Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We are live here on this Thursday afternoon, twenty ninth, twenty twenty six. House Transportation Committee picking up on budget and review of the agency of transportation budget. And this is the next piece. And Andrea Wright is a returning presenter here in the committee. Welcome back. And I guess prepare for all kinds of questions to your question. They're pretty sure we're seeing patients. Sometimes there's lots and sometimes there's not. So please, whenever you're ready, welcome back.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm Andrea Wright. I'm the environmental policy manager at the Agency of Education. Also with me here today is Hillary Delrosch. She's our Sustainability Innovation Project Manager, and she's here to answer any questions that come up that I might not be able to answer for the budget, but also for our next presentation on our electric vehicle infrastructure. So really before I get into the numbers, I just want to sort of ground you all again in the purpose of the Environmental Policy Sustainability Program. The program supports the agency in all cross cutting aspects of transportation and environment. Certainly, really, as we have formed as a program, we have a major focus on climate initiatives as the agency looks to implement the federal funding that we've had over the past five years through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. We've got the Climate Reduction Program, the Carbon Reduction Program, sorry, Resilience Protect programs, and of course, the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program. And really, that's been our real main focus for us. But also in implementing the actions from the Climate Action Plan and the Comprehensive Energy Plan, we also support Vermont Emergency Management, where the state has a mitigation plan. And we're supporting the treasurer's office and the Climate Action Office and the resilience implementation strategy. So really just interagency coordination and understanding the regulatory environment and needs of the agency around environment and climate, and then codifying good practice and policy, and then understanding what funding is needed and where we're seeking ways to fund different initiatives that we have. So that's us in a

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: nutshell. Representative Pouech.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Hi. Are you gonna talk about, my question is gonna be, is there any specific high level goals in the climate action plan specific for transportation? Are you gonna talk

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: to that at all? I won't talk specifically too much about that in this budget presentation. We'll definitely touch on it more in the electric vehicle architecture, but yeah. Thanks.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Excellent. McCoy? So did you

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: say you're working with the treasurer's office on what?

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Support different initiatives that come out of state government. The Climate Action Office and the Treasurer's Office really spearheaded the resilience implementation strategy, so we supported the transportation aspects of that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay, so

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I just wanted to also spend a little bit of time. Obviously, 2025 was quite turbulent for the federal government and understanding what was happening at that level, but we were able to move forward with several different initiatives. We contracted for the construction of eight additional NEVI target infrastructure locations, so bringing that total to nine with the Bradford site that we got going a couple of years ago. And we were able to obligate the full $21,200,000 available to us, which is great. We're one of four states that were able to obligate all of our NEVI funds so far, and that has some ramifications with some new proposals that are coming through the federal level. We'll talk much more about the NEVI program in the next presentation. You've been hearing from Patrick Murphy a little bit, and probably we'll hear a lot more on mileage based user fee as that gets going, but contracted with a consultant for the development and implementation of that. I have it listed here, even though Patrick is spearheading that, he's not part of environmental policy and sustainability anymore. We carried some of that in our past budget. So I wanted to include that in here as well. We have allocated an additional $8,000,000 of the carbon reduction program funds, totaling about $27,000,000 of the available $32,000,000 in that program. If you recall, that goes to bike ped projects, transit operations, electrification within transit, within our own fleets, parking ride facilities and other traffic efficiency types of projects. I have a slide. We can talk more about that later on in this presentation. In terms of resilience, we contracted for the design of two hazard mitigation grant award locations. So we'll have the design and construction of those in state fiscal year '27. And we also had some state transportation innovation money that we hired a consultant to do nature based solutions, sort of incorporating nature based solutions into our projects a little bit more than we are accustomed to doing and figuring out where those would be applicable. So we're working on that. And then we also allocated the remaining $8,500,000 of the PROTECT funds, a total of 37,000,000 for that money. Can you refresh my memory? Where are the two hazard mitigation award locations? Yes. We are doing one project along Vermont 117 in Jericho. It's a sort of a nature based based solution. It's a floodplain stabilization project with what's called an engineered logjam. So it's bringing in nature, but it's also using our traditional reinforcement with stone fill. So that is in Jericho. And then the other one is culvert upsizing in Smuggler's Notch. And then, of course, our incentive programs, they wrapped up last year. We had funding for a couple more programs. Not all the programs had funding last year, but we will be submitting the annual report that is due for that for June of the Week. That's due by January 31. So we'll see that coming your way soon and happy to come in and talk more about how that program closed out, That is the desire of the committee. And so then getting into the numbers, it's kind of a lot here. Hopefully you can see it with clarity. For electric vehicle charging infrastructure, this shows NEVI that we expect to deploy close to 10,000,000 during state fiscal year '27. That will include wrapping up some of the current projects, those eight projects that I mentioned that we have under contract, as well as early expenditures for the second round solicitation, the projects that might come from that. It includes program oversight and third party. We have a third party consultant inspection and support for that. So those funds cover those expenses. The transportation fund amount shown there is state match only for our staff time and construction oversight and not for the private construction, because if you recall, we, require the private vendors to provide that match, that's where that $2,300,000 in the local column is from with that line item. We've got, carbon reduction program oversight. That's, again, staff time for the oversight, as well as federal funds that we have budgeted for, fleet electrification. We're doing, electric vehicle charging at our district facilities. The match shown in the transportation fund there, it looks a little wonky because it's low compared to what the carbon reduction program would require. It's an eightytwenty match, and we will need to utilize state fiscal year twenty six carry forward funds for the majority of that needed match. Candice has promised me that that will be available for those purposes. Let's see. The PROTECT oversight, again, is for staff time for the oversight of that program. But we also, this line item in our budget, carry the remaining portion of with PROTECT, there's a required 2%. At least 2% has to go to planning. So we carry that in our budget too. That remaining amount there will bring us to the full 2%. The program for hazard mitigation, We have, again, the two projects that I mentioned. We need to provide for staff time to administer those. So that's that small line item in the BEN match. There's a chance that we might have FEMA reimbursement for that. But if not, it has to be covered in state funds. We heard about that yet, so we carry it here in state funds. And then the VEM interdepartment transfer includes 90% for the anticipated construction cost of those projects this year, or, let's say, fiscal year twenty seven. That's 90%. And then we we chip in 5%, and we have a local partner that chips in 5% as well. And then those last two are just planning funds that we get from Federal Highway. One of them is for more of the general environmental topics that we partner and support other environmental groups within the agency and outside of our agency, things like when we have to do policy evaluation on Act two fifty, road ecology, the pollinators, I think you heard from one of my colleagues yesterday on that, things like contaminated soils, water quality, sort of the more general topics of environment and transportation that we come across. And the last one, again, planning and just research for interagency coordination around carbon reduction and resilience. So that is the overview of our budget. I'm happy to take any questions on that, or we can spending fruit.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Burke?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah, I was trying to figure out, so additional 8,000,000 of carbon reduction program, we're talking about allocation 27,000,000, Yes. So that's the 8,000,000 is part of the 27,000,000. Correct? Yes. And but then what I'm confused about is we go to the funding source for the electric vehicle charging infrastructure, it's only 9,900,000.0.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Two different programs. Carbon reduction is different than the electric charging infrastructure, that's the NEVI. So the 9.9 is the NEVI? Mhmm. Right. And then, so that's a total of 12. Then the carbon reduction is a total of 579,000. I'm just wondering, where's the, where's the $8,000,000 The 27 Yeah. So it's a little confusing because our program oversees those funds, but they come through in other programs. And I have a slide on where those allocations have gone to. So it could go to the transit program, the roadway program, different programs. That shows up. I don't know that in their presentations if it's showing up as carbon reduction program funds necessarily. I know Ross talked about the carbon reduction program funds in his presentation. I'm not sure if other programs are doing that, but we are using carbon reduction program funds in other projects. So is the $9,900,000,000 for the charging? How many charges? Is that going to pay for the aid charges? Yes. So it's covering, because we're in different state fiscal years, we have some money now allocated from our last budget year for those eight that are currently under contract for state fiscal year '26. And then we will go out for a second solicitation for additional projects beyond those eight or nine that we have.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: So you mean you'll have some money left over? Yes. It's budget cycle.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, and we will get all into that.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I see. So all the full 27,000,000 will go to the chargers, or is it full?

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: 21,000,000 of nevi funds will go to charging, and I have individual celebrities. I was just confused. Yeah, it is, it can be confusing. Yeah.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: And you think that that's gonna, should going STBA Yes,

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: we have to get our paperwork together, but we hope to go, it will be this spring that we go out with the second solicitor. And then typically how long

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: does it take? Hopefully we'd

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: have those under contract by maybe fall and then start working on those projects probably in the

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: next spring. Is it likely that you'll have a whole bunch of different people accepting the contract?

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: That remains to be seen. We'll get into a lot more of that discussion in our next presentation. Great,

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And that maybe is a question that I have for the next presentation, but it's gonna be in there. It was held for six plus months or off and on and whatnot, but we're still, all of '26 is gonna pass and there's gonna be money all of '27. Moving ahead is gonna be pretty slow, right? We're talking about some of this, the nebbe, all those chargers along '91, and you're looking at '27, '28 before they're actually going to be functioning?

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yep, we are bringing our second one on soon. It's just about ready to go. And then those eight, we anticipate we'll talk about this more. But we anticipate that those eight

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: are kind of in

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: their roles right now. It's crazy

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I'm crazy that

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'm like, is it this slow everywhere in the country to get them done? I mean, I know it's a tough question. It's going be easier. It's slow. We are

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: one of four states that have obligated all of our NEBI funds. So there's some states who are a little ahead of us, and so they really quickly. But there's not many that are rolling in

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the mouth that quickly. It takes a long time to get the work into the ground to move on on this particular program. It seems like it's been on here for quite a while, and I know it's been controversial.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: It has been controversial. The good thing is that we have our funds obligated, so it should not get sent But away we should have eight more sites, which is a lot more than eight more ports available by the end of this calendar year. And then starting on another up to 19 locations, we probably will get, we hope we get another at least a dozen or more out of that next solicitation. So seeing more built in '27 and completion in '28.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: A quick question. Do you have a list of all the eight? Yes.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: We'll find out. Yes.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Lalley? Andrea, was

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: just wondering how many ports does like one location provide? Just, I imagine this is

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: not necessarily a consistent thing.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: There really isn't that much more to go through on here. We want to start early on the other one. To answer your question, it's a minimum of four per location. Okay, so I know Lowering was in, I think, yesterday, some earlier this week, and had pointed out that there was a 57% increase in our budget, and that is true. The total is 57%. You'll see that the T Fund is down by 5%, and that increase is really related to the timing of the NEBI projects and the FEMA projects that we've already talked about. I mentioned that last year, the federal funds for NEVI was somewhere around 4.5, and so we're at 9.9 for NEVI this year just in the federal funds, never mind the matches for that. So big increase there. And then also in that, the theme of projects last year in our budget only included our oversight cost, which is minimal. It's basically staff time. And then this year, we're looking at the construction cost, so much higher coming through the budget there. And then, of course, there's the local match column is quite a bit higher, too, because as the NEBI funds go up that much, the local match goes up that much as well. They're providing that 20%. So it comes through as a large increase overall, but it only is telling the good story that we are actually getting those projects on the ground.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And your staffing levels and your fees has actually showed less T funds, guess. What's the case on it? Headcount?

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Headcount is you're looking at it.

[Rep. Kate Lalley (Member)]: She'll be talking about electric charging. We

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: we stepped up for the IIDA to prepare for that. As you can see here, are really on our way to obligation of all those funds. So we did have two limited service positions when we had more staff. So those were intended to help while we get the IOT funds out. And then we did have one other position that is now vacant, and I am still waiting to hear if that's part of the next round, where we stand. That just means that we're working more closely with other people in the agency to get more support. We have a lot of people that do project management every day of their lives in our agency, and so a lot as we move into implementing these projects, we can get some support from them. So we're working on that with Director of Pitch and Jeremy in Erin as well. Okay, yeah, so that was the numbers for our budget. I do have a few slides that go into a little more detail about the IJA programs. All funds have not been allocated in Albany, but I'll kind of go through how they've been allocated. We've received all of the federal fiscal year apportionments, so all five years, in all three programs, and we're well on our way to having almost all of them obligated. We do have for the PROTECT and Carbon Reduction Program funds until September 2029 to obligate those funds. I know it seems like a long time that we've been taking to get these funds out, but we actually do have quite a bit more time to do that. So this is the carbon reduction program showing the programs and different types of projects that we have allocated CRP funds to. Some of them are already obligated with projects complete, and some right now are just allocations. We're sort of preserving the funds for that and also awaiting approval of the budget to make sure that they can go there. So it is subject to some level of change. Just as a reminder of the different areas of eligibility for the funds, we've got these different categories, the transit and micro mobility, fleet conversion, bike head projects, also traffic efficiency projects, our carbon reduction strategy sort of focused on the first three there. But we had a schedule developed for the carbon reduction strategy, and we were seeing that we were getting a little bit more in GHG reductions from some of our traffic efficiency projects, and so we are using some of the funds for that as well. Transit, we are using CRP to supplement services and provided some initial funding for electrification a couple of years ago through T Bill authorizations. The BiTEPED program through the grant program received just over $2,000,000 on average, I'll just say that, for 2024 and 2025. The MTI, 3,000,000 was included in the 2024 transportation bill, and we are drawing down on those funds. I think they're about half spent, maybe a little less than half spent thus far. And then again, I mentioned those traffic efficiency projects, looking at projects that like intersection signals that reduce traffic queuing and idling, as well as parking rides where we're contributing to less vehicle miles traveled. So that's the carbon reduction program story. With PROTECT, let's see, we have all these different projects that we have used PROTECT funding for. Some, again, are just planned. Some of them are already obligated. Different projects from bridges to culverts, as you understand, most of our design standards are designed to be more resilient. So a lot of our structures already incorporate that. Program really was established to help transportation agencies get to that point because of Irene and our updated standards after Irene were already there. So those are the projects that some of our protect funds have gone to. The Resilience Improvement Plan, again, that accounts for that minimum 2% that has to go to support planning. That included the development of the Resilience Improvement Plan, things like broadening the transportation resilience planning tool to rail and understanding the vulnerabilities in the rail system. Also, improvements to the existing tool that we have in other things, updating repeat damages reports and those kinds of things.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Is there a different match for the funding for those bridges, or is it still like eightytwenty?

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: No, it's not eightytwenty. It's a very confusing program with match. There's an eightytwenty. If it's on the RIP, if it's a project that's identified on the resilience improvement plan, and it's a standalone resilience improvement project, it gets ninetyten free. If it just has resilience components, but was already going be done as an asset, it gets ninety-ten on the incremental cost for

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: resilience. I'm assuming these are the ones that are ninety-ten-ten for the fronts we were in. Some of them are on

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: the RIP, and some of them are not. So there's a mix which matches.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: So

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: Andrea, I'd love a little bit more background on the PTECT program. Are these projects for climate resiliency that were identified after a weather event or just identifying this culvert is susceptible that's upgraded?

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah. Program allowed for the development of a resilience implementation plan or improvement plan. For the state or for towns? It was through the federal requirements. It would be a statewide plan. Well, it didn't have a lot of guidelines to go along what needed to be included in that plan. It wasn't even a requirement that the plan be done. But if you did a plan and identified locations that these dollars should address, that's where that funding split comes in, a higher funding split if it's a project on the plan.

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: And again, that plan was to identify vulnerable areas or areas that have already been

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, we developed a methodology that looked at TRPT, the Transportation Resilience Planning Tool, the high scores on that, that looked at transit routes so that vulnerable populations or people without vehicles could still get We felt like that was a more important route to consider. We looked at the social vulnerability index put out by the Department of Health and factored that into our matrix for scoring and then came up

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: with a prioritized list of projects. Okay, so that tool is something that you brought in with IIJA funds, you're using it to figure out how to deploy them, and then you'll still have the tool going forward. And will that continue to be a tool that you will use for the future? Yes, I would

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: think so. Who knows? Future tools. Yeah, it is definitely a planning tool for the funds run out and then the match for the incentive isn't there anymore. And then I don't know what

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: will happen with

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: reauthorization. Seems to be resilience is supported by the current administration. So maybe that will continue to be one of the programs that gets funded. We're not sure. Thank you.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I'm sure. It's Andrea. Can you just explain the second to last, at the bottom, flexed

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: and STBG? Yep, sorry about that. I forgot to mention that. The program eligibilities, both in the Carbon Reduction Program and the Protect Program, allow for certain percentages to be flexed to other programs within the federal highway funds. And so at the early stages, we did flex some of the PROTECT funds to STBG, and they went to the Richmond Culvert and some other various culverts that our design standards are met for resilience. So they reflect to STBG, but they still went to resilience projects. ST, is

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: that state something? It's the

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: state transportation block grant. Okay.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: All right. Yeah. So those went to these kind of projects, but sort of a different way. They were already there and waiting for it.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Those projects were already there, ready to go when they took advantage of the flexed funds. And then, our last program, there's two federal funding programs that are related to the electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Again, we'll talk much more about that. But we have $21,000,000 in the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program through the IIJA to create a network of reliable fast chargers within each state and then across the country. Added to that was $2,000,000 in ARPA funds that got converted to general funds. So we have that available for that as well. Of course, 2025 was very turbulent for this program. Hillary will go into some detail about that. But before all of that happened, we had obligated $630,000 to the Bradford project as a pilot with our new contracting methods. So we had that one out in front. And then a lot happened last year. But we have I mean, everything that happened last year really put the project, the program, on pause for almost a year. So when we talk about a delay in projects, fixing the problem that they saw also delayed the projects. We're back on track, and that's good. We are currently deploying 8,000,000 worth of awards to make through that first solicitation. So we have eight locations under contract, and then we have up to another 19 locations that will go into a second solicitation, and we have $13,000,000 left to award to those projects.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: The criteria, because we went over it, I think a couple of years ago, saying, hey, they need to be so close to an exit, have facilities nearby, have to be lighted. All that criteria will stay as we move forward with these.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: That's right. Yep.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Will the chargers The name

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: on the

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: charger may be different as you go to different ones, right? Mean, could be charging or something.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Right now we're working with two vendors, Grid Wealth and Norwich Technologies. We hope and expect that there'll be more vendors in our next solicitation that have interest.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah, just want to check. So the blue circles, charge have what is

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Might I suggest that all these questions about the NEBBI program just be put on hold for our next presentation. We're digging deep in the next one. So, yeah, that's okay. If there's funding questions, happy to answer those. And if not, happy to move on to the NEBY presentations here.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: As far as the budget piece goes, there's two of you with a limited impact on transportation funds shuffling $14,000,000 or more in and out of projects for the next year. So budget wise, it's pretty straightforward and you're still waiting on it, whether or you'll be three or you'll be staying two. That's it for personnel costs and for anything else that's in your budget. That's it. No problem. Shovel around $1,415,000,000 dollars in climate related projects, resiliency, etcetera, and carbon mitigation funds and nevi funds and protect funds and the whole host. We spent a lot of time in requirements and filling out and making sure the money

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: flows correctly. Yep, we have had staff sitting in on both the BIPECH grants, the MTI grants, so making sure that the funds that go to those projects are eligible activities.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Anybody else have any questions about budget or about thought? I think there's a lot of interest in what you're going to do next. Thank you very much for that.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Gabriela, is it okay if I just stay on the same link? Yeah. Is it

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: same link? Yeah. Same link. Yep.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Okay. Give this next one up. Take a breath.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Leonard, do want to pull your chair up here since you're covering a good portion of this one?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Welcome to the Hudson.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Oh, thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: The bigger teeth. Isn't getting slow internet on the website? It was yesterday. Yeah, yeah.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: It's a bit

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: slow. That's just my brother.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Did she say slow?

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Me too. Couldn't get on a meeting before this.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Okay.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Just go immediately. That's goes in exchange.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: I probably didn't. It's all my fault.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Think

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: we would want to keep going if that's okay with you. If you wanna break, unless we get one.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Ask not a lot of questions. I've never

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: been like Did

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: you write a long stem, Hillary?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: You can add herding cats to your resume.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: It's already there.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Okay,

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: well, hello again. Good afternoon. For the record, I'm Andrea Wright, and I'm the Environmental Policy Manager at B TRANS overseeing the Environmental Policy and Sustainability Program that oversees the NEVI National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program. We're with Hillary Delros. She's our Sustainability and Innovations Project Manager and also considered our NEVI Program Manager. So again, here to provide an overview of our annual report that was submitted on January 15, or thereabouts, and may have been posted a little bit later than that. So, I'm just going to go through some background slides and then Hillary will dig into the meat of sort of what's been going on for the last couple of years as we get this program up and running and see some progress. So, as a quick reminder, as is included under 19 BSA 2907, the agency is required to file a report with a map showing our progress on developing charging infrastructure, both in accordance with our National Electric Vehicle Plan required under the NEBI program and also in meeting the state goals that are laid out in statute. Also, in the 2024 T Bill, it requires a written plan for projecting the funding needs for charging infrastructure that would be needed to meet the Comprehensive Energy Plan and the Climate Action Plan targets that were included for that plan, the modeling that was done for that plan. So we have also provided it in this current EARS report. Again, a quick reminder of the goals. '19 BSA 2906, as amended by the 2024 Transportation Bill, the goal for electric vehicle charging infrastructure is to have a Level three charging port available to the public within three miles of every exit of the interstate system and within 25 miles of another level three charging port along state highways. Representative Pouech, you mentioned this in the last presentation, but they also need to be collocated within a safe distance, both for walking and bowling, to publicly accessible amenities, bathrooms, out of good lighting, again, has to be accessible. So those are the goals that were laid out in statute. Okay, so as you know, in 2020, the legislature passed Act 153, it's the Global Mornings Solutions Act, and that created legally binding emission reduction requirements. It required the creation of the Vermont Climate Council and the development of the Climate Action Plan. Some significance in that is that one of the first actions of the Vermont Climate Council was to recommend sectoral proportionality. And so at that time, the greenhouse gas inventory said that transportation was responsible for 40% of the emissions and that needed to be the transportation sector needed to be responsible for 40% of the reductions. The Climate Council was charged with creating the Climate Action Plan. They did that through the establishment of a variety of different subcommittees, and those subcommittees were charged with developing pathways, strategies and actions to address emissions reductions, resilience and carbon sequestration, all of these that were defined as focus areas for the Council. So the initial Climate Action Plan was approved in December 2021. At that point, the Comprehensive Energy Plan was up for renewal. That plan is also largely speaking to the Global Warming Solutions Act requirements, has more of an energy focus, but there is real overlap in both of the plans under the transportation pathways strategies and actions. The Climate Action Plan has a renewal requirement of every four years, and so that was updated in 2025. And the comprehensive energy plan is every six years, the last one being 2022. It's up for renewal for 2028. The Public Service Department is really starting to do engagement and outreach on that plan. So we will start to get involved in the update of that as well. Listed here are the transportation strategies and actions that relate to vehicle electrification. I've listed those because that's what we're here to talk about today, But the plans also list other transportation pathways and actions related to cleaner vehicles, different fuel types, supporting different land use patterns and transportation demand management strategies and transportation choices. Also actions around joining a Path of the Best program when one is available. But again, we're here to talk about these relevant actions today. So you've probably seen this slide. I think it's important just to kind of ground everybody again for the conversation. And we just want to really provide an overview and lay the foundation for what a charging network includes. We need to have enough charging infrastructure in place so drivers feel confident that they can get where they want to and need to go, that they can get the charge where they are and get at the right level. So we need to think about differing needs at different locations, as well as the associated costs at those different locations. Obviously, you've heard a lot about charging in the last few years. There's different levels of charging and there's best use cases for different locations. And each of these comes with substantially different price tags. So you're in the $1,000 range for Level two, thousands of dollars for Level two, where it's hundreds of thousands for Level three, and it goes up higher depending on how fast that level three charger is. Agency, of course, is charged with deploying that fast charging along the highway corridors, but the legislature has also supported charging at multiunit dwellings, at workplaces, and within communities. We have to find that balance and use case with the costs. And Hillary will definitely get into a lot more about how our planning and our solicitations incorporate that towards the end of the presentation. So while we are sort of in this electric vehicle transition for the overall state fleet, we can expect that the private sector is going to rise to the occasion and fully meet the need. And so we have public investments really to serve as a catalyst until we're at a point where the private development will take over. Vermont has invested state funds for quite a long time. It started pretty early in 2014. In 2017, there was $2,800,000 through the Volkswagen settlement funds, state funds, and they were made available to ACCD, the Department of Housing and Community Development, administered those funds with support from the interagency working group, and that was for the deployment of both Level two and Level three forts. And then in 2021, the Vermont legislature provided $1,000,000 for ACCD to pilot a program for installation of charging equipment at multiunit dwellings, And then the following year in 'twenty two, authorized another $10,000,000 in state funds for additional multiunit dwellings, workplace, and community attractions charging, and that was the Charge Vermont program. And then of course, I mentioned in the last presentation, we have our federal funding through the NEVI program where AOT will deploy $21,000,000 and supplement it with $2,000,000 in the ARPA now converted to general fund, and that's for charging along the highway network with the private investment as the match. And then this map on the right is from ACCV's website and just shows the locations and levels of charging from the Charge Vermont program. And then the other picture there is just in support of the fact that Vermont has the highest number of public chargers per capita in The U. S. And Vermont scored the highest on the Natural Resources Defense Council State Transportation Scorecard for vehicle electrification in 2025. It was based on 2024 data, but that was for our clean transportation incentives and highest number of public charging per capita. That's an interesting place if you go to that and some good information there. And now I will transition to Hillary so she can give you some more detail on the NEBI funds and our deployment plans.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: So I'm Hilary Delroffs. I'm the Sustainability and Innovations Project Manager for the agency. I've been managing the Humanity program the last couple of years. So I know everyone's excited to dig into the details of the program just to lay the framework here. First, we'll get into where we are now with the NEVI program throughout the ups and downs of the last couple of years. Then we'll go into how NEVI fits with the broader public charging network. So this map highlights the nine NEVI projects we currently have under contract after our first solicitation. Our first priority was to build out the corridor network. This is in response to the previous administration's guidelines for the program, which required that chargers be located every 50 miles along the alternative fuel corridors and within one mile of the corridor exits. The minimum requirements also included that each location have a minimum of four ports that can charge 150 kilowatt hour simultaneously. These targets were to be met before any of the remaining funds could be used off of the corridors into community locations. And our NEVI plans called for 15 priority locations to meet that 50 mile increment. Our first NEVI compliant site in Bradford was completed April 24. Was, like Andrea mentioned earlier, that was through a sole source contract to upgrade existing installation of several lower power chargers that were funded through the ACCD's program. The remaining 14 locations were included in our first solicitation. Out of those 14, we got 11 awards made by the 2024. That was right before the program's disruption started following January. By the time we

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So there were 11 more that you added. And how many bids did you get from different Was it just the two companies that are bidding?

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: That's a good question.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: So we did a two part solicitation process. The first was to pre qualify vendors. We had eight vendors who ultimately were shortlisted. We received bids from six of those vendors. We awarded projects to four of those vendors. And then throughout the duration of last year, we had two vendors who actually declined their awards. One of those projects that were defined, we were able to award to another vendor who had also had a competitive bid at the time. And then one of those projects will be added to the next solicitation. I'll go into those details.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Thanks. Yeah.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: So after Bradford was open, and we had these remaining eight that we expect to be open for business by the end of this calendar year. And you can see that leaves some significant gaps along our alternative fuel corridors. We didn't receive competitive bids for Derby, St. Johnsbury, or Springfield, so that's the reason why those weren't initially awarded. We expect to include those again in the next solicitation. Site hosts in Manchester and Rutland shouldn't be secured with the timing to be able to take advantage of the federal tax credits before they were sunset. So those awards didn't move forward. And then there was a project in Berlin that didn't move forward because it was a Canadian company who was awarded that project, who had set up shop in The US. And during last year's federal changes, they've shifted their focus to just Canadian projects. So we lost that one as well. But all those sites we plan to include in the next RFP. So our approach in the first RFP was to balance the goal of fully building out the AFC network to the minimum standards and then directing any funds that were remaining after that into community charging or to fill in gaps along the alternative fuel corridors in those 25 mile increments to meet stakeholders. The NEBBI guidelines have since been revised in the fall to allow states greater discretion to determine what fully built out looks like for their state. We requested and received certification as fully built out based on these nine active contracts. So now we have greater flexibility in how we deploy these funds in the next RFP. And what that looks like, for example, is projects along corridors will still be required to have the four one hundred and fifty kilowatt fast power ports, but locations outside of the corridors can have a combination of equipment. They could do the four fast ports. They could do a combination of fast and level two ports or just level two. So that should hopefully help to allow for right sized equipment to be deployed in some of these areas where we're having trouble filling the

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: gaps. Sure.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: You're up.

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: Thank you. Hillary, would you mind repeating what you just said about the second segment will be able to deploy either level three or level two? Yeah, so we'll have some more flexibility. So, after the eight are fully in the ground, then the next group can be level two or level three?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Well, we used these first nine contracted projects to request fully built out certification from FHWA. They approved that request, which means now we don't have to continue to build these fast powered stations in areas where we didn't get bids in the first round. We don't have to do that before we spend the rest of the funds. So we have flexibility to include those locations and also open it up to other configurations and other locations that are outside of the corridors. So if there's beyond the one mile from corridor exit, if we have a downtown that's interested but isn't able to put in for fast ports for some reason, we have a little flexibility on what that configuration looks like there. So we are hoping that we'll see vendors submit bids in this next solicitation or sites that are in some of these areas where we're seeing bigger gaps because they're not forced into that example.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: hear you all sharing that Vermont is looking really good nationally in terms of electric vehicle charging stations per capita. But I would also just point out, and this is not news to you, that level threes are really where we're lacking. We have a lot of level twos around the state, and when people are traveling distances, they really need the level threes. So I just wanna make a comment that I still think the priorities should be on level 3s versus level 2s.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: And we'll look at some maps here on the next slide and the one after that too that show a heat map of the state and where we're lacking fast charging. So we'll talk a little bit more about that in a few weeks.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Representative Pouech.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: So federally designated EV corridors. So federal government designated these, or did we suggest these corridors? I believe that we applied for designation for these corridors.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: For these particular corridors. Okay, because I note that the western half of the state, in '22, there's like nothing. And there's a lot of traffic that comes over on Route 4, from Route 49 in New York State over Route 4, and take it off that first exit, and travel more so. So that's just my one comment. And the next one, these are, only one of these is operational right now. Right. Correct, okay. And did you tell us the timeframe of the rest of

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: The rest of these the week? Eight should be operational by the end of this calendar year. December. In some suit. Yeah, it'll be kind of a waterfall. They're not all going to come online at the same time

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: in December. What level are these?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: They're all fast charging. All fast All at least 150 kilowatt. Okay.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: So that's level two, three, three. Three.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: They are all level threes.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: It's pretty fast. Okay. So I'm sure

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: you have a map of, because I know Rutland has a whole slew of Tesla chargers right at the Stewarts there, and I think they're fast chargers. Do you have a map of the whole state where all chargers are?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yeah, we'll look at that in just a moment. And I don't know, I may have missed this sentence earlier, but we did award a project in Rutland, and it was one of the projects that was foregone by the vendor because they were having difficulty securing a site host location within the census tract that would qualify that project for federal tax credit before we got to a point where looking at the project's construction schedule, that they knew that they couldn't get it done in if they got an operational time. That will be revisited in the next

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Even just the western part of the state that's lacking is chargers. Just saying

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: that right now.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, that tax credit, that vendors were encouraged and did use that as part of their mansion with that sunsetting. The picture

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: further.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Well, we're looking at a map here of our initial you can see where the gaps are, but this is part of our initial 15 prioritized locations that were on, I believe, six or seven roadways. And those were our designated corridors. So when we look at our next RFP, we'll be able to look beyond these corridors to be able

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: to fill in where we have gaps. Okay, great. Thank you. Do you actually know the locations yet on those nine?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yes, these are all contracted for bids that we received for a specific site. So our vendors right now are finalizing their site host agreements with those property owners.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So that's not public yet?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: So we haven't been broadcasting the addresses for these just because those negotiations are offline.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Still within the federally designated ED portal.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Correct. For this round. For this round. You're welcome. So actually, the conversation about connecting with the site host kind of leads into the next piece I was going to touch on, which is securing the site host Properties that are viable, qualified, and interested in participating has been one of the bigger challenges that we've seen and one of the bottlenecks. After we get the projects under contract, there is a time span that we allow for the site host to work with our vendors to actually execute an agreement. And we receive a copy of those agreements to make sure that they meet all of the different criteria for amenities and snow removal things like that to make sure there's a consistent experience at each of these locations. So we are working with Drive Electric Vermont right now to put together some educational materials for prospective site owners. These could be private business property owners, municipalities. And we'll work with the RPCs and the energy planners with the RPCs to get this information out. So we can start building up a list of interested parties and make those connections with our shortlisted bidders going into the next RFP to help to close that time lag a little bit in our contracting, which will get these projects a little bit quicker.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Are gas stations ever interested in being a host?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Is there any problem with them being a host, if they were interested? I think we did receive a bid that was like a general store with gas station. Think so not many. But this is essentially we're infusing a private party to install, own, and operate this equipment at least for a period of five years. Our contracts have an operations and maintenance requirement of five years, and that includes making sure these have at least 97% uptime during that period. If anything goes down, that the company is responsive. And there's quarterly and annual reporting that's involved throughout that duration so we can track the outages and the uptime. And because there is another party, I think that may be where it might not fit in with

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the business model for both of those entities. Representative

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Burke? Yeah, it's so important to

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: get somebody who's gonna

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: maintain, because, like, for instance, there's a model two out there on Beacon Avenue that's not functioning right now. I mean BGS is nose spattering.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Right, I'm not sure that they had a maintenance contract with the company And that that I think is a precedent that this program set and was part of the intentions behind its creation, to be able to provide a consistent and reliable experience really across the nation in these 50 mile increments on alternative fuel corridors. And so that's where they built in this five year period. What

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: in the contract or requirements as far as the pricing, the long term pricing and methods of payment, are those all built into these contracts that, so for example, can I use a credit card at each one of these?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yes, each of the NEVI contracts has a requirement that a credit card reader be included.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And then the pricing?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: The pricing, so part of the bids, we're reviewing, before we award any contracts, there is a price that the bidder proposes, a kilowatt hour price. So when we make the award, you're awarding that price unless we have a negotiation. And there is a mechanism if a company needs to raise or lower a price that they can do that only up to consumer price index inflation or the duration of their contract period, which is the five

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: years, so it's cooperations. And are

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: they required to post the price on the charger?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yes, that's all available before

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: the company starts charging. Thanks. You

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: said there were some bids out like in Derby. What did their bid lack? They didn't get awarded one of these options for chargers. Would they where were they short?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: I would have to go back and look at the bids that came in originally because now we're talking a couple years ago. A lot of details to remember. I don't believe that we got any bids for a derby.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: That's fine.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Right? Okay. I think for St. Johnsbury, we had one bid. It ended up not I believe it was something with the site host. It wasn't a reasonable location. Okay. And then for Springfield, we also did not get a bid.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: So the pricing, getting back just to ask an additional question, the consumer price index fluctuates yearly. They can adjust yearly for the first five years based on inflation? Or is it just a one time thing? It

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: hasn't been a one time thing yet. It hasn't been more than a one time thing yet. We've only had one request come in.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Oh, to increase the price?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: To increase the price, yes. Essentially, now we're looking at bids that we reviewed two years ago, and this location has been in operation for two years and costs have changed significantly for their costs of power, equipment, maintenance, etcetera. So that's where that request came from.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Okay, so could it be a possibility that somebody comes back yearly to increase their price? I imagine They could, up to the first five years. And then

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: what happens after the fifth year?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: So after the fifth year, they are no longer receiving an incentive and their contracts are expired with us. So the idea was these contracts are called design, build, own, operate, and maintain. And that is all the responsibility that the private sector companies are taking on. So the state doesn't own the projects. After that five years, they are going to be owned and hopefully continue operating and maintained by the private parties that install them. Okay, so you pretty much kind of regulate kind of for the first five years, and after that, it's whatever that owner feels is the rate that they need to put on their in order to survive. Exactly. Yeah, the program is really designed to be an infusion of public funds to help bolster this industry while we're in this period of transition where there's enough EV drivers on the road and enough demand to make a business case for a private entity doing 100% of the investment. That's what my concern was if the consumer price index is huge and they're only allowed a one time deal on it. But as long as they can come back and say, Hey, this has costed me money now. Right. We just don't want that to go beyond inflation during the time of your contract.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Okay, great. Thank you. You're welcome.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Let's move on to

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: the next scene. All right. This now is a snapshot in time. Where does NAVI fall in the bigger picture of the statewide fast charging network? So we're looking at I just pulled up the numbers yesterday on the alternative fuels data center station locator, which indicates we have 97 fast charging stations with two eighty one ports right now. And if you look at the heat map here, you can see where currently available fast chargers are and the gaps in meeting the state goal to have them every 25 miles of the next.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Do these include Tesla?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: I will get into Tesla in a moment. This includes some Tesla. Let's get back to it.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So some Tesla chargers can be used by other people and some things.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: So the ones that cannot are not included on this Thank you. You're welcome.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Is there map

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: that the public can access so that they can see where the fast chargers are?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yes, several options. So the Alternative Fuels Data Center, it's a tool set up by the Department of DOE. It includes the station locator. All of our publicly funded public chargers have to be added to that map before they're operational or as they're becoming operational.

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: And that's a federal plan? Okay. That Alternative Fuel Basin?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: That's right. AFDC. There's a plethora of data and information on that website. But the two tools that we use most often are the station locator and also there is an EV charging needs assessment tool. We'll look at that in a minute. Another map that shows where all charging all the is, but can be filtered by fast charging, is plug share.

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: That Yep, and I'm familiar with that. And that's I find it somewhat reliable, but not entirely.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yeah. So the thing with the AFDC map is that it doesn't show real time status of muse or that granular level of detail, where PlugShare has a function where users can upload their experience there.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I'm not advocating one way or the other, but will there be signage on to show people where if they're cruising down the highway, oh, this exit has charger and a gas station and something else?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Short answer is yes. But all of the MEVI locations will follow the MUTCD standards for signage. There is recently an update where only fast charging signage could be displayed on highways. And so we will work with our contractors to make sure they're in touch with the right people to get all the signs up. So that will be on highway signage where appropriate and then directional signage once you get off the highway. Great. Thank you. So just to quickly recap again on this map, the darkest orange areas, which are around all four borders, right on the borders, and then we can see more of that space in the northern part of the state. These are areas where people would find themselves currently more than 25 miles from the nearest charter. In those areas, I believe it's 50 miles in between.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: One. Even

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: major. Yeah. In those areas.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I don't really need one.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: I was going to go through

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Some places I wouldn't have expected such a gap, like the one you pointed out earlier, but from Middlebury to Rutland and whatnot are pretty heavily traveled, especially from the Atlantic.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I think this is an evaluation of within our borders, too. So we're working with Dry Belly to Vermont to look outside of our borders, too, so that could play into the dark area around the border, right?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yeah, so we're really just looking at charters in Vermont. So there could

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: be a charger 10 miles away in New York, but it's not showing as a

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: We haven't done that mapping exercise yet. Yeah. Moving along, this is where we are headed. So when we factor in all of our currently planned but not yet contracted projects and our contracted projects, that's both NEVI projects and ACD's Charge Vermont projects, this is what the MAP becomes. So it narrows some of those gaps. In some places, we can see there's still a gap, but it narrows it down closer to 35 versus the 50 mile increments. So we know, even with the funds that we have available to continue and finish deploying, that there'll still be a need to fill those gaps after. Now, this is a look at similar information but in numbers instead of the visual map. Again, this is kind of a glimpse. If you can see the screenshot in the background there, that is the US DOE's daily charging needs tool, which is available on the AFDC website. I'm going to review the current need assessment in a moment, but first just want to make a note on the numbers that we're showing here. So again, this is assessment of whether we have enough charging to meet the needs of our current fleet. And the numbers that we included in our legislative report were based on the most recent EV registration data that we had at the time. That data is included here on the slide as well, so there's some consistency if you want to look back and forth to check some more detail. But we did get updated numbers yesterday for quarter four. The increase in registrations the previous quarter was only five thirty five. So that reflects the slowest growth in EV registrations since June 2023, which I don't think was surprising given the federal tax credits for incentive purchasing needs ended in quarter three. So what we're looking at here, the AFDC calculations for public charging ports needed to support the current fleet, we have to input certain assumptions into the tool before we can run our calculation. One of those assumptions is how many drivers have access to home charging. So we assume 71%. That is the current housing stock of single family homes. So those would be the homes where they would have the easiest and most successful time to get home charging installed. It doesn't include multi unit toilets or folks who aren't in single family homes. The other assumption that we insert here is the percentage of EVs that are plug in hybrids. So in this case, using October's numbers, that's 39%. Those are not included in the charging demand estimates because most plug in hybrid drivers can meet their daily mileage needs without having to stop and charge while they're away from home. So they're relying on their home charging. So currently, if we're looking at DC bus charge line, the number of ports needed, 178, All of the ports that either are currently operational or planned totals four thirty one fast charging ports. So we can see that what we have planned currently exceeds what our needs are. Thanks.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So this doesn't, because when I look at the fast charging NEVI network on the highways, I mean, sure, that could be me or anybody driving around to go to Prattleboro or something, but I look at it as for tourism. And so that isn't part of this. Right. So you'd want it to be more than the minimum needed because, you know, there's a lot of folks, particularly coming from Canada based on my experience with electric charging needs.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: That's right. We're just doing this calculation based on our state fleet.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And what do the numbers look like if you adjusted like that 71% for the hospitals? Like, you play with that number? Does it drastically change? We've been out the like fifty years.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yes. And so that's our next So seven perfect timing. So when we run these scenarios

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: When

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: we rerun this scenario with a higher number of drivers with access to home charging, you can see here, scenario one, I highlighted the gap there of 134 fast chargers. Sorry, let me back up one second. These scenarios are run based on what our needs will be if our fleet reaches 126,000 EVs by 2023, which is our goal from the Vermont Pathways 02/2000 analysis. 2030. So we can see that that gap, after we account for all of our NIVY funding and our Charge Vermont funding, we have 134 fast charging ports that we need. If we increase the assumption of how many drivers have access to home charging, so that's folks who charge in their single family homes and multi unit dwellings, we use this number 87%. You can see that that number dropped significantly to a positive 18. So showing that we have 18 more ports than what the minimum requirements would be to fuel those vehicles. This is the last slide. So if we're looking at that gap of 134 fast charging ports and we apply today's total cost per port. This is based on an average of all of our contracts that we have in place right now. It's $250 total cost per port. So that's both the federal incentive and the private match combined there. That's a $33,500,000 gap to meet that need. So we know that likely the public sector is not going to 100% fill that need. And we expect that as EV drivers increase and technology changes, that the private sector will continue to invest in charging. I think it is the timing of that is dependent on a lot of factors right now. And so that's where the public investment needs to get us to where we are has been very helpful.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: This is, I think, important for us to sort of understand how we're doing. But really up until NETI and some state sort of funding, it's all been private. And I'm driving around plugging into private things. So, I mean, I'm feeling like this sort of surge of filling out the blanks as much as you can, and that I would assume the private would begin to take over because they've been there from the start, really just testing the waters on gas. What, you know, what information do you have as far as sort of long range in the next five or ten years? Have these public, private, fast charge businesses? Have they been successful? Are they like, this isn't working out? We're getting out of this business or we're going all in?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: I think a combination of all of the above. There's been a lot of fluctuation in the market. I think that when Neve was created, there was a lot of excitement and a lot of ramping up. And things may be tapered down a bit as far as excitement goes. And the business case for every single charging station is going to be different, especially in the case of matching up a vendor who doesn't own the property and is working with the site host and the geography, the number of drivers in that region or driving through that region, the availability of three phase power and the cost of upgrading electrical equipment, networking availability, so access to a cell signal in some of these places are a little more challenging. So I think all of these things combined are taken into account for every single unique charging station situation.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Is that a piece of it?

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: So just as a sideline here, Matt Kota has said that fast chargers are being put facilities that are being built from the ground up. And so we put a whole new facility in, and because you have that ability to plan for such things, that he knows of three that were built in the last year that included chargers. And the nice thing about that is they can sit there and charge and then go sit in their nice spot in the

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: facility.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: When you say facilities, you mean convenience stores?

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: It's even more than that. You think of yes, convenience stores. But if you think of what is at Stuart's in Rutland on Woodstock Avenue, That's the type of thing. So that incremental cost seems to be very doable if you're going to spend $3,000,000 on a facility with tanks and convenience stores and such. So

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: I'm curious about the Bradford location, which is the one that is up and running. Have you all been there, used it as an EV chart customer? Just curious. We've got

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: to the site, but I

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: don't have an eB chart. Yeah. So I would

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: just share, and I think I shared some feedback with maybe the secretary this summer, but I did visit it, it had a really difficult time. Because it doesn't provide shade, you needed to download an app, It's poor cell service there, there's no shade, so it's really difficult to use your phone to scan the QR code. I found it really, really frustrating. I did return going to New Hampshire, came back Sunday, had better experience. It was an overcast day. But I'm just sharing that, and I'm happy to dig up my email and just give you the blow by blow in terms of the customer experience. And I didn't recognize the brand name that was established there. Electrify America is a great brand that is really reliable. I don't know if they work with individual private companies. ChargePoint is also a really reliable brand, and I think they do work with private companies. So just something to think about that, as you're working through installing these chargers, I think it's really important for Vermont. But just thinking about the customer service experience and consistency, being able to use a credit card versus having to download an app, those are all really important considerations, particularly if people are traveling or on any, you already have to slow down in terms of your schedule when you're driving an EV, but to also have some of these other impacts. Can be a difficult experience.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: That's great feedback. I think a lot of what you just mentioned we do include in our contracts. And so to be able to see how that builds itself in real time and it really is our experiences. Something that we can actually tweak a little bit in the language that we use moving forward.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: So

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: with

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Nevis chargers that you're installing, people contracted, So say I own a convenience store in a location, and I want to have a charging station at the convenience store. They contract with the state through this NEVI program? Or how does this mean, is it another private company that's going to come on their private property to actually So it's kind of like a symbiotic relationship. This charge point, I'm just going to use charge point as an example, comes in on my convenience store, places their charging station on my plot of land, and my guess is that I'm going to get business because they have to sit there for twenty minutes to half an hour while they charge and they'll come into my store That's and the idea. So is ChargePoint doing everything with you for the NEVI thing? It's simply the owner of the convenience store is saying, Yes, I'm allowing this.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yes, so for NEVI in particular, our contracts are with our pre qualified vendors who are the entity that's going to own and operate and maintain and install and design the charging station. They are connecting with property owners. So for our first RFP, we knew we had these 15, we'll just say towns that were on the interstates, on the AFCs that we needed to get built out. So in those towns or in a radius around the exits in those locations, our vendors worked with different site hosts, talked to different property owners about who was interested in having charging on their property. They then develop a site host agreement between the two of them, and that outlines what that relationship is going to be.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Did you get involved in this? Mostly

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: not. Mostly that is the relationship that they have agreed upon themselves. There are criteria that the VEVY program requires, like it has to be safe, lit, access to amenities, bathrooms, walkable if we're walking down roads, we wanna see sidewalks if available. There is one piece that the state does get involved with outside of making sure the agreements have those items. And that is a conditional assignment of lease. That is to ensure that if for any reason the vendors that we have under contract and have made this agreement with the property owner default, it is an emerging market, that instead of the equipment construction of the project being a stranded asset, that the state would then go back to our pre qualified list of vendors, put that project out, see who is available and interested in taking it on, and then they would assume that project and leave it, own it, operate it, maintain it for the duration of that five year requirement. So that's really the only case where we get involved, and that's just to make sure that these assets are a good issue. Thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Angela, you're up.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yes, it sounds

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: like the problem is getting farmers of sites to do this. Are you looking into what might be some of the barriers as they perceive them? It sounds like something in this is just not They're looking at it and kind of going, not interested. And I'm just sort of wondering if we could dig a bit more into that if we really want this to work. Alternatively, we think beyond NEVI and even the reauthorization of the Surface Transportation Act, which we have no idea what that's going to look like, and what the provisions will be in it, in terms of what would a Vermont specific model for this look like. I mean, I'm just scratching my head as to why there is not I mean, you see these things called Buc ee's. I've never seen one in real life myself, but my son loves them. They're all over the South and they have tons of these things. I mean, it's whatever you need. And they're wildly popular. I'm not suggesting that this would be a perfect fit with Vermont, but just kind of wondering what we could do to just get more information about,

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: why is there not more uptake with this?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: And that's exactly what we're trying to work on before we release the next RFP. So starting to develop some of those relationships with potential site hosts, have the initial conversations with the contractors so they can understand what their requirements are going to be. And then they can work through some of those, or we can look at what a strong bid might look like for that area. And this gets back into, is it having more flexibility in the configuration of the size of the equipment. In some instances, there could be a really interested site host that's in a location that just doesn't have existing access to three phase power or in the first RFP, where it was beyond the one mile radius from the alternative fuel corridor, which was part of the requirements there. And so not being further away from the alternative fuel corridor in this first round created another step in the process for us to request an exception. So that could have been a deterrent. And that could have been something where the site was really enthusiastic, but then the vendor who was interested in bidding on that area couldn't make it work as a business case. So many variables. But it sounds like there is a process where you could, I guess, to the nevi folks, ask for an exception, something to make it a little more right sized to our limitations? Yeah, in the first RFP, the first round under the original guidance, there was that requirement to have them every 50 miles along the AFC in one mile of the exit. So in Vermont, some locations don't have a viable site host within that one mile, and we really wanted to see more of these be closer to downtowns and villages so that it's drawing business into our towns. And there was an allowance where we could request the exception. And we did that for, I believe, six sites, either just beyond the mile or we'll use Randolph for an example. That was our biggest exception. That was three miles. Now we have a station going in in the downtown. Sorry, can I just clarify one This more thing next round of funding, now that we have received our fully built out certification, means that we have flexibility to decide where these go? So this is where we hope and expect that we'll have a little bit bigger response in our RFP for areas that maybe weren't as desirable in that first round because of those limitations where those don't exist in the second round. The last question I just wanted to ask is interest among municipalities for hosting these and whether or not the LCT might be some kind of a partner to just help things along. Absolutely. There is interest in municipalities. We have contracts where they're going in on municipal property. And so, yes, once we get our educational materials ready for potential site hosts, we'll be sharing that with partners like RPCs and with the MCT.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Great, thank you. Doctor. Kimber?

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, so for following up on that, where

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: you advertise the bids? Where did they go out to?

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Because we did the two part solicitation process, we have our shortlist of eight bidders. Once the RFP is written, we will, I believe, send that directly to them, invite them to bid. We're also going to build in a mechanism into this next RFP, or we're planning to, so that we can on ramp any additional vendors who are interested in being shortlisted, who maybe were in operation at the time or weren't interested in Vermont at the time when we did that prequalification process, where they could both submit a bid for a project and submit all of their statement of qualifications.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I guess I was thinking more about, is there a way to send out something to potential hosts? That a host might then say, oh, I'd like to partner with the vendors or something, you know, like coffee shops and restaurants and GM towns as you were just talking about, which could be beneficial to their business.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yes, we are planning on doing some outreach before the RFP. So we'll share some of the answers to some of the common questions that we're seeing from site hosts, And we'll work with so that they can share that information around with the businesses of their town.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'm glad

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: you had it covered. Well, also, once

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: this is ready, I'm sure we'll share it out through AOT channels, through our newsletter, through social and press release. Great.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: That's what they've been prepared.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So you're asking for $33,500,000 over the next six years, four years? Think. Everybody heard that before. It seems to be more than great.

[Andrea Wright (Environmental Policy Manager, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: That's the prediction.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: It's a prediction you're saying

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's like 2,030.

[Hilary DelRoss (Sustainability & Innovations Project Manager / NEVI Program Manager, VTrans)]: You. Thank you very much.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Thank you. We are adjourned until tomorrow