Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: Welcome

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: back to the House Environment Committee. We are changing topics once again to a discussion at age 70, an act relating to the inclusion of use value of appraisal and served land inventory. And this is a committee discussion largely, to decide if we are going to want to continue taking test on this bill and or do we need to vote on it? There's representative labor. Good.

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Good morning. I am here.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Hey. Welcome. Morning. Alright. So Alright. Does anyone wanna kick us off

[Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: on thoughts?

[Michael “Mike” Tagliavia (Member)]: I'll go first. Representative Tagliavia. I think our what we had as far as testimony on the twenty seventh, although I wish there were some other people who were able to come in after lunch to provide testimony. I think what we got was very good. I think the case was made for celebrating the conservation goals that UVA program has, the goals that it had. It's wildly successful. I think because of that success and the goals of Act 59, I think we would be foolish not to include it, especially since the land put into the program far exceeds the land leaving the program. And if we were to find it, there was a reversal, we would very easily be able to make changes like we do all the time in legislature. I think because we have a stagnant economy in this state, because we have a lack of housing, I think it would be nice to have state agencies concentrating more heavily on housing and the economy. And I don't think that age 70 is going to cause us to stop looking for lands to be conserved in perpetuity, but age 70, I think, helps us reach a goal that we set. I hope we come to a position here where we can vote this out favorably.

[Kate Logan (Member)]: Representative Logan. I can't support age 70, You know, the goals of, Act 59 were to conserve 50% of our land by 2050, not have some undefined portion of that be in current use. As there are development pressures, and will those development pressures are going to increase in Vermont, not decrease over the coming decades, especially as we have turn generational turnover of property, we are gonna see those development pressures result in that land being developed. And so I would not be comfortable counting any currently enrolled lands, UBA enrolled lands as conserved lands. I do think that there's probably some solution there because I think we can recognize the the value of, that those lands make to our landscape and to our ecology. But I don't think it would be appropriate to consider them conserved permanently conserved lands, which is what we were aiming for with act 59. So I can't support h 70, but I do support the conversation continuing. I just don't know what the solution is. I think other people have good ideas about how to kind of thread the needle. I don't have anything to offer personally, and I think it's a much longer conversation than we can have by Friday. You know? So but I do hope that we can come to some kind of middle ground on this in Vermont.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Pritchard?

[Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm very supportive of age 70. I I mean, I can appreciate what representative Logan's saying, but the whole purpose of UVA was to conserve lands. That was their mission, conserve lands. If you're in the program, that's what you're doing. Point zero two percent has withdrawn. And that's been throughout the time of this program. So I don't see that happening. And the other thing, quite frankly, I'm concerned about, and I would like to continue with testimony. It's unfortunate that we weren't able to take this up sooner. So we could go through this testimony and be able to make a decision whether we can move this bill forward or not. And now we've deprived ourselves of that. But, you know, part of what I got out of the testimony, and it's a great concern of mine from couple avenues. One is the impact that it potentially can have on our forest industry. They manage these UVA lands and, and it's a and it's, it's a big part of what they do. And that could change, you know, under this 2050. There's concern for that because of changes in allowing that to happen. And one of the things that they do besides helping our economy is, you know, this forest regeneration is an important thing for Vermont. A wildlife habitat is suffering because of a lack of it, and it needs to continue. And to put that in jeopardy, I just I don't think it's a good idea. I don't believe that age 70, by approving it, changes the mission statement of all the other folks that do the good work, like the Nature Conservancy and some of these other Vermont land trusts, they're still gonna stick to their mission statement. Age 70 is not gonna change their mission statement one bit. They're gonna do what they continue to do. And I think it works in harmony. And it gives a real reflection of, I think, of what lands really we have conserved. And I think it should be included in that number. Hopefully the discussion, again, it's unfortunate that we're gonna run out of time, but I think it's an important discussion and I hope it continues.

[Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: Senator Austin. Yeah, I'm just looking up Vermont's statute of the definition of conserved land. Conserved land means permanently protected and meeting the definition of ecological reserve area, biodiversity conservation area, natural resource management area. So it's a word permanently, you know, I think that we're debating and I don't see current use as a permanent protection of Vermont.

[Rob North (Member)]: Thank you, Madam Chair. And I really do appreciate you allowing this discussion to occur this week. I know there was a question that was asked last week, so thank you for all that discussion. I think if you continue reading the sentence that Sarita started, she ended at a comma after that comment. Says, or natural resource management area as defined in the section, although other long term land protection mechanisms and measures that achieve the goals of BCD that are enforceable and accountable and that support an ecologically functional and connected landscape may be considered. So, to the extent, the UVA program perfectly fits into exactly

[Kristi Morris (Member)]: the back. You might be looking

[Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: at it. Are you looking at the statute?

[Rob North (Member)]: Yeah. I'm looking at statute. So just to

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: be clear, it it's true.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: It continues, and that's important.

[Kate Logan (Member)]: I'm looking at it. 30%

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: permanent, and then it softens a little in the 50%. I don't wanna debate the facts

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: here. It's on

[Rob North (Member)]: page two, line 14, about the age 70, which quotes the original 10 BSA Chapter 20, if I want.

[Kristi Morris (Member)]: And

[Rob North (Member)]: so, given that, I think the UVA program perfectly meets exactly what Logan was looking for, that middle ground. It's conserved for a very long time, not specified by a year, but specified by its difficulty with which you can pull it out. And if we just look at the data, the record shows that the amount of land in UBA that is, and I want to truly call it conserved, because I think some when of the testimony we heard on Friday, when it was stated that only 27% of lab is conserved, I think that's really not a true statement because it doesn't include UVA. It doesn't include land. It is conserved in the use of all your credit. So, I think including UVA just sets the record straight. It sets it clear how much land truly is conserved in Vermont, and it's quite a bit. And so, know exactly within the UVA program, exactly how much goes in, how much comes out every year, and it is only increased over time. It increases over time. Roughly 10% per decade. It was 2,000,000 acres twenty years ago. We're at over two and a half million acres now in UVAs. And we know exactly if it's because if that curve ever started to come down, we would immediately know it could react to that. So, I think the argument that, well, it's not permanent falls flat. I think that's completely satisfied. That argument is completely negated by the fact that we know exactly what land is in The U. And what land is coming out, and the amount coming out is always exceeded by the amount going actually, it's going out. So I'm strongly in favor of age 70.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Satcowitz.

[Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. I'm gonna keep my video off just because I seem to have a somewhat unstable connection. I wanna make sure you can hear me. I have two main thoughts. One is that, you know, the the key for to me for act 59 is is really the permanence. And so h 70 is is really all about undoing what is, for me, the essential point of act 59. And I thought that act 59 was a really groundbreaking and really important bill for Vermont, and I was incredibly happy to see it become law, and I am very hesitant to do anything to weaken the law. And especially so right now, when the law is still, you know, being implemented, when we are talking about right now exactly what it could look like in Vermont to protect the land that we're talking about protecting. And my understanding is that UVA is likely to have a role in that. We just don't know exactly what it's going to be yet, that that's being actively looked at. And yes, UVA is a wonderful program, and it has done great things for Vermont, And it may have a really big role to play in how we work through Act 59 over the coming years. At best, age 70 is really premature in terms of its effect on ACT 59. We're gonna know soon enough how, what the likely role, what the possible role it will be for UVA in preserving land permanently. Very well may be a way to do it. I'd really like to see us at the very least, wait until that process has run its course when we get the reports back and we have much better understanding of how, you know, we can really go about this in a way that makes sense before we, you know, undermine the law at this moment. That's what I got.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Representative

[Kristi Morris (Member)]: Morris. Thank you, madam chair. We we just passed out page seven twenty three regarding land posting, and we came to a compromise. And I appreciated that. I think I've mentioned before that big changes are often not received very well by certain entities or agencies. They they cause big change and upset the F car. But so I do believe in compromise. And this bill, when it first came out and I read it, it kind of intrigued me a little bit once we started taking it up. There's a couple of points here that we haven't talked about, and that is the 50 by 50, and including only permanently conserved land. I'm looking at potential costs for Vermonters to do that if we were going to add more permanently conserved lands. Think without using the land trust and UVAs, that it's going to be, it is going to have a big impact on providers for cost. A lot of the UVA lands have been in UVA, or current use, for twenty plus years. And is there consideration that the Act 59 primarily conserved is black or it's white? To me, that's not a compromise. I'm looking, is there a way in the middle that we can consider those types of lands for conservancy? And perhaps incentivize generational owners. There is penalties for withdrawal, we already have that in place. So I am at least receptive to conversations. I'm a little apprehensive about voting on it today because of what I just stated about potential cost, potential how this might upset the other testimony from people. And I, in respect of Act 59 to represent a second, is a reference to Act 59. Yes. The rules are being stood up and they're continuing on with the Vermont conservation design. I just I it may be a little premature to to jump in now with this. I I I'm not sure, but I do like the idea of some sort of compromise. So it's not all one or the other.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: guess I'll just start with the difference between use value appraisal and conservation easement, whether it's a temporary, medium term or long term conservation easement. Conservation easement is an easement. It's a binding legal document from the future of land. It often involves, or maybe it always involves, basically selling a bundle of rights. It's a completely different tool than use value appraisal, which is not a conservation program. It wasn't intended to be a conservation program. It was designed to fairly tax Vermonters who are stewarding land because there are a lot of public benefits to land stewardship that is often not historically over the past fifty years, farming and forest products industry, the economics of those business models because of our international food policies and trade policies for various reasons, it's not as economically affordable to produce food and forest products here as it is to import them from other places, often at lower quality with bigger environmental costs. Vermont has incentive programs to support those industries. We are I am so grateful for the current use program. It would look completely different. It would look different. It would feel different. Our economy would be completely different, our development patterns would be completely different without the current use programme. Understand how people are completing them. I totally understand when you look at the landscape, you think of these two tools because they are both having a significant impact on what Vermont looks like, how it feels, the fact that we support land stewardship in Vermont in a really real way that it's been able to stay a big part of our landscape and culture in Vermont. That takes work and incentives, unfortunately, given some of the broader influences. So I understand how people conflate these two programs, but use value appraisal is about taxation, and it's about fair taxation for permanent land use with an agreement for a ten year management plan that people can get out of for a fee at any time. An easement on your property is totally different. Now in Vermont, we basically don't spend any public funding on anything other than permanently conserved. In fact, think we don't permanently conserved land. So I think that a lot of this conversation is around the tension that Vermont doesn't have any medium term conservation easement programs. We don't have any intermediary tools and yet our definition around 50 by 50 enables potentially some shorter term. And I'm thinking like fifty to one hundred years. I'm thinking, where are the medium term things that help us particularly right now with baby boomers sell off of 80% of the land over the next currently, we're like in a decade where the vast majority of assets of all kinds are going to transition from one generation to the next, or even skip a generation to my children's generation. We're in one of the most significant this transition of property and resources is going to have such an impact on what Vermont looks like. If we could think about some tools that really help, particularly in that intergenerational transfer of land, and that is often where UVA falls apart and isn't necessarily the best tool to help with that. And it's also where the vast majority of our private forest land is at risk is around that intergenerational transfer to the next generation. It's where next generation might not live here, they might not be able to care as much or actively be involved in its management. So families often end up utilising that forest land asset in a different way, forest parcelisation happens. And this is our biggest threat to the forest products industry by far, in my opinion, after working in this sector for fifteen years. So, I guess, I just really want to say, I think we should have a long term conversation about intermediary tools that might help us meet that 50 by 50. I'd love to have more testimony on that topic in the second half. I cannot support age 70. It would just end at 59. At 59 is essential for Vermont's vitality in the future, both ecologically and in terms of our human ability to like sort of be on this landscape. So I really want to see that process continue to move. I'm hoping that the stakeholders in that process are thinking about this question and looking at other tools beyond permanent land conservation that might be useful in that 50 by 50 and appropriate. And I do support the conversation and I'm concerned about the conflating of current use and permanent conservation and where's the in between tools. Yeah, thank you for making some space for this conversation. I think that if we had time, I think we need to think towards next biennium and get information from the stakeholders as I think the report is due back to us in in June or July. Representative

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Hoyt.

[Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Thank you. I know I don't have the history with this this bill and everyone else in the committee does, so I do wanna be mindful of my role in addressing it. But, I mean, it seemed to me like there was a goal set by the legislature, and what this bill would do is essentially kind of change the rules of the game to meet that. And I don't know that that I don't think I personally don't think that's that's an appropriate way to go about this. I agree very strongly to the Chapin's statements about the need to discuss interim, you know, intermediate measures of conserving land that's been stretched for fifty or a hundred years, but not necessarily in part to I think that's an important discussion to have. But right now, I would not vote in favor of doing anything more on this bill.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Labor.

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, madam chair. Can you hear me? We can. Excellent. As you know, I'm a landowner. I am in UVA. And after listening to the testimonies from last Friday, there wasn't a single one. Even VPRG, even your birding societies, none of them were against UVA as being a vehicle for conservation. What we're missing here is, in my opinion, the economic disaster that we'd be imposing upon the legal logging industry, which encompasses the hidden workforce that's in the woods, that's in the trucking, that's in the sawmills, which are diminishing because of lack of product. And that trickles down to much more expensive building processes for housing. You ship the round logs out to Maine or Quebec or New York for milling, then you're paying for it to come back, your own product. That's just not economically feasible over the long term. So that's a $2,000,000,000 industry in itself. There's nothing preventing recreational use of land in UVA. A lot of it started out as UVA and became trails. So I don't understand the word of it's not permanent. I I can understand that. The history shows it's only coming out at a very small percentage, and that is probably for housing. So, you know, I'm going to support it because of the history does not show it coming out more than it's going in, and it does not show any land use inappropriateness. So I guess I'm voting for it. Thank you for your time.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you all for thinking about this and your thoughtful comments. I guess I'll just say that, for me, this is a conversation that is happening through the Act 59 planning process, like literally as we speak, and the request is, so just to clarify, the definition of conservation is permanent for the first 30% and then durable for the next 20% that gets us to 50. So we're open to this conversation, there's been great suggestions here and inside conversations about what does a medium term conservation look like. I know that the professionals who are working on this daily in their lives are engaged in that Act 59 process, as well as a lot of Vermonters engaging right now in a a very impressive push for public engagement in the Act 59 process that's happening. And I would say I recommend, and it behooves us, to wait for those recommendations coming back from the process and see where it lands, and if there is a need for a legislative or statutory change, I think maybe it wasn't enough in Act 59 to celebrate the role of UVA in conserving the forest products industry, but also our landscape and our ecology, the ecologically connected landscape that is the focus of it. So it feels like, of course, UVA is a critical piece in the conversation, and I'm actually excited that people want to have further conversations about what it means. But I would say now is not the time for us to change the rules of the game, as Representative Boyd points out, in a process that is currently underway. We can we can take a vote or we cannot take a vote. I'm not actually sure if we vote a bill down, if we can take it up again. So this is uncharted territory for me. I leave it there.

[Michael “Mike” Tagliavia (Member)]: If I can just add a few more comments.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Tagliavia?

[Michael “Mike” Tagliavia (Member)]: We have UVA land. It's in passive management. It's not in active forestry. There's been changes with respect to UVA land. There's been a push for passive management or old growth, that letting age 70 sit and stew doesn't allow for that passive management to be considered conserved. We have, like I said, on the twenty seventh, looking at the AMPs, we've got vernal pools and ponds. We've got forested wetlands, open wetlands that are currently in UVA that are also protected under statute with buffers and everything else. It's not considered permanently conserved, but actually in statute, it really truly is. There's a lot of land in UVA that's not given an account, and age 70 would finally give it the seat at the table it needs on Act 59. Blading, I think, ignores all of the parcel owners. I forgot how many there are. 20,000 or something being part of the having a seat at the table and being part of the conservation effort.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. We do have a witness waiting representative North.

[Rob North (Member)]: Yeah. I I just wanna build on what Morris was saying that the economic impact while while for current use, we're we're not actively paying any, Rob Jacob points out, paying for the current use land, it is being appropriately taxed for the current use that it's experiencing, which then when we add on the additional lands that are preserved in perpetuity and additional lands captured in tier three, which, again, is completely different than than conservation, But all these things add up to taking away from land that can be used for housing, and thus does a couple of things. It increases the the property tax burden on the remaining little bit of land that's left and increases its price for the the mere mortal Vermonters to be able to afford. And thus making it very inequitable so that the extremely wealthy can come in and purchase this land. But Vermonters is out. It it is just a continued encroachment and taking more and more and more land for whatever reasons, two or three, conservation, current use, etcetera, leaving less and less and less for Vermonters to use for themselves. And and much of that land that we're talking about is already privately owned. It is their sole method of saving for the future. If it gets captured in one of those categories, it becomes less and less valuable for that. So it it does have as far as sports out, has a significant economic impact for monitors.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright. We really need to move on for representative Chapin and then Austin, and then we're finished with the conversation.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: I would say that I think representative North brings up some really interesting questions. I'm not sure I agree with all the assessments. I think it's actually a really complicated topic about the economic impacts of these various tools and how they impact other Vermonters. And I think that if we wanted to explore that further, it would be really helpful. I think our whole committee and some of the people who are in the room could really benefit from understanding that more deeply because I've had some interesting conversations about that. So I think that could be an area that we just get a lot more information on to understand the complexity of those pieces. And

[Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: I just want to remind people that Vermont just pays $74,000,000 a year for the UVA program to contribute to that, 50,000,000 of that coming out of the education fund. I think Vermonters are committed, you know, to that program.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright. With that, I think we're going to shift gears and welcome our next witness. Okay.

[Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: Right.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: We are gonna shift gears to h 77 Bill and TJ

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Thank you. For the record, T. J. Poor. Poor. I'm the director of regulated utility planning at the Public Service Department and first time in the committee this year or this biennium maybe. I was here last year, but just as a reminder, Public Service Department is, has two roles where the state energy office, we issue the state's comprehensive energy plan in coordination with other agencies, and we're also the ratepayer advocate in regulated utility matters. So we advocate before the Public Utility Commission on cases that come before them, utility rates, different petitions, tariffs, etcetera. So, and thank you for the opportunity to come testify on H727. At a high level, the department believes really that the regulatory processes that govern the interconnection of large loads like a data center are pretty strong right now in Vermont. That said, there's areas where improvement and clarity can be helpful, and the bill takes a step in that direction. With, you know, with appropriate guardrails to interconnection and service, there's actually an opportunity with data centers to benefit ratepayers and benefit for owners and unguided data centers could risk a negative impact for ratepayers. So to that end, we really welcome the opportunity to work with the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee on language in the bill to provide a path or to make suggestions that provide a path that ensure benefits to Vermont if a data center were to interconnect. So I thought today what might be useful is to briefly share some the regulatory processes governing interconnections of large loads in Vermont because you guys don't normally hear about those things and that hopefully will be helpful in how you think about the bill. So, as I said before, I think our current processes through Act two fifty and through 30 VSA two forty eight, which is our citing energy site infrastructure, citing legislation are really strong, but clarification and improvements could can be made to actually clarify jurisdiction and ensure those data centers are beneficial to Vermont. Right now, without any without any legislation, A data centers load or any load in Vermont has to be served by an electric distribution company. So Title 30 provides the overall legal framework for electric utilities and establishes the authority for the commission to regulate those utilities and issue certificates of public good, which are really then required for utility operations. That and that includes constructing and operating facilities, transmission lines, any distribution lines that go that are new or need to be upgraded or improved because of a large load in interconnection. The service Terry territories are exclusive, and that's maintained through kind of the history of regulatory decisions that so that that helps kinda define that a load has to be served by an existing electric utility. And that's true whether a service is taken at the distribution level like your house or at the transmission level served by Velcro. For for bigger loads, and this is kind of what we're talking about here, larger larger loads that connect that would more likely connect to the transmission system to like Velcro's lines. I'm sorry, let me back up for for those loads, the smaller loads, they the utility has to provide an ability to serve letter in order to, you know, a customer comes in and says, I need to, I'm going to use this much load, 10 megawatts of load. The utility has to then say, okay, we are able to serve that or we're not able to serve that without these upgrades that you must pay for. And so the cost cause or pays is kind of the regulatory principle that a new data center would need to pay for, like, specific infrastructure upgrades. And that letter, it comes out, that's really the formal confirmation that the utility has the capacity and infrastructure needed to serve. If the utility can't serve, as I said, the customer is responsible for all of those infrastructure costs.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Right. I think I just missed a phrase. You should say cost cause.

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: The cost causer pays. Right. Yes. The word causer lost. Yeah. No, sorry. So just kind of the general regulatory principle that if you're the one driving the need for infrastructure, you should actually pay for that. So that ability to serve letter that I'm talking about, and it will start to get into an area that you all probably know more about than me, but it's often used to support app two fifty permits. So act two fifty, as as you know, requires that a proposed development won't place an undue burden on existing services and infrastructure. There's criterion six specifically mentions educational service, but it's really been read more broadly to mean all public services and infrastructure. There's there's criterion seven related to municipal services and nine a is related to future infrastructure capacity. And so that that I I wanted to bring that up just that there's a a nexus there from, like, that ability to serve letter and what you the utility regulatory process and then how

[Christopher “Chris” Pritchard (Member)]: it's treated in the act

[Michael Hoyt (Member)]: two fifty process for that that's gonna develop.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: But just to be clear, our energy projects right now I mean, I suppose if it's like this kind of might might or might not trigger act two fifty currently. Most of them don't. Most of what the public utility commission and your work is focused on things that are outside of act two fifty.

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Right. Exactly. That that's yes. So the electric infrastructure like transmission distribution is is pretty clearly in a in the PUC jurisdiction. Generation, if there's any generation very clearly section two forty eight, but a development, just like a general development of like a warehouse or like the other pieces of that development still need to go through an act two fifty process. And so there's and that's the portion where there's a nexus between that ability to serve letter and saying, hey, the utility is said we can serve this. If it was just a normal commercial development, the utility may say we can serve this and that is used as evidence as I understand it in criterion six as it relates to public infrastructure, for instance, in saying. So if a utility can serve the load or the customer is willing to pay for the upgrades, it can do so either via an existing tariff or a direct contract. And all those types of contracts must be approved by the PUC now and must ensure that the customer is paying for all the costs that incurs in the system. So that's like for smaller loads, for really larger loads. And this bill really talks about 20 megawatts and above that most likely would connect to the transmission system. So there's a couple of options for a large load to connect. One, they could use that tariff and contract process that I talked about. Green Mountain Power actually has a rate, a tariff on the books that is available to accounts who take service directly from the transmission system and are big. Those similarly, it was the previous tariff that GlobalFoundries used before they became a self managed utility. And it accounted for a contribution to the embedded cost of the system, and it it was intended and approved in that it was an equitable way to serve that large team. So that's one option. The other option for a large load now is to become a self managed utility. This is what Global Foundries has transitioned to is to become a self managed utility. That also requires commission approval under several areas of title 30, including two thirty one about the company itself and two forty eight for citing. So I wanted to give that background before diving into at least the main component that I want to talk about at H seven to seven about the large load service equity contract. So the H seven twenty seven requires this large load service equity contract. It's kind of like the contract that Global Foundries had, but it provides more guidance and guardrails for what the commission will need to look at and ensure in order to approve approve that contract. And it's really, I think the intent here and the intent of when we made edits to the bill was to really ensure that there's no gaps in, rate payers being able to, having to pay any costs associated with this large new loan. That includes things like broad energy and capacity prices. There could be indirect effects, right? You could pay for the specific power that you have, but a largely new load, say, 100 megawatts causes, you know, draws energy from facilities in New England when we have a concern in five to ten years. Do we have enough generation to serve our load without these data centers? And so we wanted to make sure the contract accounts for any additional costs, make sure that we have enough generation resources in New England to meet our winter demand needs. Things like upward pressure on prices generally from higher demand means, you know, just basic economics, more demand can drive prices up. And so we wanted to make sure that the contract accounts for that. I think the changes that House Energy and Digital Infrastructure made included a lot of these pieces and and really address these both the direct costs and some of the indirect costs that that may happen from from the interconnection of a large load. Another thing that the bill does is account for stranded costs. Right? If if a data center came and infrastructure was needed to be built and then the data center went bankrupt or left, then, the the contract is required to account for that and ensure that ratepayers wouldn't be left on the hook. So the the other piece that I wanted to just talk about, there's a there's a number of other provisions in here that I think are good. It allows for contributions to the gross receipts tax or requires that just like any other load in the state efficiency charges. It considers the requirements for load flexibility and has the commission looking at that. And so really, there's a lot of protections in here for ratepayers. The citing of the data center itself, our comments initially had said, let's not create overlapping jurisdiction between Act two fifty and Act two forty eight, where the commission may not be best suited to actually make rulings on things that act two fifty and the land use review board is better suited to to review. Things like orderly development, noise perhaps. So there is still some provisions in here that look similar to land use type requirements. I think for now, I think that's okay. I think there's still room for improvement for the bill that we hope to do in the senate side, and it better to have them kind of better have dual jurisdiction than no jurisdiction. But I think we could still work to clarify some of that. But I think right now that the bill is in a in a at least as it relates to the large load service equity contract portion of it, which is my area of expertise that I think that bill is

[Michael Hoyt (Member)]: in a good place to move forward.

[Rob North (Member)]: I

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: think that's it. Of I tried not to get too far in the weeds, but I wanted to give you a little background, so happy to answer any questions.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. I have one. You said it fills a gap, but then you said 20 megawatts or above, but we just heard that they they their we already have data centers that are at the one megawatt. What about between? And could someone slip in at 19 megawatts or 15 megawatts? Or is it really limited to 20 and above? We're just becoming familiar with the bill ourselves. So do you is that the limit?

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: So the the megawatt threshold in the bill for this large load service equity contract would be 20 megawatts. The below that, it would fall into existing jurisdiction. And there still would need to be a served the data center would have to be served by either an existing tariff or a new tariff by the utility that would need to be approved by the commission. And this is where I was trying to articulate that our current our current regulations are pretty strong in this area, right? Cost causer needs to pay and so any interconnection and there are real potential benefits from adding 10 megawatts of load in certain areas of the state. That could be a really good thing for ratepayers, particularly if they're contributing to kind of the fixed cost of the system that's already been built. And so that would, I think, be addressed in a commission proceeding. As I understand it, well, you may want to talk with somebody that's more of an Act two fifty expert than I am, but most data centers, 20 megawatts or above, will need to use at least 10 acres of land. So they would all fall into Act two fifty jurisdiction anyway. Then if there was a 10 megawatt data center and it was on five acres of land, depending on what town it is in the kind of governing jurisdiction, if it's a one acre town or a 10 acre town, it may not fall into Act two fifty jurisdiction. And so you should check on that with two fifty experts, but that's my understanding of it.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. I I guess I I just feel like the difference between what's happening now and 20 megawatts feels really big. And I guess I'm wondering two things. Do you support this bill? And do you think it's needed? You've said you think the existing structure is maybe adequate regulatorily. So first is, do you support the bill?

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: So we we support the concept. Like I said, I think there's some things that we could some tweaks that we could make to better clarify the dual jurisdictions going forward, but I would support this. We support this being passed to get to the next stage to have those further discussions to make it crossover. So and those are yeah. So that was the first question. The second question is, is it really needed? So I think we would be okay without the bill in general, but I think it's really useful to add additional guidance and clarity for it's kind of an additional protection for ratepayers. And that kind of goes to why we support it passing. That additional clarity is good. It's useful. And it really helps with some of the maybe the indirect costs that could happen that could get lost in the shuffle and under the current regulatory process.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: And one more, I see you I I will say, I'm just curious. He said it would definitely, like, probably take 10 acres. Do you mean of actual building an impervious surface? The building itself would be that big?

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: I don't think the building itself would be that big, but that's, like, the parcels that, from my understanding, is that's the kind of the side, the minimum size for 20 that they need that kind of that land, just the building itself.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: A few street trees along the edge.

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: What's that?

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: With a few street trees along the edge.

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: I I'm sure. Yes. Yeah. I so Yeah. Okay. You. I'll have

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: a of wait.

[Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. And you may or may not know this, but I was wondering, like, why is 20 megawatts sort of the magic number?

[Rob North (Member)]: I mean, was that just plucked out

[Michael Hoyt (Member)]: of the air, or is it is it, like, are the data centers you see how West is up? Are the those comparable? I'm just wondering, like

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Yeah. I mean

[Michael Hoyt (Member)]: at least with 20.

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: Yeah. I think I mean, the data centers that you're reading a lot in the news about are often, you know, 100 megawatts or 1,000 megawatts. So really, really big. I think the 20 megawatt or it's just kind of a size threshold. There's like the small ones that we have a couple of that are really like backup for operations on-site. And then there's kind of the medium size that could be maybe medium may not be the right adjective there, but smallish size that are are necessary to do, like like, model training for if it's AI or other data processing, and that that's kind of a threshold size in in the literature.

[Rob North (Member)]: So so this one,

[Michael Hoyt (Member)]: And I guess another question is the costs associated, the use of resources, things like that associated with 'twenty, are they significantly reduced in 'nineteen? I'm just wondering, so being 19, you know, what's the difference between nineteen and twenty at once getting treated, you know, a certain way and what is it? So I I guess my question is just, you know, how big can they get before they sort of hit what is the difference between a 19 megawatt facility? And you may not

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: I don't have a good answer for that. Yeah. Thank you.

[Kate Logan (Member)]: Can we just get a copy of your Yes.

[Sarah “Sarita” Austin (Clerk)]: Yep. Great. Thank you.

[Michael “Mike” Tagliavia (Member)]: Absolutely. Representative Chittenden. Just a couple questions. Just for scale, 20 megawatts, how many homes are, like, city of Montpelier? What do we what would city of Montpelier on really cold winter day or a really hot summer day be drawing? Me

[T.J. Poor (Director of Regulated Utility Planning, Vermont Department of Public Service)]: trying to get give a good good comparison. The I I I don't know relative to like a particular city size because we're, you know, mainly utility territories like the the. I want I don't want to make up numbers and get them wrong off the top of my head. I'm thinking of utility size and how to get a sense of that. You know, our our peak load in 2025 in the summer was 855 megawatts. So for the whole state, we've been as high as around a thousand megawatts, but 2025 was a little lower. And so if that gives you a scale from the state statewide perspective, you

[Michael Hoyt (Member)]: know, that, yeah, about two to 3%. Thank you. Yeah.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Right. Thanks for your testimony.

[Rob North (Member)]: Thank you.