Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: What?

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright. Welcome back to the House Environment Committee. We are going to shift gears and hear from the Department of Fish and Wildlife on h seven twenty. Commissioner.

[Jason Batchelder, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner]: Thank you, madam chair. I I wanted to start out, for the record, Jason Batchelder, Fish and Wildlife Commissioner. I just wanted to make sure, in the in the forty five minutes or so we have that you've got what you wanted out of, McFernal and me.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: We don't quite have forty five minutes anymore. Okay. We have other witnesses hoping to come in before lunch. Sorry.

[Jason Batchelder, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner]: We'll get right to it then. And then I'll turn it over to colonel as soon as I can. Thank you for having me. At this point in the session, you all are acutely aware of why we're here. And for that, I take responsibility. While advocating for clarity, I've unintentionally run afoul of a few landowners and others who took our effort as adversarial and not as intended. The fix as you are aware was intentionally a proposal to arrive at three sixty five days of posting which the short form of this bill accomplished. It allowed three sixty five days to be achieved at the leisure and convenience of the landowner all while maintaining the signs that Vermonters know trust and respect. We've even gone as far as to tacitly endorse a person's ability to write two years on a sign, which is contentious at at times prior to where we are, and allowing that option, albeit a risky one in my opinion, to date two years at once. As this language has evolved and strayed from the initial effort, feel some of the effectiveness of this existing language has been eroded. I've testified against purple paint before and for a few reasons. Feel purple paint is squarely and I wanna say this in the nicest possible way. It's squarely an anti hunting effort. And I'll elaborate. While not required yellow signs do include the words trespassing, which acknowledge and do not ignore a person's right to hunt and fish in the state. Simply put, yellow signs do not allow any access for any reason, but purple paint only targets hunting and fishing, which I feel is exclusionary and and worth pointing out. I I think it it goes without saying that that people that identify as hunters and anglers and trappers sometimes embrace a lifestyle that is brushed aside as unnecessary and dated in this state. I'll let Colonel Steadman weigh in on the enforceability, but I do think it is challenging when it when it comes to to putting wardens on the landscape with with purple paint. Since it doesn't require deliberate or consistent markings and can be easily manipulated. There's other, science around color blindness that I'm sure you've heard, and I and I'm certainly not gonna get too far into that. This proposal removes the existing requirement of dating. Dating, we feel is required to avoid signs falling into disarray. And I would go for purple paint also. Dating requires signs and signs put a landowner on their boundaries. And putting a landowner on their boundaries ensures maintenance and compliance. It also promotes stewardship as would the footprint of the farmer on the land. Purple paint works in some states as I've testified. They work in states that have rights to hunt, like Vermont. They even work in the state of Maine, which I have seen myself. But I've also testified firsthand knowledge, from being in Maine, that they use signs alongside of purple paint, which I know you propose, but but many people use signs because they're they're determinant. Purple paint can be unsightly and and they are not as clear as a sign. I would like to add that in states like Texas, paint is used as a property marker because everyone knows in Texas with or without signs or paint, you may not cross property lines for any reason without the permission of the landowner. In Vermont, we know that is not the case. My biggest concern is with subparagraph d beginning on line eight, page three. Language that states accidental or unintentional deviations from the posting requirements shall be deemed as effective shall be deemed effective to prohibit or permit by permission only hunting. This language effectively neutralizes the law and undermines the fundamental legal principle that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Anyone could say that they accidentally failed to post their signs or to post the correct signs or to mark their trees at the designated spacing and therefore the land is still enclosed. Enforcement would be undermined by a constant confusion over whether someone had constructive notice the land was supposed to be enclosed. This language seems to conflate the constitutional requirement to enclose land against hunting with a criminal elements of trespass, which only requires someone to have reasonable notice once trespass. In short, title 10 requires prescribed actions to take an enclosed land against hunting and fishing unlike the posting against trespass. We require these time sensitive oh, well, currently, you require these time sensitive or time intensive post requirements to be met because hunting is a constitutional right in Vermont, and landowners should be required to take a deliberate action to post against hunting and fishing. Subparagraph d effectively says that someone can unintentionally fail to comply with the posting requirements and their language still be considered posted. In which case, I I I would ask why would we have posting requirements at all? And lastly, I'd like to fast forward again to what this bill and it's in in the original posting language proposes to achieve, which is respect for private land and those who hold it. In Vermont, with rare exception, we have that. Change is difficult and to allow moving away from signs will cause challenges for landowners, hunters, and enforcement. I would ask that the committee restore this bill to its original form, return it to a three hundred and sixty five day posting option without purple paint, which sets landowners and users of private land up for failure through lapses and unmaintained boundaries. I'm happy to take any questions, but if if they're enforcement related, I would love to turn it over to the colonel, but I certainly feel like I'd love to have a discussion about it. And and sorry if I if I slant toward the negative in any any of this. It's not my intention.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative, thank you for your testimony. Representative Chittenden.

[Representative Chittenden (full name unclear)]: Yeah. Thanks for your testimony. I know this feels like a lot of change in some ways, but not fully convinced it's a lot of change. You mentioned that purple paint is exclusively no hunting, whereas yellow signs always say no trespass. I thought you could get yellow signs that are just about hunting and fishing.

[Jason Batchelder, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner]: You certainly could have them printed, and they would be valid. The signs that are available to most people in the hardware store, which is where the department has sent people for decades, contain the words no trespass.

[Representative Chittenden (full name unclear)]: So we have totally separate statutes about trespass than we do about no hunting and fishing and trapping because hunting and fishing and trapping are a constitutional right in Vermont. And yet, it's not easy to find signs that are just about no hunting and fishing and allow trespass.

[Jason Batchelder, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner]: It's a great question. And we do print or excuse me, have a printable template on our on our website that allows you to do that. So they're they're accessible for sure.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Okay.

[Jason Batchelder, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner]: In general, when you if you drive down my road, perhaps, and you see a posted sign, it contains the word invariably contains the word no trespassing. They're the Tyvek durable signs that people buy. I believe if you look on Amazon, that's what comes up first. It's it's it's I'm I'm generalizing, but that's that is what you see, almost almost as as a rule across the Vermont landscape.

[Representative Chittenden (full name unclear)]: And that's just given the market in the retail market. But on your site, we can easily access if we want to just post cancellation.

[Jason Batchelder, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner]: Or permission.

[Representative Chittenden (full name unclear)]: The purple paint is equivalent to the sign that's available on your website provided to Vermonters. So I guess I really struggle to see how purple paint is so different from that sign other than the fact that you don't have to date the purple paint. Currently you have to date the sign, although we'd also like to change that. I'm just concerned about I'm not seeing an alternative offered about how to make it so much more accessible when we are hearing from hundreds and hundreds of our monitors that, given their age or their mobility, don't have access to be able to routinely walk all the edges of their property and can also have a constitutional right for them to be able to enclose the property. So I think our committee has to balance these.

[Jason Batchelder, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner]: I completely understand that.

[Representative Chittenden (full name unclear)]: I'm just not seeing the alternative, and the purple paint seems like an equivalent to the sign acceptable date. Thank you.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Others? Representative Austin?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. I I just like, I see these two issues. You know, one is that private property owners have a right to protect their property and not allow cross passing, hunting, fishing, whatever, it's their property. And then hunters have a constitutional right to hunt. And it just also seems that there are a small group of hunters. Like, agree with you. I think the majority of hunters are law abiding hunters, but I you know, we're hearing about people that just walk on whether they're it's posted or not, or especially with the hounding, you know, and and so you have a group of private property owners that where people are disregarding the posting. And so I, you know, I do wonder if we should be also looking at enforcement or penalties as well. I I do think our demographic is getting older. I think it's harder for people to post their land. And I guess I don't understand why you can't just post the land, let's say with a metal side, you know, and not have to just go into the town clerk's office, you know, pay the fee, and then it's updated in the town clerk's office as opposed to having to go to each sign and change the date. So I'm trying to think how do we make it more convenient for landowners who are post their land once, and then it's just posted until the sign is taken down.

[Jason Batchelder, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner]: Sure. I I think if we rewind a year, I think some of this could become clearer. Not not to ignore your concern around metal signs. I I I there are metal signs that exist that that achieve this. If we if we rewind a year, and and look at the warden service stats for hosted LAN, which I I understand probably not all the calls are made when a when a an infraction is seen. But I I need to openly state that this issue has been conflated. There are 50 complaints out of almost 9,000. Eight eight thousand six hundred complaints that came to the warden service last year in a law enforcement capacity. 50 of them were on posted land. And that simply does not equate to a monumental change to me around, around, an opposition to someone's right to hunt and fish in Vermont. And I and I completely say that stating that we send wardens after posted property complaints. The colonel sends, without exception, wardens to posted property complaints. This issue has has had a spotlight shown on it. And and and, again, I I take responsibility for that, for having for having brought this to light, and and I wouldn't shy away from the need. There there are many folks that that feel this very viscerally, and I stand up for them. But I I also stand up for hunters also who who feel as though, well, they feel the squeeze. They feel the squeeze of of a societal push away from what they hold here, And this is is a person. And I I would love to chat about about solutions. I yeah. I'll stop there.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. I just wanna say

[Speaker 0]: that we did have some testify that he had his land all posted and there was one date with one number that was not correct. And he just said it doesn't you don't need and I I thought that wardens had discretion, you know, about whether they were going to follow through, you know, on the regulation or not. And, you know, that's concerning to me.

[Jason Batchelder, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner]: Sure. Discretion and and the and the the the mandate to follow what is the letter of the law are are two different things. And and I would I would bring you back to the end goal of someone trespassing. What is the is the goal to to lock up the trespasser and and to and to run that person through the court system? Or is it, is it the goal to have someone see signs and and turn around and leave? And I I'll go back to to 99% of people turn around and leave. And and and and as we would not be able to treat all drivers as if they're inebriated, we can't treat all hunters as if they're trespassers because they aren't.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Norris.

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: Oh, thank you, madam chair. Yeah. Thanks for your your testimony here. I I am concerned with your concern on page three, section D. What we were trying to accomplish there is exactly what representative Austin was pointing out, The current need in the law for 100% compliance, and that if there's one number wrong, then that invalidates the entire set of posting. And so we're trying to identify so if this verbiage is not acceptable, what verbiage would you suggest that gives some flexibility for a slight error? I'll just end uphold that error in way things proposed it, so that, as it says here, a reasonable person would would would re recognize this. Yeah. This line is actually posted. Right? One side is wrong. A couple of sides are wrong. But, Jeff, I'll just post it.

[Jason Batchelder, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner]: We did have this discussion this morning around the the nature of of title 10 laws, which are strict liability. The the minimum, for posting is 400 feet, but it it says nothing about about if you had your signs at 50 feet or 30 feet, which I'm not suggesting. If if a person went to the the minimum allowable, posting distance, I I think that the the possibility for failure is greater. And to have have more more signs simply takes away and my point about strict liability means if we if we catch you on on properly posted land with an implement of hunting or fishing, you don't have to know you were there or not. And or or that you trust fast or that you saw the signs. Certainly, including the ability to see those signs and more more opportunities to see those signs would be would be more, more pro landowner, in that instance. But, having, having the the posted statute that we've had in place for for seventy years without issue or or or really even a second look, I I think, be should be worth mentioning. People have found it reasonable, and people have found it, accessible. Granted, we are an aging population. But I think, I think we have a a a very good, a very robust posting law, and I'll go back to the initial part of my testimony, which said, allowing a three hundred and sixty five day opportunity, it is is where I'd like to land, where the department would like to land. It takes away the ambiguity around data each year, and it it certainly would allow someone to post for a couple years. And and at that time, even if we were at purple pain, two two years, trees fall, signs go into disarray, or disrepair. And I still feel a little bit worried about letting someone, and I don't mean letting someone, Saying that someone shouldn't go look at their signs but every two years because they make gray swirl nests and and paint tree trees die and fall over, and and boundaries boundaries well, they don't change, but boundaries can can go into disrepair. And so I I feel as though part of this existing statute, puts people on the landscape. And and and it and it also and I've said this before, it also puts people in in contact with those who might be on their boundaries and using their land or wanting to use their land, because I think that should be part of the process for people. It's a roundabout way. I didn't know of answering.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I I understand what you're saying, but

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: then e even if even if somebody did go out

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: faithfully every year and make sure

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: the signs were good and and one of those trees blows over, now they're not properly closer to it. Anybody can, you know, anybody could interpret that as, the land's not posted, I can go trespassing or hunting fish on the land, and it's no longer enforceable because one tree blew down, even within the year. There's got to be some reasonableness applied. We've to give the wardens a way to apply some reasonableness rather than saying standard is 100% compliance, otherwise we're a big stop of anything. So if this wording is not acceptable, we need something that's at that end.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: All right. We need to move on. Thank you.

[Jason Batchelder, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner]: Thank you so much. If you'd like the current the colonels at at your service, if if if, if you need any any further enforcement, discussion. If not, thank you so much. Appreciate the opportunity.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Our next witnesses are right outside the door. Do you mind, Justin? I'll just

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much.

[Linda Gray, Norwich Energy Committee]: Cool in here. Come back to the rest. Really good. Nice.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: That's because our windows are wide open. Great. We are Joey, are you gonna kick this off or no? Would you like to?

[Joanna "Joey" Miller, Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC)]: My pleasure.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Maybe we're gonna shift gears one more time this morning in case you haven't exercised your brain muscle enough and hear from our Town Energy and Climate Action Committees who are in the building today.

[Joanna "Joey" Miller, Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC)]: Thank you so much, madam chair, members of the committee for the time. My name is Joanna Miller. You call me Joey. I lead the energy and climate program at the Vermont Natural Resources Council. One of the biggest pieces of my job and the biggest pleasures of it is helping support the network of town energy committees across Vermont. As many of you may know, in the nineteen seventies, the state statutorily enabled the creation of an appointment of energy coordinators during the oil embargo and the oil crisis to help their municipalities cut costs and cut energy usage. In the mid two thousands, when climate change became an increasingly you know, issue of importance and concern for many communities, a lot of these communities established, climate action and energy committees, again, to help their people in their municipalities and the municipalities themselves reduce fossil fuel consumption, which is a huge economic issue in the state of Vermont because we import all the fossil fuels that we use, and to help the people in their communities reduce energy costs and save money. So now there are about 120 of these grassroots groups across Vermont. Several of you are lucky enough to have them in your communities, and so I just wanted to provide you a little bit of a framework. We have about a dozen of them here today. These are individual members of those active groups that are engaged in these conversations for us at VNRC. We really set our policy agenda informed by the work and the priorities of the communities that we collaborate very closely with. Again, my pleasure to collaborate so closely with so many of these community leaders. And I also think it's really important to underscore at this moment that state and federal policy, either helps or hinders those communities' ability to reduce energy consumption, reduce fossil fuel pollution. So, you know, your work in this moment as the federal government retreats, from established climate science and from the cleanest and lowest cost energy on the planet, which is renewable power, wind, and solar, and now the cheapest form of electricity and most flexible and fast to deploy out there, and yet we're fundamentally retreating while, you know, folks like China and other nations are stepping in. So it's really important more than ever that states and communities in partnership gratefully with the work of community energy and climate committees, really step into this moment. So you're gonna hear from mostly these folks here today just to gives you an example flavor of what they're working on. Some of you may already know. A lot of the issues energy committees are working on are not indirect, like directly under your jurisdiction. A lot of them are more so in the House Energy Committee, but, you'll see these bills in front of you. You'll also see things like the greenhouse gas emissions reporting program. One of the top 10 recommendations of the climate action plan is in house energy, but will come before you and ultimately will, ideally, to be staffed up and supported would require appropriation that will be in front of your committee for consideration. So hopefully, you'll hear more about that because it was a recommendation of the climate action plan that all but one member of the climate council, supported. And the ANR strongly supports and is ready to do the work, but they need in this challenging economic environment, they need a little bit of money to do that. So you're gonna hear about that as a priority for some of these groups and a little bit more flavor about what these guys are doing on the local level. So thank you so much for your time, and I will turn it

[Linda Gray, Norwich Energy Committee]: over to Ela's question.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: One quick question. Yeah. You might have said, how many town energy committees are there?

[Joanna "Joey" Miller, Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC)]: About a 120. We try very hard to. About half the towns in the state of Vermont. Most of them are municipally municipally appointed. You'll hear from Duncan. They chose not to actually be an offshoot of their municipality, but that'll have have a chance. And then I apologize, but I did bring some handouts. If this is these are just a few printed articles of late that really sort of contextualize where The United States is at in terms of stepping back from our leadership on these issues, which I think is really important for economic considerations for Vermont Vermonters and this country. So if I may, if I can pass these out or if I can

[Representative Chittenden (full name unclear)]: pass them out for Kat.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. You can pass that out.

[Linda Gray, Norwich Energy Committee]: Sorry. Okay. We're gonna turn it over to Mike Roy.

[Mike Roy, Chair, Middlebury Energy Committee; Vice Chair, Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County]: Hello. So I'm I'm just gonna read because I hate speaking in public until it's easy to read. And I'll try not to read too fast, but I'm I'm told I read very fast. Anyway, thank you for allowing me to speak with you today. My name is Mike Roy. I currently serve as chair of the Middlebury Energy Committee and as vice chair of the Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County. I've lived in Middlebury for the past eighteen years. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to share a bit about our work in Middlebury and Addison County. Some of what we are focused on in the moment might not directly speak to legislation currently being developed by your committee today, but knowing your committee has jurisdiction over climate mitigation solutions, climate resilience, land use, and other critical conservation and environmental issues, I welcome to the chance to share with you the sort of climate work happening on the ground at the municipal level and county level. I'll speak mostly about Addison County perspective, but as Joey mentioned, you know, the work that we're doing in Middlebury is not unique. There's about half half of Vermont towns have these committees, mostly municipally appointed, and and they're all doing work as you'll find that's that's quite closely aligned with what we're doing. We're helping the municipality itself and helping the people that live in the municipality, trying to reduce energy bills, cut energy consumption, and make the transition to cleaner, more efficient, and more resilient energy and climate solutions. As Joey mentioned, our work, however, is at this moment, with with all of the the significant federal changes has become harder, and therefore, I think more important. State level policies such as that you all you all set and resources can help and not hinder the transition to cleaner, more affordable renewable resources, and it's more important than ever to meet this moment we're in, one where the rate of climate change is accelerating, and the federal government is taking an active role in dismantling federal policy to address this crisis. So I understand that your jurisdiction mostly focuses on resilience and adaptation, but but from time to time, you do just some work on mitigation. The work that I hope described is mostly in the area of mitigation. And just to remind folks of the connection between mitigation and adaptation, I thought I'd share some words from John Holdren, who is a climate scientist and former adviser to president Obama, and he wrote, about climate change. We have basically three choices, mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. We're gonna do some of each. The question is what is the mix going to be? The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required, and the less suffering there will be. So this is just making a plug for not focusing exclusively on adaptation. Adapt adaptation is important, but with Vermont and the rest of the world can do get ahead of mitigation, then the amount of adaptation may not be, as as radical. So I'm gonna talk about four different little projects that we've been working on, some little, some not so little. First is an enhanced energy plan. So we're working with our regional planning commission to develop an enhanced energy plan for Middlebury. We'll be creating maps for solar locations, setting up targets for clean energy adoption, heat pumps and electric vehicles. This will link up to regional plans, which in turn feed targets for the state to reach its emissions goal. So one of the things that's been interesting is kind of seeing the connection between this local planning and the larger, state climate plan. In the spirit of the old saw that says you can't manage what you can't measure, we'll need much more improved systems for doing the accounting in order to understand whether or not we're making sufficient progress on our goals. And so the bill that looks to fund a a carbon accounting system for fossil fuels is an excellent start and would be an important part of local efforts to contribute to overall state goals. So all of the energy committees are struggling with data, and so having really good reliable data that comes from the state would be really important. Second thing I wanna mention is some work on a wastewater treatment plant. So little did I know that when I decided to engage climate at the local level, I would need to learn so much about wastewater treatment plants and how they operate. So Middlebury's in in the early stages of planning for major overhaul of its plant. As part of that upgrade, we're gonna be moving away from use of lime to treat our sludge. We'll instead be drying our sludge with a very, very large dryer. The leading candidate is an enormous contraption that holds hundreds of gallons of mineral oil heated to over 300 degrees. The critical decision we face is how to heat that oil. We can either use fossil fuel, gas, or electricity. And so one of the things that we're trying to understand is is document how much the carbon difference will be between using gas versus using using, electricity, and we're looking into what this was gonna look like over twenty years. And so, again, trying to think about what are the costs of fuels going to be over the next twenty years. The other piece that's connected to that is thinking about solar as a way to lower the cost of electricity, and so thinking about state policy around solar, solar siting, behind the meter solar, in order to try to drive down the cost of the electricity and help us do what would be the right thing for the for the climate. The third piece I'd like to mention is, thinking about state level incentive to switch to clean energy. So, the first few years of the of the last two years of the Biden administration, we kind of had this, tailwind of the IRA, and that has been basically dismantled. So as the federal government's taken a sledgehammer to the incentives for switching to clean energy, many states are putting in place state level programs to allow their residents to switch to solutions that are, when looked at with full life cycle analysis, cheaper and healthier, and contribute to the overall mitigation strategy. So we understand the fiscal challenges caused by many many of the changes that have taken place in the federal programs. In the in the medium term, if we are gonna meet this moment, we will need to heed the good advice in the climate council's latest action plan and develop resources to help all Vermonters afford to make that switch, and that's gonna need creating financial incentives to help people switch to EVs and to put heat pumps. And then the last thing I'm gonna mention is a community based energy coaching program, which is really a countywide program. So the Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County has launched a community energy coaching program that is designed to address the last mile challenge of connecting with hard to reach members of the community to ensure that the tree that the transition to clean energy is just and equitable. There's a bill under consideration, to explore how we might expand this program to serve all of Vermont, understanding that it is a necessary but not sufficient part of a comprehensive approach to affecting a swift and inclusive transition away from fossil fuels to solutions that are affordable, healthy, and don't, contribute to, climate change. So, anyway, those are the four things I just wanted to highlight that we're grappling with on the ground in Middlebury and thinking about how the work that we're doing can either be supported by what happens at the state, or we have to end up, trying to find ways of doing this without the proper resources and proper policy. And so this is really just a plea to think comprehensively about climate change and the role the state needs to play in combating it, especially given what's happened at the federal level. So that's that's my story.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you for your testimony. In the interest of time, I think we need to hear from everyone, and then we'll see if we have some time for questions.

[Duncan McDougall, Chair, Waterbury LEAP (Local Energy Action Partnership)]: Good morning, everyone. My name is Duncan McDougall. I'm the chair of Waterbury LEAP, the local energy action partnership. As Joey said, we are the town energy committee in Waterbury. We're not affiliated formally with the town, but we support the town in a lot of different ways. We've been operating for about eighteen years now, and we have every year we have a number of events such as the LEAP Energy Fair, which is a free gathering. We have electric vehicle fests, weatherization, etcetera, etcetera. I first testified here about seventeen years ago on these topics. And in those days, a lot of legislators felt that man made climate change was a theory that we really needed to look into, and we'll get back to you on that. I think that theory has alas been proven. There are 3,200 counties in The United States, and in 2024, our home county water Washington County was number one. Number one in the number of natural disaster declarations. Memorial County, number three. 2023, 2024, it cost the state of Vermont a billion more than a billion dollars with a b. This is not a theoretical thing, and this is absolutely an affordability issue. We don't see it out of our directly out of our pocketbooks per se, but a lot of people do. In Waterbury, we lost hundreds of jobs. A lot of businesses closed. People lost their houses. People were underwater financially, underwater literally. This is something we need to deal with now. While all of this is happening, our federal government has decided instead of striving to address climate change and instead of embracing energy sources and technologies that the rest of the rest of the world recognize as the future, recognize as ways to save money, recognize as ways to protect our environment, we're turning back to buggy whips. That's what's happening now, and individuals like yourselves, committees like this can help push against that trend. You are not alone. As you heard, there are 120 town energy committees in Vermont. All of them are full of active volunteers. We are all volunteer organization. We have worked with literally thousands of Vermonters. LEAP Energy Fair, I'd love to have you come to it. April 11, we'll have upwards of 700 Vermonters for more than 50 towns come. So Vermonters are eager. They're they're really want to learn how to save money and save energy. Everybody wants to save money and save energy, and they just need the support. Now, for a lot of them and for a lot of the opportunities that they have, it does take a little bit more upfront cost. So, for example, if you're going buy an electric vehicle, it costs a little bit more upfront. If you're going to get do weatherization, it's going to cost you a little bit of money. If you're going to do solar, it might cost you a little bit more. But all of those over time save money and save energy. So I would encourage you to the extent that you can to think about those opportunities and to support and encourage individuals to make those steps, because over time it is going to pay off. We support, as I mentioned, the Waterbury Select Board and the Planning Commission, and over the past eighteen years, they've turned to us for help in writing the town energy plan and the enhanced energy plan. And I'm in the midst for the third or fourth time now helping the town do that. And I can tell you it is very difficult because we do not have access to the data. Obviously, if you're making a plan five years later or however many years later, you wanna look back and see where were you then? Where are you now? We don't know. We're just grasping at straws because the granular data for how much Waterbury has spent on various fuel sources, etcetera, We don't have it. We need it. So I strongly encourage you, please, to support the ANR's request for $500,000 to support the standing green house gas reporting program. It would be a huge help to us, because then, as you know, you can't, manage what you can't measure. We can measure it, then we can really focus on what we need to do. As I said, the LEAP Energy Fair, we've been holding it for seventeen years, and it's kind of a canary in the coal mine to the extent that we do the same outreach everything year to year, and the numbers change, and they change depending on largely what folks in this building do when they provide simple incentives, when they provide more information, when they provide support, people come out. So some years we've had up to 725 people come to the event. In others, it's, you know, 400 and something. And you can really see based on what comes out of these rooms. What people can do, because, again, they just need that little extra to step into the various green energy energy efficiency opportunities, and that will save the state. That will save individuals a lot of time and money. Last couple of thoughts. One is there are a 195 countries in this world. It is no coincidence that our federal government has taken out the leader of Venezuela and is threatening to invade Iran. There are a lot of countries with questionable leaders. Why those two? Well, it's because Venezuela is number one in oil resources, and Iran is number three. So when you think about the cost of fossil fuel versus renewables, I don't know of a country that's been invaded to get their solar power or the wind power. It's something that's local. It can't be taken away. It's a big issue. The last thing I'd like to mention just as a father, maybe a future grandfather, is I've spoken to, 20 who have said, I'm not sure I'm comfortable having kids. I'm not sure I'm comfortable having them grow up in the world that we've left out. The decisions that you make and other committees here make will affect their future. That is a scary situation, and that's what we've left them because as adults, we have not stepped up. So I thank you for your work, I hope that you will step up because now is the time we need to do it. Thank you for your time.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you for your testimony. And then we have Linda Gray.

[Representative Chittenden (full name unclear)]: If done get the That was fine. Just

[Linda Gray, Norwich Energy Committee]: Good morning. Thank you. So my name is Linda Gray, and I also have my notes that I'm gonna I'm gonna be referring to. I've lived in Norwich since 1986, and I've been active on my town's energy committee since 2008. So that's eighteen years. Ours is a select board appointed committee. So what I'd like to do today, I want to sketch out the stuff that our town committee does, which I think is fairly typical, highlight how policies drive individual energy choices, and then comment on some of the current legislation that you guys are looking at. So what we have done, we focus on both municipal energy use and residential energy use. We've done campaigns on residential solar since 2012. We have more than a third of Norwich households have gone solar. We've done campaigns on weatherization since 2014. We've done all kinds of promotion to try to get people's attention. So that includes outreach at our transfer station at our general store. On Halloween at the fire station, we've given out free ice cream and free LED bulbs, and we've done progress meters on the Sitgo pole at the general store. That's include numbered knitted panels to count weatherization projects, numbered rings to count solar installations. We've done climate stripe yarn bombs around town. We've done displays at the library. We've done the window inserts community builds. Perhaps some of you know about those in your communities. They spread through the Vermont Town Energy Committee like a good virus, I would say. So we've done it for five years. We have an ask a neighbor roster so that residents who have have experience changing their homes around can help those who are just getting started. We've participated with e bike loan programs and EV show and tells. And I do want to note much of our work has been in collaboration with other upper valley town committees. So with Solarize and Weatherize for sure with the e bike loans and the window inserts program. So I definitely the network part of VCAN is real. We readily copy each other's ideas and successes, and we promote each other's programs and organize multi town events. So also Norwich is part of a seven town group that shares an energy coordinator staff position who is housed at our regional planning commission. The towns are Norwich, Bradford, Fairley, Stratford, Bedford, Sharon, and Woodstock. So each town puts in a prorated amount of money into a pot and we get hours prorated on that and then the RPC is covering overhead. Now how policy mattered, worth noting is that all those initiatives that we promote in our towns and for our residents are or were supported by the scaffolding of policy. So that's residential solar by net metering and the whole structure of the renewable energy standards, weatherization by the very existence of efficiency Vermont, the incentives funded by our energy efficiency charge on our electric bills on residential building energy code. EVs were supported by various subsidy programs targeted to low and middle income households. Also, e bikes had been had had a state incentive program. So all of these policies in turn, I think, are there they're supported by the framework of the Global Warming Solutions Act and the work of the Climate Council and then its climate action plans. My observation working with folks is that the hurdles for people are time and money. So the solutions are often complex enough that people need guidance to avoid making mistakes. Home energy action is not necessarily the very top. There's lots of other things that go on in people's lives. The structures have to be in place consistently to channel people to the tested solutions. And I want to know, you don't have to care about global warming to want to switch to clean energy. If you care about affordability and about health, you'll want to make the switch. So the affordability factor is because of this fundamental Once you make an investment in energy efficiency and clean energy, you save money and stabilize expenses. That's true for individual households, for businesses, for governments. And it's simply because you cut ongoing fuel costs. Fossil fuels are single use disposable cups. Solar and wind are ceramic mugs. And I do wanna take a minute. This is a to be an energy nerd, and I want to quote from somebody Kings Mill Bond, and he's worked as a financial market analyst and strategies for over thirty years. He's advised Deutsche Bank and Citibank in London, Hong Kong and Moscow. So I can't paraphrase. I'm just gonna quote from him. The first reason is physics. Just a simple point that electro tech is more efficient than fossil fuels. And I'll just note electro tech, he means solar and wind generating electricity and then things like heat pumps and EVs and all kinds of electric appliances and equipment using that electricity. It's more efficient than fossil fuels. You can get two or three times as much useful energy from Electrotech solutions as you can from fossil solutions. At the moment, we have this remarkably inefficient system you put into the factory as it were at one end 600 or six fifty exajoules and you get around a primary energy and you burn it. As you burn it, you have these enormous inevitable thermodynamic losses of between 40% if you're a coal fired power station or 50% or if you're a car about 75 or 80%. You can't avoid this stuff. We're pouring from our calculations two thirds of the primary energy into the air and wasting it. Moving to electro tech doesn't eliminate waste, but it radically reduces it. Your waste levels are going to be around 10%. For decades, we had no other solutions. We couldn't come up with anything better than fossil fuels. Now we can. That is the exciting point. And then for the health part, I want to highlight there's a November 2025 report from Physicians for Social Responsibility plus 11 other public health organizations. It's titled fueling sickness, the hidden health costs of fossil fuel pollution. Its top key finding was fossil fuel pollution directly threatens the health of every American. So on to current proposals that are before you all. As policymakers, your job is to keep your eye on both near and long term problems for your constituents and develop practical, workable, and necessary policies that will maybe head them off or at least make them manageable. So right now clean energy, durably affordable common sense is being shortsightedly abandoned by our federal government. So we folks volunteering in our communities are saying to please do what you can to keep the ball rolling. Don't let things stall out. On the greenhouse gas emissions reporting and inventory bill as one of the top 10 recommendations in the 2025 Climate Action Plan. If I may speak bluntly, it would be crazy for the legislature to not follow through its data collection. The agency that would do it to do that work supports it, and I urge you to include support for funding the reporting program in your budget letter. As a citizen who has worked on enhanced energy plans, as others have, I would welcome solid place based data over broad data as extrapolated to town levels. The RPCs and the Public Service Department do the best they can, but it is so obvious that while there's real data for the electricity sector, there's only estimates for transportation and thermal. Then I'll just wrap up by highlighting land use policies. I want to thank you all for your work on Act 181. I really think it will help us on the ground to build housing in the right places and in the right ways. And I do want to mention in my town just last week, the Planning Commission voted to recommend to our select board that we opt in to tier 1B status, and I hope our select board is going to follow through on that. There's a group of us in town who are trying to support that, and we hope that we're successful. So thank you very much. And if you do have questions, we can all can all attempt to answer.

[Representative Chittenden (full name unclear)]: Great. Thank you

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: for your testimony. Do members have questions? Just a quick one. Representative Austin.

[Speaker 0]: Sorry. So last night, was at our I'm on the planning board in Colchester, and we're starting our plan, our town plan of five to eight year. Again, and I think I've spoken to you about, I don't know if you have to look at Colchester specifically, but I wanna be very clear what the goals are and what the actions are that Colchester has to make take in the next eight years to reduce fossil fuel use.

[Joanna "Joey" Miller, Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC)]: I'll happily follow-up with you. And I think we have some great examples of plans that other communities have put together that are in service of the comprehensive energy plan, doing our part to and in service of reducing pollution in line with Global Warming Solutions Act. So I'm happy to follow-up with you. Okay. Thank you.

[Duncan McDougall, Chair, Waterbury LEAP (Local Energy Action Partnership)]: In Waterbury, for example, we briefly we helped write the enhanced energy plan and we had a series of recommendations and they were based on priority and time and estimated cost. But alas, again, we didn't have specific numbers, so we were sort of grasping at straws. The numbers would make it just so much more easy to decide where to focus our efforts.

[Representative Rob North (Member)]: Yeah.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you all for your work and for coming in today to share it with us.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you so much.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I really appreciate you.

[Linda Gray, Norwich Energy Committee]: Thank you for having us. Yes. Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: You so much for your time and your work.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Members, I just I'm gonna reiterate the what's gonna happen this afternoon. At 01:15, we're gonna change the addendum a little bit to take up the miscellaneous bill we voted out. Actually, plenty of time as I see. We had forty five minutes for the introduction of six fifty two, which was probably a little more than it needs. If Kat could let Woody know that, that we'll maybe start at 01:30 with that bill, but 01:15, looking at the final changes to the DEC miscellaneous, voting it out, and hopefully dominating everyone's schedule be present for the vote. Yes. The issue with the old bill is something with the browser cache. So if you have it open, you'll have to hit refresh rather than hitting the link and hit enter. And if that doesn't work, you'll need to clear your browser cache behind you. Where are your browser cache?

[Speaker 0]: Can we get hard copies?

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: We can. Let's take that one offline.