Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells]: We

[Matt Walker]: are live now. Look at that. Okay. It's like a new technology. Good afternoon. It's Tuesday, 01/06/2026. Happy New Year and welcome to the House Transportation Committee and welcome back for the start of the 2026 House session. Full House, almost on time. Our most important thing why we're getting together today is to introduce you to and welcome our new committee assistant Gabriela Clark. We've had a chance to meet a couple of different times. I don't know if you've met everybody yet, but I think you already know that I'm Matt Walker and I represent Swanton and Sheldon. And we are going to go around the room and welcome, Gary. I'm Tim Pouech and I represent Bennington.

[Kate Lalley]: I'm Kate Lalley and I represent Shelburne.

[Mollie S. Burke]: Mollie S. Burke from Brad O'Bro.

[Chloe Tomlinson]: I'm Chloe Tomlinson from Winooski.

[James "Jim" Casey]: Jim Casey, Addison Rutland Wan representing Upperden, Sudbury, Whiting, Orwell and Chorum.

[Mollie S. Burke]: Patty McCoy, represent Poultney, Ira and part

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells]: of Wells. Chris Keyser, Rutland City, half of Rutland City.

[Candice White]: Candice White, Washington County 2, and that's Warren Whitefield, Fayston, Moorestown, Duxbury.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells]: Ken Wells, Orleans County District 3, Orleans, Barton, Evansville, Westmore, Brownington.

[Matt Walker]: Phil Pouech, Heinzburg. And if you want to tell us anything about yourself, you're welcome to, and if you don't, if not, anyway. We'll all stay here. And the four people there are people that'll be quiet too.

[Gabriela Clark]: Yeah, I am currently in college. I'm getting my associate's currently in behavioral sciences. I plan on going to UVM to get my double major in political science and just psychology. And then after that, I plan to go to law schools. I have a pretty decent track in mind. And yeah, I worked in retail before this. So this has completely changed in pace for me, but I'm very excited to be working with every single one of you. I'm excited to get to know every single one of you and

[Phil Pouech]: I can't wait. Great. Cool.

[Matt Walker]: You have to figure out how vote for us.

[Phil Pouech]: All we

[Matt Walker]: did was get some names on a petition. We did all of that work. He's going to do all of that work. That's very exciting. And we have Damian Leonard from our legislative council and Logan from our JFO, all of our regular guests. I have you in the chair, but I'm not anticipating any significant policy answers today. I think that I would say as far as speaking about the committee and the lineup for this year, obviously, in my perspective anyway, and then based on everything we spent last session talking about, transportation revenue is still our number one priority and our number one issue. And we will of course await the budget address on January 20 and the T bill that will follow. But regardless of where that's at, the transportation revenues and how it flows and how it gets addressed within this building is our number one priority. And I still ask that every one of you are continuing to talk to your colleagues and other committees about transportation. Remember where our flat revenues are and the challenges were up and that we're only doing 100 miles of paving this year. And we have an awful lot of bridges and an awful lot of work. So that is what's considered our number one priority. We'll talk about some of the other things that we're going to get through and go through. Over the next couple of weeks before the budget is addressed, we will dig back into the 2025 T bill. There are multiple reports that were asked for, all of which originated out of the Senate and not out of the House version. I like to make sure our colleagues at the agency remember that. And we will hear about those. We will ask for a follow-up on a whole number of issues that we worked on last year from whether it was we also know the new central garage is coming, trails issue that we hit, the changes we made to public transit. We're going to take testimony on the rural transit changes in Franklin County and Washington County that are going on right now. And how that impacted, of course, Green Mountain Transit. Those are all part of what we'll spend some time on before we get to the budget address. And then of course, we'll dig into the T bill right directly from there. As as housekeeping pieces go more directly, tomorrow morning, we will hear from the commissioner Andrew Collier from the Department of Motor Vehicles, recalling that in November was modernization rollout, the last step. We'll expect an update there. We also had some changes in the T bill regarding some license and renewals and how that was a big issue at the end of the DMV bill last year. There's other pieces in there. So the commissioner will be with us tomorrow morning, and that's at 09:15. And then on Thursday at 01:00, we'll have some other items on Thursday morning related to the right of ways and some reports. But Thursday at 01:00, the Secretary Flynn will be in for his sort of state of the agency, his portion of what's happened in the six, seven months since we've left. Six, seven. If you expect anybody to be hip, it's going to be representative McCoy knowing up on the lingo. For that FYI on Thursday at one, Secretary Flynn and his team will come in and there will be of course some time for dialogue and discussion to what's happened since we left and each opportunity for us to ask our questions piece in terms of what getting people up to date. We'll spend that couple of weeks up to date. Friday, 11:00, downstairs Room 11, what was it? Actually, I would confirm that, but we have a joint hearing with our neighbors next door, ways and means, talking entirely about transportation revenues, making sure the Ways and Means Committee is up to speed with sort of the history, current status and the trending that's been going on in transportation revenue and where it's broken down between fuels tax, obviously between gasoline and diesel indexing to going to purchase and use and other revenue sources that add up so that they will be up to speed entirely where transportation is. Thus back to our number one issue, which is how are we gonna fund transportation into the future and make sure we continue to maximize federal dollars. Our own Logan Move area is the star presenter on Friday at eleven. So we will be all in attendance for that. I believe, like I said, it wasn't downstairs with our colleagues at Ways and Means. So that sort of brings us our usual, we'll get the budget, then we'll dig into the T bill. And then of course, we'll look at anything new that we get on the wall and anything that comes from the room and pieces. I've spoken to all of you about some of your ideas and priorities, and you'll get a chance to talk more about that. And then we'll of course bring the T bill up before town meeting and crossover. And then we'll switch over to the Miscellaneous Motor Vehicles Act. And I can assure you that we have promised as a committee that we would look at inspections. So no matter what that bill comes out of the Senate like or what it comes out when it's released, when the governor's address, we have promised our colleagues across the house that we will look at state inspection system while also remembering that mileage based user fee is also a commitment of ours. And right now they are intertwined. So remind your colleagues of that and we do need to find how that will be addressed. But I do want to be clear that those are both things that are on our lists of priorities, we have promised as a committee we would look at inspections. Things I'm missing, by all means, free to jump in. I also have made a commitment on the request of the speaker that in that process, somewhere in there, in the next, I promise to do it within three weeks to four weeks, we will have at least a full day of testimony and activity around highway safety. There has been a number of, more than one, any one is too many fatalities. And we've now had several wrong way, one way drivers on the interstate going the wrong way. We've had several pedestrians very close to communities that we represent and across the state. And the speaker has asked me whether to push forward some work on highway safety. And what we do today, if that's enough, and whether that would open up any piece that whether there should be more we should or shouldn't be doing, and making sure that we're all aware of what we do both from public safety and within the agency. So that will be coming as a topic to you in the future or in the committee's work this session. So make sure that we've hit most of the pieces. I know that I've asked Logan to work on a few things and Damien to work on a few things to be ready over the next couple of weeks. We don't have to hit all those. I guess I would drop in as far as expectations. There are plenty of other things that I was interested in. But I also made a commitment. Representative Burke, he really got my attention with this idea that a local options tax on fuel as whether a town or municipality would have the ability or not to consider a local option tax on fuel. I have done no research on it, but I do represent a community that has a captive audience of Canadians that buy every day in their community. I'm not saying that community is forward or against it, but I have made a commitment that we are gonna hear more about that at some point this Great.

[Mollie S. Burke]: That just came from my gentleman here at Smithport wanted me to pursue that. And it's where it came from because of the issues that you found about it.

[Matt Walker]: I'm not for or against it, I'm very interested in learning more about it. Far as the most, almost entirely Southeast town to the almost farthest Northwest town, certainly got my attention there. I know there's a few others that have some topics that they're hoping the committee are going to discuss. You have an open mic and others that are interested in the industry if you want to or you don't have to. But if you feel like there's some other topics that we didn't list off, we're not going to make it on a nauseum list. But also, if you want to tell me about your favorite part of your European trip or your summer If you'd like to add anything else, I certainly would open up the floor to that piece of it. But those are where I wanted to start as far as bringing everybody together today and welcoming our new assistant. Open it up to any questions or additional comments or pieces that I missed.

[Candice White]: Representative White? If I could, I just wanted to introduce my UVM intern for the semester, Emma Wotley, who is sitting our development representative of Lalley. Emma's a senior at EVM, and she'll be here on Tuesdays, and sitting on the committee a little bit, and also other parts of the building. I'll be welcomed, Beth. Thank you.

[Matt Walker]: Anybody else?

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells]: We're counting Candice get an intern.

[Matt Walker]: Since you're not allowed to ask her, could I give you a microphone? I would suggest after we go off camera that you go ask Representative White. She might have an answer for you. Representative Burke.

[Mollie S. Burke]: I have an intern. You received an email from somebody from UVM talking about this internship program and you could apply. So it's not discriminatory.

[Matt Walker]: Representative Burley, you'll have to define email. First, define email. Maybe Representative

[Mollie S. Burke]: It's a wonderful program. This is my third, no, I think it's my sixth year in public. I had great insurance every year. How

[Matt Walker]: about if I just check

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells]: with Mollie now, she knows.

[Matt Walker]: Let's see, Is any other pieces that I wanted to make sure? There are lots of, obviously a lot more topics, we're in this, but Representative Pouech?

[Phil Pouech]: Yeah, you know what I had written up while I was doing work on, you pretty much covered them all. A couple others that we did look at delivery fees last year, looking at possibly giving those delivery fees to the towns that have impacted. And my eyes have been open as I drive around on dirt roads around town. You know, that's, these are the vehicles you see on those roads. The other thing is there's been a lot of discussions and concerns about e bikes and what the rules are around them. So it might be good to begin to sort of take a look at what we have for rules and are they appropriate as that whole industry expands in a whole number of ways, including much more powerful and much more potentially dangerous. So that might be something else that I'm hoping we'd at least begin the process to look at.

[Matt Walker]: Thank you.

[Chloe Tomlinson]: Representative Tomlinson. It won't surprise folks to hear that I continue to be really concerned about and interested in ensuring we have appropriate funding for our public transit systems across the state, and particularly looking at more sustainable revenue sources for public transit systems. For GMT, I'm aware that there's not impending significant cuts this fiscal year, but I have heard of others around the state, in Rutland, for example. So it's something that I think is really important to keep discussing and planning for a more sustainable future.

[Matt Walker]: Thank you. Anybody else? Want to play more?

[Candice White]: I have a long list. I'm not going to go through all of it. But there are a couple of things I wanted to flag. I'd love to hear a little bit more about the agency of transportation's commitment to pollinator friendly sites around our state or highways. And I understand that we got a grant a couple of years ago to establish five to 10 pollinator friendly sites with signage. I haven't heard anything. I'd love to just kind of hear a report on how that's going or where that is.

[Matt Walker]: That was through our committee?

[Candice White]: It was in 2023. So it was prior to and I don't know.

[Matt Walker]: Sounds like a

[Candice White]: I think it was a federal grant.

[Matt Walker]: That's it. But anyways.

[Mollie S. Burke]: Yeah. Well, just would love to hear Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a pollinator site. Pollinators- It

[Matt Walker]: was a good point.

[Candice White]: So like butterflies and bees and all the things that are important for farmers and so forth. So native plants are really important to supporting a strong pollinator community. And so there are opportunities along highways. We do a lot of mowing on highways, but there's opportunity to stop mowing and to allow some of these areas to grow freely. And you would plant the correct grasses and shrubs and so forth that are conducive to supporting pollinator habitat. So I think there's opportunity to, number one, beautify some of the highways. Number two, educate visitors to Vermont. And we know that tourism is incredibly important. And I think also there's some cost savings opportunity. We know that the agency of transportation spends a lot of money on mowing and picking up trash and so forth. So if they can decrease the mowing they're doing, because we have pollinator friendly plants and grasses and so forth that don't need to be mowed, but that could be kind of a win win for multiple parts of the state. Did that answer your question?

[James "Jim" Casey]: Yeah. I just was curious as what a pollinator site would look like.

[Matt Walker]: It got kind of a weird

[James "Jim" Casey]: bob on it, so it straightened me out, thanks. So

[Mollie S. Burke]: if I may, I don't know if you remember, new four between Castleton and IRO, several years back, they had those big tracks of they planted flowers, and I think that's what you're probably speaking of. That's a lot of years. The other one I wanted

[Candice White]: to mention is bicycle safety signage. And there's been a lot of talk in our community. They really need signage to support. We have a very bicycle friendly area, but we're really feeling a need to educate people about the four foot rule, about areas where bikers may be sharing the roads with cars. And I think that there was some legislation in the past that required some of the signage to be produced and shared with communities. And we're really feeling a need for this type of signage for public safety. So I'm interested in hearing maybe just an update on how the agency, where they are in that project, and is there signage, and is it available, and so forth.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells]: I suppose I Thank have you. So thank you, everybody, for your interest in the bill to move money from the education fund back to the transportation fund. I appreciate your interest. And just know that that'll be submitted on Thursday and there's about 25 co sponsors. Thank you all taking that interest. I'm sure it's not gonna go anywhere, but there it is.

[Mollie S. Burke]: That's not the spirit, come on.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells]: Well, I'll get ready.

[Matt Walker]: Thank you, brother. How many roads are

[James "Jim" Casey]: we planning I heard you say a number. How many miles of road are

[Matt Walker]: we planning on paving this year, have you heard? The mill we passed last year had enough 100 and per a little bit. Was about 106 or 103. Estimated of course, it could be more or less. And so we're just gonna keep following behind every year, like 500 miles each year. That was the other general, well, that's certainly what some of the testimony would say is that there's 3,000 state highway miles. And if you want to keep it on a ten year average, 300 miles a year would be your goal, which we generally don't make it all the way to 300 and it's an average so not all 300 probably need it. But in a 100 you put on simple math, sure fall behind 200 and you said we need 500 next year if you do another 100. Pretty soon the math will get beyond my fingers and toes but it won't take very many years to get substantially behind and that's the fear that our committee faces. You start changing the definition of what poor and very poor is. That's sad. You start changing the definition of what poor is, the quality of the road. Realize what's gonna happen. Right, and then, there is a surplus in the state's revenues, not in transportation, but there is an overall surplus. You've heard it talked about where we would apply it. And we're certainly in a spot as a committee that wants to even advocate for what this is a core function of government needs. Some part of that money needs to be directed here. But we'll continue to work on that and obviously we'll see what the budget says and what we need to do from there. Yeah, that's the highlighting of where we are at.

[James "Jim" Casey]: Is like an increase of a couple cents per gallon on fuel tax, does bring us in the realm of

[Matt Walker]: 2.8, two 300,000.0. You could put on a real simple term say that every penny of gas tax is $3,000,000 to the state.

[James "Jim" Casey]: No, I mean I don't like the idea of it but I mean kind of push is getting kind of push to come into shove here and kind of hitting a brick wall and you're gonna have to do something. I don't like the idea of it but I don't think zero two or three dollars a gallon is going to hurt my family too much. You know what I mean? But we should do something. I know some of these roads I ride across, I get to go to a dentist in a few weeks' anyways, picks a few feelings from

[Matt Walker]: people asking sit back for a minute. Well, we know that on Friday we're going to hear all about that piece again, not the tax per se, but guess where our revenues are.

[Kate Lalley]: It's worth considering that we're phasing out the penny.

[Mollie S. Burke]: So people are expecting that most cases that's going to be rounding up.

[Kate Lalley]: There's an opportunity potentially here for Round up to the next dollar.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells]: Well,

[Matt Walker]: I don't want to keep people for the sake of keeping them. I wanted to welcome you all back. It's really great to see everybody again. We all have a lot of passion for the areas that you're all interested in. We're excited about our new health. It's good to see our JFO and Ledge Council guys. And We will be starting tomorrow morning at 09:15 with Commissioner Collier as the current plan. After this week, the agendas will be updated regularly. We will be back into the regular setup. I do take the citizen legislature portion very seriously as most of you do. And now I'm into this job. And last week I was not. And so we will be caught up, an agenda will go through and it'll be much more available probably starting tomorrow and then next week is already being put together. I appreciate your patience and understanding for this week. We're going to start 09:15 tomorrow and then on Thursday, we probably won't start till 09:30 or somewhere in that ballpark. We'll be done in time for the address. We'll have plenty of time to be ready for the address tomorrow and Thursday. And then Friday, we'll have the joint hearing. We may or may not do something, anything else. We have the floor before that, so we won't have anything else to put that on Friday. There's no charge.

[Phil Pouech]: I think it's great to just hear from everybody, you know, sort of ideas on transportation, things you want to work on. But most importantly, it's now too early to start thinking about the category.

[Candice White]: We could be very well rehearsed.

[Matt Walker]: We're gonna go there, then we might as well go to a field trip and somebody would come up with the field trip ideas for this year and whatnot. The rail is always excited about anybody that can get involved in field trip ideas.

[Mollie S. Burke]: We had an interesting rail trip.

[Matt Walker]: We had a tremendous rail trip up in the Northeast Kingdom this fall with the private rail cars of America was our host. Representative Burke and Representative Wells I and were all there. I don't want leave anybody out. There were other people from the agency. There were other local reps up in that area. It was quite an amazing trip. So I particularly like the I'd like to see us repair the culvert the same way they did back in the day with the Omni Tanker cars. So anyway, we'll put that story from there. Anybody else have anything to add? Thank you all very much.