Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

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[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright. Good afternoon, welcome to the House Environment Committee. This afternoon, we're gonna continue our conversation about the Agriculture Committee's municipal zoning bill. And we have Caroline Gordon with us with a proposal of some language that she's been working on and has sent to the committee, and it's under her name on our web page today. Welcome, Caroline.

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Welcome, committee. Thank you so much for having me today. My name is Caroline Sherman Gordon, and I'm the legislative director of Rule Vermont. I also farm and operate Fool's Farm in Thumpert, Vermont. It's a little sheep and poultry farm. We're starting a micro chicken hatchery this summer. And right now I'm in my other part time job as manager on duty here in the Southworth Market. And lastly, for the sake of introduction, I also serve as commissioner on the Two Rivers Olekweechee Regional Planning Commission, representing youth at large. And yeah, just appreciate you guys hearing from me. I followed the discussion of the committee earlier this week, and just wanted to reach out about House Draft 20 six-seven 72, specifically to share our coalition's concerns. Rule of Vermont has been working since the Taft Street decision last May, very closely with the Vermont Farm Bureau, Nova Vermont, Algrimar Cabot, the Vermont Dairy Producers Alliance, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, Farm to Plate, the Land Access and Opportunity Board, also the Vermont Association of Conservation Industries, as well as the American Farmland Trust. And the draft you're looking at is, as Maddie Kempter testified on Wednesday, is the compromise as close as we could get with the League of Cities and Towns and the Agency of Agriculture at this time. But also noticing in your committee the sentiment against including the tier structure, tier 1B. Just wanted to echo with you all that our coalition would much favor not for this bill to include tier 1B because we just really fear that scope would create the kind of patchwork checkerboard of regulations for farms across the state that we would like to avoid. And then the really important issue of how this bill as well as the Senate version on the municipal exemption issue, how those bills are equipped to address the bad actor question. And to that end, obviously, I know we're at the twelfth hour here with crossover deadline approaching basically today. And it might be too overwhelming to work to that detail on the bill as I'm proposing in the letter that I shared. At the very least, I hope the language I want to present to you in this testimony would be a sign of confidence that our coalition is working on to that end to towards this kind of language that we that we still hope to include possibly on the Senate side. And I also want to say from the start that if the committee decides that a more simple solution going back to pre tax street having farming exam, then have that be very clear in the law would be something that was actually our favorite option as our coalition. That the compromise proposal you see, that's the effort of really reaching a compromise with the league and the agency. And obviously, this draft has a lot in it that the league would like to see as well right now. So that's why we've been willing to make some compromise. But if your committee would favor to go back to where things were, our coalition would very much like that. All parties agreed to the study committee idea. And I think there's a lot of work to be done that would be worth for a study committee, especially also considering that right to grow food, which we don't have in Vermont law at all right now. And our coalition has been favoring that it would be best to have that include livestock as well, knowing that there's some municipalities that have existing ordinances specific to livestock already. So, but with that said, basically what I wanted to bring your attention to is, and maybe I'm able to share my screen if that's okay.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yes.

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Okay. I'm gonna do that. So here's the letter. And if we're clicking into three twenty three, which is in the Senate, our coalition doesn't like this bill because it would really ratchet up the eligibility criteria of the RAP rule, which during Rule of Vermont Small Farm Action Day, a number of small farmers have testified how the current eligibility criteria are really big reason for them to start their farming businesses in Vermont. But what our coalition liked about this idea, this is all the language from the agency, and we've seen this language even before the legislative session when we discussed it, that they're proposing themselves here in subsection E, this is a proposed RAP amendment that in terms of raising, feeding, managing livestock on at least one to four acres, that person should have the sufficient land base for appropriate nutrient and waste management that the secretary should have the discretion to determine after the consultation with the appropriate municipal authority if the land base is adequate to properly manage the number and type of livestock while also evaluating whether compliance with the RAP rule is practical or reasonable. Let's see if I can get out of here again. And I wanted to show that to you. Maybe the one other thing I wanted to show you as well, like this would be new language, whereas the existing RAP rule, and this is just underlined because it would replace the Schedule F of selling requirement, it's been already in rule that the agency kind of has authority in case there's livestock causing potentially significant adverse water quality impact to assume RAP jurisdiction, even for livestock farms on less than one continue acre of size. And so that's where you see there's been there's a difference made here, whether you have between one and four acres or less than one acre, and whether it's about water quality or about stocking density, where our coalition said, well, that seems all very confusing and inconsistent. And one of the big points the Supreme Court has made is that parts of the RIP rule kind of lead to anomalous results, where they have like 14 or 15 votes, for example, is one of those things in the rule. And we think this might lead to further anomalous results if this were to become the law, because what matters is that it's already now the law that the Agency of Agriculture has to be consulted with. If it's about an animal welfare concern, whether it's commercial or non commercial farms, it's local officials, it's the humane officer or other local officials who are being called in to assess the situation. But they don't make an enforcement decision without consulting with the agency. And maybe I'll share my screen one more time. I put a link in our letter to make sure you see, if you click on that link on the Agency of Agriculture's website, there's the section for non commercial livestock, where it's basically stating exactly what I just said. Their animal health section must be consulted by humane or other law enforcement officers in case of alleged animal welfare violations that involve livestock and poultry species. So here, it doesn't matter about the size of the parcel or whether it's a commercial farm or not. It's really also here, and we like that and would like to keep it that way, that the Agency of Agriculture has an expertise when it comes to livestock management that justifies that they need to be consulted with before any sort of enforcement against those management practices takes place. And so with that, what we as a coalition did, and we did this early before the session, is we developed a proposal to say like, hey, this language that the agency is proposing in the RIP rule, that's a very general clause, appropriate land base. In a rule kind of situation, you would want the clause not to be that general. You would probably want in the rule some specifics about what is an appropriate land base and not just this general legal clause. So we said like, hey, that's a great clause to have in statute. And since we also were discussing to codify a right to grow food for the first time, we also thought, hey, wouldn't it be great if this would be sort of the parameter that also allows us to advocate successfully for a right to grow food that includes livestock. Because hey, that would give us a chance to have this new enforcement mechanism because we would create a new legal requirement and statute that could be further hashed out in rule or guidance that would give the agency the ability to have discretion to decide about stocking density issues, which we don't have in statute as a requirement right now, which we feel is actually the reason, A, why sometimes there's a lack of enforcement. Because before you have a serious animal welfare concern, well, there's a long time before it becomes a serious animal welfare concern. But there might already be management problems that cannot be addressed without such a legal authority based on a statutory legal base. And so we thought that would be actually something worth working together on. But the agency and the League of City and Towns, and Stephen Collier said this himself, they had a lockstep agreement. Basically by the time we had heard from the agency what they would want to put forward as a legislative proposal, it was already too late for us to weigh in with our own recommendations because they already had made that flock stack agreement with the League of City and Towns not being amendable to any of our recommendations. And that has not changed until today. But I wanted to look with you at the Senate version of the bill to just say just because they haven't agreed to our proposal doesn't mean that proposal didn't come from them themselves. It's in the Senate version. And I think that there's good legal reason to put it actually in statute, because on the rule level, as I said, it should be more detailed than just this broad legal clause. And the way the House version is written right now, there's already this eligibility section about when a farm is like benefiting from this in the tier one A and B areas from being exempt there from more broader zoning authority and stuff like that. And why not add in there a small double eye and here's the legislative language put forward for your consideration that a farm to be eligible for the benefit of the subdivision or a noncommercial livestock producer that is raising, feeding, or managing livestock on less than one acre or between one and four continuous acres in a municipality that lacks ordinances or bylaws to regulate livestock needs to have the sufficient land base for the appropriate nutrient and waste management of the livestock. And the Secretary of Agriculture has the discretion to determine if the land base is adequate to properly manage the number and type of livestock or that the livestock are causing significant adverse water quality impacts while evaluating whether compliance with the required agricultural practices rule is reasonable or impractical. And then further, the Secretary of Agriculture shall develop new stocking density rules on or before 01/15/2027, and may adopt interim guidance in order to direct the appropriate municipal authority, humane or other law enforcement officers, to enforce actions against livestock that are causing significant adverse water quality impacts or impacts based on a lack of adequate land base to properly manage the number and type of livestock on the parcel. Municipalities may designate you may know other law enforcement officers to enforce the agency's directive on a case by case basis and shall provide an opportunity for a public hearing. So that's the framework. Again, probably this needs more shaping up by legislative council and, of course, consultation with the agency. Again, the whole idea is that the agency already devotes significant capacity to be consulted with on a case by case basis when it's coming to animal welfare concerns. And we feel like it's probably not adding more capacity to the agency when something like this would be in law and they would have specific rules on stocking density, probably could save them a lot of capacity because they would then have the actual legal leverage to make a determination on a solid law and rule to provide clear guidance and streamline things a little more and come to actual outcomes and results on the ground without having to be in this gray zone of, we can consider this, but we don't know what to do because we don't have the legal base to act on this right now. The animal's still doing too well, or something like that. So maybe I stop there. I think what I wanted to say, I was able to say, maybe lastly, you see on my letter in yellow below, that I specifically phrased this whole thing to include also the water quality concerns, because also for it to not lead to further anomalous results, it should be all more of a streamlined process, think, is our thinking. Right now you can have a cow on half an acre. And if the cow is by a brook, the agency might have an enforcement interest based on the existing RIP rule. But if the cow is tied up on half an acre and is creating a whole mess around herself and no one takes care of her, it would have to wait until the cow is really becoming an animal welfare concern for the cow before the agency can do anything. And so this whole idea here is to, whenever there's a cow on a half an acre, whether it's by the water or not, the agency can actually make a proper decision whether that animal will be kept in the proper way or not. And with this reference on municipality that lacks ordinances to regulate livestock, this is in a way to capture those non commercial producers and hopefully open a gateway to also include the right to grow food for livestock, because ideally the big concerns of towns that having a handle on bad actors would be remedied with such a provision. And likewise, through a clause like this, ordinances would be respected. So I'll stop there. Happy to take any questions.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you. That was very helpful. Kind of a basic one. I just want to make sure I understand correctly that you said this proposed language would keep the municipal the limited municipal authority to regulate agriculture in the one As in your mind. Is that true?

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: So yeah, the way this is proposed, it would basically tag on to the house version as it is. And yes, it's basically the current eligibility criteria says, okay, someone, a farm can, you know, be regulated in 1A and 1B in those limited, very specifically defined circumstances if they're subject to the RAP rule. And so this would just add on to that. And basically, the way the language is phrased obviously doesn't really give towns the authority here to regulate livestock farms through ordinance. This is just an eligibility criteria. But if this were to apply also for non commercial farms, this is where basically the scope is expanding. And it would have to be, for that to make sense if the non commercial part would be included, would only make sense if the right to grow food would also then include livestock. Otherwise that would to be struck from this specific language because it wouldn't make sense otherwise with the subsection of the law that exempts from, or not exempts, but gives like this limited zoning authority over farms. And the right to grow food currently does not include livestock other than poultry. Maybe it would make sense to have it just for the poultry part, but maybe that's a little overhaul, a little bit over the overboard for just poultry.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Chapin.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Thanks, Caroline. You go through this material pretty quickly, so it's really hard for even me to follow you. So I would encourage you maybe to slow down a little bit. My question just on that last point is, I understand you're recommending this just to be attached to the proposal we're looking at, but my question is, if we did this work for the agency to be able to create rules for smaller scale noncommercial livestock operations, Do you think we still need the municipal zoning in order to deal with the issues that are driving this portion of the bill or would that do you think that that those rules within the agency of agriculture would be and the rest of it that goes along with that would be adequate to address the kind of bad actors and situations that are driving this?

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: I think it would be sufficient. So far, we haven't really heard from the League of City and Towns exactly why they want any zoning authority in tier one a and b. They testified on Wednesday that the language we've worked towards could be simplified regarding traffic and siding. Okay, you know, there's traffic laws that are set in law that everybody has to follow, that are not really germane to zoning in that detail, don't see the added benefit. Siding, we know, can be exactly the issue that's causing lawsuits. Because if you have too many very excruciating siding requirements, that quickly becomes a question of those siding requirements are actually functionally prohibitive to the farm. And the way the farm needs to, the infrastructure they need, and what makes logging sense to placing them. Obviously, there's the groundwater concern with wells. And Okay, we see that. That was a good point. But yeah, I mean, that's really the interest of the league. I will also say they are representing towns, and I can't speak for them, but what I hear as a commissioner on Two Rivers is that obviously the towns are interpreting your intent with Act 181. So they are really concerned of wanting to do exactly implement Act 181 to the best of their abilities and to what's your legislative intent. And so what we are very concerned of as farming organizations that Act 181 might be interpreted as the intent is to push agriculture out. And right now, the future land use maps, for example, I know regional planning commissions are not interpreting them, that they need to make a specific map for where agriculture should be. They just write these maps where everything is green outside of the town area. And we have data from American Farmland Trust, 83% of development currently occurs as rural residential sprawl. And the maps that the regional planning commissions write where everything is green and of dual use forest and agriculture that is not reflecting any realistic reflection of where land for agricultural use is available in the future for agricultural use. So including this tier one A and B stuff and giving more authority, there is big concern across on our side that this will eventually contribute to pushing agriculture out because of just added, like the death by the thousand steps, especially when there's too many, when 1B, like we had a large farm testify in Senate Act that they operate across 13 different towns, and just being able to do farming well. There's so many laws you have to keep track of already, and so many business aspects you have to devote time to. And many of us, beginning smaller farms, do this when they already have worked full time off farm. And so the more complexity to the business of farming is added, the more difficult. And we think that the heart of the problem is this bad actor issue that people want to make sure that there's a accountable way to handle those things. So I think it's been us really a pity that we haven't had more constructive dialogue over the specific stocking density recommendation we've made early.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Members have further questions? Thoughts?

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Representative Austin? I'm just a little concerned about right now, you know, that municipalities can have ordinances that could or not have ordinances, have the ability to have an ordinance to regulate farming. Not to regulate farming, but to have an ordinance to I guess it would be regulate, to determine where farming could occur in the municipality. I mean, because I, you know, we're on Mallets Bay. We have the lemorial coming in on one side and the one is, you know, the other. And the lemoyal comes right into Mallet's Bay. It's really, there's a lot of phosphorus coming in. And I know it's being addressed, but I'm concerned about even small little farms being on the shore there and not having the ability to regulate that discharge mainly.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Well, do regulate through the wraps water quality.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: That that's that's what's happening. Yeah. You know? So I mean, the towns don't, but the state does, and that agency does do that. So Other thoughts, Representative Norm?

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Yeah, thanks. Thank you, Madam Chair. First one, just a technical wording question. Right in the middle of the paragraph that's underlined, the double I paragraph that's all underlined, There's a sentence right in the middle that says, while evaluating whether compliance with the required agricultural practices is reasonable or impractical. Is that supposed to be reasonable and practical? Those opposites, reasonable or impractical.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: That's a

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: good question. Here you can see if we compare this again with the Senate version, this is basically one to one exactly the language the agency has crafted. This would be

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a good question Wow, for yeah.

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: This is a good question for them. So I'm not exactly sure why they chose impractical versus practical.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Really, that's a silly question.

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: That's why I can't really speak to where those terms came from. The whole purpose of just that sentence is that basically sometimes there might be cases where farm might not be squarely within the RAP rule, But let's say it's to catch also here the worst case scenario that you might have a practitioner who might not be otherwise determined to be a farm. Do you have specific eligibility criteria that set a bar and maybe very small farms don't meet that bar, like don't make the income threshold, don't have the animal numbers, and so on. So here it's about the agency's capacity, whether they think it would make sense for them to get them based upon their discretion that's created here to have them need to comply with the RAP rule.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Yeah, okay. Yeah, I like the ideas in here, and I agree. It just needs to be worded properly in the double I underlined section. It seems like it gets a lot more once you get into the yellow section, then it's a lot more theoretical, a lot less concrete.

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: The yellow is not proposed legislative language. Just the add on. The

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: only thing we're really talking about adding is just the underlying double I section. That my understanding of that?

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Yes, and then basically it comes with a little bit of homework because I included in the underlying the non commercial livestock producer. But right now, those folks are squarely within municipal regulation the way the house draft is worded. So for them to be even mentioned here is the question maybe for legal counsel, does it really make sense to mention them here when they're actually under local control entirely? I think the benefit would be to include them is that we have like statewide consistence around this new created stocking density requirement. But in consequence, our recommendation would be then, well, those people then also should be benefiting from the right to grow food. Basically, there's a new degree of local enforcement authority around stocking density. But on the flip side of that, they should have the benefit that towns would no longer be able to functionally prohibit them, which they currently can. Many towns don't allow people to keep pigs or cows. So that's why in the yellow, I basically suggest, so if we do it like this, consequentially, we should consider including livestock and the right

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: to grow food.

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: That's currently in subsection 40 four-twelve-sixteen, starting on line nine of page five. And that's something the league didn't want. But again, the league said they don't want that because we want to protect the existing municipal zoning ordinances that are in place. And so this language, I think, gives a little bit of a compromise in that regard as well, because it says, has this clause in the municipality that lacks ordinances or bylaws to regulate livestock. That, it's my intention with this wording here that that half sentence only makes sense with respect to the non commercial livestock producer, because the farms are not subject to local regulation of livestock otherwise.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So do you know who did draft this language?

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: So I drafted this language based on the agency's language in S323. And it goes back to iterations we made as a coalition of this, but I would also have to, this is not consented by my whole coalition at this time, because it was kind of off the table based on our negotiations with the league and the agency.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Okay, and have you sent this out to your whole coalition?

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Yes, and they were all included in the when I sent the letter to you yesterday.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Yeah, we said that. Just a follow-up and just to make, again, make sure I'm clear, is the highlighted yellow section in your mind necessary if the underlined double I section is included? I mean, do some of those concepts in the yellow highlighted need to be included for for the underlying double I section to work?

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: No. I think in that case, would just wanna clean clean up the underlined and take the non commercial livestock producers out.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Okay. So

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you I think that

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: The very last sentence of the highlighted yellow area. So finally, coalition would urge the committee to strike the inclusion of tier one b. So nothing in the in the double eye section strikes the tier the inclusion of tier one b.

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Right. No. Those those what is in yellow are just additional recommendations for the bill for your committee cons to consider You would

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: be okay at the current when the current version with just the double I underline section, you're okay with leaving the tier one a and tier one b?

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Our coalition was never in okay with including tier one b.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: I'm just trying to understand what what's being recommended.

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Yeah. No. I I appreciate the the clarification. And and we we we heard in your committee that there was serious consideration of possibly taking tier one b out, and I put this in the yellow here to say, like, that's exactly what we would like to.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Yeah. She's so okay. Just agreeing with things that have been discussed, she agrees.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Okay. Representative Assin. So what's the rationale for taking tier one b?

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Right now, every village center is basically marked in the regional plans that have not been fully approved yet, as potentially being eligible to become tier 1B. And so the problem with the tier one and AB, and I know this as a German dual citizen, the central places principle that this development vision for concentric development is coming from, is that that is a Pacman approach. Those areas are growing and ever expanding and eventually merging into cities. And that the Tier 1B would basically pave the way for every town to eventually have those status. And if we allow for more regulations there, will create that high degree of patchwork of municipal regulations that will be really hard to manage for farms, especially for the commercially more relevant farms that are larger who operate across many, many different municipalities, especially because of the get bigger or get out economic pressure for consolidation that's continuing today.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you. Further questions for Caroline? Thank you for bringing this to us, and for working us into your other professions. Yeah. I think yeah. So I think what's gonna happen is the ag committee is gonna pass a bill out today, but we're gonna consider an amendment to that that bill. So that's where we are as a process, in our process right now.

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Yeah, I really appreciate that. Thanks for hearing from me today. And anything you decide, of course, our underscoring appeal is for this to move so that we can really keep moving on it in the second half, because the current legal situation is already our worst scenario. So thank you so much for hearing from me today. And yeah, onwards. Thank you.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: All right. Thank you again.

[Caroline Sherman Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Bye bye.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Members, that's the process plan from here. We will need to think about other witnesses. Ellen, you're here with us. I really appreciate it. I know that you and Bradley have been working on this. Do I have that right? I know you haven't had a very long and this might have been Section He drafted for the Senate or would have.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Ela Chapin, Office of Legislative Counsel. So there is language in the Senate bill S-three 23 that amends the agency of agriculture's rule directly, and the language that Caroline was referring to is somewhat copied from the rules language, not any statutory language.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Statute amending rule. Help me understand that a little bit. So that's not how I think of it happening other than to change the policy guidance for a rule.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It does happen on occasion because rules are derived from the legislative authority of the general assembly. You delegate your authority to agencies, and there have been a few cases, and I think this committee may have worked with Mike to amend a few rules. I was thinking about some wildlife rules a few years ago, but you you do have authority to amend directly rules via legislation. It doesn't happen often.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: But I have to I'm having a hard time picturing this. So we would make a we make words change in the green books, but then what happened that rule still exists somewhere on the web page. They have to change they have to amend that rule publicly or they just replace it? They replace it. Okay. Yes, you can short circuit the process. Rules I gotta work on.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I have not been involved with that process about the Senate Committee on Agriculture working on the RAP language. And so I'm reading through this. I think it would need to be if you're interested in the proposal you just heard about, I think it would need to

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: be adapted slightly to fit more with the statutory structure. And would we make that request of you or Bradley or both?

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, and I'll touch base with Bradley. Yes, I probably will draft it. Great.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. Question, Representative Chapin.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: I would love your opinion on if we amended this rule and basically created these, what's called livestock density or the agency created livestock density rules for noncommercial operations. Do you feel like we would still need the language around zoning in order to deal with the kinds of conflicts that we've heard about that's driving that section of the bill?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Can I just make sure that I this is actually for both wrap farms and non wrap farms, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. Farm to be eligible for the benefit of

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: this

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: section or a noncommercial livestock producer. Okay. That is right. Just needed to make sure we were there. Yeah.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: I I could use another half an hour just to fully understand this language, but full to short circuiting that, this language that is being proposed that we're talking about right now. Do you feel like if we enacted this, you know, would need that zoning bylaws to or do you think that this may get at the sort of the of problem cases that we're hearing about that's driving this process?

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think I need more time to answer that. I think this proposal is addressing some of the issues you talked about yesterday with size of the parcel and that the agency themselves talked about as one of the issues they're considering. I'm not only saw this earlier today. I I would need more time to announce.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Great. Thanks.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. This is very much animal focused.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Still feels water quality focused, And I

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: just wonder if there's a gap. That's how we're spending it. Nutrient waste is water quality for animals, for acre, or size.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: One thing we heard Steve Collier say yesterday was that when they're exporting their manure, they can't use the wraps to address one or two of these problems situations that we've heard about. Does this get around that? Because this is talking about land needed for those animals, it looks like, regardless of whether they're exporting their manure.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can't answer that question. I don't know a ton about the wraps. Understood. Thanks.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Think it does get around that.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: I think so too.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Are

[Rep. Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: we going to get from the league about this?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yes. I mean, not today. What think what I would like us all to do is be thinking about what I I just keep going back to the limited authority that the league is asking for. I don't think it's really addressing the problems that have come up with conflicts in developed areas and agricultural practices. So, I want to think about what are those problems, and then what are the tools we could be using to trust them? Is this one better than the other one on

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: the table?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Do they go together, or can they can this one carry it or something like it?

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: There

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: we are. Further comments?

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: What's the next step?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: The next step is that the Ag Committee is going to probably move something today.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Based on this? Not

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: based on this. Based on what we've been looking at with them. If we feel like we can add value, we would go forward with an amendment. Not looking at this. Well, this was sent to them.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: It does. We were sent. Yeah.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Maybe a floor amendment. We'd have to do a

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. An amendment.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Yeah. On the floor. Okay. Because today's the day. Yeah.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: It would be an amendment. Just like today, we don't have any

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: floor up there.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: We'll just take possession. Yeah.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: With that