Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Alright. Welcome back to the House Environment Committee. We are going to shift gears to talk about budget with Jared Carpenter from the Lake Champlain County. Welcome back. Thank Thank you, madam chair.

[Jared Carpenter, Lake Champlain Committee]: Hello, everyone. So for the record, my name

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: is Jared Carpenter with the

[Jared Carpenter, Lake Champlain Committee]: Lake Champlain Committee. The chair asked to come in and, talk about the proposed FY '27 budget. I know last week, week, you know, week before that, you got, you received presentations from, from the three departments within ANR, and had a lot of slides. I am not going to nearly that many slides of just a few high points of recommendations, from us, but I can also answer, sort of general questions. I you know, as I testified last week on the Clean Water Fund generally, and on the Essex, I've been working on budget issues, not only outside the Clean Water Fund, but generally for for for probably eight or nine years. In the last couple of years, starting when about 2020 or so was amazing with just doing budget work in general and the amount of federal money that was available for the state. We are now back down to earth on sort of what is more a leaner, budget, especially for clean water. So the ARPA money was $1,020,000,000 to the state, which went to a lot of different areas. But about 192,000,000 over the course of three years went to clean water projects and programs, mostly water infrastructure. And, you know, as we talked about with the Essex and everything last week, we were trying to get a million here and 3,000,000 there to have a $192,000,000 on clean water money was quite amazing, going to the various programs, you know, especially not only things like, you know, bigger projects like wastewater infrastructure or combined sewer overflows and these big high dollar projects of $1,215,000,000 dollars, but also, you know, smaller projects like like the healthy homes, program, which provided, you know, yeah, the SRF and and those things fund big wastewater systems for multiple millions of dollars. But a lot of times it's a homeowner, who can't afford it otherwise, who just needs $510,000 for, you know, for their own septic system or their own drinking water system. And that program really helped out. I think it was about $30,000,000 or 30 to $40,000,000 over the course of three or four years. So the ARPA money was fantastic for clean water in a lot of different areas. But as of last year, especially this year, the sugar high has worn off. Suddenly, we're back down to what we have in terms of state revenue. And then also, of course, concerns that the federal revenue was just going to be cut in different streams in different areas. So not only is the budget leaner, but everybody is a lot more cautious about spending money in case we need to do backfilling on school lunch programs or or whatever it is. And I know we've seen that, with environmental money. It's it's environment when when money needs to be diverted to other programs, environmental money is often the first thing that is diverted. You know, there is safety drinking water, but there's other programs. And sometimes it's hard to argue when school lunch programs are cut in half that, you know, an environmental program gets diverted to that. It's difficult to sit in this chair, but, that's sort of where we are. And I just wanted to highlight sort of a couple programs that I think will help out, you know, have more of an expanded, benefit for the state of Vermont, as you guys consider what to recommend down to house appropriations. This was last year. So when I came in and we talked about it. So if you recall, it's a repeal of the 2027 sunset for property transfer tax clean water surcharge, which this committee did. And that provides an important 7 and a half to $8,000,000 for the clean water fund. There's this $14,500,000 state match to draw down a bunch of federal money for the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund and the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund. Those are, the loan programs for big ticket items, mostly wastewater and drinking water infrastructure for cities and towns, a lot of which this has been deeded, after the floods because a lot of a lot of towns' wastewater systems got flooded out, and they needed this type of money. It's usually bonded money. It's not grant money. So it goes out, at a very low interest loan over the course of twenty years. It gets paid back with what's an administrative fee of 0.2%. But it's the revolving loan fund. So that's sort of the point. There are ways to waive some of that, to do forgivable loans, so to speak. So that was important. And then if you recall, you also spent a significant amount of time working on the CAFO program, the agriculture the discharge from agricultural, you know, farm fields and feedlots and things like that. And that was $850,000 for to stand up that program, which we're in the process of standing up. I've got a meeting Friday morning for a few hours with two agencies and, a group of a group of, dairy farmers to figure out, you know, how we can come to an agreement on how that program will move forward, and it's been some great discussion. So, this was some good work from last year. Things to consider this year, and I'll get into some detail about it. One of the only things, I think, actually, the only thing in the governor's recommend, having to do with ANR's budget was $500,000 for, for Vorec, the Vermont Outdoor Recreation Economic Collaborative. I have to put a plug in for the chloride bill. It passed, the Senate this morning. It is now s two eighteen. It passed the Senate on second meeting, 29 to one. It is very, very similar to the bill that you all passed out of this committee last year, just some changes to the judicial language. But I'll talk about that a little bit. And then, you have spent a lot of time in context of H six thirty two talking about, the act one twenty one rivers program and the rulemaking and their capacity over at DEC to get this done. So I've put in a little plug for, for some more staffers there. But VOREC, so this is a an initiative from governor Scott from, oh gosh, probably three or four years ago now. It's housed over at the Vermont Department of Forest Parks and Recreation. It is grant money for, for recreational projects for outdoor for outdoor recreation. It's not something Lake Champlain Committee has had a lot of experience with, but I'm also bore, on the board of Friends of the Winooski River, who I put in an example of the project that they have here. It was a goal for the city Barrie City River Access Master Plan. So Barrie residents could, better access the Stevens branch, which runs right through town there. And this helped do, you know, public input process, access opportunities at 10 sites, you know, from 18 initial sites, help put some plans together, put together cost estimates. The project is still ongoing, but this is the kind of thing, I'm I'm I'm hoping that Danny, when she came in and from from f, FPR talked about it a little bit. But this is a real program that helps Vermont Outdoor Recreation, of coming to the state, getting Vermonters outdoors, something that I would hope the committee would consider, supporting going forward.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: We would, but we don't usually hear from FBR because that's ag. Was that upstairs?

[Jared Carpenter, Lake Champlain Committee]: Salt. So if you recall, it's now s two eighteen, an act relating to reducing fluoride contamination state waters. There's four main components to it. Establishes best management practices, sets certification programs for commercial and municipal applicators. It has a study on salt salt storage facilities. If you recall at one point, it required coverage. This committee expanded that study out to, also include costs and also include the coverage of sand, salt and sand facilities. That is still in the bill. And then provides liability protection for applicators that complete and file the program. That is the one thing that has changed. The liability it's a liability shift, and you should get possession of the bill on Friday or next Tuesday. So at some point, I can talk to you about all of that. Is

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: your picture of a salt storage shed, like the floor of one?

[Jared Carpenter, Lake Champlain Committee]: No. That is, I think that is a sidewalk in Burlington.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Oh, stairs. Yeah. It looks

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: like stair it's, actually, that

[Jared Carpenter, Lake Champlain Committee]: might also be the stairs. Salt. Might be the stairs out here for the State House. I think that is a representative amount of salt that they use in the city of Montpelier.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: In other places.

[Jared Carpenter, Lake Champlain Committee]: So in order to stand up the program, it's gonna it's gonna work in a couple of a couple of phases. A and R is gonna be setting up the commercial applicator program. So the B and Ps have to be set up. A and R sets up the commercial applicator program, and then B TRANS is gonna set up the municipal applicator program as part of their Vermont local roads program. Both are voluntary programs that are still written into the bill. But as the first step, ANR is gonna require some onetime funding of $200,000 to help them solicit third parties to stand up the best management practices and the certification program. We're probably gonna be something very similar, to what New Hampshire is using right now in the Green Snow Pro program. This also also helped them. They have to do a fee report, because the goal is to have this, be funded mostly by fees, not by general fund money. So this will put a report together that will come back to this body to ways and means and to senate finance on determine what level of the fee should be, and there's gonna be a bit of a balance. You want people to participate in the voluntary programs. You don't want to make it too expensive, but you also wanna fund the fund the program so it's not coming out of the general fund. That will be subsequent years, but this is just a budget request to stand up the program.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: It's in the bill that's passed the senate.

[Jared Carpenter, Lake Champlain Committee]: There is no money in the bill that's passed the senate. It has a contingency language in it that says, this program does not have to go forward if there is no money in it. But the hope is to put either here in house appropriations or down in senate appropriations funding for it. So it pass the money would pass with the budget and not with the not with the bill.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: It passed through the committees with the money in it until it got to finance?

[Jared Carpenter, Lake Champlain Committee]: No. It was the same language that house appropriations last year put in the contingency language. And when it was in senate appropriations, it was admitted if there had been funding in it. They would have taken it out there, as is practice in senate appropriations. Usually does that when senate bills go to them. They take the money out and set it aside. And then when they get the budget from house appropriations in a couple of weeks, then they figure out how to fund fund things. I think up here in the house, it's a little bit more of a efficient process, but that's just because the budget starts up here, so you can sort of do it all at the same time. So that's, that's a hope that that funding will be in in the budget as it goes forward. Then the Flood Safety Act. You guy this committee has spent a lot of time over the years and this and this session talking about act one twenty one, the flood the Flood Safety Act. But, you know, a little bit of background. I know you've been down in the weeds on the on the rivers portion of this. So it has three portions. It limits developed in, flood vulnerable areas and river corridors and creating minimum minimum development standards and a study for flood resilience and floodplains, strengthens oversight and maintenance requirements for dam owners and invest in the removal of these dams to, that exacerbate flooding. And finally, improving mapping mapping and reporting wetlands, and the wetlands net gain policy. So those are the three prime components, and here I'm just gonna more more or less focus on the rivers program. You've talked in language about all the dates that might necessarily push back, but I always find it helpful to put them all together on one page, because you can visualize it a little better. There's a lot of work there, admittedly. And a lot of these dates, this is just the Rivers the Rivers dates. And some of it has have already, gone past, you know, the first couple there, January 1, July 1, and then the January 1 mapping and such. And to my knowledge, I don't think any of these dates have been met. Maybe the starting of the education and outreach. I know there've been some pilot programs out there. They haven't started pre rulemaking, and the mapping is not completed. So various reasons, capacity, repeated floods. You've heard the testimony from from the agency, from the department, on why this is happening. But they need some help, obviously. So the proposal here is this is the funding in the act in the in the f y twenty five budget for act one twenty one. It was acknowledged that that that this was a lot of work. And so they needed to, provide some help for this. The bill, the budget authorized 15 DEC positions. There's see there's five there for the dam safety program, and then rivers of wetlands programs, which is collectively called the office of water programs. Think actually, I think dam safety is in there as well. 10 environmental analysts is just sort of what they're budgetary called, and those are folks that work in the rivers program or the wetlands program. So the budget authorized 15 positions, but then when it got to the conference committee between the two and their horse trading to try to figure out how to make everything work, they ended up only funding 11 positions. So, actually, they funded 10.8 positions. So it was $1,625,000, and JFO estimates that a full time employee is about a $150,000. It's actually probably more like a 125, but it depends, of course, on who you're hiring as well. If you're hiring an engineer or somebody like that, an attorney, it's gonna be a little bit more than if you're hiring somebody, you know, right out of college to help in field work or grant work or things like that as they move up the system. And you see that's a lot that we're paying really paying our staff a 125 or a $150,000. No. It is less than that, but it also goes into the pension money, the health care, the sort of the everything that goes into having an employee, of the state. So it's estimated to be about this building uses a 150,000 per FTE. So if we took 1.625, it gave us with just under 11 FTEs. And they were also given a significant amount of one time funding, for different areas. You'll especially see the, the river mapping and implementation money that was supposed to go out to third parties. I have don't know of directly about this, but I have heard that that money has not gone out the door quite yet to get this done. The wetlands mapping money has that is occurring. The rulemaking was delayed by the executive order. DOCFOAM education is underway. DAM safety revolving loan fund of $4,000,000 actually is part of the, phase two rulemaking, setting up the DAM safety revolving loan fund, which is just like it sounds. It's if you it's money available if you need an emergency. They have a stockpile of money to help, repair a dam in emergency, and there's also non emergency conditions. If you meet those standards, can apply for either a I think it's a it's just loans. You can do forgivable loans, but you have to meet certain standards for somebody who needs to repair a dam. So the goal not been spent yet as far as I know. Maybe a little bit on peach and pond. But that's waiting for part of phase two rulemaking. So the proposal here is there's there are, well, there were four, four unoccupied, positions that were authorized by this body in FY twenty five that were not filled. My understanding is actually, and this is a recent understanding, is that some of them were were shifted over to those CAFO positions that I talked about earlier. But regardless, DEC needs four more positions in the Office of Water programs to help them out, preferably in the Rivers program. So with that sort of push to advocate for here, four programs, a $150,000 for office of water would be about $600,000, to put together. It's usually usually takes about once the money is authorized, it goes forward, actually gets over to the d t DEC and goes through their process. It takes probably, you know, six months from the start of the fiscal year before they can actually have the money and start hiring. So even if the money was put into this budget, it wouldn't be available to them until July. So you're you're talking you're talking not immediate, but this work needs to be done. And, you know, the funny the running punch line on this last one, the 15 FTEs was we were pushing for 15 FTEs, and ANR was not advocating for more staff for for any of these programs. So they won't come in and tell you that they need more staff because that's not part of the budget, but they need more staff in a lot of different areas. And this would help out tremendously. So I think that's my last slide. Yep.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: And I actually followed up on that kind of interest in the in the timeline. I appreciate you're putting the dates in and the deliverables just on that summary slide, and then checked in with the deputy commissioner, and he reminded me that in the presentation we heard from dear. Anyway, they had a Gantt chart that we were promised to get a more clear PDF of, and so hopefully that will be delivered to us. But it is in a slide in the presentation from the flood manager, I think it was.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: Okay. January 7.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: So there is a kind of explanation a graphic explanation of their timeline of how they're gonna spend those dollars.

[Jared Carpenter, Lake Champlain Committee]: That would be great. So those are just, know, you the three when I've come in and talked to you all in the past when there's a lot of ARPA money. We are talking 50,000 here and this, you know, or fifth excuse me, 5,000,000 here and 15,000,000 there and all sorts of big dollars. These are not these are not huge requests. They are, they are smaller. And my apologies, madam chair, for when I thought when I think this committee, just think ANR is a blanket, not necessarily that Forest Parks and Rec is actually upstairs in upstairs in house ag house ag, food resiliency, and forests. Thank you

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: for your testimony and for bringing this all together for us. Sure. Representative Logan. So

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: we

[Rep. Kate Logan]: noticed the ARPA funding is coming to an end, or a range of federal funding pots are coming to an end. You mentioned programs that have come into existence because of that funding. Do you know how many of those may not have been included in the budget, what those programs were? I feel like we're missing information about programs that just aren't included in the budget. Right.

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: I mean, there are well

[Rep. Kate Logan]: that are ending that we may not want to end. Correct?

[Jared Carpenter, Lake Champlain Committee]: Yeah. There were well, healthy homes is one of them. I mean, I think when I we'll have to go double check, But I don't think there's a budget your budget request for healthy homes in the f y twenty seven budget. There were a number of, I think, five, maybe six separate grant programs that were created to deal with, flood resiliency, buyouts of homes, just, you know, basic repairs helping towns, that had money put into them, either FEMA or ARPA money that now don't have any money in them, that are sort of just there. You know, there's probably a lot of a lot of different programs that were set up. And then once the money goes away and doesn't get any more money put into it, it's just sort of an empty shell sitting there. I'll look into healthy homes and see if I can find more information about that. But that's a great question. It's, yeah, they don't come in during the budget presentation and tell you all the things that aren't getting money and we're just sort of sitting there. So, but it means that there's a structure set up, for the distribution and everything else that's, you know, at its in statutory existence, it just doesn't have any money.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Have questions for Mr. Carpenter? Thank you again.

[Jared Carpenter, Lake Champlain Committee]: Yep, you're welcome. I can hang around as you go through your general budget discussion and I can be helpful. Please let me know.

[Rep. Weber (first name unknown)]: Oh. Yeah. It's tough sharing.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: What I'd like to do is have our first kind of group discussion about the budget and what folks' impressions are. I asked Kat to post last year's budget letter on the webpage under my name. So, as a reminder, I'm not sure how we did it. So, we And this afternoon actually turns out Serve, Learn, Earn, which was one of our top asks for last year, is going to come in at 03:30 today. It's a little bit of a moving thing. But I guess for me, the water is a priority in that we've taken a lot of testimony on the Flood Safety Act. We've been asked to reduce the jurisdictional threshold area at the, River Management Program primarily because of staff capacity concerns. And I guess I would like the committee to talk about a recommendation for increasing their capacity rather than changing the standard by which we are looking at impacts to our, particularly our most sensitive headwater streams. Folks have thoughts on on that first? Representative Pritchard? I think we gotta look at shifts in

[Rep. Christopher “Chris” Pritchard]: the capacity. Mean, I'm listening to this discussion about FTEs. We just watched the transportation department lose 20 of them, we're adding them in other places. I just I don't think people get it, what people in the state are going through. I can appreciate the governor's budget of 9.3, and it's only organic, but it's not good enough for me, and I can't vote for that budget. People just can't do it anymore. And we talk at $150,000 here and $150,000 there like it's nothing. And it is. It's a lot. We never look at if if water if if the water and the damn thing is is is a priority, and I think it is, I think we gotta figure ways to shift our priorities within the structures that we have and focus on those.

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: You just can't keep

[Rep. Christopher “Chris” Pritchard]: asking questions for shifting. I don't have suggestions, but I think that's, we should talk about it. You certainly understand that much better than I do. Been here a long time. I don't understand a lot of these things. What I do understand is we don't seem to get what we're doing to people in this state. People up here don't get it. And it just, I don't understand that. Mean, people are struggling here. And those people that are trying to help the people that don't have means and are dependent are looking at becoming dependent themselves and heaping just more burden on the next level of income, folks. I can't support anything that increases a penny, unless we have a serious talk about can, jeez, Neil, how can we shift people in your department to deal with this? What can we do in force to do this? At some point, this expansion has to stop. And the ARPA deal, don't wanna see, with that money gone, I don't wanna see those things being shifted again to the taxpayer and heaping onto the pile. If that money's gone, it's gone. Those programs gotta be gone. I just don't understand. I guess there's people that are fortunate to have the means that aren't being affected by this. But I gotta tell you, a majority of my towns are being affected by what we are inflicting for financial burden on. And the fact that people up here don't get that is just, it's so frustrating to me.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: I hear your frustration. I think it'd be great if you wanted to sit down with Neil and ask him that question.

[Rep. Christopher “Chris” Pritchard]: I'd be more than happy to sit down

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: with Neil. Great. Representative Chapin?

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: A little bit flowing from Representative Pritchard. This is just me brainstorming and thinking in the moment as we start this conversation. I guess I reminded of how much we're a citizen legislature and how much we rely on the administration to bring us proposals and look at the money that comes into the state and make sure they propose a budget that's within the means of the state and isn't proposing necessarily spending money that not already have coming in to support the budget. And so I personally take really seriously what the administration brings us along with updates from the administration as things evolve. One of the things I'm hearing a lot about this session on focus, not necessarily just on the budget, but is about how permitting works and how many parts of particularly DEC's departments are both responsible for doing rulemaking and permitting, as well as being responding to floods and how many pieces of rulemaking and permit and we heard a little bit about permit reform and trying to streamline permitting processes that different agencies are working on right now and the whole administration is trying to work on. So I have two thoughts related to this. One is that we're really at the mercy of the administration to bring us clear information about where their staff has capacity, where they're under capacity, how to streamline permitting programs, how to balance the needs of the state and the public and the legislation and laws that we have in place with staff capacity. And then for us to make decisions on how to do that. And I guess I'd say that I'm hearing a lot from DEC that certain teams are handling too much and conflicting things, rulemaking and permit management, and then being responsive to floods. I'm really concerned. I'm coming out of this halfway through this session, but I'm really concerned about how many teams are responsible for both. Related to that, you just brought up, Chair Sheldon, heard a request to reduce overspun permitting of our most headwater streams without really any information about the ecological impact of that change to the law around what needs a permit. And I really struggled with that request. I'm very empathetic that that team is feeling overworked and has too many stream miles and what that could people who are coming, what that could do to projects where people need a permit, as well as to the personnel who are in those positions. But I also don't really feel like I can make a decision about it when we don't know what the ecological impact is of the change. I feel like we've tried to put out some questions and some opportunity to converse and learn more so that we could make a more informed decision or look at some other options. And so far, I mean, it's only weeks, but gotten we very far with that yet. So I just really struggle with that. And I feel like we can put out some ideas, but as a citizen legislature, we can't just all of a sudden come up with all the information we need in and of ourselves. We're very dependent on the administration to take the time to bring us more information if that's what we're asking for. I guess I'll stop there and say, related to your question about that capacity, I'm certainly open to supporting more people on that team, at least temporarily, until we can get what I think we asked for, which is a lot more information on how you could best design that permit program to have a reasonable level of staff and a reasonable threshold at which you need a permit in the first place to do that in stream work.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Representative Weber?

[Rep. Weber (first name unknown)]: When you look at the whole picture, last year there was a I think it was either in Chronicle or Digger. The article stated that Vermont lost 0.3% of our population last year. Prediction for this year is more going in the wrong direction because people can't afford to stay. This isn't attracting new people. This is losing the present people. If they're if we want to increase our young things, we gotta make it a flu. They have the children. They're not producing our present population is not producing children. We're having to close schools. When I look at my own area, I have 12 towns with three gourds, and that's the most the most economically challenged area of the state. You look at their lifestyles. They're very resilient. If they weren't resilient, they wouldn't make it up there. Simple as that. Somewhere along the way, we gotta pull up our boots and just learn how to say no. And that's a hard thing to do.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: I'm hearing you on the Affordability things. I'd love to get into the details of what you wanna cut. Bring it on. Like, what do you guys wanna cut?

[Rep. Weber (first name unknown)]: Well, we ought to cut some

[Rep. Christopher “Chris” Pritchard]: of the foolishness about electric vehicle school buses. Okay. In our area of jurisdiction Yeah.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: In the programs we are the most familiar with.

[Rep. Weber (first name unknown)]: Addressing it. I'm addressing the gross misuse of public funds. Those buses couldn't be charged because, oh, it's not above 40 degrees. What state do we live in? We got six months you don't get above 40 degrees for routine charging. Can't put it in a garage. Why can't you put it in a garage? Well, they get too hot. The insurance companies won't insure the garage there for the buses. So you got $1,600,000 of waste that could be used for my wife works on food shelves. Where's that money coming from? Farm to forest and support the farmers. 2% feed 98% of the world.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Representative Logan.

[Rep. Kate Logan]: I will admit, you know, I helped draft the budget letter last year. I'll help draft the budget letter again this year. I I still think, you know, we asked for information in slightly different formats. Appropriations asked for additional information. It's still hard for me to tell how the budget all fits together, and we don't see the level of detail, you know, line by line for programs, the source of the funding for each program, whether it's base funding, whether it's federal funding with state match from base funding, etcetera. So I think it's really hard to point at anything in the budget where we have the authority to comment, like, outside. But it's hard to say that there's any waste at all in the ANR budget. And especially because so much of the spending is is project based and for laws that we've passed ourselves that address, I think, the affordability of life in Vermont, frankly. You know, if we're talking about not doing the work on on rivers that we wanna do, we're talking about billions of dollars out of Vermonters' pockets by not doing the preventive maintenance that we have to do. So there isn't any part of the budget that we've looked at for Agency of Natural Resources that's in our area of jurisdiction that I feel like is wasteful. If we could ask, in my opinion, some of the programs that the agency manages, there's a huge intention to make them as impactful economically as possible. So one of the things that, for example, I've learned about related to this three acre permitting conversation that we've had, and and Jared mentioned it as well, one of the things that ARPA funds were funding was the Healthy Homes Initiative that provides that provided funding for manufactured housing communities to fix their water infrastructure, drinking water, wastewater, storm water, and drainage systems. It also provided funding to low and moderate income Vermonters to, residential property owners, including multifamily properties, with the repair or replacement, of funding of their on-site water and, or wastewater systems. So, yeah, that was federal funding. I wish that funding were still coming from the federal government instead of, you know, lowering taxes and spending more on defense and law enforcement. Personally, I'm not happy about the fact that less funding is coming to Vermont to help low and moderate income Vermonters replace their water systems on their properties, which is, I think, a very good thing to do. If anything, I think, maybe there are some areas in the budget, outside of our committee, our committee's jurisdiction where the legislature could decide to shift funding back into programs like the Healthy Homes initiative. So I would advocate that we include that in our list if we're gonna we learn more about it, how much, you know, average project costs for a lower moderate income household and, you know, keep that keep that going. It seems like that's exactly the kind of stuff that we could be doing to lessen the burden for low and moderate income households in Vermont. We're losing the federal funding, so we I think we ought to try to find it somewhere else in our budget and ask for more for that program to keep it going. And And there might be other programs that we just don't know about because I I think that the administration is not gonna come in here, like, and tell us about what they're not funding. They're gonna tell us what they are funding, in their budget presentation. And I think we'd have to ask very pointed questions to get more information about the things they're not funding anymore. Anyway, that's one thing that I'm disappointed. If there is, in fact, no funding for that program for FY 2027, that I think you should fund it.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Representative Tagliavia.

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Tagliavia]: Couple of things. Number one, we're only one of 14 committees. That's trying to figure out how we're gonna clean up the budget alone. It's never gonna work. With respect to transportation, transportation, we're going way fewer roads, have the number of roads paved to maintain a ten year loop, ten year cycle. So, if we want people to be able to get to their jobs, the ones who are working, then we better think about maintaining our roads and finding ways to keep the transportation budget whole. The governor and the administration has a lot of finger pointing. It seems like the legislature points at administration, and the administration points back. 06/25, the governor's executive order, he laid out a plan to try to help jump start and make things more affordable and make things go smooth. And within two weeks of being here in this committee, we heard about how to shoot down that proposal. So the finger pointing goes both ways. We have the Chevron deference decision that came down, I don't know, a year, year and a half ago that said the legislatures stopped telling other agencies to do your job, do your damn job, and we need to do our damn job. We just had the endangerment finding shut down that will help make cars and other things when the rest of the endangerment finding is shut down much more affordable. We need to take a more science based approach to a lot of things. And with respect to our budget, this climate super fund, I would like to see it completely axed, the budget, whatever's in there, because we didn't see anybody come through looking for climate super fund money. I think the budget last year, the governor 's his budget was cut to $350,000 but this budget letter, if I'm reading it correctly, is $825,000 Yeah, know. This is a budget letter that came from Chair Sheldon.

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: For last year.

[Rep. Michael “Mike” Tagliavia]: Yeah. I don't know what this year's ask is. That's why I said if there's anything in there, it should be disappeared. There's some savings coming out of this committee.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Representative Chapin, then Pritchard? I

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: would love to consider including the additional one time funding for the conservation districts that we were asked about last week. It's not a lot of money, but it does help the conservation districts do a key job very at the grassroots level to bring down federal money, particularly through NRCS. And now NRCS has lost a number of engineers and the whole pipeline of NRCS potential funded products is slowing way down, process state. And to make sure we continue to pull those funds in, the conservation districts are expanding capacity just in that sort of coupled role that they play with NRCS. I think that the return on investment, that there's a really strong positive return on investment for a couple of $100,000 to make sure that that capacity can at least stay within across the state with the conservation districts. And then they also are really helping drive a lot of the clean water projects on the ground. And again, a loss of capacity would slow down our clean water projects, phosphorus related clean water projects.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: Representative

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Pritchard.

[Rep. Christopher “Chris” Pritchard]: Listen, I'm not questioning any of the good that all these folks do. They all do good. All these departments do good. But they continue to grow beyond the means that we have to support them without consequences that I don't think a lot of us understand. We had some folks come in that gave testimony, and I listened to them a while, and they have eight folks on their staff. And they explained to us all the good work that they do and what they have to handle here. And I wrote it down. Eight people take 1,800 calls a year. They do seven sixty six site visits. They issued two fifty permits. And I watch people say,

[Rep. Weber (first name unknown)]: oh,

[Rep. Christopher “Chris” Pritchard]: we get the earning staff, we've got staff. I heard that going around the room. Based on a five day work week, not a three sixty five day year, a two forty day work year, 1,800 calls divided by eight people is less than one call a day. Seven sixty six site visits is one site visit a week. Two forty permits are one permit. I think we really have to, When we consider adding people, we hear, Well, the workload's great, the workload's great. I just think, what Representative Logan talked about, the Healthy Homes Initiative, it's an important program. I can tell you it's an important program because I have a constituent that spent two years, two years with a failed septic system, running out of the ground, running across her neighbors. She didn't have the funds to do it. It's made her life miserable. Her neighbors won't talk to her, and she's been put through hell. Part of the problem that she's been waiting for two years has been the permitting process. The day that this project was ok'd this fall, because I got involved with a select board, the very next day the project was halted, put off, stopped. It's not just the expenses of the budget that are affecting people. We gotta look at streamlining. I had Jose Oliver come in and speak to the caucus for the Monteconomy. Here's a guy that has bought a property three years ago. Three years ago. He just got his Act two fifty permit, and he spent $1,000,000, a million dollars between permitting and regulatory, and three years. It's ridiculous. And we need folks like Jose Oliver, we need to welcome him here, because Jose Oliver hires people. He does necessary services for people. He donates. The charities that he donates to, he just does a lot of great work for the community. And we're discouraging people from coming here and helping us afford all the things that we want. Now we're reaping what's happening with people leaving, people can't afford stuff. We just gotta live within our means. And I think we just have to prioritize these things. I've never questioned the work that ANR has done, or any of these other places. We've got to live within our means, and we just keep continuing to not do that.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Okay. We have Michael Brady here for a limited amount of time right now to shift gears. So I think I'm gonna do that. Welcome you to the beginning of our budget conversation. We are going to actually talk about the redemption PRO, I think.

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: Hopefully.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: It's good.

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: So, this is Michael Grady with legislative council. You should have on your website draft request 25Dash0991, draft 4.3 with today's date and an 11:16PM time stamp. Should I k. Should I focus just on the changes?

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Folks need more than the changes on this walk through. I think the changes are certainly where we should start. Let's start.

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: Alright. Page seven. In discussions with ANR about the labeling of a container, there was you might remember that when the bill was introduced or the first draft was looked at, there was a a barcode and UPC label requirement for all beverage containers. And then that ultimately got moved into the plan. Well, ANR wants it here as well because remember that the plan won't start for a couple of years, and they want the UPC to get stood up on its own. And you'll see there's an effective date for it that gives manufacturers some time to do that as well. So that's that's why it's here reinserted. You can then go to page 10, and there are several changes related to dates. Remember, this was first introduced last year, and so all of the dates were at least a year, maybe more, out of date. And so on page 10, line nine, in the requirement for the manufacturers to form a PRO to fulfill the requirements, it's now on or before 01/01/2027. That was changed from 01/01/2026. Now these are just dates suggested by ANR. If you wanna change the dates, think there's need more time or otherwise, that's up to you. On page 10, lines fifteen and sixteen, there was that previous discussion about making the stewardship organization a nonprofit and then having persons, specific specified persons on that board. It's still nonprofit, but those specified persons were removed at the suggestion of ANR. Moving on from there, page 13, plan submission. Again, this is a date change. On or before 01/01/2028, that approved producer responsibility organization submits its plan to the secretary. That was changed from 10/01/2026.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: That's a lot that's

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: a big change. Tableau in 2026.

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: So remember, the the PRO is gonna be forming January 2027, and then to develop the plan, go through the public participation process that the plan is required to have. They're thinking a year.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: So is the January 27 date to to kind of

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: January 27 is when they formed the PRO. They formed that

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: What was the previous date there?

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: That was that was July '26. Let let me check. January '26. So, I mean, that moved a year. This moved a year in three months. So

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: This is a year. January to January. Am missing something?

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: Should I move on? K. Page 14. Line three. There is no more floor on the compensation to be negotiated between the PRO and those who are redeeming as part of the plan. You might remember that there was previously a a 3.5 per container floor, and you heard that that would just potentially just maintain the same system that you have now and not would not allow for innovation. ANR is proposing to remove that. Bottom of page 14 is just a technical correction. It said previously comply with all application laws. It should be applicable laws related to collection, transportation, and disposition. Turn to page, page 15. This is a question. That's why it's in gray and not in yellow. And that's because when you had the board, ANR came in and said, you don't need the board. You just need to have consultation with stakeholders. This is where the consultation with stakeholders is. I wanted to put this in front of you to see if this is enough for what you were looking for. So we provide that the PRO shall consult with stakeholders on the development of the plan. Plan shall include processes for regular consultation, which shall not be lessened annually with stakeholders, including the agency, redemption centers, municipal and private recycling organization, and others. Should I move on?

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Yeah. But didn't we have a suggestion or something more? A little more of a check back or more of a input from the stakeholders? I can't remember if there was language before that had more.

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: I I mean, that's why I'm putting this in front of you. It's like I you had that conversation, but there wasn't any specifics added, and ANR didn't offer anything. And so I'm putting this in front of you to see if you want.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: But in the draft before we created the one right before this where we put specific members on the board, is this the same check-in language that we had?

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: Same check-in that was in there. Okay. Moving on to page 16. Bottom of the page. This is a timing requirement for how long ANR has to review a proposed plan, review or approve or not approve. And then there's going to be a period after approval, where the PRO will have time to stand it up before implementation. Page 16, line 19 to 21 going on to page 17. Within ninety days after receipt of a plan, the secretary shall review the plan and determine whether or not to approve it. Plan shall be approved after concluding that the plan meets the criteria established in section fifteen thirty two of the title. That's where you list all the plan requirements. Page 17, line four, I broke it up into two sentences. It was

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: representative Chapin. Sorry. Sorry.

[Rep. Kate Logan]: Interrupt right in the middle

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: of your sentence? That ninety days, I don't remember what was in there already, but what happens doesn't seem to be any enforcement of that. Is there some kind of ramification if it doesn't end?

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: No. It's it's they have ninety days to approve or deny. And so

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: Busy with other things, and they don't get to it until a hundred and twenty days.

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: And considering the conversation I walked in on, that's what happens. If they're running out of time, they did not. And they asked for for reapplication.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: But has the agency of natural resources said this was a realistic time frame?

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: That's what this is their proposal. Yeah. Okay.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: So I was just curious if there

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: was any enforcement or ramification. Thank you.

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: Then on page 17, line six and seven, the stewardship organization shall implement an approved plan no later than six months after the secretary's approval. I wanna let's just say the product responsive producer responsibility organization. And then on page 17, line 15, this is the audit versus the program audit, which is every five years, and it will begin 10/01/2033. Remember, the whole program starting '28, so this is 2033. And then 2029 for the fiscal audit and annually thereafter. Those were changed from 2032 for the program audit and 2028 from the fiscal audit. Page 18, lines fifteen and sixteen. These are in the goals for redemption rates. First, the redemption rate goals for 2037 and 2042 were removed at your committee's decision last week. Then the date for the first goal was changed from, I believe that was 2028 to 2029. And then on page 18, line 17, the report, I believe that was changed from 2027 to 2029 and annually thereafter.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Representative Pritchard. I don't

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: remember us talking about the there used to be four percentages. Right? And the dates were different. There used to be four goals. Yes. And there was a discussion that the goals for 2037 and 2042 are too speculative, and you requested that they be removed. And as part of that conversation, ANR has proposed moving that first goal from 2028 to 2029.

[Rep. Christopher “Chris” Pritchard]: Discussion committee.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: I We had it in committee. Yeah. Publicly.

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: I I think you were the one that proposed. I wasn't.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Anyway, we had it. Somebody

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: on this side.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: I agree. Should

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: I move on? On page 21 oh, that's 23. I'm sorry. This is the change to the clean water fund. This is the a and r proposal. This moves a million dollars in fiscal year 2030, a million dollars in fiscal year 2031, 750,000 in fiscal year 2032, and 750,000 in 2033. And by moving it, I mean it's moving from the Clean Water Fund to the Solid Waste Management Assistance account for the purpose of the grants under that account to the product responsibility organization for the stand up of the collections.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: Representative Satcowitz. Michael, we're giving this money to the PRO. We're told that it's for primarily for capital expenses or equipment. My question is, who will be owning that equipment once the money is spent and it goes into service?

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: The bill does not currently address that. And it's possible that a grant agreement between ANR and the PRO could address that. But there is no specific provision whether or not the PRO would buy it and then lease it to a redemption center or buy it and sell it to a redemption center. Or would they make grants? Would they pass through grants from the CRO to redemption centers or retailers for the retailer to buy it for purpose? I that none of that is in in the bill right now.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: If the bill were to pass as written, how would that all get worked out?

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: So you can turn to page 25. This is where the salary expansion assistance account is being amended to allow for grants from that money that was just transferred. And it's it's this is where it would be. Now state grants have, significant conditions on them. Administrative bulletin 3.5 or five point o, I can't remember which, puts specific conditions on the award of grants of state funds. There's reporting, monitoring. You have to have a specific goal. They withhold a certain percentage to ensure that you've met all of the requirements. So that's that's how an A and R can basically write conditions into the grant. But you're not you're not dictating what those condition conditions are. It's a it's a I will say this. It's very consistent with the grant authority that's already exists under the Waste Management Assistance Fund, the different grants that are underneath that. They're not very detailed in in in their directive to to ANR. So this is consistent with language that's already in statute, but you don't have to be. You can be very specific if you want to.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: I guess I'm a little worried around how this money gets directed, who who gets it, who who doesn't get it, how those choices are made. It seems like some some some

[Rep. Christopher “Chris” Pritchard]: you

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: know, private individuals might benefit quite well from this sort of a program and others might have done some with nothing. It seems like there might be some potential equity issues around who gets the money. It also seems like we should have a sense of you know, we want my understanding is that, you know, the whole idea of this bill is that we want it to be possible for us to have a better redemption system. But we're not it's not like an economic development program. We're not trying to put in place a program that makes it possible for individuals to increase their profits at the expense of the state. It just seems like there's a lot of questions in terms of how the money would actually get spent. And, yeah, it's just off the top of my head.

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: I don't have answers for you, but you have time. Remember, this money isn't being moved from the Clean Water Fund into the solid waste management account until fiscal year twenty thirty. You've got a couple of fiscal years before then if you wanted ANR to propose how they would run this grant program.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Do we have a way of finding out what other PROs have done in other states?

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: I mean, I can research it, but I don't know off the top. I would have to do that individually per state.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: If you have suggestions of boundaries that you don't have suggestions. I mean, just a small I guess what

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: I understand how this actually work.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Yeah. I'm falling back on is that there's a plan that needs to be approved.

[Rep. Weber (first name unknown)]: Representative

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Logan?

[Rep. Kate Logan]: Yeah. I I certainly appreciate your concern, representative Satcowitz, I also feel similarly, like, they're they're they have to achieve goals, first of all. They have to improve our recycling rates. So there's a strong motivation to use those funds in a way that would help them achieve those goals, and then they would also have to have a plan that's approved. So it seems like there's opportunity to continue to provide oversight, but then that's also part of the that's part of the purpose of creating a program like this that's managed by the producers themselves that kind of give them a structure, then they're accountable as in the polls. And we don't tell them how to do it. They tell us how they're gonna do it. I'm more comfortable with the funding, especially if it'll help them stand the program up quickly. But I do wish we could keep that money and use it for other things. And

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: they have to meet regional. I mean, they have to have a certain number of redemption centers all around the state. I think they're nonprofit.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: PROs are nonprofit for getting the equipment, because it's offset.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Well, I guess we could say the PRO needs to own the equipment, but I think we want to be careful to represent Logan's point about the micromanagement. K. Moving on.

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: And then page 26. These are the effective dates. The act takes effect on 07/01/2026. That happened 2025. That reference on page 26 line three to section fifteen twenty four, that used to be 1531. 1524 is where the UPC and barcode is now. Remember, it wasn't in the original section, but we put it back in. Then page 26 line for the requirement for the UPC label is now 07/01/2027. It had been March 2027. And then page 26, the prohibition on sale without participating in the PRO. That takes effect on 03/01/2028. It had been 2027.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Thank you. Speaking of the UPC, testimony from Brie Dietli last week that indicated that somehow the reverse vending machines and the distributors did you have a chance to to talk with Matt Chapin about that? Like, that they were not in some cases, they weren't reimbursing for those deposits because the bottles were cans were crushed?

[Michael Grady, Legislative Counsel]: I didn't talk to Matt. I tried to do some research on it. What I found is that some don't accept glass and some have a readability requirement. I wasn't able to confirm that the crushing affects the readability requirement. I do need to talk to Matt about that.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: It's like a funny, potentially just very interesting piece of information. That'd be great. Thank you. Do members have questions for Michael on this? All right. Thank you. Take a five minute break, and then we do have Serve, Learn, Earn coming in.