Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: We're live.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: All right. Welcome back everybody to House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. It is Wednesday, April 8, and we are talking about S213 with the bill sponsor, Senator Ruth Hardy. Oh. So Oh. I know you. No. No pun. That was not intended.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: That is okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. I'm, Kathleen James from Manchester.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Scott Campbell from Saint John Gray. Chris Morrow, Windham, Windsor, Bennington, Michael Southworth, Caledonia, Christopher Howland, Rutland Ford.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Dara Torre, Washington 2.

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

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

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: I am senator Ruth Hardy. I represent the Addison District, and I am the sponsor and also the reporter of s two thirteen. And I in talking to the chair, I thought it might be helpful, and she thought too, that I come in and give you a little bit of background about why I introduced this bill and what the intent is. And I know you've already taken testimony, so I won't go through all the details of the bill, and I'm sure you've heard from legislative counsel, etcetera, Michael Gravy. But I introduced the bill because a a constituent of mine reached out because he did not wanna have a a water a smart meter, but that's the sort of, you know, lay person's term in the bill. We actually changed the term smart meter into advanced metering technology, I believe it is. Any question. Infrastructure. And that's the more sort of technical industry term and so that but they're commonly known to people as smart meters. He didn't wanna have a smart meter, and he also didn't wanna to pay to not have a smart meter. And his water company, which is the TriTown Water, which is in Addison County and covers the towns of Shoreham, Redport, and Addison, wanted to charge him to not have a smart meter because without a smart meter, they would have to drive to his house physically and read his meter, and it would cost them money. So they wanted to charge basically a fee to to have the extra time and effort and staff time to read his meter or smart meters. As you know, can be read either through drive by or remote technology. I have this cool, like, little visual of how smart meters work that I can pass around. But so he reached out to me, and and I said, you know, I'll I'll look into this. But what I looked into it, the water company was like, oh, please let us charge a fee because it costs us money. And if we don't recoup our costs, then we have to raise everybody else's water rates. And so it essentially raises the rates of water, especially in a small water system like many of our towns have. And so I introduced the bill trying to meet both the needs of the small water companies and also the customers who may not wanna have a smart meter for a variety of reasons. And that's where the bill started. And then after taking more testimony, I we learned about the in, you know, the changes in the technology since the original statute was was developed. And, originally, it was developed for electric and gas companies to allow people to opt out, but also didn't allow electric and gas companies to charge for people to charge people for opting out of electric and gas meters. And there was a lot of concern, and this was about fifteen years ago, that there was some health impacts of RF, which is the radio frequency, you know, thing that is used to read the smart meters. And I'm gonna sound really stupid because I don't I I'm not a techie, so I I can't I don't know all the details, but there were some concerns on it. There was actually a report done by the Vermont Department of Health, which I can send you the link to if you're interested in it. Yes. Saying that the health impacts were minimal and that the or non existent and that the current sort of regulatory structure for regulating RF was sufficient. And I actually when I first sort of searched for this report, the first place I found it was on the Department of Health for the state of Minnesota. So other states were using Vermont's Department of Health report. It was so good to say, look. Look. This is not an issue. So the bill is not really about that. It's about there are reasons why other people why people may not wanna have these meters. Some people for they think that there are health impacts. Other people, it's cybersecurity, know, they're concerned about data or they just don't want people coming into their house and installing an electronic device. So there are reasons why people don't want them, and so this allows them to not have them, but it also doesn't it it allows both water and we added electric companies to charge the fee that it would cost to recoup their costs of having to read a non smart meter in person so that we don't raise everybody else's water rates or electric rates. And that was sort of the idea. In the bill also is a provision about cybersecurity because that became an issue, and you may have read some things about water systems nationwide and cybersecurity concerns, and there was a water system. And if you haven't heard from him yet, I would suggest that you heard hear from him. He's a water system operator, and I can't remember the small town, but we heard from him. He's on our list that is in a pilot program to try to help rural water systems meet cybersecurity standards. And so we added a section about cybersecurity and the cybersecurity advisory council being able to issue nonbinding guidance to water systems in particular in order to make sure that their cybersecurity protocols are in place. And a lot of it has to do with just, frankly, protecting passwords. So if you haven't heard from ADS, the secretary of Denise Riley Hughes, she worked on this language with us to make sure that it sort of met the the needs of ADS, but also allows the secretary of natural resources, which has oversight of water systems, to request these cybersecurity guidelines if she thinks that there's sufficient need for them. Can can I

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: ask you a question about that? Yeah. I don't wanna interrupt you with question. No. Go ahead. Did they talk at all about what they view as the hazards cybersecurity hazards? What what are the what are what are the vulnerabilities that we're concerned about?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Well, water systems are considered critical infrastructure. So, you know, any critical infrastructure, we wanna protect from cyber attacks. And there are, you know, potential if if there were a cyber attack and it shut down a a water system for a, you know, large municipality and nobody had water for a while or their water was somehow contaminated because of some attack. That would be a that would be a problem, obviously. So but for most water systems in Vermont, they're very small. They're actually fairly low tech. Mhmm. And so the biggest thing that, you know, is basically, like, password maintenance and making sure that you have backup systems. And it it's fairly For the water system. Basics. Yeah. For water systems themselves. Yeah. And some of our water systems have no. I live in East Middlebury. We have our own little, water system. We are fire district. We have our own water system with a few 100 people on it. We don't have meters of any kind. We all just pay a monthly fee no matter how much water you use. And there are plenty of systems throughout Vermont that are that low tech. Right. So it's really just a matter of protecting our critical infrastructure, and most of these systems have very little staffing. You know, they might have one guy that's in charge of the whole system. So there's

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So so I I was imagining the hazard that people were concerned about homeowners were concerned about is is data somehow leaking from from their meter in their house to the Internet.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Oh, yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. As opposed to the other way around. And I and I I would imagine that any bad actor who was trying to sabotage water system would be targeting the the main the, you know, company pumps rather than rather than the water meters in the individual houses.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Yeah. And that's thank you. That's a a really good distinction. So the the RF the the the smart meters or the infrastructure, they just track water usage.

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

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: So they don't get any other information from that individual house. Right. So it's not like they are like, okay, Kath James was using Taking a shower. Exactly. Too long. It's really just water usage. And one of the benefits of them is that they can tell if there's a leak, for example.

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

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: So for water systems that are trying to preserve water, particularly in times of drought, which we are we are still technically in a drought, strangely, they can tell, okay, you have a leak in your home and I can call you up and say, you know. So they are just tracking water usage. So there are there were but there are people who are concerned that they're tracking something else. So that, you know, but they're not. And I encourage you, I think we heard from the South Burlington Water Systems Operator, and they have one of the more sophisticated, and I think it's South Burlington and Shelburne maybe. Is that

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Champlain Water District.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Champlain Water District. We have them coming in. Potentially. Right.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: They're more sophisticated, and they can sort of speak to some of these issues about how they manage their data. And their customer data data and their water usage data data Yeah. Are totally separate.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So What I'm trying to understand is what are people concerned about in terms of cybersecurity? And we and I think what I just heard you say is they're concerned about people's personal data, private data somehow being being connected to the to the water meter and communicated to the ether. Yeah. Those those concerns are really unfounded. That's what we heard.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Yeah. That, you know, obviously as well.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Yeah. I mean, hear from ADS, and I and I think companies need to take, you know, protocols for protecting people's data, and especially, you know, their their financial data, if they're paying through credit cards or their banking data and things like that. And companies do that, but that's not related to your meter.

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

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: You know? So there are two sides to it, that sort of meter data and the customer financial data. And

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, the point I'm missing here, I guess, is is the point of the bill some sense to ameliorate people's unfounded concerns. I

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: thought it was happening. I thought Ruth sorry.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Is that is that what you said too too blunt?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, what I thought Ruth was saying

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Right.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: The concern is not the language here is not and maybe we should just take a quick spin through the bill. But Yeah. I was reading this as meter. This is not about individual meters so much as asking at one level up, asking public water systems Yes. In general to develop cybersecurity practices around their system. So I think we've moved in the level of an individual smart meter at this point in the bill to Okay. Yeah. You're both system wide safety. I would

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: say you're both right because that the cybersecurity language that's in the bill is meant to be system level. Like, water systems should have cybersecurity protocols in place.

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

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: To protect the their system and our public health in the event of a cyber attack. And at the same time, there are individual customers who, for whatever reason, have concerns. And they may be unfounded concerns or they may just be philosophical concerns that they have. They don't want their data to be, you know, in a their data about their water usage to be in some communicate Over the air. Exactly. And I respect that. And I was trying to meet the concerns of my constituent who had those concerns while also respecting the fact that water systems and and electric companies need to cover their costs so they're not raising everybody else's rates.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yes. So This this would be a way, I would assume, for a a water system, any any system Yeah. That have to read meters to do so much less expensively.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: It's much less expensive. It's much more accurate.

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

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: And it also provides enough information that they can tell if there's a problem.

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

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Like like I said, a leak. Right. And I think that South Burlington Water System or Champlain Valley, whoever it is that's coming in, they will be able to explain that much better than I can. So that I it's sort of twofold. As you all know, once you get into a bill, you start getting into things you didn't you didn't know you were gonna get into. Just what once we started talking talking about water systems, that's when the cyber security stuff came

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: up. Yeah.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: That's when electric stuff came up. And we had the electric companies and and and I think there was a little bit of interest of gas companies, but I think they're not as interested in being included anymore because they have a different kind of technology and it would be it's not necessary for them. But yeah. So that's the origin. Are there other questions that I can help you understand the bill better? Mike Southworth?

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: On the person that you talked to about bringing this bill forward Yep. Did they provide any testimony as to why they

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Why they didn't want to have the smart meter? I think for them, and I don't wanna speak for them, and they actually didn't wanna testify on the bill. But they they were concerned about both the health impacts and the data privacy impacts. And so they just didn't want they didn't want somebody coming in and putting an electric device in their in their home. So I don't wanna speak for them for their motives, but they just didn't wanna be told that they had to do it, and that's what they were hearing from their water company. Right.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. I mean, I have to say the reasons might be unfounded in my opinion, but I I do understand the frustration of somebody who doesn't want one Yep. And can't not have it. As long as the company is not required to pay those costs.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Correct. And I mean, I will be honest, they wanted to not have to pay those costs, the the the customer. Right. It seemed unfair to have everybody else have to pay the added cost, especially in a small water system. You know, there would be it might be not very much, but it still would be increasing everybody else's bill.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I have a couple questions because it has been a while since we seems like a long time. It's probably not since we took testimony. I am gonna ask our committee assistant to go to your website and pull down any written testimony. Did anybody provide written testimony? I think they did. I'll have I'll ask Alex to go get whatever you have. Yep. And then maybe one of us has an intern who would be excited about going through and watching our oral testimony that we've taken so far and doing some notes or something. But can we go back through the bill a minute? Sure. Alright. So so I see the definitions.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Yep. And Michael Brady can talk to you more about those definitions, but this is more did the walk through already. So

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

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: three.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yep. That seems like the first actual Yep. Kind of thing.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: The bottom of page three, and this is upon the request of the secretary. And the secretary in this case is the secretary of natural resources because ANR has jurisdiction over water systems. So the secretary of natural resources can request that the cybersecurity advisory council develop nonbinding guidance for public water systems regarding generally accepted cybersecurity practices including information relevant to metering systems and customer data. So it is trying to meet both sides of it, the metering and the customer data. And the cyber security council can also do it without even having the secretary request. And they can issue this guidance as part of their annual report and in any other outreach. They they didn't wanna have to do a separate thing since they do annual cybersecurity guidance recommendations. They didn't wanna have to do a separate one for this. So they said you can do it in your annual report. You can do it separately. You can do it on your own or you can do it when the secretary of natural resources says, please do this.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'm having a memory now. Memories dripped up out of nowhere. I I think that what what EDS testified, which is why I had moved to a place in my mind of, like, well, let's just strike this language. So I'm glad you're here. Uh-huh. I feel like what ADS said was they can already do that, and we don't need this language in order to do that. So is this a belt and suspenders thing saying do it? Yes. It is. Okay. They

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: and it took them a long time to get us this language. I will say, I had to nudge and nudge and nudge. They felt like they could already do this. We thought it was important to have this in the bill in case the secretary of natural resources is seeing issues with water systems. And this was largely because there were some reports done about cybersecurity and water systems. And so this just gives the agency of natural resources the ability to be like, hey, you guys, we need We really need you to do this. Need you to do this. Because the the cybersecurity council is overseen by the secretary of ABF. Right. So there are two different secretaries involved. So it was they they would probably prefer that you strike it, but we felt it was important to have in here so that there's just a tool. And as you probably know, because you're the technology committee, you know, cyber security guidelines are not necessarily something you've advertised because you don't want people who might be bad actors to know what your protocols are. Right. So this council has the ability to do sort of more confidential or private recommendations as well.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: There's not currently a legislator on that council.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Oh, there's yeah. I don't remember. FYI. We we created it a couple years ago. Yeah. Were you involved in that? Were you involved in that?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: No. I just we have a bill on our wall to add a legislator to the cybersecurity advisory council. Interesting.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: I I was involved in creating it because I was when I was chair of DevOps. Yeah. But it's now off the you know, been doing work for a couple of years. Yeah. Might be worth looking at it again.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay. So that's page

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: That's page three. Page four is about customer rights. And this is you have the right to not have one of these meters. That, you know, there are protocols for what they the water company has to do in terms of notice. And So written notice. Yep. Opt out.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yep. B. Or if you if you have one on your house already, you can get it removed. Removed. Like if you say buy a new house and you and it's on there. Yeah. In that in that case,

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: they can't charge you to remove that. Because this is they would remove it without a charge.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: What did we say? We talked about that. We talked about whether that felt fair to not charge a fee, to to have

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: that be free. Yeah. And I don't have an opinion on that. You can I I think that was the sort of compromise in the middle, but you can ask them whether they're okay with it, the water companies?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. I just don't know why the water company would have to pay to have one of these removed. Yeah. That all

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: and I will say, and you can Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Friend Howland agrees with me.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Well, no. So I called my local water company Yeah. In in Brooklyn City. And so the way I understand that is that they've got a box that they put on the outside of the home. And at last time, I had interest in real estate with my father's house, and it it had a digital output that they brought to the outside of the house through telephone type line. And the actual meter looks like a wishbone shaped meter that measures the water go through, and it took the digital readout from the meter in the basement, protected from frost to the outside. Now they've added something that gives a low frequency radio frequency that reads to the meter and broadcast it to a collection point just like the electric meter did when I worked for them and developed that in the 2008 era. Mhmm. So to your point is that all they gotta do and powered by a diesel battery in Rutland City. All they gotta do is pull up the battery and somebody has to come by and physically read the number output, I would think. But maybe we'll hear from them as to what really goes on because I'm fifteen years behind the technology. Yeah. But right to your point is all they may do is just remove an optical reader.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. And I still don't think that Oh. Still think the company should

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: be recouped for their But they they also they they said it in this technology that some of the radio frequency broadcast isn't strong enough so that they have to go closer Mhmm. Okay. To get the radio frequency for the water company. I think the radio frequency of the electric meter in the old CV system that commuted meter to meter till it got enough data, and then it got transcended to a collection system versus the old green mountain power territory that they use the coaxial cable somewhere in their system and collect that. I've been out of it

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: for Yeah. No. No. I think you're right. The there are some systems where they have to drive by or walk by. It's more densely populated with a reader, but they don't have to go to individual house. They can just walk by or drive by. Right now, they're real Yeah. And then there are some that are more high powered that they have one sort of reader that trans that all these meters transmit to it.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Yeah. It does I think I may so Yep. Seem a little inconsistent that if someone has a dumb meter and wants to keep it, they have to pay. The company is not responsible for just letting it sit there, but if the company has to do extra work coming to get one and remove it, that the company does have to pay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's what we're talking to.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: Yeah. Right? That feels a little inconsistent.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: If you wanna change that, I I think that would be fine. I I can't I frankly can't remember why we just made a distinction between that, and it it might have been just a oversight or compromise. I can't remember. Can't remember. The rest of us.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Did you get a sense on how widespread of an issue this actually is here?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: It's not huge. Frankly, there are a lot of most people have most people in systems that have smart meters have them. I think Re Mountain Power has around 4,500 customers that don't, and they're the biggest electric company. And then the water system, South Burlington Water System had a few 100 people. But they all were in favor of doing this so that it gave them the flexibility to, you know, meet the customer's needs without charging more. So it's not like we're solving huge world problems, but, you know, it's a small thing. Yeah.

[Rep. Bram Kleppner (Member)]: I would also guess most people have no idea whether they have a smart meter or a dump meter.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Probably not. For water or electric.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Probably not. And I think, you know, there are more systems that as they become more sophisticated may move to. You know, maybe eventually East Middlebury will have them in fifty years. I don't know. But, you know, I think that, the benefits of having the water meter, any water meters, are that you can tell how much water you're using and most you know, right now, we can't. So, I do think that as systems maybe get more sophisticated, there'll be more of them. Okay. Yeah. If you have the the rural water association, if you

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: They came in. That's their one scrap of written testimony. Okay.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: It was great. Liz Roy. Yes. Liz Roy.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yep. And then, let's see on page five. I'm just seeing five and six, I'm just seeing looks like just updating language to reflect the new definition. Yep. And then oh. Page yeah.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: So I missed Yeah. Five and six, that's just updating the definition, and then also making the electric company language consistent with the Oh, right. Water company language because we added the electric companies.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh, right. Okay. Sorry. So on page five, we moved, I think, to the electric company part. Updated the definition there and made sure that the electric companies can also recoup their costs. I know the utilities would really like to see us do this. Yeah. Yeah. Because right now, customers for, like, GMP and the electric utilities, somebody can opt out, but and the GMP has to eat the cost.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Yes. Right? Any of them have to eat the cost. Right. Especially hard for the small companies, and there are a lot of small electric companies.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Yeah. Washington Electric Cooper or Vermont Electric are just transitioning to the they're just rolling out their smart meter. Yep. And and that's I think it was one of the one of the co ops that

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And we didn't hear from them yet.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: I thought we did. We did hear from them. Your colleague. One of one of them came in and talked about a I think

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: it was not on

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: our list. Washington. Think it was BET. Written testimony. And We don't.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: That's not BET.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Sorry. Sorry. Bot me now. But No. Alex, can you track down Andrea Cohen? I I thought she This was actually not coming?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: We have written testimony to Senate Natural Resources.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Yeah. They came in from the Senate Natural Resources. We heard from the electric companies, the Green Mountain Power and the little ones. We heard from big and little water companies. We heard from natural resources from Agency of Natural Resources. And the EC? Yeah. DC. And we heard from ADS. Okay. We've heard so far from I don't

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: know. Yeah. Anyway, we walked through it with O'Grady. We heard from DPS. We heard from Brian Redmond at A and R. We heard from Denise at ADS. Okay. And we heard from Liz Royer at the rural water district, and then we stopped, and now we're

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Okay. So we've And one thing, madam chair, if I may, on page seven and eight, I wanna just explain what this is deleting. Yeah. And and Mike O'Grady can explain this a little bit more. But these reports, one of them is about a health report, and one was about the cybersecurity infrastructure report. And these reports are from 2014 and 2013, and they were when smart meter technology started to become more of a thing and more of our electric companies and gas companies were moving to it, actually before water companies were even doing it. And there were these concerns about cyber security and public health back then. And there were reports done. Usually, and Mike O'Grady can tell you more, but I think it's every five years if if we ask for a report and it goes into the statutes and then the report is issued and it's done, Usually, the reference to that report gets taken out after five years. Yeah. They left these in because it was such a big issue. There were so many people who were worried about the health impact. So they left these in statutes to prove that these reports have been done, and they were actually helpful because I looked up the report. But now, Mike is like, look. This is over ten years ago. It's okay to take these out. So that's what these are these are deleting old reporting requests from the legislature Okay. Over a decade ago. So it's not substantive. And I will forward you and your committee assistant that.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. We're gonna pull down all your written testimony. Perfect. And And then I will repeat my request. Does anybody have an intern who would wanna I do not have transcribe our testimony. Yours, if you want, be great. I mean, it doesn't need to be every word. Okay. You know? But maybe she could come in and meet with us, and we could just quickly talk about it. It'd be great. Or, I mean, I could reach back out to these people and ask them to submit written testimony. They some of them did resubmit written testimony. On your side. Alright. Let's see what we're missing. Take it from us too.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Okay. Yeah. And yeah. I mean, thank you for having me in and and Yeah. Taking up the bill again. I like I said, I don't think it's solving huge world problems, but it's it's a small thing that we can do to make sure that electric and water bills are not higher than they need to be. And also give people the option of saying no if they want it. Okay. Yeah. Alright.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thanks, senator Hardy. Appreciate your time.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: My pleasure. Thank you all. It's nice to see you all and meet some of you. Yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: In our natural habitat.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And you're gonna have to talk about that.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: I was like, I don't even know where this committee is.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: You should have

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: seen where we originally. Oh, really?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We were in a teeny we were in that teeny tiny little shoebox Upstairs.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Up on the 3rd Floor. Oh, wow.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And we moved here, like, two weeks into the biennium. It was just too small. Oh, well But we still have one of the let's say we have one of the cozier

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I think it's Are

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: do you have other members who are not here?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Representative Bailey. Bailey from Obviously. Oil

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Lamoille two.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Lamoille two. Two. Yeah. Okay. Is out today, and Sibilia. I know Sibilia. Yes. Okay. She Well.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Thank you, Matthew. Thank you for Yeah.

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

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. We can go offline. We are done for the day. Oh, I'm sorry, what was I supposed to say when we're coming back? We will be back tomorrow at 08:45. At 08:45 to see a plug in solar device, non UL 3,700 certified. And then at 09:00, we are gonna have a committee discussion of s two zero two. Ellen already created a new draft that had all the original or, like, all of our first rounds of testimony. She put all that in there already. And as I saw all the changes, I it all came flooding back to me. So we've got a new draft to look at that has some of the the first round of requests and testimony conversation. And then, the insurance in fact, we should look at our updated agenda. I we should all just go look at it because the, insurance companies are coming in tomorrow. And then we're waiting on UL, and we should be done with this portion of the bill. I'm gonna schedule a little bit of walking around testimony on 600 appliance standards and see what we wanna do with that. PACE, I think that we'll probably take a straw poll tomorrow and send it off to. So I sent Ellen both the all the resilience information. And, we wanted to add a resilience definition. We have that important change about assess property value. Remember them? I forgot that.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Oh, yeah. That's

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. That's important. And then, we're also hearing from efficiency Vermont tomorrow Mhmm. At 09:30 or ten. So I I think we could get this out of here tomorrow and off to mark out. But he wants clean language that we've signed off on and taken a struggle. And that's it for now. And we're trying to plug stuff into the agenda. We've invited Lisa Gobin from JFO to come in. We're trying to plug some holes.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: I got a school group coming tomorrow, 09:45. They're due here. So

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison District) — Bill Sponsor]: Oh, great.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: It's gonna pop out to say hi.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Sounds good.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: I don't know how long that would take, but probably by the time they roll through security, they won't be in till just about ten.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Probably so.