Spencer. Thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thanks, Ben. Better up? Okay. Great. Well, good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: be here today. My name is Johanna Miller. I lead the Energy and Climate Program at Vermont Natural Resources Council. In a moment, you're going to hear from my colleague John Groven who's going to speak more to the water, PFAS, and potentially the land use provisions of the bill. But first, I just really wanted to start first with echoing, I think, some of the appreciation for the work you've been doing and how important this bill is in this moment. We, BNRC, is a part of a national affiliation of nonprofit peer groups like mine. Was on a call last night. There are over 30 states in that affiliation and is in a breakout group about data centers. And I can tell you that Vermont has not had one of these yet, but implications on the ground and some of the exposure and risks and issues that are coming forward makes me so grateful for the work that you're doing in this moment proactively to get out in front of it to say if these large load facilities come to serve a purpose and a benefit to the state of Vermont, then we're going to do so with some parameters in place, because these are being built in an astonishing speed and they're having huge impacts and driving rate increases, water withdrawal issues, you know, the PFAS and the toxic chemical pollution piece of it is significant and these facilities also have the potential to fundamentally undercut, dwarf, or drown out our emissions reductions progress if we don't do it right. And I'm grateful for the framework you have in this current draft that says we're gonna do it right. We're gonna get out in front of that. So I just want to say from where I sit, this draft is meeting multiple goals that the NRC has, which includes proactively protecting Vermont ratepayers from potential negative impacts from data centers, again including potential cost increases. Again, with the goal of, and I think more work to do, and I want to echo some of the things that Ben mentioned, but maybe a little bit tightening up of ensuring that if a data center does come here, that we it is not accelerating climate pollution, we are encouraging them, requiring them to participate in our efficiency programs and making sure that they are not dropping off pollution and instead being a partner in the progress that we need. And you're going to hear from John, my colleague, in just a moment about making sure that data center protections safeguard water resources and don't, the significant use of PFAS, a lot of these facilities have forever chemicals leaking into our waterways and potentially more. So I just wanna mostly say thank you for these the work that you've been doing, and, Fen highlighted a few of the issues that we too might want to work on in the Senate in collaboration with the stakeholders you've been hearing from or already heard from today. So, I just want to underscore that those are the things that we'll be continuing to work on. But mostly, again, this is a really important framework. I'm grateful for you're doing it. I'm grateful for you advancing it this into the next chamber and look forward to working with you all and others on it. And I want to defer to John to go much more deeply as our water policy program director on the

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: water

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: issues and on the toxic chemical issues. Don't know if John wants to speak to the land use issues as a former Act two fifty

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Expert, expert.

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: So that's all I really wanted to say. So many thanks for the work you've been doing. We've got great provisions in here and there are few other things we all too might want to work on. Great.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's it. Questions for Joey?

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Thank you. Alright. Thanks, Joey. John, online.

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: Well, actually, madam chair, John had to jump off at two.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh. Oh. Well, then he got there. Sorry. He didn't tell me that.

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: No. No. He just so he had a conflict. But I can I can answer a lot of the questions? I'm not the the expert, but that discussion did happen this morning also in house environment, there's others been talking about it. For the record, my name is Jared Carpenter of the Lake Champlain Committee, clean water advocate. I've worked on water issues in this building for eleven ish years. And we think this bill is a great start. We think it offers great protections, obviously, with data centers and the amount of water that they can withdraw. You're only gonna get them from a few sources if you're using an open loop pooling system. Lower Connecticut River, where Vermont Yankee was, Lake Champlain, Lake Bramfamagog, maybe Lost Pond. But, obviously, you're gonna need big bodies of water if you're using an open system, thus the concern of, of the Champlain Committee. I wanted to answer one question before I forget and get to the bill. So outstanding resource waters. Oh, yeah. Outstanding resource waters are defined as waters of the state designated by the secretary of the ANR as having exceptional natural, recreational, cultural, or scenic values, which is very vague. There are, in the process, there's a list of criteria under which a water can be can be nominated to be an ORW. It has to go through rule making process, public process of of that nature. And I had to phone a friend at at DEC to ask how many were the works. I had forgotten. There are four. They are listed in the Vermont Water Quality Standards. In the back. It is portions of the Baton Rouge River in the towns of East Norsehead and Arlington. Pugs Falls and Bald Mountain, a town of Jamaica, a portion of it, the north branch, the Pulteney River, some lower portions of the Pulteney River, and then Great Falls on the on Pompanoosik as well. Most of these were designated years ago, and this is something actually we the water advocates have had an issue with for a while, is there's a lot of qualified out waters that we think could be qualified as outstanding resource waters for a variety of issues, either water quality or scenic value or things of that nature. It is an arduous process to go through the the rulemaking to get it done. So outstanding resource waters, it's interesting how it's how it's referenced. No. But when you look at the Vermont Water Quality Standards, I won't get into the the details of it, but waters are classified as A1, A2, B1, and B2 waters. Outstanding resource waters are sort of a separate part. The vast majority of the waters in the state are B2. B1 waters are generally for aquatic biota, maybe fish. A2 waters are waters that have certain values that are used for drinking water sources. And A1 waters are the pristine waters of the state. They're usually headwaters, mountain mountain lakes, things of that nature. I don't have any examples off the

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: top of my head. But when

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: you discharge into various waters under the Vermont Water Quality Standards, you can only impair the water a certain amount. For example, a B2 water and thermal discharge, I think it's too you can only impair the water by an extra two degrees. And I'm doing this off the top of my head, so I might be a little wrong, but that gives sort of a picture on how water quality standards generally fit into all of this in discharge. Under Vermont water quality standards, there are criteria for all sorts of pollutants, lead, arsenic, aluminum, you name it, and set by the EPA standards, and you cannot allow discharge to get above a certain level depending on the classification of water. So that's sort of a quick quick primer on on how water quality standards work. And ORWs are something that are important, but they are very, very few and very far.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: It sounds like, really, this if we're going to call out any particular waters, ought to be a one, two, or three, one or two. Correct. And we do. Because it doesn't really Well, they

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: yeah. It doesn't really have many. True. But I think it's just in terms of what the PUC looks at is the outstanding water. But if you get into John and I came in and testified, and if you look at starting on line 15 of page nine are the water standards in general. And I think I think they added very adequately cover all the bases that you're looking for in terms of water, not only protection of water quality, but water quantity. Yeah. Well, does

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: it make sense then to even call out outstanding law?

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: Yeah. That's that's not an area of the law I'm all that familiar with. So we're already. Right? So if you do go to page nine, it it is the definitions when Michael Grady was here yesterday? Yeah. Five years ago. Seems like five years ago.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: When it was yesterday? It was just yesterday.

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: When Mike was here yesterday, he did, obviously, as he always does, a great job walking through walking through the fortunes of this, and I will go through and highlight some of them, not with the not with the definitions, but the definitions are important. But if you start on page 10, line 16, there's been some conversations here about the various cooling systems and open loop cooling system on average. From what I've been reading, 300,000 gallons a day loses 80% of the water. Evaporation, so you're talking a lot of water in and a lot of water going up. And then I'm assuming the remainder of that is probably warm discharge, thermal discharge that would go back into the water body as it takes no water out. The language here requires as a preference that the that the data center use a closed loop system. There are various other ways to cool, but it's just my understanding is you have to take the water from somewhere first. But rather than the water evaporating, you capture it, and it is used continuously in the system. I would think that the water would have to be replenished a little bit from time to time because you are gonna lose some of it to leaks and other things of that nature. I think you can use a coolant similar to, like, your air conditioner or your radiator in the car. I've heard air conditioning can be used to cool the systems. I've also read that the energy used goes through the ceiling if you're gonna use an air conditioner. So water does make the most sense, and a closed loop system does make the most sense after that. However, if a closed loop system is not feasible as determined by the district commission, there's a number of other provisions in here that would provide the protection you're looking for. And C, you have to obtain a groundwater. If you're gonna use groundwater, you have to obtain a groundwater withdrawal permit. The threshold for this, and Mike explained it yesterday much better than I could, is 57,600 gallons of water would trigger would be the trigger for the permit. This language here would waive that, so any groundwater withdrawal would require the permit. Groundwater withdrawals permits are required for pretty much any business entity that uses over 57, six. So it's not this isn't something special. If you are gonna have to withdraw the water from surface water, you would have to get a surface water withdrawal permit. As Mike did indicate, that is going to start undergoing rulemaking this summer. So those permits don't exist yet. This body passed the bill to protect surface water withdrawals.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: That's where I'm going.

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: Three years ago, and the Agency of Natural Resources, DEC, has been spending the last two and a half collecting data on various users of water withdrawals. Folks will have to, after this goes into effect, folks will have to go and get a surface water withdrawal permit. Agriculture does not, is my recollection. The reason being is that agriculture often does not use ground, surface water for irrigation. They prefer the sky, and it's just under the rare circumstances where they have to, like last summer, they have to go in and get surface water. Under a drought conditions, under this provision, the data center would have to, cease withdrawal. I think that's something that we would talk about during rulemaking, exactly what those criteria would be. But can you imagine last summer in Lake Champlain or the Connecticut River and we're under a drought and something like this is drawing water off even on the close of the system, it could have a major impact on on our water quality and quantity. And same thing with groundwater. A lot of people's wells ran dry. Can you imagine if one of these things was drying off of all the groundwater system in your community?

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: I mean, it's

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: they would really exacerbate the issues. So we think those are two very important provisions. I'll take a breath if folks have questions, and then I can keep going.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Questions now? Yes. I'm just double checking. Mhmm. You're not highlighting concerns.

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: No. I'm highlighting continued support from all of us. Thank you for making me better. We're asking you. Yeah. We think these provisions are fantastic. We're we're in favor of all of them. We have no as to change. So I'm just Okay. Highlighting some provisions and why these are important. The provision e is that, obviously, if you have to obtain all of your water quality permits, you'd have to get a storm water permit and a discharge permit and everything that would, you know, apply to the other businesses as well. Top of page 12, number two. Michael Brady yesterday did talk about

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

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: certificate. Normally, is a trigger under federal regulations. It's Clean Water Act Section four zero one. If you need a permit or an army floor permit or some other federal permit, that would trigger four zero one, you would need a water quality certificate. Require having the state do one for a data center is a bit unique. We think the conditions with a data center are a bit unique. So what a water quality certificate does outside of your regular permit conditions, it allows ANR to ask other questions and have studies done on impacts on erosion, wetlands, endangered species, aquatic biota, other water uses taking into account. It really allows a comprehensive analysis and a whole impact of the whole look at the water usage rather than just whether or not you're discharging a pollutant into a water above a certain level. So it really gives you a comprehensive look of what would happen. Yeah, they can be a little. You have to do a fair amount of studies sometimes to justify it, but we think it's well completely well worth it, especially in this scenario. And then the final one, f, is is in regards to the PFAS. There aren't any my understanding is there aren't any current standards for surface water. This is linked to if you go back to the definition, this is linked to the EPA standard. Madam Chair, you had some concerns about EPA, and that the standards could change. I think, if I'm remembering correctly, the House Environment Committee is looking to link it to the current EPA standard. If the EPA standard moved, this wouldn't. Great.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Because we talked about that for the Clean Water Act as well.

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: And that would be the Vermont Water Quality Standards. Under the Clean Water Act, we're required every three years to update our Vermont Water Quality Standards. And so even the Clean Water Act moved, the wrong water quality standards wouldn't. And ours are actually more stringent in areas than the Clean Water Act.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I want to understand two different things here. Line four. On page 12. On page 12. Yep. So, we're linking there to the federal Clean Water Act, and we had talked yesterday about backdating it. Sure. Basically, like picking a date. I think Maria's doing that. And Maria was working on that.

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: Were you suggesting That's a great Michael Grady question, though. Think that sounds that sounds like a good idea. Very much a belt and suspenders,

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: not a chair.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. So we would just say the federal Clean Water Act as of some safe Yeah. And then I was really worried, I am really worried, about linking our PFAS standards to the APA to the EPA. And you suggested there something

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: I think the House Environment Committee is looking to do the same thing with the EPA standard as you were talking about using the water, like linking it to a certain point in time. So if going forward, if standards have changed, we have some insulation. That's happening actually in it's happening in a lot of the statutes and a lot of bills in this in this building right now in terms of, you know, linking because a lot of our state standards are linked to federal standards by So if you start changing the reference and suddenly it starts undermining all sorts of things. So I think that's being done in a fair amount of points in the building. And even yeah. So I think that's a that's a a warranted a warranted action to take.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. So we could take the same approach there.

[Ben Walsh (VPIRG)]: But all in all, I

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: think these are these are great standards. We're very much in support of we've talked about it with the environmental advocate community, the ultimate soup of CNRC, Conservation Law Foundation, Connecticut Conservancy, Nature Conservancy, and others who work on water issues, and people think people are supportive. I can comfortably say that folks are supportive of this.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I have one clarifying question about so on page 12, section two at the top of the page. I thought you said that this is a requirement that the state do something that it doesn't work out. Issuing a water quality certificate what you're talking about?

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: Yes, the state does it, but it's part of a federal permit. It's part of the incorporated as part of federal permit. So what they have what happens for a lot of them is hydropower dam operations. They obviously have to get a license through the park. It's usually a thirty or forty year license. And in order to get the first license, one of the things that we need to get is a four zero one, which is run by DEC. And DEC takes that, you know, like you can you have to have this amount of minimum discharge to satisfy certain water quality standards and aquatic biota, and there's a weighted usable habitat and all sorts of factors that go in. And then the four zero one factors are incorporated into the federal license, and that's been litigated for a long time in the courts of hell, all the way to the US Supreme Court, if I'm not mistaken, that four zero one, state four zero one water quality certificates must be part of the federal must be part of the federal permit. So it's asking the state to do the same thing even though there's no federal permit to roll it in. Okay. Theoretically, there could be if there's I

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: just trying to understand

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: what an army corps permit they would need for a four zero four dredge and fill or something like that, that would necessarily trigger it. But it also in some circumstances, they might not trigger any federal requirements. It might just be a state requirement.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So it it's it's data centers to go through a section of federal standards that, ordinarily, they wouldn't have to go through?

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: It's to go through the process that it norm that it normally wouldn't go through to to do the same to the same conditions to find out Yeah. The same factors of as it would be used to retain a water bottle. Okay. I understand. Okay. I'm sorry if I didn't explain

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: it all. That's terrible. Yeah. No. No. That's quite I understand. So Thanks.

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: We are we are pulling the depths of water law. So that's all for me, madam chair. Great.

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

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: Thank you so much for the time. And, obviously, you've all seen me come around. Flag me down if you have any

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: other questions. Thanks. Super. You. You. Very nice. Yeah. You

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: fall out the window yet, Jerry.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: I wasn't in the bush. I kept my mouse shut.

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

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: For the record, T. J. Poor, public service department. I wanna join the chorus of thanking you for the opportunity to collaborate on this bill. A lot of testimony and discussion around data centers has been kind of in a negative context, and I think there is opportunity for a data center to actually bring potential benefits to particularly for moderate payers, but only if there's appropriate guardrails on how they're developed. And I had testified previously and, again, think that our current regulatory rubric is pretty strong between act two fifty and Title 30, Section two forty eight, and other PUC regulatory jurisdiction over utilities and load, but this bill improves that. It provides more clarity to ensure that benefits are on that ratepayers are unharmed by a data center, mitigating risks, I think, largely completely to rate payers and still providing opportunity to maximize benefits. So I think this is a really good step in the right direction. And I don't think the bill is quite perfect yet. There's a couple areas that I think that could continue to be improved. But even I I look forward to working with folks in the Senate to do that. I think I would recommend, as far as it relates to the large loan service equity contract passing that language, which is the language that I have expertise on, I think, and and can bring out some of the last details in the sinus side. Just to one specific, you know, thing area for improvement is to just continue, and you all talked about it, to clarify the distinction between act two fifty and PUC jurisdiction on land use management. I you know, the way I read that language, that page five that you all were discussing earlier is that if I was the PUC, I think what I would do is say, do you have an act two fifty permit? Yes. Then that qualifies, and that provision is met. And so and I think that that is okay. I also think you could take out that language because they're they need to have an act two fifty permit. So it's kind of another thing that the commission kinda opines on, but it doesn't really I don't I don't know what additional protections it provides. The one exception to that is the last line of that paragraph on greenhouse gas emissions, and I would recommend that one stay, that piece of it stay because it's as, Flint used review boards that that isn't, explicitly articulated in Act two fifty in the same way it is in the Bells.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I have a question. This will probably be a PUC question also, but So just trying to think about how this is gonna How how this could actually play out. Like, do you do you think what come what will come first? The act two fifty permit or the contract?

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: I'll say, if I that's a good question. I actually don't know. I think they would probably proceed in parallel, but I I and I don't I'm not sure, I think.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Because I'm not sure what the what you said about do you have your act two fifty permit? Great. That that actually makes sense to me because I don't know why one of these I I don't know why you'd wanna sign a contract if you don't have your act two fifty permit first. Yeah. I think I mean, that just seems like a real Yeah.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: The other thing that PUC could do in that respect is say this is it can approve

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: It's general

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: conditional on in receiving the act two fifty permit with the other way. Okay. Or so

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: It it does it make sense to include the permit language in the contract to acquire the permit to be attached to the contracts on that one? I mean, I don't

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: think it does, especially not in the contract specifically. I mean, the contract is between the utility and the Data center. Data center. So that having that permit be a part of that contract doesn't I don't

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: think so. If if well,

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: let me I definitely. If if they somehow ran a fella ran the data center ran a fella of it's actually 50 per head, then that would be a breach of contract as well.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: Very true. I I think most when this is a few years ago now, but when I was doing power supply contracts myself, that there was always provisions in them for, like, the merchant developer needed to have, like, their permits in place, and then they didn't it was out. So so maybe maybe it is okay. I I You're you're soaking my memory of this contract ten years ago. But I

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: don't know answer. I I I'm just asking you.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: Yeah. It it, you know, it could be a a way. I I think it it could then you get to the same result with just requiring an act two fifty permit and requiring this large load service equity contract And instead of, like, you know, listing out each individual item, if you said, right now, just it has to have the act

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: two fifty permits, that might be a simpler way to well, in the case of a of a a merchant generator developer, if if if they obtain their permits, build their build their facility, and then there's some somehow lapse in their obligations under a permit, an Act two fifty permit, how does that affect their contract with whoever they're selling their electricity shoes? Sounds like it would not affect it.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: Well, it would. That might be a better question for the PUC. There may be if it was approved

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: contingent on having this permit. Well, that's it. It's a contingent. Right? So Right. People ask the. Right? K. That's that's fine. It's a question for me to ask, you know, further.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: Okay. The the goal, I think, is to just not have the overlapping jurisdiction. And I think as it's written, that's that's that is how I read it, is that the commission needs to make sure that it has act two fifty permit. But right. I just you know, that that was most of what I I I came to say. I wanna add two things based on the conversation. Thank you. As far as the FERC notice of proposed rulemaking that as Laura Sibilia mentioned, they had they FERC has not announced anything yet or the DOE request that FERC do the rule of making. FERC has not announced anything yet, but in meetings regionally and with some FERC commissioners, the word is is that FERC is not going to actually do a rulemaking. They're gonna decline to do that. They had tons of public comments, including by New England with Vermont participating as part of that back off on state's jurisdiction. Instead, what they it appears they may do is a what there's a provision of law that will allow them to ask ISO New England to say, show how their tariff allows for large load interconnections. And so ISO New England now has a tariff that, I mean, they may need to update it a little bit that allows for load interconnections and see that being because the next step of the process is ISO New England FERC saying, hey, Show us that you have the ability to interconnect large loads just structurally, not necessarily, like, enough generation, etcetera, but just structurally, the process is there. And I just don't know anyone could say, here's the process for that. Their process doesn't I I think they would need to update some of their tariff and their processes in order to meet that and say, here's how we here's how we do this. Right now, it's expected that they would follow the same procedures as a generator located in New England, where they have a large interconnection study and they ensure the system stays reliable, that with the the change of the system that would be these large loads. And so it's a little confusing, but it's not I I don't think it's as it's not as bad as a federal rulemaking saying we have jurisdiction and you'll pay this rate and that'll be fine. And it's potentially good in that New England in its own grid could have one system and clarify, like, the the actual interconnection process.

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Jake, are the states the

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: New England states generally aligned in their thinking, in this regard?

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: Yeah. I think so. You know, it's always we can be aligned in discussions, and then things change a little bit as we go back. But it's you know, in our discussions in Nesco, the New England States Committee on Electricity, we have shared some principles for a large load. And, you know, there are a lot of things that are actually in this legislation, things like making sure that other ratepayers are unaffected, unharmed, making sure you're dealing with stranded costs of, you know, if a data center comes and causes infrastructure upgrades and then and then bails that they're still paying for it, exit fees or or what have you. There's discussions around, bring your own generation. There's, transparency. One of the things I wanted to comment on that mister Walsh brought up was transparency. And in some I don't know a lot of the details, but in some other jurisdictions outside of New England, there were as I understand it, there are instances where a utility entered into a contract with a data center. They don't have the same regulatory framework as we do, so keep that in mind. But, that regulators and the public advocates actually weren't allowed to see the terms of a contract, and that is not appropriate. We oppose that and would be happy to talk about how to ensure that there's no I I think our processes are pretty good and wouldn't allow that now, but I'm happy to ensure that that is the case in as we go forward in this bill. So that's one of the things I think. Look forward to our discussions on that. So

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: How would we I'm I was really curious about that too. So and maybe that is a a PC question, but so say there's this con contract and PC is reviewing it. Is that a public process, and does the contract become public?

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: So I think the answer is yes. Although there may be certain provisions of the contracts that are held confidential, but it would have to be shown for cause to hold it confidential. But it's confidential, within the construct of parties of the case that have an interest of those who still see it. And so there's a few layers to it that, one, you wouldn't be able to sign an NDA that precludes the commission, ratepayer advocate, interveners that have the interest in the area from seeing those. And, you know, you wouldn't want one it it wouldn't extend so far as, like, Microsoft being able to see Google's contract. Right? But it would extend to those who have shown standing in the case on that issue to be able to see the see the contract. And that that's that's typical of, contracts we have now and just regulatory processes, across the board. And so I think we would design language to kind of really ensure that that is the case on this large load service equity contract to the extent that it isn't already covered.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: In the Senate?

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: Yes. That that would be the goal. And so I and I think there's a lot of alignment there. I don't think that it's gonna be particularly controversial, honestly, but I should bring in my data center developer. They may have The other other thing I just kinda wanted to mention, this, the self managed utility concept, so that is in statute now. If you hook in at 115 kV, like at the transmission level, you can, as you get approval through what would be, like, a year long process at the PUC, you can be a self managed utility, and you need to meet a number of certain criteria. But then that utility would need to then contract. It would be its own entity, and then the data center would be the load and be the customer. They they so the SMU, the self managed utility, becomes the retail electric distribution utility, and then they have a contract with the data center, which would then, need to, follow this large load service equity contract. And I think that in particular, especially as I say it right now, is really the area where we wanna make sure that that contracts, the commission, and all the appropriate entities can can review that. Right? Because they're close to each other. Right? It's like GF Power and GlobalFoundries as an example. And so so I I think, I just wanted to clarify that process because I think I think, the conversation largely got there, but I kinda wanted to recap it and and be, succinct. And so that would be the process. Somebody asked, earlier why not a tariff, just a general tariff, and that was, like, kind of the original structure of, like, PC sets up tariffs for everybody. They I think the I think the this construct of the contract is is more appropriate because it's, each of these are gonna be unique, based on their size, their implications, where they locate on the grid, what the infrastructure necessary to build is. And there was one other thing that but they're all they're unique. And so so I think that serves this structure well where they're they propose that contract that meets these requirements in terms of their retail service, and they we we can each one will be approved on its own. If you just had a tariff, you know, a number of different you know, you could have four of them just say, yep. I wanna join this tariff. And meet the requirements and we're off. And, I mean, you could you could design the tariff and put legislative requirements on a tariff also, but it would be kind of a one size fits all for what I think will be unique instances in each data center. I

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: wanted to make sure I understood about the self managed utility. So you said in the case of GlobalFoundries, and I didn't follow that super closely. So there's GlobalFoundries and now there's GF Power. It's like a separate company or a totally separate company. So just using that as an example. So we'd have data center and data power. Right, yeah. And the contract would be between data center and its spin off or separate company, data power. And we wanna make sure, do you think it's unclear in this bill that that contract would have to go through the same

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: No. I think that's process?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. That's clear in this bill. Okay. It's the transparency aspect Right. The importance of the transparency. Like, who sees who sees it?

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: But I thought we just talked about

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: that. Yes. That's why I think I I was raising that that that construct in particular would be the a a really critical one to make sure that the commission and the department and, you know, interveners with standing can actually review the terms that the the critical terms. Think most of it most of it can be public, and then there's certain, like, you know, things that might be competitive set competitively sensitive. There are other laws around that that require confidentiality, but it's confidentiality, but the commission and the department and others need to be able to still have a line to see into that in order to know whether it meets the required limits to bill. And so, just some some language on transparency to be developed in the senate, I think, could really clarify that and and make sure that we don't get into a situation that happened in other jurisdictions, as I understand it, that, they couldn't see that. Here.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh. Yeah. Oh, sorry. I have

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: So as it's written now, does the department have automatic standing to look at this to to fully see what what the contract is? Yes. And what we would we would

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: need to so we yes. Yeah. There's there's, like, steps that we have to go through. The you know, they would have to assert confidentiality. We would have to say, we won't share it with anybody, and then it ultimately gets protected under Vermont's public records law, and so then it protected that way. But, yes, we can get generally

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: in this process regardless of the you have visibility into this whole process. Yes. Just as Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to I don't remember seeing it specifically in the language. I just wanna make sure that the department, right, had proper standing. Thank you. Yes. We do.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: We do. And it's not in this language. It's in the just the whole of the title 30. And Okay. Yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And the Public Utility Commission has jurisdiction to decide whether an assertion of confidentiality is is appropriate for consent. Yes. Yep. I

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: think I may have said the last thing before, but really the last thing just because it's in here and added I support the language on the report being added. I also support what miss Morgan suggested and kinda removing some of the specificity and having it

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: be more flexible for the people to see them.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Thanks, PJ.

[Unidentified committee member]: Thank you.

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

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: You're next in the line. Afternoon, folks. For the record, Greg Favor with the PUC. So I originally just plan to come here and talk about section four, but I guess we should talk about the stuff on page five. So beginning on line nine of page yeah. Line nine, page five. It has us the commission had required shall find that blah blah blah data center will meet various conditions. Okay? And the first one starts on line 19, Al. Adversely affect efficiency and reliability, that's fine. Economic benefits to state, that's fine. But then you get to number three, and that's at top of page six. These are the citing criteria for section two forty eight. That involves actually citing something physically. We're not citing anything physically here. We're just looking at a service contract. This language is not necessary. You probably wanna keep four and five, those are fine. But six through twelve, three, six through 12 should be gone. Those are all citing criterias. We are not doing any sightings. If you wanna put something in that says the data center shall obtain an act two fifty permit as a as a condition. We did that. You did. I don't see a year, but that would be fine. That would suffice for all of this. Did that, right?

[Maria (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. If you have Act

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: two fifty requirement, but it

[Maria (Legislative Counsel)]: was a question as whether or not you need to have this language in here or not. Given that there's the act two fifty review. I think that's what Greg is getting at.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Right. Right. It's you don't want us doing a sighting review on something that PAC two fifty is already doing a sighting review on.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Mhmm. To the sorry.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Sorry. I I just wanna understand which specific lines are

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: starting on

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: The two forty eight citing criteria.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: That is starting on line one of page six.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So the whole subsection three.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Subsection three should be gone.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Except for the greenhouse gas.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: You

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: can leave the greenhouse gas. That's something different.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay, so everything from line one through seven is the Act two forty eight signing requirements that is gonna be covered by act two fifty. Right. Except for line eight.

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

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

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: And then four and five, that's something you need to us. So you might wanna leave those. It's really not citing, that's more of a that goes well with a contract. But then six through 12, that's all citing stuff. Air pollution, outstanding resource orders, all that fun stuff.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Not all of it.

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

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: I'm assuming that active fifty is gonna look at decommissioning. We're not looking at the actual site again. We're not looking at the actual building. What are we decommissioning? We have a service contract. So if you wanna make them look at decommissioning, go for it. And I'm not sure what their decommissioning requirements are. I assume they have them. I'm pretty sure they do. They meaning at 02:50? Yes. Yes. We have nothing to decommission. We are not commissioning anything. We are looking at a service contract

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

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: a distribution utility and a data center.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So six through 12?

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's can be served economically by existing or planned transmission facilities? That's an Act two fifty? Yeah.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: You could leave that one, I guess.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: And if we step back to the earlier question

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: energy efficiency requirements, including CBs, that's not

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: State energy efficiency requirements? I mean, they would certainly look at that. Madam Chair. I think

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: it is Act two forty one. Yeah.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: The Act two fifty, it's within criteria nine, but it it requires best available technology, and they've the commercial building energy standards has been used to meet that criteria.

[Unidentified committee member]: I think that would be

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: the same as what's here in provision 10.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: There's the previous question we had about whether our intent is for the PUC to do all this stuff or just to confirm that all this stuff is in the contract.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And To confirm that they have an active 50 permit that addresses that addresses these things. Right? Isn't that Yeah.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: we're going for here. We wanna confirm we want the PUC to confirm that they have an active 50 permit.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: You you could certainly say that. Just make

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: sure Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Just wanna make sure we're not sweeping through and kinda but we've we've we've put so much time into making sure that we're not missing anything.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Right.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I I don't wanna just kinda at the last minute here, knock out a page full of text that we haven't gone through. So I I just wanna make sure that we're covering our bases since that's been our whole point. Right. So so if our intent is to make sure that the project has an act two fifty permit and the PUC confirms that. What would the timing of that be? That kind of gets to my earlier

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: question You for would ask about timing. Could say you could make it a requirement that the entity data center has an active 50 permit in hand. And then, obviously, would set the timing. They'd have to get that first before they come to us, if if that's what you wanna do. Mean, TJ's right. This could in this this could happen at the same time. Someone could be seeking a service contract approval at the same time they're seeking active 50 approval of the bill. But if you want to set the time standard, the schedule, you can do that. You can say before they come to us, they've got to have their Act two fifty permit in hand.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Wouldn't that save you time?

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Ordinarily wouldn't look at the Act two fifty permit, but if you wanted us to look at it, obviously they would have to have it. Did Because that

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: parallel process sounds like a waste of your time if

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: No, we're just looking at the service contract. We're not looking at the same things that Act two fifty is looking at in that case.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah, what I meant was why would you spend time reviewing a contract

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: if they never get approval for the building? Yeah. That's true. And the same goes the other way as well. Obviously, can't get a service contract approved.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: They're not

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: gonna build something or you know.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: What do you guys think? Two fifty in hand. Mhmm. Sounds good to me. That means in our permits, all your water permits before you get your then you get your f two fifty permit. Then you go for your

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Sony as well.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Remember that? That's

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

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Then you go for your service contract.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yes. Once all that's out of the way, then you try and get a service contract.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So going back to what this whole section is about this whole section starting on page five isn't this isn't so my interpretation was it was stuff that the PUC would make sure was the contract actually it's it's it's the PUC approval I guess at this session is sort of a question for Maria. Yes. So there's there's two lists of items for the PUC. One one has a list of of terms that need to be addressed in the contract. That's the first list starting on the page that is page two two. And the second is starting on page five is these things that need to be in place in order for the PUC to approve the contract.

[Maria (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, sort of. They're findings that the PUC has to make before it approves, in order to approve. So it would have to find, just at the bottom of page five, Yeah. That this contrast with all of these provisions.

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

[Maria (Legislative Counsel)]: Will not adversely affect. So they're they're findings. You want to say they got their act two fifty permit like it's future findings.

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

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So I I I yeah. Seems like the line just needs to be a little bit clearer about that early. I don't know. Maybe I just missed I missed the program here, I think, before. So maybe she's. But Yep. Okay. Go ahead.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: At the risk of really complicating things, I mean, I I'm I'm worried about having to get your act two fifty permit first. Why? Like, with your water permits and other things, you need those before you get your act it's kind of

[VELCO representative (unidentified)]: like act two fifty is, like,

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: the last thing. Like, you've dealt with all the stuff you need to deal with, and there is some energy items in there are some energy items in there. So it seems like it would make To not specify. Yeah. It doesn't seem like it makes sense to specify. I think two fifty would probably be the last just as a nature matter of course. Like, you're gonna they're gonna require all these things to come in. One thing I wanna make sure so something that's very important to me. I know it's important to other members of this committee, and I appreciate your help or direction on this. The decommissioning aspect. So I hear you, but we need that to happen. And so Yeah.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Do you

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: have a recommendation on where that should happen or who should be in charge of making sure that that happens? Yeah. So, I mean, the is it the DU and the data center? Like so so this is talking about

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: This is the the data center itself.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: This is the building.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Citing it. So, really, that needs to happen at the act two fifty level For the building, the actual physical building. Know, if there's a generation facility, obviously we're going be involved in that. We have decommissioning standards And I'm pretty sure Act two fifty has decommissioning standards as well, but you you should check with them. And if you need to shore that up, I suggest you do do so. But it would it would be with them at that point, not us.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So this may be something that needs to get taken care of as this bill moves along into the next chamber.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yep.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Can you see decommissioning standards for generation of facilities include requirement that these generator fund it provide funds put money aside in order to do that.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yep. Surety bonds usually.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So that seems like that would be an appropriate here, I guess.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Again, we're not approving anything physical here. No.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: No. I know. I'm I'm just talking about the general not not that there would be a d d requirement. I'm just I'm just thinking on the other on the other hand, how many building developments require that you include a bond for the cost of the insurance? Probably not. So that's but we could we have to

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: That is something you're gonna have to take up with active 50. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Or they're normally decommissioning standards for buildings. I doubt it. Yeah. Right. So Right. I I don't know.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: You've got someone in your rearview mirror. A second. Just wanted

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: to revisit the Street Experiencing issue. Sure. Can you confirm that mister Boris' understanding was accurate regarding the public nature of this contract? Oh, yeah.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: He explained it very well. I mean, some sometimes people ask for confidential treatment of various pieces of evidence, and we deal with this matter of course

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: but otherwise it's a public document.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Just want to make sure I'm clear Greg going back to page six and seven.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: you had originally said six through

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: 12. Right.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: But I think we've changed that.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yep.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I think that seven, ten, and 11.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Well, 10, as TJ explains,

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: accuracy Seven looks at and 11.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yeah. Seven and eleven. I I guess 11. Yeah. Sure.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: 11 on page seven.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So Well, that would be I mean,

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: now Page seven. I'll it to you.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: And that that pertains to a contract. Sure.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Terms of an electric company on page two, that was flagged earlier as possibly meaning that the self managed utility Pretty. Contract. Could you just explain how that does the self managed utility process involve $2.48 so that the PUC is handling the site?

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: It wouldn't include two forty eight as the siting harness. Applying to be a self managed utility is a totally separate process for two forty eight. Security is. You're already in existence at that point. Like like global foundries.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: They already existed.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Then they said, hey. We wanna be a utility.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. So you don't have any concerns about this?

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: No. Agree with TJ. It's covered.

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

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: There are no questions for Greg or Greg, did you have another?

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Oh, yes. Section four. I just wanted to say that we agreed with We agree with miss Morgan's testimony there. This is basically the, report. And you know how we love doing reports. Yeah. So we had had conversations with EMT and, we agreed to basically stop this sentence or stop this first paragraph starting at line six. At line 10, just putting a period after 2035. We'd also agreed on pushing the date back to January 2027, 01/15/2027. Under those conditions we can do this report. So we support that as well.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And B has no problems Stakeholder process, yeah.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yeah, based on those conditions, we're fine with it. Yeah, and that's it, really.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So going back to page six. In subsection three, you would recommend that we have it simply say, since these are the two forty eight site criteria, will not have an undue adverse effect on the attainment of the state's greenhouse gas emissions reduction requirements.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yeah.

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Did I hear that right?

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yes. I think that's the right

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And then four, you'd like us to keep. Five, you would like us to keep.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yep.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: 7, we already struck.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: No. 7 you wanted.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: 7 is 7 is out.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Out. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: 6. I'm standing

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: He wants that out. We we don't again, that's a physical sighting thing. Stuff located next to water.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So this is part of the ANR permitting process?

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yes, ANRN Act two fifty.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That doesn't feel Act

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: two fifty ish.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: That pertains to a contract.

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

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Eight and nine are clearly A and R and stuff. It depends also that CBs and that's covered under an active 50 permit.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Environmental justice law.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: That's fine. Do you want us to look at that?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Somebody should.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Why not? We'll look at it as part of the contract that makes sense because it could financial impacts. That makes sense.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So who should assess if decommissioning is adequate? You're saying that should be who who should assess?

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: The person who's approving the actual structure, which would be active 50 in this case. K.

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

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Because, again, we're just looking at the contract. So decommissioning of what at that point? So

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: what if we were to include here in 12? If we were to take out adequately accounts for potential and just left fine. Well So it's a box you check. There's a decommissioning for the facility in urine.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Something yes. Something along the lines of the Act two fifty program adequately addresses decommissioning or something like that? Is that what you're Yes.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That would be great. Yeah.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: You should talk to them about it though because

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We will. But I mean, this is really

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: We could check that box, We could say, yes. They have a decommissioning agreement that was approved by Act two fifty.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So, you know, I'm thinking about the decommissioning fund that I'm aware of and for my.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Oh, yeah. We have a lot of them.

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

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: have tons. Every every solar facility that goes in has a has a decommission.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And that's

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: separate small ones. And that is for what? For getting rid

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: of the solar panels? Yes.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Yeah. Yeah. All the wind turbines Yeah. They all have decommissioned funds. And so Restoring the site to the ground.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'm gonna ask for your patience here. Yeah. I'm gonna ask a simple question. I I might need it as I'm good. Greater. Yeah. That's great explanation. So explain to me the difference between data center and the solar panels and, you know, providing for the decommissioning. I mean, I know one's a building and one is

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: One's energy.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Oh, why are we not doing decommissioning funds for Philippines? Is that

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Now why are you doing that for solar panels? I'm trying to I think we're trying to understand the different Oh, and it's not just like it's a built it's not like it's a, you know, a lot of REITs. I mean, it's a it's a huge energy load user.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Right. I'm just not sure how active it treats those kind of things. Do they normally ask for decommissioning on that? I don't know.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: But you guys have experience in experience in eight generators.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Four generation facilities. Yeah. But I mean,

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: this is a unicorn, which is a lot that uses a lot of energy.

[Greg Faber (Public Utility Commission)]: Right. But, again, keep in mind, we're not even so in those solar facilities, we're look we have the whole project. We're looking at all of the evidence submitted for constructing that product project. Here, that building is is has nothing to do with our review of a service contract. So now you're asking us to step over to the other side and look at a decommissioning contract. We're gonna have to look at all of the projects. So we don't have any of that evidence. We haven't had a hearing. We don't know what's going on there nor do we care because we're really just focused on that service contract.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So we have big concerns around energy usage Mhmm. And the costs associated with making, like, transmission. We have big concerns with water and potential impacts on the environment. And so, you know, is there some other equivalent that you could think of that would be helpful for us to think about in terms of

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Could that be addressed if there's zoning in that town to obtain a zoning permit? Can they require that?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Can the town require a decommissioning? I They don't get some

[Jared Carpenter (Lake Champlain Committee)]: What zoning?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I am

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I'm just throwing that out there.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. So I'm a little nervous about the negotiations happening between some of these entities in a small.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. That's fine. I'm just trying to think outside the box and how it could be accomplished. Yeah. No. Agreed. I I think the the question we're starting with here is what do we decommission? It in the case of of a generation suddenly it's all the it's all the stuff that is associated with the generation. So in the case of a low facility, if there isn't there isn't the

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: same

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: impact except for the water thing, which could be which could be a new chip pad. Or depending on how they cool it.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: Depending on if it's not water,

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: how they Whatever the whatever the coolant is. So that so I'm I don't know. I don't know what we're trying to do here, so it's just asking.

[T.J. Poor (Department of Public Service)]: But you wanna try to read the active 50 decommissioning language? Yes. Well, active 50 requires decommissioning plans for major developments, particularly energy projects to ensure sites are returned to a stable, safe, and productive condition after use. Requirements typically include restoring soil, vegetation, removing infrastructure, and providing financial assurance for cleanup, often mandated under criteria regarding aesthetic historic and environmental impacts. And then there's Well, Chris more Alright. Under that. What criteria you got? The search is under. Remember, it's in the it's in the kind of preamble, and that's a complete list.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Just on a specific criteria.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So we can just we could confirm with Brooke and Peter that decommissioning is gonna be covered by that activity. Yeah.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: I think one question is what the decommissioned data center what do we want it to look like when it's fully decommissioned? Do we want the building taken down, the slab removed and all that, or can the building stay if it's useful to someone? Can they get all the toxic stuff out, all the electronics and the cooling system, like the decommissioning being getting all that stuff out of there, but leaving the structure. Yeah. If they

[Unidentified committee member]: can find another use for a building. I have this square footage in the Location. In in Vernon, Vermont where there's a water source. I don't know how many square feet we're talking about building the I guess it'd be condominiumized or maybe a pantry or whatever. But yeah. So so to to remove the toxins, to remove any, be it chips or be it coolant or stuff in the end of and it's there in two

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: fifty. So I suggest that we just reassure ourselves with

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: and Peter Yep. Because this is there's no best practices to be looking at really in terms of data center deconditioning. So it's a an emerging American policy.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I I think Rebecca Howland suggested this makes some sense. I'm not gonna be making again, it's unique to this particular building type, but we're moving everything down to a down to a a bare building. Well, something like that. You could have the provisions to move remove the concrete, the whole building. Good. But if somebody if if somebody found a use for the

[Unidentified committee member]: building that's left, it's like buying the old car frame to restore. Yeah. They could and if if they do it, that's the Yeah. There's still the the the assurance is the money's there to bring it back to farmland or or soil if needed. If they find some other use, it would there not be review for an amendment of an act two fifty if they just decided not to

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

[Unidentified committee member]: don't. Bring it down to soil. Okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I think we can if if we're considering striking some of these sections, then so I yes. I think we need to we can just send quick email to Lurb and just ask them to provide some written testimony on what how decommissioning would be handled under an Act two fifty permit. Yep. I would like us to leave in that as part of the contract, you'll check the box that there is a decommissioning. I mean, because that will indicate to others that is the expectation from the legislature. Sure. Well,

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: I just wanna take half a step back. The purpose of decommissioning is to make sure the community doesn't get burned with the costs of getting rid of something that Right. The community doesn't want. Yeah. Okay. And I I agree that could, in fact, include the building of the slab. Although, it's it's painless my sense of efficiency for someone who spent as much of money pouring a slab and building a building just to rip it down.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Especially an energy efficient one. It's really required.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Yeah. But I can imagine, as Ralph Howland pointed out, there may be communities that have a data center, and there's, like, no current economical use for that structure. And they'd rather turn it into forest or whatever they wanna do here.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: I don't think we're gonna figure out the blue tones of those.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Nope. No. Okay. So

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I'm good.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So okay. And One example

[Unidentified committee member]: here is we're talking about a data center that brings all sorts of constructive people in to build it. But once they're built, they very few employees.

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

[Unidentified committee member]: But when you convert that, whatever the square footage is, to further use, now you've got all this traffic control of bringing in thousand workers to work and then the thousands of square foot houses. So I I just need to elaborate with the project that we have.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Thanks, mister Faber, for coming to talk to us. Sure. Let's Yeah. Is Peter here? Oh, Peter. Oh my gosh. He survived it. Thanks, Greg.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Was hanging out on some

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Forgot about me. Hi. Totally forgot about you. I'm sorry. I did not, Peter. I just want that

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: for the record. I

[Peter Walk (Efficiency Vermont)]: I appreciate the fact that it'd be pretty easy to forget about me sitting here on the screen. So not a big deal. For the record, Peter Walk, Managing Director of Efficiency Vermont. Thanks for the opportunity to be here with you today. It's been an interesting conversation, lots of parts of it that I don't have to weigh in on. So I do think your suggesting that checking with the LERB is probably the best way to go about your decommissioning question because they do that stuff all the time and to not overthink it in the legislative context. As it relates to the energy efficiency discussion, and we had suggested two pieces the last time we talked about this bill. The first one was around a prohibition around participation in SMEEPSA and other programs. I think that makes sense to me then. I appreciate that you've included that in there. Think primarily from the perspective of ideally, right? And this is relates to the other provision that we've been talking about is the idea that they would come and do energy efficiency work upfront, right? We do this all the time with large new facilities. It's the best opportunity to get the efficiency work done. We'll provide them with an incentive. They can move from what is code to what is better than code and really make a meaningful difference to energy drive or energy draw on the grid. And so that's a very positive piece. That said, won't yet have paid into the energy efficiency charge before the building is built. And so to then allow them to use their own funds or their own easy contributions to then fund additional work seems inappropriate. So I think the way you've worded it is great. The one piece I did wanna add is that sort of separate section that you've created on energy efficiency and the requirement that they work with Efficiency Vermont. I think there's an opportunity to probably make that a little bit clearer. And I understand you're running up against the clock and this is something that could easily be fixed on the Senate side. I'm happy to have conversations with stakeholders about it. But essentially the way the wording is it looks like you want folks to come in to talk to Efficiency Vermont about their obligations to meet code. And I don't think that's what you mean. I think you want them to have the most efficient building they possibly can because we don't, we fund above code for the most part. And they're gonna have that obligation under active 50 and other pieces in the bill around meeting code. So I think one of the things that I was discussing with some of the other stakeholders was the idea of you already have language around requiring them to implement demand management and kind of flexible load management work as part of, I think it's two eighty four. Let me

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

[Peter Walk (Efficiency Vermont)]: reference up. In section two eighty four B eight, in that requirement, we could add language that said energy efficiency and demand management work. Originally What we had suggested in language was to have essentially do that efficiency work in combination between the relevant EU, right? Because it's not all efficiency Vermont coverage and the appropriate DU is involved. But that isn't the I think the language that you have now sets the right signal. And I think it's clear what you're trying to do. I think there could some be some strengthening to make it more effective. But I also am happy to do that with your colleagues on the senate side if that is your preference.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thank you, Peter. And sorry for the confusion on that language.

[Peter Walk (Efficiency Vermont)]: That's quite alright. Think I under, you know, in some ways it makes sense to, know, but I think it needs to, it just doesn't perfectly align with how things work and under existing statute and regulatory pieces. It's just a little bit of clarification would be helpful.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, do do you have suggested language that we are gonna be making changes to this draft.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: He does, but it is language that is not agreed by all stakeholders. Senate question. Okay.

[Peter Walk (Efficiency Vermont)]: Yep. And I've and we'll work with those stakeholders who have some concerns. Think the way the language has evolved in different drafts. There are some, I'd rather not create another standalone piece. I'd rather integrate it with the work that we're already requiring. I think it makes sense to spend the time to get that right.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: All right. Great. Thanks, Peter.

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: Of course.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And, yeah, appreciate your time. Maria, I am curious if you know what we're doing.

[Maria (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know. Have noticed.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Or should we have a we have floor, unfortunately, in, like, nine minutes. So we need to Sure. Well, so I don't know what

[Maria (Legislative Counsel)]: I missed before I got here. I know I got an email, though, from suggested language, and then I've kind of been following this. So I don't wanna take up too much more of your time. I can meet with a couple of you or we can talk now. Whatever you wanna do.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I don't think we have time now. I just wanna make sure we know what the plan is because Okay. We've got, I think a lot of small suggestions now. I'm not sure what the environment committee is gonna be recommending to us or when. We didn't hear from ANR yet, although I know they're really involved in the bill and the environment committee. But they they we were supposed to hear from them today. We didn't. I don't think that

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: we got back to I'm not

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: sure what happened. But, anyway and then I have I wanna be really thoughtful about what we do on page six and seven. And yes, so one thing I think we do know is the report. The report's easy. Yeah. And I think his language was sent to you. Yeah. Yeah. Brick cell group language.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: One quick thing on page four and number seven is the one thirteen. A food collateral requirement sufficient to mitigate your risk of stranded costs. That's falling under the large load service activity apologize. Can that be construed as including decommissioning? Know we've talked about that before, but I think we're hung up on where that language on decommissioning can be. And if it's can be covered under that, then it's a non issue.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. I I think that's a can I manage? Mhmm.

[Maria (Legislative Counsel)]: I think that's a great question. If maybe decommissioning could be under that, but as it is, but

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I think if you wanted

[Maria (Legislative Counsel)]: to be more specific and has a plan for decommissioning in the event that becomes necessary. Or you can I would add that here if you want it to be part of the contract between the utility and the data center, if you do want that?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And then you're you're not yeah. It's just part of their contract.

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

[Maria (Legislative Counsel)]: to agree who's gonna be responsible if there has to be.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I just wanted to throw that out there. Just Right. See where that could fit in.

[Unidentified committee member]: And this might be a public service department question about you. But don't the of contractors pay, don't they Have to pay upfront for what the utility has to invest in?

[Peter Gill (Land Use Review Board/Land use witness)]: That's Yeah.

[Unidentified committee member]: The electricity. So so the and this has been a rule for a long time. So the utility didn't have a standard cost. I agree to leave it in there.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: K. Alright. Let's go watch live. So just

[Johanna Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: gotta go.