Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah, we're live. Alright, welcome back everybody. Thursday, April 2, of Energy and Digital Infrastructure. We are now turning our attention to S-two 19, an act relating to an Energy Navigator Program report. I'm rep Kathleen James from Manchester.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Scott Campbell. He's in Johnsbury. Richard Bailey, Lamoille two. Oh, Chris Morrow, Windham Windsor, Bennington. Michael Southworth, Caledonia two. Christopher Howland, Rutland four.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Dara Torre, Washington two.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Ma'am Kleppner, Chittenden 13, Burlington.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Laura Sibilia, Windham two. Great.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And joining us in the room.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: I am Steve Meyer with Climate Economy Action Center of Madison County Energy Navigator Program.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. We will be hearing from you next.

[Mike Roy (SEAC, Middlebury)]: Mike Roy, same affiliation.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Super. Alright. For the record for the record,

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I'm Joanna Miller, energy and climate program director at the Vermont Natural Resources Council. And a big piece of my work is supporting Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network, the network of energy committees across Vermont. So really grateful for the opportunity to be here today to talk to you guys about s two nineteen, a bill to establish a look into, how we further our work related to energy navigation services in the state of Vermont. So I just wanna come here and sort of just support, you know, the bill broadly and the focus of the work that the bill is intended to examine further and ideally expand and accelerate in the state of Vermont. Just a little bit of background. I've shared some of this with you in the past, but, you know, from my community work, again, about a 120 towns across the state have town energy committees, and they are they look very different depending on what community you are in and what state of volunteer exertion or exhaustion they might have. But a lot of these groups have been helping their municipalities retrofit municipal buildings, get solar on their schools, help low income households in particular, and people in their communities access and understand the different sorts of energy saving cost reducing, fossil fuel reducing strategies for their homes and businesses. And that work has proven and that model has proven really successful. Energy committees have mostly all volunteer, mostly municipally appointed, providing a really key leadership role and in partnership often with many of the other players in the space that provide services thankfully to Vermonters to again get off of fossil fuels, reduce energy costs, reduce climate pollution, etcetera. Many of the partners you've acknowledged in this bill, like Efficiency Vermont and many others. So I just wanna say that, you know, there's really important work happening in this space in Vermont, and there are a lot of really important players and there's more to do. So just in terms of what this bill is intended to explore further when place a process to do that examination of how do we expand energy navigation services across the state of Vermont, building out different models, including the economic action centers in a very in-depth model, which has been providing benefits to people in Addison County and a little bit into Rutland. That model is something that the energy committees that I've been along working with are really interested in and excited about. That sort of need for further, for lack of a better way of saying it, handful of things, services. We're asking people to make you know, pretty big decisions in terms of investments in their homes and in their lives. And there are a lot of new technologies, tested technologies that are out there now that people can access. But they need, I think help understanding how to access those services, how they relate to their existing heating systems in their home. For example, if they wanted to get into an electric vehicle, what that means, for example. More So, support in helping people make good informed financial and energy decisions considering energy decisions are significant financial investments for many households. And at this moment in time, I think I don't need to tell you. This is a really important moment to support more Vermonters in doing this work, not only because the climate is warming, and we have a need to get off of fossil fuels in Vermont, is an economic opportunity, but also because the cost of those products are rising. With our invasion into Iran, the cost of number two fuel oil on average has risen by about $2 a gallon. And so we need to be helping Vermonters access incentives and services that help them get off of fossil fuels as quickly as possible for all the benefits that that provides. So I just wanna say, in terms of the bill in front of you, generally supportive of the bill and the process that it sort of outlines for examining how do we do this with the really rich, thankfully, network of partners and providers in the state of Vermont that are providing services, but exploring the gaps in the services that we currently have and the opportunities to fill them with potentially expanded services through SEAC or through other partners. And I'm interested in that from where we sit in our support with energy committees, how do we help them as all volunteer, mostly municipally appointed groups provide better services as conduits to people in their communities, especially low income households that are increasingly struggling at this moment. Understand the options available to them. So, I just really want to say, the cornerstone that really, this is an important focus. No better time than this moment. So I I have a few specific suggestions that I would wanna make on the draft.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Sorry. Before you get going on the draft, I wanna thank you for bringing up the $2 increase in in oil. And just to ask you why we don't see that kind of volatility with electric rates in Vermont.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Well, we regulate and we set, you know, electric rates in a very different way than we don't. We regulate our utilities. They go through a very robust DRP and IRP, you know, processes through the PUC and then different rate making and rate setting processes. There's just a very different we don't have those same levers and ways to control that when you're tied to a global commodity market. So, let's see how this all plays out internationally, but we just don't have the same agency

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: in the way that we do to regulated electric sector. So we don't have the same ability to

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: No. We're very vulnerable and at risk tied so closely to global commodity market and, you know, I just and, you know, side note, having read the the it wasn't even, like, you know, fine print, and and we have a little apartment propane heater. I think I was mentioning this, but I called that morning, asked the price of, propane, $2.99. When my husband called the fillet, they charged us $4.99 because it is at the sole discretion of the provider what they charge you at any moment in any day. So, we're going to be digging into that piece further because we have a lack of transparency and there's a lot of discretion among guilt riders about what

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: they charge. Sorry to get us off on a

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

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: And I'm sorry to go down that road, but we're thinking about it in a lot of the people that we're collaborating with at community level, and I'm sure you're hearing about

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

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: your constituents. So there's an opportunity to do things differently and making sure that Vermonters have the best information and access to the partners that can provide them good services to help them cut costs and transition to more fuel efficient, cleaner energy technologies. So that's what this bill, I think, is trying to help support. So just wanna underscore the support for that. And a few specifics, and I left my copy of the draft over there, but I shrugged down which sections. So if you don't mind just starting first within section one a, when you list out thank you. When you list out the different parties that the Department of Public Service should collaborate with. Just would highly recommend adding the Energy Action Network in particular. And I'm gonna underscore this a little bit further in my testimony too, but just to say that the Energy Action Network, I think we've heard from them in the past, but they're a network of a wide variety of partner organizations including the public service department and many others. But they're doing a lot of this work right now, pulling several players and partners together to examine the sort of landscape of energy navigation services and the potential gaps and opportunities. So they are gonna have a foundation of understanding, and Mike can speak to this far more because he's co leading that process. But my recommendation is to add energy action network because there's a a ton of work that's been done that would be a great foundation for the department to pivot. Okay. Okay. Specifically, on section one a also, I would recommend sorry, don't have the line. Where you talk about the department consulting on findings from the comprehensive process and performance evaluation. And it talks about including electric and thermal efficiency, weatherization for customers with low income, and beneficial electrification initiatives. I would add after that, including transportation. You can probably intuit that beneficial electrification initiatives might include electric vehicles, but considering transportation is 40% of where our climate pollution comes from and often one of the biggest costs that households have to bear, I would just recommend that you specify a focus on transportation.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Hang on. Sorry, that was Sorry. I just felt like we're moving. 14. Yep. I'm online 14. So, I just wanna make sure. So, what what you're suggesting, I'm just trying to make

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: sure that the loan and beneficial electrification initiatives, comma, including transportation to inform the design of the block being based home energy. Yep. And where

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I was going with that was specifically calling out transportation. I was just trying to go back and read all the surrounding language to make sure that we've already that the con the whole context is probably more around thermal efficiency, electric and thermal. And you're saying we we should also include transportation. Yeah. I wanna make sure we're not tilting it toward transportation. Right?

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I mean, I I guess if we're helping households, it is a significant focus on thermal, but I think it would be a lost opportunity if you're not when you're in a customer or if you're in a Vermonter's home or talking to these folks, talking about transportation options available to them.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We say on line 13, including, let's see here, focused on affordability, including electric and thermal efficiency, weatherization, very important, and beneficial electrification initiatives to inform the design. Okay, let me just think about, I get what you're saying, and I need to think about how exactly we integrate that thought.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: So beneficial electrification initiatives include in addition to EVs. What are the other things? Ski pumps.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: An induction stove. Induction stove. Stove. Love it. I mean, technologies like that.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Okay.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Like a deep pump hot water heater.

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

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

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Yeah. Got

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: the gap right there. Yeah. Yeah.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: And more specifically on page two, section one b three, it talks about, yeah, existing residential customers, the fiber cutting, identified energy saving opportunities. Again, I would say very well, the department may do this in collaboration, but I would just recommending adding specifically electrification and fuel switching to reduce heating and cooling loads that can minimize the need for installation in lower future electric demands on the grid. But I would add here focus on electrification and fuel switching opportunities.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And if you're open

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: to any of these ideas, I'm happy to provide it and suggest it. That'd be great. Yeah. Direct edits to the draft. And I can follow-up with Alex. K. And take them

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: as you wish, obviously. Okey dokey. Okay.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Moving on, and this is under

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: section Just sorry. Go ahead. That seems like a strange place for that since the point of that subsection three is to reduce electrical demands, and fuel switching raises electric demands. So I don't know how that fits in that section.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, maybe it's another sub.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Yeah. Might be. Yeah.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Makes sense.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: A new sub. Okay. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'm just jotting down general thoughts. Yeah.

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

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

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Point taken, but I will suggest it as stand alone and consider. Okay. Section one c, on or before March, department shall submit a report. I have two things here. I would recommend changing to 01/01/2027.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. I wondered about that date. Do you know how that came to be? That's like right before crossover. Yeah.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I don't know how that came to be, but again, you will hear I think more from Mike and if you need maybe from the Energy Action Network themselves, there is a tremendous amount of work happening right now that I that is open and transparent and is a foundation of work to build from. So, ideally, the department has significant partnerships and just a foundation that they can work from. Brooks Southworth?

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: That may be in line with DPS already issuing an RFP.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Could be. Love to hear from them.

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

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Okay. Yeah. And then Sorry. Brett Mark? So

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: what work do you envision happening in this process that isn't happening with the AF right now?

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I mean, I don't know exactly where EINs will land. I know they're doing, like, a tremendous amount of interviews, and I think maybe EINs work is and maybe I should defer to Mike to answer that question, but providing, like, really getting a baseline understanding of who's providing what services through our cap agencies, through Efficiency Vermont, through efficiency utilities, the distribution utilities, etcetera. So maybe they're doing just the, you know, lay of the land.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So it's broader than the energy based study.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Oh, yes. Much broader. Yeah. And, Mike, ideally, you can speak to that. Okay. My last suggested change from that same section where it talks about the department shall submit a report, And I would just add on recommended program design. It says on program design, because I feel like if this report goes to you, then it's the legislature's we'll have agency and taking that input. So we usually ask the department to make recommendations. K. So that's a small change and maybe it's overconvenient, but I would imagine that they provide you a report. You'll dig into it next session,

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: and then go

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: with it. Go from where you Alright. Go from there. So that's really it. I really just wanted to thank you for taking this up, Underscore sort of that we've got a great network of providers. There are still gaps in the system. I think that's what some of the work EAN is doing in this process can further identify. But I think the shared goal is we're making an energy transition. And as representative Sibilia often says, the goal is to make sure that no one is left behind in that transition. So how do we provide services to help households, all households understand the the different, you know, kinds of investments and energy and decisions that they can be making, ideally, just some support, giving navigation services to say, you know, efficiency is offering disincentive today. So the goal being, we got a foundation. We gotta build from it. There's no better time. We gotta help farmers get off of our reliance on imported fossil fuel for for driving at prices in ways that households can afford.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: K. Brammer, and then I that's it for you, James.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Curious, really, there was a dollar amount in this bill before we got the contingency language.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: There was.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: There was There was. 45,000 in the public service department and 10,000 in the tax. Yep.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: 35. Now contingent. Yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And to to get there. What's the to you guys. Yeah. Oh, sorry.

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

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: tough to see hard to see. Yes. What's what does it stand for again?

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Climate, economy, action center of African It's

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: not right in here. It's not right in the bill.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: It was in the under C Act, which

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: they'll switch the hardy soft

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: key from the words. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I have a It's very tricky. I do have a question for Joey, which is I'll ask our next witnesses too. But curious why SEAC? Curious why SEAC is actually specifically called out as a partner.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I I mean, from where I sit, I think it's because SEAC has taken the leadership and reins to essentially say we're going to go building off of the different partners that provide incentives like cap agencies and efficiency Vermont and the tier three incentives for the distribution utilities and say we're going to go further and proactively engage people or respond to people's interests and say we're going to go deeper into and sit around your kitchen table and help you understand where you are in this moment in terms of your how you're eating your home, getting where you need to go, mostly eating your own, and how we can help you access, you know, different strategies to get off of fossil fuels or reduce your energy bills. So, I think it's just a much deeper dive than providers have been able to land at this moment, which is one of the reasons you know, our work with energy committees for a long time, you know, these groups have been trying to do that in different ways, but not in that in-depth, like, human to human, one on one, like, understanding your household energy picture broadly Mhmm. And then helping you make informed decisions. They try to do that, you know, use grassroots groups in various ways. One that's one of the reasons we are very interested and have been part of this conversation is because maybe the SEAC model, which may be the gold standard, isn't something that we can afford to, you know, deploy statewide in this moment. But how do we learn from that model and working with different partners and the volunteer energy committees, you know, build on that model what we can and help you know, I'm looking at, like, how do we train these grassroots groups to do that in ways that work for them, but also reaching more people who need help in this moment.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. That that was just a a question I had, I'll talk to you guys about it too. Was just to make sure that I understand, you know, if we're calling out one specific program with you know, as a as a lead partner and funding that we're sure that this program is doing something unique, different, better than, more than any other anybody else in the state. So this is not what efficiency Vermont is doing. This is not what what all of our town energy committees are doing. This is a new different unique thing that we wanna call out and learn from and build on as opposed to, like, yeah, there's six different people doing this, and we just kinda pick this one. So that'll that'll be important to talk about. So Alright.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Vision it as, like, a mini like a pilot Yeah. In the ground for that very in-depth,

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: household task force. Okay. R. Sibilia? So, as you know, I I mean, I think this is the place where we will find, you know, if the place how to get to the in terms of helping all Vermonters. And so, I wanna find a solution to the worry that I have Mhmm. Which is, and I've heard also from other stakeholders just around liability. So in this providing guidance and so how who is it who's providing guidance? Is it anybody providing guidance? Like, what are their their qualifications? Is there any liability to that? So I'm worried about that, and I would love to figure that piece out. Yeah.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I appreciate that. Happy to explore that further with you. I mean, I will let the CF team speak to that Okay. Definitively. I think yeah. I appreciate the concern. I'll just leave it there

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: and can try to follow-up and think through that further. And and thank you for persisting and trying to help us find the right way.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: And, ideally, that's a piece of, like, what in partnership with others, the department and their explorations about cancer.

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

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Yeah. And this might also be a question for the department. I mean, a wonderful outcome from this would be if we had really good data on what's happening in different communities. Because right now there's some, but there's a lot of missing, like, I, you know, I just don't have that visibility. I love the report that I get from two one one Mhmm. Which shows, like, all the calls from my district. But just the thought of having, as legislators, insight into our own communities and how they're doing. And I mean, imagine for the regional planning commissions, like, just there's such a need for data and understanding where there might be communities that are getting by and that might need extra incentives. I know a lot of that's happening because of efficiency of the lost reach, but when we talk about these local initiatives and more in-depth coaching relationship, I just wonder if some of that could be not showing up.

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

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: you so much.

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

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: for opportunity today and just the work you're doing in general. Appreciate it. Appreciate your time. Thanks.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright, Steve. Let's just roll on.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Is it okay if Mike and I come up to the

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: same time?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Of course. And also our third team member

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Is online?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Is online. Super. If if

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: she'd been on YouTube, I guess, but needs to switch over. There is. She is. Zoom is one way. There she is. Excellent.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Hi, Jean. Can you hear us?

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

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Yep. That's Jean.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: There we go. Hi.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We have not had you guys in to testify, I don't think, so let us quickly introduce ourselves. I'm Kathleen James from Manchester.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Scott Campbell from Saint John's party.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Richard Bailey, one zero two.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Chris Morrow, Windham, Windsor Bennington, Michael Southworth, California two.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Christopher Howland, Rutland Ford. Dara Torre, Washington two.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Bram Kleppner, number two, number 13, Birmingham.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Morseville, 102. Great.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. So, yeah, so we're taking up s 219. Obviously supplanted the we had a house companion bill here stuck on our wall. But we're working off of the Senate version now and eager to hear from you guys about the work of SEAC.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Great.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. For the record.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: If you can introduce

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

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: My name is and members, thank you for having us. My name is Steve Meyer with the Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County, which oversees and directs the energy navigators program. And today, have I'll go ahead.

[Mike Roy (SEAC, Middlebury)]: I'm Mike Roy from Middlebury. I'm also chair of the

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Great.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: And Jean?

[Jean Terwilliger (SEAC Board Member, Cornwall)]: Jean Terwilliger from Cornwall, Vermont. Also on the board of SEAC.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. So, I don't know if you guys have written testimony, if that's fine. Tell us about SEAC and your work.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Yeah. We we prepared have testimony that will sort of tag team a little bit, and Great. Will each take about five minutes, which should leave plenty of time for your your questions. Sure. Can tell already there. But we'll try to our testimony does at least start to answer some of your questions, and we can dive into that further. And I wanted to say, because I'm worrying a little bit about forgetting later, I just wanna say that we're we definitely support the changes that Joey suggested in her testimony just before. One I'd like to call out, which is especially important, I think, is the date of the submittal of the report. I think we would really hope to be able to have a date that would allow you and the legislature in general to consider the recommendations and take action next sessions. Super. So with that, I think Jean is actually our lead off. She's gonna talk a little bit. Just that we're gonna give just a brief interview of so what is Energy Navigators? What do we do? How do we do it? Mike will talk a little bit about other programs around the country and also about the EAN work that you've heard about, and then I'll sort of finish it up and give you a little bit more about who SEAC is and why we're doing this and, why we asked to help asked for some help this year in the legislature to do these things.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. Thank you. And do you guys have written testimony? Or do you have?

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: We sent

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: some things. Great. Thanks. Behind the scenes.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Sorry about that.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: That's great. You you all set, Jean?

[Jean Terwilliger (SEAC Board Member, Cornwall)]: I am. Yeah. So thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. So just a little bit of storytelling to start out. So, sitting in your chilly kitchen on one of the cold snaps this winter, did you ever wish that you had someone you could ask about how to keep your pipes from freezing? A neighbor you could call on who knows enough more than you do to point you in the right direction for answers, that's the Energy Navigators program. We're providing this type of neighborly resource for home energy improvement. The Energy Navigators is locally rooted program based in Addison County that helps residents lower their energy bills, improve the comfort and safety of their homes, reduce greenhouse gas emissions through one on one coaching. The program is completely free and open to all residents regardless of income and regardless of whether they rent or own their home. I come to this work as an architect with over thirty years of experience in all scales of residential design with a focus on energy efficiency and net zero buildings. When CX climate action plan showed the scale of change needed to make an impact on reducing climate pollution in buildings, I knew that creating a program to connect people with the resources available to improve their homes was not going to be easy, but could have very meaningful impact on our community. What makes the energy navigators different is our focus on building relationships with our neighbors rather than on paperwork or sales. Many Vermonters want to make smart energy improvements, but they face information overload, confusing options, and uncertainty about where to start. Our role is to help cut through that confusion, providing clear practical guidance so our residents can feel confident and empowered to make a plan and take action. Here are a few questions we've helped people with. I got an energy audit, but I don't understand what the next step should be. What options will make my home more comfortable? I'm interested in getting a heat pump, but I've heard they don't work in cold weather. How will I know if it will work in my home? My basement is always damp. Will getting a heat pump water heater fix it? Our mostly volunteer navigators meet people where they are. Literally, we go into homes, assess them using building science principles, and tailor recommendations to each household's specific situation. We then connect residents to the incentives, rebates, and programs that already exist. And importantly, we stay with them over time as a trusted resource to answer questions and provide support. In this way, energy navigators serves as a missing link between Vermont's statewide energy programs and real household level action. Programs through Efficiency Vermont, Green Mountain Power, Community Action Agencies and others have a long and successful history, but gaps remain. Many residents still struggle to access or navigate these resources. So energy navigators provides a last mile connection that turns eligibility into action. Our workplace has a strong emphasis on home electrification, one of the highest impact opportunities for reducing emissions while improving affordability and resilience, particularly to those households who are using propane and oil, which we know there are many. By helping households understand and adopt cleaner technologies, we are directly supporting Vermont's climate goals in a practical, people centered way. Energy Navigators paid staff is also focused on building local capacity by training and supporting a network of community based volunteers through national and local training programs. This model extends our reach, strengthens community trust, and ensures that this work can can grow sustainably across Vermont as, many communities have, talked to us about wanting to, have a similar program. In short, energy navigators is helping Addison County residents save money, move more comfortably, and be part of the climate solution by meeting where they are and walking alongside them.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Thank you.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'm gonna save up my question, I think. Okay.

[Mike Roy (SEAC, Middlebury)]: So I'm I should just say my background. I I just retired from Middlebury College where I was a CIO and had the library for almost twenty years. And so a lot of the work that I do is kind of technology based and very much interested in thinking about consortia and kind of relationships with partners, which is a lot of the way that libraries work in higher ed. So some of what you'll hear from me is kind of a a bias towards technology. Jean does a nice job of capturing the kind of very human dimensions of it, and a lot of the work to make it actually be effective requires some pretty sophisticated technology in the back end. So anyway, I've got sort of five things I wanna talk about. So first, as Jean mentioned, to state the obvious, but hopefully just as a reminder, the energy coaching is part of the state climate plan. So if you read the state climate plan, it's identified as as one of the path one of the ways in order to get to where we wanna go. And one of the things that we've learned is that these programs really help with low and moderate income households and sort of thinking about issues of equity and this just transition. So this real it's really important, I think, to sort of think about who is being reached and to how will these programs make sure that we reach everybody. As Joey mentioned, there's a broad interest in community based energy coaching from across Vermont. So we get calls regularly from energy committees from across the state saying, now, yes, please. We'd like them to. So some of this impulse is to say realize that we've landed on something that's really that's working. We think it's working quite well and trying to figure out how do we bring that out to to the rest of Vermont. The third piece I wanna talk a little bit about I'm open also open to questions about is just the work that we're doing with EAN. So we went to Energy Action Network and said we think that there's a that we should be exploring what a statewide energy coaching program would look like. So we've launched a working group within EAN. We've done a bunch of work kind of doing gap analysis, thinking about partnerships, how this work is gonna work, how this connects to all of the existing players, really trying to make a map of the system and trying to identify, like, what's working well, how would this program fit into the existing infrastructure. And so we're continuing that work. We're well aware that this bill is in motion. And so what we're expecting, hoping, is that if this passes, that we would just fold that work into this work rather than having it seems inefficient to have two parallel study groups studying exactly the same things. The fourth point is just thinking about realizing that this is not we're not just making this up, that this is actually happening across the country. And so we've been talking to folks in Massachusetts, has this community first partnership, which is a community based energy coaching program that actually arose from real concerns about equity concerns. So they realized that the energy efficiency utility was collecting all the all the money they were collecting, most of it was going to wealthy communities. And so the less wealthy communities were actually paying in more than they were getting out. And so one of the solutions to sort of make sure that the money was being distributed equitably was to create these community based programs to ensure that that folks in these communities were being reached. Similar program in Connecticut, also out of the efficiency utility. NYSERDA is a program out of New York that is not based out of the efficiency utility, but is doing similar work. So we're part of the EAN project is to really dig into how those are structured, how do they operate, how does the funding work, so that we could sort of see other models that we can borrow from other states that are even doing this successfully. And

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

[Mike Roy (SEAC, Middlebury)]: the last thing I will say is that there's an organization called Rewiring America that has been really focused on like, decarbonization and electrification, and they started a energy coaching program. And so they've trained we all of our energy coaches go through this program. And it turns out that they graduated, I think, about 1,800 people through this program, and they take on cohorts every two or three months, they bring people through the program. And they realized it's kind of like graduating nurses and doctors with no hospitals. Like, they have all of these trained coaches, but there's no program or infrastructure for them to plug into. And so they have started this conversation for those of us who have started these energy coaching programs. How do we learn from each other? How do we think about shared infrastructure, how do we help energy coaches that want to do this work in their community, provide them some structure and facilitate that kind of work. So that's that'll also inform the work that the AAM group is doing, and my hope is it will also inform this work is trying to look up and understand what's happening in other parts of the country. And I guess I'd say the last the the the last thing is just that as we know, we are not hitting our goals in terms of emissions, and so this I think is not a silver bullet, like putting this program in place will not suddenly get us to where we need to go, and one of the things that we've learned in this EAN process is that there are all sorts of structural issues around just incentives, like having the IRA gutted did not help. Was going to be an enormous push to help people get in heat pumps. So part of it also is like having this program is great, but we're also gonna have to continue talking about how do we actually create incentives to help make these transitions possible. So that's just to say that it's kind of necessary, but not sufficient, that there's more work to be done beyond this program, that this program could play as Steve suggested a critical role in making sure that these transitions happen so that all the monsters can be part of it and enjoy all the benefits. So that's it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. I'm gonna keep holding my I now have six questions that I will hold.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: If I answer a couple of them before

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I That's I'm yeah. Don't wanna butt in.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Well, thanks. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about SEAC and our programs. Energy Navigators is really our primary signature program right now, but SEAC itself is a small nonprofit. We've existed since 2019. We've done greenhouse gas inventories for Addison County and that climate action plan for the county, but we we all wanted to get more specifically involved in in direct work in our communities, not just planning work or not just research, but actual work helping people, and so that led to energy navigators. We were all familiar with the existing programs, but we knew there were gaps, and so we developed from the ground up the pieces we thought were necessary to be able to meet with homeowners and renters, provide them the advice that they really need, provide a roadmap, help them with how do we get started and how do we keep going. A really important component that we do that no one else does is to stay with clients over time. So we have reminders built into the CRM, the customer relation database that Mike helped us develop so that we get back in touch with people after three months or six months or a year. We're back in touch with them to say, okay. What what help do you need now, and how can we help with that? Part of the impetus, we we asked our legislators to put forward this legislation, and Ruth Hardy, Senator Hardy in the Senate was the primary sponsor there. Two things, I guess, I would say most to your question to one of your questions, Madam Chair, is we we do see ourselves as as a pilot. We think what we're doing is both important and different and unique. No one else in Vermont is doing what we're doing the way we're doing it. That isn't to say there aren't other organizations doing important work in this field, and we we do collaborate with Efficiency Vermont all the time. We collaborate with Green Mountain Power as our utility. We collaborate with our community action agency, which is CDOEO for most of us, although it's different in Brandon. We do work in Brandon now under contract with them and also work with their organizations and networks down there. And our funding, we have, our funding is cobbled together. We have several grants, including, fortunately in the moment, but unfortunately for the long term, two federal grants that no longer exist. We won't get them again. They'll help us maintain our staff and oversee our programs through this calendar year, but we'll start to be we'll have reduced financial sources that we know about and can depend on starting next year. So that's part of why I've asked you with even stronger language to consider the report date a little bit earlier in your session so you can receive it and consider action next session and not delay this even longer. We are determined to continue on. We're developing we may not be able to support the same staff level with going forward, but we're beginning to put a put a plan around and a path together to keep us moving, to keep us going. And Jean can talk a little bit more specifically during the q and a about our training program and how robust it is, and so we're, we've been successful in developing a good cohort now of about five or six well trained, excellent volunteer navigators we know we'll be able to continue to use. I think I'll end there. We'll just ask for your support, and that you support this bill, and I appreciate all of your time and attention. Thank you. Great.

[Jean Terwilliger (SEAC Board Member, Cornwall)]: So I've got a bunch

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: of questions that I've been kind of

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: saving up. So you answered a couple of them. So, you guys are a non profit and you're primarily grant funded. Do you do like an annual appeal as well? Yes. And what's your annual budget?

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Our budget right now that supports two staff and the program cost is about $230,000 And

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: two part time staff?

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: One full time and one part time.

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

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Nearly full time.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. So one part time and then I'm sorry. One part time and one full time? Yes. And then I I wanted to understand a little bit more about, and I think you did start to answer this, just about, so there's a, about the expertise and training level of your coaches. So it sounds like there's a, could you talk a little bit more about the training? I heard about the Rewiring America coaching.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Yeah, think I'll ask Jean to answer that question. She's more directly involved in it than I am.

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

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Although I've been through the Rewiring America training, I am not, I have not pursued trying to get to the point of providing energy navigation. So there are other pieces that are important, and we'll let Jean describe those.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So, yeah, just curious about the training and qualifications of the coaches.

[Jean Terwilliger (SEAC Board Member, Cornwall)]: Sure. Well, our cohort so far is, I believe, or mostly are all retired people who have some sort of technical background and some sort of interest in this. Either they've done significant work to their own homes, built net zero homes. So they are very interested in this area of expertise already. And then we ask them to all go through the Rewiring America program, which gives them basic building science training, also talks about how to work with individual clients, the questions to ask, how to approach things, and asks everyone who goes through that program to do sort of a cap stone that they actually do an energy audit and provide that information to graduate from the program. And then what we've done is we meet monthly with our cohort and we bring in speakers. We have just had our annual update from Efficiency Vermont and from CVOEO, the person who manages their weatherization program. So they come in every year and tell us what's new with their programs, what they see coming down the line. So we know how to refer people. We've talked to many, many people who had no idea that they were actually eligible for CVOEO's weatherization services. And so we've been able to direct them to getting those services. And then, yes, we meet monthly and we review, clients that we've been meeting with and issues and talk about how we can improve the program and make modifications. And don't send people out on their own until they have working with one of our more experienced people, that's either me or our staff person, program manager, and make sure that they know what they're doing.

[Mike Roy (SEAC, Middlebury)]: Okay. So just to clarify that, that so they basically shadow. So we we try to go with two people to each house, and we'll generally have more senior person, and then somebody who's in training will will tag along, and then they start to learn the system. And at some point, they'll feel comfortable, and then they can become the lead person, and maybe they bring along a more junior person.

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

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: And then the I guess

[Mike Roy (SEAC, Middlebury)]: the other thing to say is that they do the reports that we write, Jean or Shannon, review them before they go out so we don't let the volunteers don't get to send the final report to the client until it's been reviewed by either Jean or Shannon or our experts.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. I've just got a few more and then I'm gonna let everybody sorry, I wanna get to my list and then I'm done. We want to talk about liability. Let's leave that for later. So my last question is, I turn it over to my committee members, how do you guys, I'm curious about your outreach, how you specifically target or try to reach low and moderate income Vermonters.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Yeah. Last summer, we realized we had enough money to support an additional staff person, and we decided what we really needed more than a fully trained additional navigator. What we needed was an outreach and marketing director that we were actually seeing we didn't have the kind of waiting list we had expected to have of clients who people had signed up. So we needed to get more people to know about us and to sign up for us, and so that's what we've been working on the last six months. In our early and to date, more than half of all of our clients meet requirements for low and moderate income, And, honestly, that's without having worked very hard to direct specific marketing in their direction. So clients were successfully reaching a lot of those populations through our normal channels, front porch forum, other community events that we show up at, and And we're still definitely open to we've reached out to a number of our other community partners that are working in other spaces, housing and food security and poverty, and so we are in the process of establishing those connections and getting engaged with their, more specifically, with their networks. But we've actually done quite well, surprising to us, to me anyway, to begin with, that over half of our clients meet those requirements.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay, so that was a lot for me. I know I saw R. Kleppner's hand up, I know R. Campbell.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Just a quick reminder, when did you serve in the legislature?

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: I served between 02/2010. And what committees? I served on the House Health Care Committee when it was first started as such. Used to be just on health and welfare. It was all together before 2000 and and I served on that committee, and in 2004, they split them apart.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Turned you to really want the whole story? Just to no. Not now with the not in the

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: My background was in energy and environment. The speaker at the time that I came in was of a different party. So he sort of distributed the new legislators in places where they didn't have any expertise. So I I got wooden healthier.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Got it. Did Thank

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: you have a question?

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: That was it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Brett Campbell?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, I have to say, I think this is exactly the kind of thing I've been doing. I was a presidential director of CBO and Oath through the nineties. From o nine until I started here, eight years ago, I ran a broker called three d Thermo, which works with the apartment building partners, a company of the residents around the state. And that experience taught me a few things, actually. One, it's hard to start a program and build it by plane, it's time. And another is that actually the navigation part or the hand holding part was the biggest service that we offered, and we incentivized people to do so, and more inflation or barrier to manual ventilation or whatever, and that got them in the door. But really what we provided was advice, which having excelled, so it was unbiased advice. It was just how can we project better. And a third thing was that it's hard to get people to do something if they aren't ready to do something. So starting so, really, we work with people who are under project and then try to augment that project with with a lot better a lot better energy efficiency improvements. So it occurs to me that that might be fruitful path for for you all to be looking for people who are doing project. And that's not really gonna be low income folks, typically. But they have the weatherization program. And the weatherization program has an energy coaching element to it, which actually started as a cap down there. I don't if was CCAC at the time, but and then became a statewide thing. So there there are all the all the community action programs, all the weatherization programs have energy coaches. That is if you were to to spend some time working on connecting with people who are who are doing a project and and and having your coaches help them, you know, do handholding with them for how to how to take advantage of what programs there are to make make their whatever projects they're doing much more efficient and better more effective in terms of efficiency. Might be a a a pathway to expanding your reach and then and then and then getting the word out in the community that this is this energy navigator thing is something that anybody can access. Anyway, a thought. And it's I mean, it's a really exciting thing that you're doing and really, really needed, and you really need

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: to do it statewide. One of the things that, if I may, that is part of the work that we're doing that we're just teeing up to happen this summer is to do some research and and provide educational materials for the contractor community in and around that serves Addison County. And, know, predictably and a little unfortunately, there's a lot of variation across that community. We are always asked to recommend particular contractors or folks that do energy audits or whatever, and we do provide some advice in that field, but we also realize that there aren't enough of them or they aren't Anyway, we're working on that space as well, one of the benefits hope about that work will be have have better relationships with those contractors so that that kind of communication that you mentioned can happen better than it might be right now.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And actually, worked so well. This dovetails with actually another thing that I'm working on about a bill a bill that's, the senate right now around, so contractors have to be registered. Probably aware of that, but a lot of people aren't, except contractors are aware of it. And and we have mandatory energy codes, which people aren't aware of and contracting aren't aware of. So the bill they're working on it. H seven eighteen, which tries to raise the profile of the residential contractor registry and use that as a way to get contractors not only registered, but also obtaining voluntary certifications and things like codes, building science, what have you, in order to distinguish themselves in the marketplace as people who don't understand what what they're doing. And so anyway, it might be a a way to work together on all of this.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Couple more questions unless other committee members have questions.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. So I think my really exciting thing that you're doing, and we're still wanting to make help you make it happen. Figure it out.

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: So we

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: did have a question about just liability. How are you guys covered if somebody says, oh, you told me to do this and

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: it didn't work? We were advised by programs in other states that so we do have a waiver form. We ask people Okay. So we Jean could tell you more specifically what it said, or we could provide you with a copy.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Just send it. If you could send a copy, that'd be awesome. Yeah. And then, my final question was just about your funding. So you've got a, like a roughly $2.30 ks budget and, that's a blend of grant funding and your annual appeal and individual donations. And what's running out next year? What's how are things looking for FY are you on a fiscal year or a calendar year?

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: We run on a calendar year budget, but the grants that we receive all seem to run more on a fiscal year. So we're sort of toggling between Yeah. All along. The two federal grants, will run out in early twenty seven, and, those are Department of Energy grants, they're just not nothing else happening in that sphere, as you won't be surprised to know if

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: you didn't already know it. How much are they?

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Those total about a $140,000, and we we access those are energy efficiency community block grants, and so the communities of Middlebury and Brandon applied for those grants from the Department of Public Service, and then we've contracted with those two communities to provide energy navigator services more specifically focused on those two communities. We also have funding from V Lite. Are you familiar with V Lite?

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

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: which is a wonderful opportunity for folks working in this space across Vermont, and we're currently in our second grant cycle with them. They don't really prefer to continue to provide grants over a long period of time, So, will have those conversations about whether they might entertain a third grant with us, given all that's happened at the federal level and in other ways. So, I'm hoping we've had good working relationship with them, and I'm hopeful for that, but not expecting it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's not a federal I'm not familiar with ELI.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: ELI is something you you from a from a legislator policy standpoint, it's a wonderful thing. You know? It's how you go over lunch or something. But they they We don't need to bother legislature required to back as part of the merger between, CBPS, the utility for most Southern Vermont and Green Mountain Power. Mhmm. The legislature, in order for them to approve the merger, required they set up, among other things, they set up this a nonprofit

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

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: That would get funded with a certain number of Belco shares that it was directed, would go to the benefit of this nonprofit. So they get a million dollars a year, roughly, from those Belco shares, which they their only job as a board is to distribute the funds. And so the

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Is Gabriel, I mean, that's still

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Gabriel, I that's

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: still Okay. So with the you guys are looking at a funding cliff and Yeah. Or a kind of sharp drop off. And so the 10,000 that's envisioned in this bill, you know, contingent, obviously

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Well, we we asked for more than that, the original bill. If you go back in history long enough, we actually asked for a 120,000, I think it was. Yeah. But that was never gonna go anywhere this year. So, it got reduced over in the Senate Committee.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So we're down to 10, and that would be used specifically, I would imagine, to support staff time on this program design?

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Yeah, I think the language in the bill is they passed it out of committee, to help us to be able to actively participate in the study design process. Okay. And so, it would go to support, yes. I'm sure you're right. Some of it will support the staff and their involvement with the study committee, or it may be that Mike and I do most of the study committee work.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. For Sibilia. So I think that

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: it is Three Rivers that has the RPC that has an energy navigator that the towns have all agreed it's, a shared position. Have you all looked at, that type of a model?

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: We're familiar with that on what might have said. Yeah. There's a group of communities that came together and sort of co funded an energy staff coordinator person for the region. Joan might be able to talk more about it than specifically than I am, but we are aware of it, and have approached our some of us started the process of approaching towns to see if they would support the work that we do. We've had only a little success with that so far. Okay.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. We've worked with them pretty heavily on the Merck. Merck. Thank you. Merck's gonna say.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Merck's were great. We had 13 county towns that directed their Merck grants to us and really helped with the beginning stages of the development of the energy navigator programs.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I wonder if your RBCs would be a good connection. I

[Mike Roy (SEAC, Middlebury)]: wanted to speak to your question about data because I know that was something that you were interested in. So we had, as Steve alluded to, we built a CRM using a platform called Monday. And so we track all of our customers. Our clients come through. We put them in the system, and we can track them through the pipeline. Every touch we record. We send the all the emails are automated except some of our navigators are like, we don't want any automation. This is human. So they turn the automation off and they write write them themselves, but other means are like, thank god for computers. And then and so we also record actions. So, like, we try and and this is a challenge that we'll say to get people to tell us, like, we put in a heat pump, we did this, we did that. So we're trying to figure out how to work with efficiency of Vermont, and that holds a lot of that information to figure out how they could learn to trust us enough to give us so we could know actual results. So we can track contact and participation, and we're still this is one of the processes to figure out how do we actually get people to tell us that they did something so we can say, as a result of our program, 37 ePROMs were installed. We can't quite say that yet, but we have the we've set up the system so that it can record it. We just don't can't get people to talk to us.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, I know we're we're running late. Thank you so much for coming in, and for the work you're doing. Yeah. It's great to meet you and,

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: you know, you've been in

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: before, we we're grateful. So

[Mike Roy (SEAC, Middlebury)]: Thanks for your time, Cliff.

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

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Thanks, Gene. Thanks,

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yep. Alex, is is Alex here? Yes. Okay. Is he in the room? No. He is. Is he in the Zoom line? Yeah. Okay. Alec, hi. I'm sorry we're running late.

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: No worries.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Great. Well, we're just just learning all about SEAC and wanted to get the department's take on 02/19.

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Sure. Well, first of all, you for having me. I apologize I cannot be there in person. I just had surgery. So

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

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Having a little trouble putting pants on these days. Hopefully, we'll be we'll be back soon enough. Anyway, so 02/19. I think the the the general position of the department is that we are supportive of exploring potential program designs for an energy navigator program. And I think this whole process, at least in part, was started by recommendations that the department made in the affordability proceeding act one forty two from last year. And one of our recommendations was, you know, there's a there are myriad program options out there, but some of them are difficult to sort of fit the pieces together on. And and in particular, we were looking at the opportunities for low income participants and programs to have a, you know, there's some really shining examples of wonderful programs that are really turnkey solutions. They're comprehensive. They really take a lot of the guesswork and the sort of scheduling and all of the complicated parts of getting contractors to do work. And they take that out of the hands of the customer and they just kind of guide them through the process. And they achieve really good results, you know, thinking in particular about the OEO, the WAP programs, the OEO, Low Income Modernization Program, those types of things, which are unfortunately only available to low income customers. And so what happens to the person who, you know, makes a couple $100 too much in the year and can't qualify for that program? All of a sudden, they're left to kind of have to navigate on their own the low to moderate income weatherization program, or maybe they want a heat pump and then they've got to go to a different place and navigate that process. And so our thought was it might be good to look into something that sort of helped connect those dots for people who don't qualify for truly turnkey low income solution, but who are still struggling and still wanna try to do something to help lower their energy burden maybe don't have the resources or the time to devote to figuring that out on their own. And so that was where the recommendation came from. Another recommendation that came out of that proceeding was for the department to take stock of myriad programs that I mentioned earlier and really try to figure out where the synergies are, where the gaps are, just really, as I said, take stock and try to come up with a more comprehensive view of what's out there all in an effort to kind of understand how folks can address energy affordability in a more comprehensive way. And so our contention is that while we are supportive of the effort to look into designing a program around some kind of navigator solution, and maybe that's a LMI solution, maybe something bigger or I guess our point is we don't really know yet what that needs to look like. And so we would advocate that we finish this program review first. And the the we've got an RFP on the street right now. We're we're talking to several different vendors. But, basically, I think it it stands to reason that at least one of the key recommendations that will come out of this report will be something some sort of navigator tool or program or something of that nature that will help address that issue. Among probably several other opportunities that are identified. And so I guess it really comes down to, we don't wanna get too far ahead of ourselves by pursuing this navigator path if there is a more comprehensive or possibly less expensive or some set of preferable options that may include this pathway, but that that, you know, in taking that more holistic view, we don't wanna preemptively remove anything from the toolkit, so to speak. So our ask is that we get to finish this finish this review, which will have a report sometime, hopefully, mid October is our goal. And then from there, you know, as I said, most likely, the navigator will be a piece of one of the recommendations and then we can pursue that according to the language of the bill.

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

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So I missed the beginning part. I missed the what report are you working on? What review are you working on?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I had the same question. Could you just repeat?

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Yeah. Yeah. Sure. So as part of that 01/1942 report that the PUC put together, the department weighed in and provided a number of recommendations of things we thought would be helpful to look at. One was a potential navigator program. Another one of them was sort of a more fundamental review of all of the programs, and we have a full list that I'm happy to share with the committee that, you know, lists out. So it includes, you know, efficiency Vermont programs, the tier three programs, the the OEO WAP programs, the BHFA low income financing, on bill financing program. There's a, I think it's well over, maybe not well over, but over a 100 programs that we identified that at least in some way touch energy affordability. And some of them are well coordinated, some of them sort of live off on their own. They're administered by various state agencies. There's some third party groups that do. There's even some sort of private or not for profit groups that administer some of them. And so our recommendation was let's let's do a full evaluation and sort of stack all of these programs up against each other with as apples to apples metrics as we could come up with and look at, you know, how effective are they at meeting sort of their stated charge? Are they are they hitting their key performance indicators? That kind of thing. Let's look at sort of the return for Vermonters, how well are they addressing energy affordability in in economic terms, and then, you know, provide sort of a third party industry expert opinion on how do these stack up. You know, what's working well? What could be improved? Where are there opportunities to maybe create more linkages between the programs, more, you know, more sort of stepwise progressions through the programs, those kinds of things. And so, as I said, we've we've got an RFP out currently. We've got, I think, four contractors identified that we wanna move, you know, forward with. And our goal is to have a report that explains those results that has that sort of matrix of, again, the best apples to apples comparisons we can come up with to stack those programs up against each other and get a better understanding of how they're addressing energy affordability in a more holistic way. And that should be done in mid October.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And would you hope to award the contract?

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: We are looking to get the contract, I think, three weeks from this Friday.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Oh, great. Okay. That's specific.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Not Making sure I got that right.

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: So the strategy is right. Yeah. So three three weeks from tomorrow.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Okay. Rip Kleppner?

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: So the bill has written calls for the department to submit a recommended recommendation on program design to this committee on or before March 1. Mhmm. And there is a certain amount of interest in having it arrive earlier than that so we have enough time to work on it before crossover, which is sort of that week ish. Understood. And I'm just looking at a calendar in my mind and thinking you get your report mid October. Doesn't leave a lot of weeks before January 1 or some date like that.

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: That was our initial concern in working with Senator Hardy and the Senate Natural Committee. That March date was fairly arbitrary. I think it was just sort of like, we're gonna need more time than like a month and a half to get something together. Knowing that we still wanna get it done, you know, while there's time in the session to address this. And so I take your point and, you know, I think that date is fungible, but just acknowledging that, you know, we wanna be able to, you know, provide an adequate amount of time to do a thorough thorough process.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Yeah. And it's not just any month and a half. It's a month and a half of Thanksgiving and Christmas

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: and Yeah. It's yeah. Admittedly a difficult month and a half. Yeah.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Yeah. Hunting hunting season.

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

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Just a whole bunch of stuff in there.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: There there there is.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I just wanna get a a better bead then on how the work that you're already undertaking that's already underway and it'll be due in October fits with, doesn't fit with this bill.

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Guess to from the department's perspective, the our report is sort of like a phase one, and then the specific program design outlined in this bill would be sort of like a phase two, I think. And as I said, you know, I think there will be other there'll be other recommendations that will require similar effort to either develop some kind of program design or some sort of new new administrative structure to coordinate. And so I could envision a scenario where the program design envisioned in this bill is actually part of another bigger phase two report where the program designed for a navigator program exists and, you know, some kind of coordinating structure between, I don't know, just hypothetically saying, like, the tier three programs and the TEPF programs under the efficiency utilities like that, they coordinate better there or out of those are these are all based on recommendations we've already made. But, you know, there could be other other processes that get addressed or other aspects of the recommendations that get made that get addressed through a a phase two process.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And the $25,000 allocation, if it becomes available, would support that specific phase two work for this specific component?

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Specifically for the program design on a navigator, yeah. And that

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah, okay. Yeah, R. Torre?

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: I seem to remember that the PUC is doing some kind of a proceeding around tier three

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

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: So is that somehow coordinated with what you're doing?

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: It is. So that is a separate but related issue. They're looking at the coordination between the EEU programs and the tier three programs. And that's a, a wanna say solely, but it's largely being driven by the issues that we've seen around heat pump performance. And so it is related, certainly. And I think there are certain aspects of how those measures are delivered across this sort of bifurcated program structure that could benefit from some coordination and that might look like a navigator or it may look different states have taken different approaches and this is not a unique problem to Vermont. But as far as that proceeding goes, that's it's not directly related to the the one forty two stuff and and the affordability stuff.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Any more questions? Yeah, Mike Southworth.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Do you feel that this bill would be redundant to what you're already putting in place with the RFP?

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: That's a good question. I don't think so. Think that, I guess I would just say that there is certainly a likely possibility that some of the sort of blocking and tackling of what a navigator program might look like would come out of this, you know, guess phase one report. But in terms of getting like a robust program design that could be bid out to a contractor or attached to an existing entity, is a considerably more detailed and labor intensive effort. I think that would be the key difference between what would come out of the phase one report and what would be generated by the process in this bill.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: So your report backed after this RFP is complete would be more in line with directing how to set up the energy navigator program?

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Yes, think that's a that's a good way to characterize it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'm not

[Mike Roy (SEAC, Middlebury)]: sure if I'm allowed to ask questions. Sure.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: Okay, since I'm allowed, I will.

[Mike Roy (SEAC, Middlebury)]: I guess I I'm you used the language of energy affordability. A lot of what we talk about is energy affordability and fuel switching and thinking about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And so I'm just cur I'm one of the worries I have is just making sure that the fuel switching and the reduction in emissions is get doesn't get lost in a in a in a focus exclusively on energy affordability. So for example, the c v o c v o e o folks that I I talk with largely focus on weatherization partly because the incentives and find it funding isn't there for heat pumps. But and I think if they could, they would do more with heat pumps and and fuel switching. But I just wanna make sure that we don't lose that particular dimension in if we decide to you all decide that this should be these these are gonna be linked together. That's just really important dimension, at least for us, to make sure that we're we're focused on fuel switching and emission reduction as well.

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think, you know, it's important to, you know, I think the part of what gets lost in the shuffle, when, you know, like, to your example of like an OEO program doing a full comprehensive weatherization job and then adding a heat pump to the to the home. Like, that's the that is the gold standard, I would say. But I think what we're concerned with is that if it's done piecemeal or people are left to their own devices and, you know, some of that information slips through the cracks, there is the potential for, you know, material harm to energy affordability if someone just goes right for the heat pump and they don't weatherize their home potential potentially. Or they don't do a cost analysis on what their input fuel is versus what it might do to their electricity bill. So I think that's one of the goals in in providing some service like this navigator concept is that those considerations will be part of the process. And so, know, in service of those other goals in terms of reducing greenhouse gases or improving the building envelope or what have you, that the customer perspective is not sort of lost in that shuffle.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I see it as if I'm thinking about this correctly, what I'm seeing here are two different processes driven by two different drivers, basically, that could work well together if this bill passes. You've got your work ongoing with priorities and parameters and work of the department, which is rate payer protection. And so you're gonna be yeah, other considerations too, right? But But so you're going be doing your work that's ongoing and will be delivered in October with your focus and your priorities. And if this bill moves forward, then one specific component of that work could get picked up with the legislative direction provided and the legislative funding provided saying, yep, thank you for that. And now we're gonna take one component of it and please do it this way. That's how I'm seeing it. So, but it sounds like they're not in conflict.

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: No, I think you're characterizing it accurately.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. Do we have any further questions or comments? Alex Speedy Recovery, may your pants be restored.

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Thank you, yes.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thanks for joining us.

[Alex (Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Yeah. Thanks, Alex.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. I think I think we can go off live. We are done for the day. We're having a weird We're back at 08:45. Well, we have floor, and then 08:45 caucus level tomorrow floor and we're trying to reschedule tomorrow's testimony. Are we making progress with that? Yeah, everybody has

[Joanna (Joey) Miller (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: confirmed they could reschedule except for Joanna and Ben. Yeah,

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: alright. So we are, folks, we are switching. We're gonna be here after floor tomorrow, I think,

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: at 10:30,

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: and, not meeting tomorrow afternoon. So folks can get out and go home for the holiday weekend.

[Steve Maier (Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County - SEAC)]: So I wanted to share with you the pants

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I