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[Chair (unidentified)]: All right. Welcome to the Committee of Conference for S223 Water Quality Lake Classification and Anti Degradation Study Group and Report Committee of Congress. Did I say that? Committee of Congress. We have our legislative counsel, Michael O'Grady, over this, and he's gonna walk us through the changes that the House made.
[Michael O'Grady, Legislative Counsel]: Good afternoon. This is Michael O'Grady. Generally, there were three major changes. The House proposed changes to the membership of the study committee. The House removed the contingency funding section that was included in the Senate. And the House added a report back on the certification of wetlands professionals from ANR. Specifically with regard to membership of the committee, the house provided that legislative members should not be all from one party and then added three additional members, one person representing the Green Mountain Water Environment Association, one person representing the Met from Maygard Watershed Association, and one person representing the Lake Champlain Advisory Committee. Then on page five of the side by side, you will see where the senate contingency on funding was removed. This was a a slightly different contingency on funding clause. It said the committee would go forward if there was no appropriation, but that the members would not be compensated. The house just removed that. The JFO, looked at their the legislative budget said the legislature can't afford the compensation required for members. And then on section three, going up from page five to basically page seven is the report from ANR on and before January 1527 about recommending whether to establish a program to certify wetlands professionals in the state for the purposes of identifying and deleting wetlands boundaries. If we go into the detail of that or not, whatever you prefer.
[Chair (unidentified)]: So the senate, do you want him just do would you like Michael to walk us through the study, the report back? I've read it. Yeah. Senator Williams? I do. Steve, do you want to Yes. Do it in moment. Okay. I got the We would like you to walk. Sure.
[Michael O'Grady, Legislative Counsel]: So the report is going to address the benefits and disadvantage of a wetlands professional SERP program. You've probably heard ANR talk about similar programs in the past and just establishing them, but you wanna hear what the good and the bad are, including whether it could accelerate wetlands permitting, reduce the amount of wetland services available, increase the cost of wetland services, or delay the permitting process. You also want them to discuss how a wetlands professional certification program could impact the liability of wetlands professionals, including whether they would be, the certification would subject them to increased risk of liability or increased liability insurance requirements. And then if the secretary does recommend the establishment of a program, the report shall include a description of the proposed program, the proposed requirements for certification, a description of the activities that a professional would be authorized to conduct. And then last, what benefit, if any, the services from certified wetlands professionals would provide to customers or in a regulatory proceeding? And then the last subsection in developing the report, the secretary shall consult with wetlands professionals who currently conduct wetlands delineations and other persons with knowledge of wetlands permitting and services provided by wetlands professionals. Question. Who's paying for that? That's an A in our report that's consumed by their budget. So they're gonna have to pay that with existing state staff.
[Unidentified committee member]: If it's a private, I know I've got I've got a couple of constituent organizations come to me and they've got a pond that's got a dam, they've repaired the dam and all that's being taken from the wilds. And our wetland ecologist is trying to convince them to do a wetland study, which is gonna cost them 75¢ a square foot.
[Michael O'Grady, Legislative Counsel]: Well, this is not wetlands delineation. This is just a report on whether or not the people that are coming out, the private people, not the state people, private people that are coming out to do wetlands delineations and other consulting should be certified, like professional engineer is certified. And what good that does, what disadvantages it provides, whether or not it actually will accelerate the permitting process or potentially it could delay the permitting process because there are only so many wetlands delineators right now in the state. And will certification limit that number further or will it increase the number? I think those are the questions that the House Committee wanted answered in order to go forward with the weapon certification program. This was in response to a request from the administration go right to rulemaking, if I remember correctly.
[Chair (unidentified)]: And we just thought, wait a minute, there's only 25 people on the list of certified wetlands delineators right now. So anyway, this seemed like a better step forward to see if it was something they really wanted to do. That's where it came from. K. Alright. Representative Ball. Sorry. When you're in this room, I go back in time. Senator Ball. So I
[Senator Ball]: change, I'm finding that has changed, by the way, so the only change I'd like to see is, like I said, this almost more representative of it now, that I believe if it were up to me and we had some of studies, they would be all legislators and then you take testimony like you do with committee and when we have it, now that you have added three more to this so the legislators become almost like an half of plot and they get subsumed by them. Which is fine, I don't have a problem with it, but I think we should add two.
[Unidentified committee member]: I agree with you,
[Senator Ball]: three from the Friday, so that the legislation is actually pretty much showing.
[Chair (unidentified)]: How about one fewer senator? Well, with that, I think we anticipated this. I haven't heard from anyone else on this bill, and Michael did draft something for us. Amazing.
[Senator Ball]: Recurrent members of the House of Representatives, not all from the same political party, who should be appointed by the Speaker of the House. Recurrent members of the Senate, not all from the same political party,
[Chair (unidentified)]: Sold? Sold. Sold. Okay. Fantastic. Okay. You good? I'm good. Alright. That's six of us. We can sign close. So remind us what the steps are. I'm done.
[Michael O'Grady, Legislative Counsel]: You sign. I'm hesitating because I usually like to have the signature page on its own page because sometimes you don't sign in the right places. And and, but I think it'll be fine. Then the the chair, the the the first appointed person from the committee that's not from where the bill originated takes it to the house clerk for notice, and that's really it.
[Chair (unidentified)]: Can we just So
[Michael O'Grady, Legislative Counsel]: two two of each body need to sign, but all three can sign.
[Chair (unidentified)]: Everyone could get to where they're signing, and we can just try and change titles of totes. It's on the back.
[Unidentified committee member]: Yep.
[Chair (unidentified)]: Totes.
[Senator Ball]: You actually
[Chair (unidentified)]: did it. She used ink?
[Michael O'Grady, Legislative Counsel]: You would be surprised.
[Chair (unidentified)]: Who's he talking about? All right. I think so. Do we have to be live to sign? If we can adjourn for signing. We voted six zero in favor. Great.