Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Good morning, Friday, 01/30/2026, and it is House Transportation Committee. And today, Ledge Council is back with us or to start our the T Bill review. And so we moved off budgets for today, and we're looking at T Bill, our first review of the T Bill language. We'll have the follow-up from the agency next week on their comments on each part of the bill. But today, our alleged counsel is going walk us through the T bill for this year. Not a long walk.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know it's a long walk today.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Long walk. Not yet.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's right. That's up to you guys.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Certainly, it's not a long walk. So, Damian, welcome back to committee and head to the T bill when you're ready.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You. For the record, I'm Damian Leonard from the Office of Legislative Council. Me pull up T Bill here on the screen behind me and get things started here. Okay. So the first page here is covered by the subjects and the normal sort of lead in language and finishes with the adoption of the transportation program. So this is the standard language we have every year. Subsection A adopts the agency's proposed fiscal year twenty twenty seven transportation program as amended by this act to the extent that federal, state, and local funds are available. Right out of gate, we both have go ahead, Representative Pouech.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Just remind me and maybe the committee members too, please don't get a number, this bill. Right?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not yet. When you vote this bill out of your committee, it will get assigned a number. Okay. So what happens then is the chair will let drafting operations know that the committee has approved the bill. They'll process it and work with the clerk's house office to give it a number, and then it'll get introduced the next day in the chamber.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Okay. After it's voted out.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's right. So for now, it has a drafting request number. But once it's voted out, it'll get an official number. So it'll be it'll be a high number, h six or seven something, depending on where we're at.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Secret bill that if that's my number. Yes.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's so secret, secret bill.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Double secret probation. Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the next portion, subsection B these are

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Sorry, I have a question. Yeah. Adoption means the big white book. That's right. I don't think we've gotten there yet, but maybe the question will get tabled for later. But all of the changes that came through from the what we heard about from the chief engineer and the CFO of the agencies, where they took out well, they didn't really take out programs, but they added a whole bunch of programs. Do we know that they're all we haven't gone back in there yet. Do we know that they're all in there? Is that more of a JFO?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That is something that I'll need to work with Logan and the agency on just to confirm they're in there. If they're not, we'll be adding inserting sections between section one and section two to add them in and adjust numbers as necessary. It might be my perception from some of

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the testimony that perhaps there were adjustments all the way up through the building of the process of the of the budget and the bill that I'm not I haven't confirmed that. I'm restating that. I have not confirmed that the projects that are in this book to be adopted are all in there after the presentation from the governor's budget address.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I haven't had a chance to do that either. This is the language that the agency sent to me. I think it was late last week. And so it's got that language, but I don't know if there are additional changes. Usually, as time goes on, we add and subtract from the language just to make those adjustments. But I'll follow-up with Logan and Michelle to and Jeremy Reed and Jana Morris to confirm that everything's in there. Thank you, Ryan. Alright. So the definitions in subsection b, what I did for purposes of this draft is I just cut and pasted the definitions from last year right into here. So standard definitions, agency is agency of transportation, what a candidate project is, what a development and evaluation project is. And these are definitions that are in every T bill. Electric vehicle supply equipment, we may not need that one depending on what moves in this bill. I kept it. It was in last year's. So like I said, I just cut and paste it for purposes of starting. But there are a couple of these, like electric vehicle supply equipment and the mileage based user fee. Depending on what you do this year, you may want to take them out before you vote the bill out. Front of book project. That's again in standard definition that's in every T bill. Plug in electric vehicle, battery electric vehicle, again, that's a definition that may stay or come out. Secretary defined as the secretary of transportation as standard. FIB funds is another standard definition. And then the table heading definitions here as proposed, as amended, change, that is all standard every T bill definition. So that's section one. Any other questions on that?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So section two, this is a a cleanup piece here. This comes out of last year in the budget authority over the what's now called the municipal equipment and vehicle loan fund and fund, which was formerly the municipal heavy equipment loan fund. Jurisdiction was transferred from the transportation board to the treasurer's office. The expectation when they put that in was that was going to trigger a repeal by law of the old transportation board rules. It was determined late last summer, early last fall that it didn't meet the requirements to actually repeal by law because they hadn't put in words saying the rules are repealed. So this is repealing those rules because they're outdated. So it's the former rules of the Transportation Board for the municipal heavy equipment loan funds, which are now being replaced by procedures that the office of the treasurer adopts for the municipal equipment and vehicle loan fund. I see a couple of questions.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Burke?

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah. So I'm just curious what the municipal equipment and vehicle loan fund is. Is it something that municipalities can borrow from the agency of transportation?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So from the office of the treasurer. My understanding is, yeah, it's a loan fund that allows municipal governments to borrow money to purchase heavy equipment for their highway departments.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: So,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: it's not

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: to borrow a vehicle.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. Okay. It's it's a fund that allows them to borrow money as necessary to make those purchases.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: President Pouech and then Murphy.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: It's just I don't know about this. Is this just an option for towns? Because we'd like they put me all the time. I don't remember.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But I think it's treasurer's office for. Well, so it just transferred to the treasurer's office last year. My understanding is it's an option for funds to finance this. I don't know a great deal about the program. We've we've pretty much hit the limit of my knowledge about the program at this point. So I would recommend if you want additional testimony to hear from the treasurer's office or the agency.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I think I'd want that, particularly if I have to report on the bill. I want to see it. Don't have to report on it.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: You actually want

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: to know about this.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'm sorry, December.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Anybody do.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: You can ask questions in a second. A couple comments there. I appreciate the heads up to the rest of the committee that we will report out the bill and we will be responsible for different sections. So that's an excellent preview of where we'll be in March And that then we'll have to report certain sections. That's a great heads up piece. I think if you're saying I have several questions as well, Representative White is next, if you're saying that we're not it wouldn't be good to ask you, but we'll go from there. But I appreciate the heads up. Why don't I go to Representative White, and I'll ask more after that if I

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I can speak to the rulemaking issue, which is essentially that there is a process when you transfer rulemaking authority or you discontinue a program to repeal rules by law. So instead of having the agency go through the process to repeal the rules, which is a multi month administrative process that ends at LCAR, and then repeal of the rule gets filed with the Secretary of State, we can do it, saving the agencies that administrative work through legislation. The thought when this went into the budget last year was that the treasurer's office had come in with proposed language thinking that they would, by clarifying the language on the transfer, would also repeal the rules. When that came up over the summer, as so I'm counsel for or was counsel for LCAR until about a month ago. And I reviewed the language with the secretary of state's office last summer. We determined that it did not actually meet the requirements for repeal by legislation. And so this is put in to address that because the Transportation Board no longer administers that fund. And so they want to get rid of the rules.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: When did that change happen?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So my understanding is that

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: ran out. Did the statute happen?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: What So the statutory change was in last year's big bill. It never came here. Never came here. So I was actually unaware of it until the letter came in to the secretary of state's office, and they circled looped us in here at LCAR. And then we looked at it. And between their counsel and myself, we determined that it hadn't met the requirements. And so that clarification was needed to either transfer the rules or repeal them. And the clarification was to repeal.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So passing the big bill in 2025. That's my understanding. Well, I'm sorry. I just wanna make sure. So We haven't seen this before.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We haven't seen anything about this before. Yeah, it was something that I didn't know about until Requested to be added. I'm saying this treasurer's office. Treasurer's office, the line it lands up to the year. Well, yeah, the conversation with the transportation board is within the agency, and they don't want the rules on the books anymore if they're not administering the funds.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: People were to ask for this to be

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. That's my understanding is this request from the T board. The request to get the language in the big bill last year, I believe, came from the treasurer's office.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Why did we get to your question?

[Candice White (Member)]: Well, just Damien may not be able to answer this, but just on the municipal equipment and vehicle loan fund, is that at all associated with the TIB fund?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's a separate fund.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: And

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just so I didn't realize that the big bill would have paid its transportation, that marked in the transportation bill. So is that common practice? It's not super common. It does happen occasionally. We try internally to keep each other updated on what is happening where so that we can bring things to the attention of the committee's jurisdiction. In this case, that communication broke down. I'm not sure where the breakdown occurred, but the that communication didn't occur. So I don't know if there were discussions offline that occurred, but I was unaware of the language.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Well, it sounds like

[Candice White (Member)]: everybody's interested in some clarification from

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah.

[Candice White (Member)]: The treasurer's office, or whoever is the

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: best person in the court.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: So I guess just a statement. Should have run through my opinion, should have run through transportation, and at a minimum, commerce and economic development, which just did a yearly technical on banking, insurance, and So

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I don't know,

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: it just seems a little wonky to me that the treasurer's coming to us and saying, I'm gonna take this over half, instead of starting with the agency of transportation.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, and I'm not sure.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: There was an issue with them handing out, being responsible for the loan fund. I don't know if we have other

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: loan

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: portfolios like this. I know there's a Vermont municipal bond bank, I'm not quite sure who is in charge of that one. It's kind of strange the way this is all.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: It's just my comment. I'll just direct

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: it to the witness.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Yeah, think it's just a comment. You don't have to answer. Unless you

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have a comment to that, I guess.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I have your question at the

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: end if you have a comment on that. Okay. So I also in response to questions that have come in, Michelle is watching, and she just passed on to me that she recommends having the treasurer's office in on the municipal equipment fund, that AOT does not have additional information on that. And then Candice passed on that all AOT based appropriations are in the white book. We're gonna hear you

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: know what? I appreciate it, and I'm glad they're watching. And I am glad everybody can answer the questions, and they're all on the schedule for next week. And I hope they keep sending the notes, but we're yeah. And we wanna learn all of that. I just we're definitely supposed to getting the walkthrough of what Keith does say. And then they're tell us their opinion on each piece of it, and they're gonna answer all our questions. And I am really glad to know that they are out there supporting us as heavily as they are. Yeah. So they're here and and making a note of the questions.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So but, yeah, the the upshot is no adjustments to the white book at this time. White book is updated, you said? That's great.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Oh, that's great. We'll hear that from them again next week too. Yep. Perfect. So And we will also come back as a committee and decide what actions we may or may not want to take and what testimony we will want to take. We're not going to decide that today. Today's goal is, in effect, the walkthrough of what is in here. And then we can all talk about what we're going to do about it next. But first, we're going to find out what's in here. And then we're going to get the agency's opinion on it. And then we're going to decide what we want to do about That's how the procedure works. If that makes maybe more clear, I should have said at the beginning, this is for our alleged counsel to walk us through what's here and what's requested, then to hear from the agency why they requested it and what additional information we want. And then we decide what actions or testimony we'll take from any other parties, right? Yeah, else is affected. So that's the procedure that we always use and that's where we're at. So continue to walk us.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So section three amends 19 VSA 10C. This is the general statement of policy for state highways and bridges. And this provides that they're replacing the words develop and implement state standards with maintain state standards and guidance for geometric design. My understanding is that this is intended to clarify what the state does and maintain includes developing and implementing. And it's not only standards, but also guidance documents on how to implement them. The second sentence, the design speeds may be lower than legal speeds is being deleted because it's redundant if you read it with the following sentence, which implies that design speeds may be lower than legal speeds. And then clarifies that if appropriate warning signs, signals, and markings are used as provided pursuant to our law, implements the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, or MUTSID, which are the federal standards for road safety signage. And so this is just intended to clarify the existing law and make it a little bit tighter in terms of what an appropriate warning would be. Are there questions about that?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: See one? Yeah.

[Candice White (Member)]: I'm just I'm a little confused about this, Damian. So is this saying that design speeds can be lower in areas when there's design going on?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Is

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this No. Saying So imagine a highway that's a 55 mile an hour highway, but then it has a tight curve where the speed has to drop. So even though the legal speed on the highway is 55, what you would do is you'd have warning signs coming in saying, Warning curve, 35 mile per hour, and you might have chevrons pointing through the curve, etcetera, depending on the design. That's what this is addressing. It's when you get to a portion of the roadway that for whatever reason, the speed needs to drop because of the conditions on the roadway or the geometry of the roadway versus this sort of legal speed for that type of highway.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: And this is something

[Candice White (Member)]: that the agency is able to determine, not second municipality if it's coming through there.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. This is a traffic engineering determination. There could also be determinations because of density or other safety issues there. But in these cases, and this is for agency projects. There will be standards and guidance around this. And so it could be geometric issues. It could be other issues that require a slower speed. School zones are another great example of when there may be a slower speed required at certain times of day, etcetera.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Thank you.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And I'm assuming that's provided pursuant to that those are the signed standards, whatever that acronym is.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's what adopts the MUTCD into state statute. And that is, I've read parts of it, but it's hundreds of pages of detailed engineering guidance that can be implemented. That's what when And a traffic engineer is laying out how the project is going to be built and what the speeds will be, etcetera, that's one of their main references. And it's what standardizes highway design across the country or one of the things. All right, other questions? All right, So section four addresses agency of transportation duties. 19 VSA section 10. This is addressing addressing bonding. And so if we go here, the changes on line three are really just stylistic changes. I'm trying to get away from some of this old passive legalese language. The substantive changes occur further down on lines 12 through 16 of the page. And the main change here is that we're increasing the threshold where below which the secretary can waive the bonding requirement for contracts. So contracts below $250,000, the secretary may waive the bonding requirement for state contracts. And generally, your your bonding contracts to ensure that they're completed, that subcontractors are paid, etcetera.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: What does it seem like day job or what?

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: That was

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. That was my question too.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good question. I'm not sure. The last time this was updated That

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: was not really recently because I

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: thought we tell them something on this. It's similar anyways.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. That would be a good question for the agency, and it's also something I can look into.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: It was just the amount? It's like the announcement change. Yeah.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And I think

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The other thing too is there are other areas of state statute where we have contractual minimums for certain things to kick in. So it could have been bonding. It could have also been other factors around Davis Bacon wages, etcetera. So but I'm happy to follow-up. Bond or whatever.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah. It could have been a different such. Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But, yeah, it'd be worth just hearing from the agency when they're in on the last time this was updated, and I'll also check back on our statutory history. The other piece that this adds

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: This amount, this was added asked by the agency? Yes. It's not necessarily related to this, but you said something about potential consistency with other parts of the state or not other other requirements in the state that do ask or give this leeway to other secretaries and whatnot?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: What I was implying is there are other sections that may impact transportation that have dollar thresholds. So areas where certain requirements kick in around wages and benefits and other evaluations. I'm not an expert on contracting, so I don't want to get out in front of my skis here. But that I was just thinking that that may be something that you're remembering too if that's come up in recent years. The the other substantive change in this section, and we'll see these repeated in the next section as well, is that during an emergency event, the secretary may, in the secretary's discretion, waive the bonding requirements for immediate temporary stabilization work related to public safety or state infrastructure. But that permanent work would continue to be subject to the requirements. So basically, in order to get a contractor out quickly, you can waive the bonding requirements to get the work done. And then when you do the permanent work to repair the damage to the infrastructure, you would then be back to the same bonding requirements. And is only the governor who declares emergency events or does the secretary declare? So that would be a good question about what is intended by emergency event.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Following the state's term.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We do have an definition of an all hazards emergency. We've used language such as weather emergency in the miscellaneous motor vehicle bill this year. You may want to say an emergency declared by the governor, But I would ask AOT what their intent is and what their goal is. Off the top of my head, I don't remember if that was mentioned in their outline. So I can look to see, but that might be a better discussion point with them. Well, I was

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: thinking more from a perspective within the statutes, guess, is We do have some definitions. Weather related storm thing, or is this headed towards emergency management statewide? So yes, like I said, if there's clarity or consistency without declaring them and whatnot, that's sort of what I'm not sure what else is out there.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. We do have some definitions for emergencies in the statute. I don't know if any of them would be appropriate or applicable on this. I guess I would love to know what

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: is an emergency event and who declares it. If you could help us with that, I

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: would appreciate it. So I'm writing down questions.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Because I'm not sure that's an agency question as much as it is a law question, but I'm not sure. So I guess that's what I'll throw out there for now.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it's probably a two part question. One is, what sort of emergency are they hoping to capture in this case? Then And then we know that, that can lead to an answer of who has the authority to declare it and who would make that determination. So Okay. Do you have question, representative?

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Well, just have some concerns relative to things like FEMA reimbursements. This can be it's a tricky area. We want to make sure that we don't include opportunities for I don't know if this touches on us, but that's where my mind immediately goes.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. And I think one of the things to keep in mind is this is just the immediate temporary stabilization work to make sure that the situation doesn't deteriorate as I understand it, not the permanent repair work that would go into that. So that may and I'm not an expert on the FEMA process for transportation infrastructure, but that may put some meaningful brackets around it with respect to that. Again, I think hearing from Michelle or Jeremy Reed on this would probably make sense or someone else at the agency. We certainly want them to be

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: able to respond. I'm just curious that in what parameters really saying that. Anybody else? Alrighty.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So in the next section or subdivision subdivision 9, same changes. These are surety bonds, which are related to the payment of claims against the contractor. So claims from creditors for various things, also for professional services, etcetera. And so this is basically ensuring that those claims can be paid. This would also include the payment of taxes and the payment of unemployment insurance contributions to the Vermont Commissioner of Labor. The unemployment insurance contributions is my addition. The current law said contributions as formerly being the labor and employment lawyer here, the only contributions that are paid to the Department of Labor that I am aware of are unemployment insurance. So that is a clarification there, but I did wanna be clear that that was my change to their language. And then going on to page seven, it's the same substantive increase in the threshold to waive the surety bond requirement and the same permission to waive it during an emergency event.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'm sorry. Representative Burke, I'm Yeah. I'm just wondering

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: on page four. Is is material man did they mean that? Does that mean something? Oh,

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: page six, line four.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Line four.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Ah, that's a good question. That is some old language, existing language from the statute that may need to be updated to a modern term. I'm not

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Is material meant some kind of a legal term or because it's in materials.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Manics are material men's leading people on

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the property. So a material man is someone who supplies physical materials like lumber, concrete, fixtures. Don't know if there's a more modern term, but this may be the legal term we want to keep. I'll consult my Black's Law Dictionary to see if there's a more modern term. But in a lot of these cases, you use these antiquated words that have been with us for Nice

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: shade of antiquated words.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah. What if it was a woman?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's why a lot of these terms have updated. I'll check to see

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: if That one there's fell through the cracks?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is, you know, it's one of those things. I just scripted, yeah. I know. It wasn't captured when so much of this was updated about a decade ago. And there may not be a new gender neutral term for this. So we still have terms like airmen as well that appear in the statute and refer to generally to people who work on airplanes. All right, other questions?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So

[Candice White (Member)]: just looking at the requirements of vendors who are working for the AOT and that they pay taxes, pay unemployment insurance, They also paying you to the child care fund. Like, is that does that go through the Department of Labor?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Is that

[Candice White (Member)]: something that is required of employers?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: goes I'm trying to remember. Believe that goes through the Department of Taxes, but I'll have to double check. It's been a few years since I looked at that.

[Candice White (Member)]: I'm just wondering if that now falls in the list of payments that vendors should be making to the state along with unemployment and so forth.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Let's see if I can get a rundown of what the various payments are. I mean, there there are various other requirements that are already included. And when you contract with the state, there are standard terms and conditions that require you to pay things like workers' compensation, etcetera, as applicable. And we can I can certainly look at that? It may make sense to just reference some sort of neutral standard that won't need to be updated every time we update what contributions are due to the state.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Representative McCoy and then Representative Burke. So assuming the child care is child care tax, so doesn't the payment of taxes, both state and municipal, encompass any state tax?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Think that it may.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: I would hate to start listing everything and then have

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: to update it every year.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. That's why I think it may make sense to say, all state municipal taxes and any other contributions due to the state or something like that. But I'll look to see if

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: there's better language.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: One of the tricky things with this is there's what is due right now, and then ten years from now, state tax or other policy could change. And as I think we're seeing, this doesn't get updated very frequently. So it might be good to have a more neutral term.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: You wanna start with the brief draft?

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yes. It's my understanding that it's a payroll tax and it's split between the employee and employer. So it's like point four four for the employer, think, and point one one for the employee, but then some employers can opt to pay the full tax. It is I think it is, like, just put out it as payroll tax.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah. So

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But, yeah, I will confirm that. I'll also just take a look to see if we have something that breaks down other payments due from employers that would be you know? And whether it makes sense to list that out or to, you know, say, comply with all applicable state contracting requirements or something like that. Because the agency of administration keeps a standard contracting requirement that agencies have, which includes a long list of terms around which payments you are required to certify that you will make, etcetera. But this also may be something where some input from the agency could be helpful.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Just a correction. I said it was point four four and point one one. It's point three three for the employer, point one one for the employee, or point four four if the employer chooses to just pay the phone.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Alright. Other questions on that section? Okay. The next, this is new language. Sorry about that. My understanding is that this is language to ensure that we stay in compliance with the federal bridge inspection standards or the national bridge inspection standards. So first, it defines a bridge to mean a structure to which those standards apply pursuant to federal regulations. And then it provides that the agency will inspect bridges on state and town highways in accordance with the requirements of the federal standards for to maintain bridges. The agency would advise the municipality of its inspection findings and any noted deficiencies and then would also notify the municipality if the bridge requires posting or closure. So posting would be like a posted weight limit for the bridge, and closure is is self explanatory. And then this would also require the municipality to post or close the bridge as appropriate upon receiving that notification. And then if necessary to protect the public from an imminent hazard, this would also allow the agency to post or close the bridge for which a municipality has maintenance responsibility. The final piece here is that for any bridges where the municipality has the maintenance responsibility, all costs and expenses related to posting and closure is municipal is a municipal responsibility, including signage, barricades, etcetera. And then for agency maintained bridges, we essentially repeat the same provisions. So the agency would do the inspection and has sole responsibility and authority to determine whether it would be posted or closed, except that a municipality may close an agency maintained bridge during an emergency. So, for example, if you need to close a highway because of a major accent or something like that or conditions down the road.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Pouech, next question. Yeah.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Don't know. Representative McCoy. It's just different than what they do. I mean, the state has come to our town and said, we didn't pass an inspection because, I guess, too much pavement, too thick of pavement, so they had to go in the middle of town. It seems like, you know, as soon as we found out about it, the road crew was out there fixing it.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. My understanding is that this is not a change from existing federal bridge standards that we have to follow so much as codifying what the process is at the state level and where the authority and responsibility lies.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So this is probably what everybody's already doing?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's my understanding, that this has not changed at the federal level, but we are recording it to ensure that we're clear about responsibilities and authority with respect to this program in Vermont.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Thinking, know, by people to get the LCT just sort of say, yes, that's what we're doing. It's not something new. It

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: seems perfect.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Representative Pouech? So this is exactly what we're doing, in a town on bridge. This is exactly how we handled it. The state came in and said, you need to close the bridge. We had to put signs up to say the bridge is closed until it's repaired by the municipality. And then it was then open after the state came in and inspected again. They said, well, you can open it for one lane, eight ton limit. So those signs were purchased by the municipality and posted, we did all of that. My question here, so for me, this language is fine. So that's what has been happening, I'm assuming, in every municipality. But my question is, we post the bridge for eight ton limit, and 18 wheelers loaded with stuff are going over the bridge. Are they subject to a civil penalty of 1,000, not the town or the agency of transportation? The person actually not violating Post it?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is a separate provision in law that addresses violating ridge weight limits and size limits. So what does this mean? You have a

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: C what page am I at? A nine C enforcement. Page nine on page nine number C. This is correct. Enforcement and penalties in addition to any other penalties provided by a law person that violates a bridge posting.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, no, you're right.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Okay. You're right. So if I'm driving an 18 wheeler over it, and there happens to be a police officer there, taking it Right. They're subject to a penalty of 1,000.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Of up to 1,000. Of up to 1,000. Yes. In addition to the other penalties. You're you're right. I'm sorry. I I was misremembering how the penalty worked on this.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Just don't you? Yep. So Wouldn't there be a penalty somewhere in the wall already for this?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is yeah. There is an overweight penalty. Let me just It's not

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: a penalty for a restriction for filing a restriction.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know that there is. I can double check that, but I'm I'm not. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of one. I am familiar with the overweight penalty, but I'm going to make a note to just check to make sure there isn't Adding to your homework, I

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: guess, is what exists today. Well I guess what I'm hearing from the question is that right now if you violate a posting, they say the weight limit has been reduced because of the condition of the bridge, there may or may not be an actual penalty right now for doing that, only for actually going over the weight that would be interesting, certainly a

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: little bit to look at.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Well that's my point.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: What's the

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: harm in the 18 wheeler going on, like if they're not going to get penalized for a bridge that's posted eight times. I think it's one for an overweight permit. They didn't have that, to go over a road,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: but a

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: bridge is different.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah, that's what we're doing.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: It's posted eight tons for a reason, because of the structure of

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, so there Falling into the River.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I think you're fine for that.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. There is a penalty for violating a posting of a highway. So a section of highway that's posted for a travel restriction, there is a penalty in 19BSA1110. And then trying to remember which section has the bridge, overweight penalties. But

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We don't I say, yeah, we don't need to know right now, but we need to know. We will need to will need to have you you know, when you're back for other things, we'll make sure we know. We'll have to revisit that. And I'm pretty sure I can imagine we're going to hear more testimony on this. So this one's pretty straightforward in terms of knowing that we will want to hear more, not that it's straightforward.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I'll put together a quick list that I can share with you either just verbally or in writing of the penalties that we have for violating weight, height, width, and posting restrictions. Or restricted posting or bridge posting.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. Was there another hand up?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Alright.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So one other difference on the state agency maintained bridges is if the municipality becomes aware of deficiencies or structural conditions that could impact the agency's determination of whether to post or close it, they're supposed to promptly notify the agency. So it's just sort of the flip. They don't have inspection responsibility, but if they become aware of something, then they would promptly notify the agency so the agency could take action. And then agency is responsible for the costs on agency maintained bridges. And as representative McCoy mentioned, there is penalty of $1,000 for violating a posting or closure or up to $1,000. So section six here, the first changes on numbers eleven and twelve, these are technical changes. We're not actually changing the existing law. I've added in descriptions of what the violations refer to just for consistency with the rest of the section. Most of the section here lists out, say, a violation of subsection whatever relating to blank. And for whatever reason, these two subdivisions didn't do that. So I just added those references. The substantive change is number 13 down here, which would make it a traffic violation to violate the posting or closure of a bridge. Questions? And so this this ties back into the sections you just went to or were just at. So it's what we're doing here with the traffic violations is this allows for the basically, this lists out things that are prosecuted as a traffic violation in that section. And so this is it's really a cross reference that's necessary just to allow that enforcement to occur. It's entitled 23 in the chapter on traffic violations, which has a procedure for how we prosecute the violations as well as defining traffic violations and also allowing for the expungement of violation records in certain circumstances. So it's really, it's similar to the judicial bureau piece where we have the fines that the judicial bureau or the sections that the judicial bureau can assess fines for in title IV, I want to say.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Kathryn Thompson.

[Kathryn Thompson]: Just trying to understand that change. So that changes who can do the enforcement or how the fines are paid? And what is it being changed from? Could you

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So what we've done in the previous section is we've added a new violation for which there's a civil penalty. In subsection E of section five here, we've added this language allowing a civil penalty of up to a thousand dollars for violating a bridge posting or closure, or at least that's that's what's proposed. And so to go along with that, similar to other sections of titles nineteen and twenty three, where we have violations of various road closures and other things that are a traffic violation and subject to a penalty, We are adding this to the list of traffic violations just to be consistent with those.

[Kathryn Thompson]: Okay. And so previously, it wasn't

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Previously, there was no specific penalty for violating the bridge posting or closure.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I see.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so we've added that, and we're adding it to the list of traffic violations. It's kind of dotting your i's and crossing your t's.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Two things. One, I'm just sort of curious up above in 11, the smuggler's notch, I'm assuming it's the same thing.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, so that section of statute sets out a 1,000 penalty for operating a prohibited vehicle, which is a 40 foot or longer box truck or a trailer of 45 feet or longer in Smuggler's Notch past where the signs are, the chicanes now. And then it becomes a $2,000 penalty if you get stuck and they have to close the road to get you out. And then that penalty doubles. So $2,000 if you just violate it for a second or subsequent time within, I think it's three years, and then $4,000 if you get stuck a second or subsequent time within four years.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I'd just like to say I had Smogler's Notch on my bingo card for today, so that we talk about it today, and that's good. You, boys.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Did you earn anything from me? Yeah.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: We'll see you at the end. This

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: is for monetary gain?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: For tear. For having the rights.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: For representative White and then Keyser and then Lalley. You got a whole queue

[Candice White (Member)]: for So at traffic violations, so we're looking at use of a closed bridge or a signed bridge. Smugglers, going through smugglers not to be So this language is new. We didn't have language specific to Smugglers Notch in the past, but now this is one of the examples of a traffic violation. In addition to using a closed bridge or going on a railroad crossing?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. So there there are a variety of different traffic violations. So any provision of title 23 for which there's no imprisonment term and the penalty is no more than $1,000 is a traffic violation. Any violation that has a scheduled penalty under the judicial bureau law that's not more than $1,000 is a traffic violation. Violation of any municipal ordinance relating to the operation or use of motor vehicles, but not to parking of motor vehicles, transportation of hazardous materials violations, motor carrier safety standards violations, violations of trail use of certain state owned railroad corridors, or trespassing on railroad property are considered traffic violations.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: And those all have that thousand dollar fee?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. They they have different different those the only the ones where I mentioned the fee is there a penalty limit that makes it a traffic violation? So it's penalties under a thousand dollars or under for certain ones. And then there are these others that are added to it. And so this is just adding to the list of those traffic violations.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: Smuggler's Notch, what would be the ramifications if we increased it to $10,000

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that is a proposal that's in the miscellaneous motor vehicle bill. The penalty amount for smugglers notch does not affect whether it's a traffic violation or not. One of the things I'm looking at for the senate right now on that is whether we have an issue with the penalty being disproportionate to the violation itself and just making sure that we don't have any constitutional issues around the level of the penalty if you increased it to say 10,020 thousand dollars which is the proposal that the DMV has put in and which if it makes it through the Senate, you will see in a few months. Or perhaps if it doesn't, DMV will ask you to put it back in. There's probably more discussion around that too. My understanding is that since the chicanes have gone in place, we've only had an average of one violation a year. So it was a two total rather than the six or seven per year that we were having prior to that. So there's also this discussion about mitigation and other things that's been happening on the other side. There was a lot of emphasis downstairs from the DMV that this is not intended to be a revenue generator. That was

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: what it was. To offset some of the chicane, so they call it. Is that what it is?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, it's a chicane, yeah.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: I mean, all the effort that goes in to try to maintain that, it seems rather inexpensive buying for $2 or $3,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: whatever that is.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I think the and I I don't know the the details, but my understanding is that the recovery costs are quite substantial when you have a stockage. It shuts the road down. It makes what is a, you know, less than fifteen minute drive, an hour plus drive to get across there. It affects tourist traffic, etcetera. Plus it requires emergency response, specialized towing, and it can take quite some time to pull the truck out once it gets stuck.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Yeah. So we're

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: adding this to the list of traffic violations. Yes. Currently, what is it if it's not a traffic violation? Currently,

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: there isn't a penalty. The penalty is brand new language added in the So prior

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: we're stuck on the notch.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, no, no. Oh, no. I'm sorry. I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about the bridge posting. No. We are not we're not adding the smugglers notch to the traffic violations. All we're adding is an explanation of what that cross reference is to.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Okay. So currently, the the notch is already a traffic violation.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It is already a traffic violation.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: The new one is the bridge? Yep. It's now going to be a traffic violation.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. All I did in eleven and twelve so because there was an or in 11, I had to include those to strike the or and add it in a new place. Okay. What I did there is because there was no explanation for subsections what those cross references were to like there is in the rest of the section, I added the explanation so that someone who's reading this doesn't go, well, what in the world is 1,006 b b referring to? Now they know, like, oh, okay. This is taking a truck in the smuggler's notch.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Okay. And we're adding a violation for authorizing

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: For violating the bridge posting foreclosure.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Yeah, the railroad crossing violations.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, that's not a new one. That's just a new explanation.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Okay, so

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just new

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: currently, if somebody violates the weight limit on a bridge, can they be ticketed?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, so currently with the

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Okay, now it's a traffic violation. So What's it

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this is what I need to look into is what the restriction is. So I think currently we allow municipalities to post their bridges with respect to weight, height, and length. And you did that a couple of years ago. And then there is a municipal penalty that's applied for that. What I need to do is get a better sense of, are there any other pieces besides the road posting piece in 19 B S A 1110 that would apply to bridges that would also be penalties in this case.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Okay. So 13 is just with respect to municipal bridges or also state?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. This this is with respect to both state and municipal bridges that have been posted or closed.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Okay. So if they're posted and somebody goes over a state bridge, that they're over a minute.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. And this is a posting related to the national bridge inspection Correct.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: But currently, will they be ticketed if they go over a state bridge? Don't know if this is a word disqualifying, tauntifying what a violation is. Are we currently considering it a violation? We're just putting it in writing now?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Don't know. I'm saying, I

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: mean, people in the past have been ticketed

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: for going over a state bridge overweight. That's probably a better question for AOT.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I think I've gotten to the limit of what I know on this issue. We hung up on saying no. I'm gonna have to to hand that one off.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Okay. And can you tell me whether chicane is related to chicane or really?

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

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: One's the same. Does it come from the same word?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can get back to you on

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: that. It is Friday. Thanks. It's not critical.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Well, I do have a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, which will tell me if the root is the same. So I'll

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: It's from the French word.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There we go.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: And it's used in card games or at hand, with no trumps music, she pays the stage name of English DJ and producer Nicholas Rutland for Prince Hits Like Saltwater. This was an AI. Oh, I hate this. This was an AI. It must be other.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So section seven, public transit advisory council. These are some updates. Substantive but technical, if you'll bear with me. So the community of Vermont elders has dissolved. So the proposal here is to replace their membership on the Public Transit Advisory Council with a representative from AARP Vermont. Apparently, the taxi services have not had a representative on the council for quite some time. So the proposal is to repeal the language that says a representative of private bus operators and taxi services entirely and then swap the representative of intercity bus operators with a representative of Vermont private bus operators. And AOT can provide some more explanation for their reasoning behind this. But this is, it is a substantive change to the membership there, but my understanding is it's to deal with sort of the realities of the council membership there and to try to address where the statute isn't lining up with the folks they've been able to get to sit on the council. The last oh, I think we have two sections to go here, or this might be the last one here. This is to extend the sunset or delay the sunset on the repeal of the agency of transportation's public private partnership authority. This has been extended once already in 2023. So it was extended from 2023 to 2026, and the proposal is to extend it for another three years because my understanding is that there's potential for another public private partnership up on the Northern Border, which, again, the agency can provide more information on the opportunity there, but they need the authority to enter into a public private partnership. And they can speak more to what's been accomplished with this authority leading up to now and what they're looking to do with this authority in the next three years.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: It's a big accomplishment.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: This might be the first one.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding is the Exit 7 Maple Fields. The Maple Fields there. That was public private.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I know that's

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But, yeah, it's I don't know if there's other accomplishments under this, but that that's the one that jumps to mind for me. Oh, yep. We do have transportation board. One more section. So this is a clarification for appellate review of agency decisions and rulings regarding private and commercial access to state highway rights of way pursuant to section eleven eleven. These are the eleven eleven permits as they're known, which is anytime you have a driveway or other roadway that you're proposing to go onto a state highway, you need an eleven eleven permit. This would allow the applicant or permittee to appeal in writing and clarifying that it's the applicant or permittee who can appeal the decision and not someone besides those parties. And then the effective date is set for 07/01/2026. That's our default effective date. Depending on what you do with the bill, we may or may not need to update that. The only preview of potential coming attractions that I'm aware of that's not in the bill is that some of you may remember there was a last minute proposal last year for some language relating to believe it was the Public Service Board, which used to have some responsibility for things that are now potentially within the authority of the Transportation Board. That language has been reviewed by AOT, and it is being reviewed by the Transportation Board. It was proposed by the Public Service Board. And so that may be something that is proposed to be added depending on what the Transportation Board their feedback after that review. So there's several pages of that, which would might might almost double the bill. But they're supposed to be technical changes, but that's that's being discussed. Everybody need another cup of coffee? Not bad compared to last year.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So it's smaller than some.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, it's only draft one. That's true.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Sorry, questions at all? I guess I could or comments. We could open it up for a few minutes and maybe a piece. But the general plan at this point will be that next week we'll have the agency in to walk through the sections and answer any questions that why they asked, what they asked for, whatever it might be to the agency. And then we will look for testimony on anybody that's affected, potentially affected by any of the changes that they may want to come in. Here's a couple of sections we'll want to hear from. Either our PC, if you will, city of the towns or town highways on a couple of pieces. There might be some need to go by the judiciary since it involves fines or whatnot. So we usually have to start that conversation. And so next week we'll have the AOT side of the language and any chance for you to ask questions about that. We will also hear more budget presentations next week as we haven't made it through every department on the budget. Maintenance will be ending again next week, which is

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: a pretty

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: heavy dive with 100 plus million of transportation funds. There will also be presentation on salt, a couple of different pieces that are also part of that while earnings in. And I've got some bill introductions at the end of the week that are up on our wall that you'll be getting invitations from our committee assistant. So that's the plan for next week.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Hope you have a comment or a question, please. Yeah, so that sounds good. I mean, I think there's an omnibus transportation bill that I think is hitting the wall. It's not there yet. There may be a couple others that I guess as we get through this part of like, here's what the administration has suggested and you know, we go through that and that's typically where you might pull anything else into this bill.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: A reminder, get your bill approvals in for individual member bills or member bills today.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Long

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: form only. Short form is fine.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Not for resolutions.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not for short form, not for committee. But long form bills. We need those today, I believe. Let me just double check the house rules. But

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yes. That's right. I'm assuming that's what we if there was anything else, we were to

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: As we get past the budget and the language that exists, if you have something on the wall, I would suggest that you're interested in or that you've sponsored or whatever piece it may be,

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we would want

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: to start getting the agency's feedback before you even think about what criticism piece and testimony may or may not get considered here. That would be my suggestion there. I'm sorry.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: No, that's okay. Perfect.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Represent Burke, yeah.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I wanna just bring up another issue, and I don't know whether it's a direct program or not, but I've had a letter maybe some of you gave from our regional planning physician who's headed to hold other regional public commissions, talking about the impact of the delay, I guess, in releasing emergency management performance care. We had an emergency action case written this to the peers of government operations and maybe that's the part to you, but we decided to bring it up as something that could impact transportation infrastructure and emergency work. That's something I can talk to Michelle about.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: You did say emergency performance grants?

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Emergency, what is it called, emergency management performance grant funding.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. I'm not familiar with that.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: FEMA's delay, it's

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: a delay. Like FEMA?

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: FEMA's delay in releasing emergency management performance grants, and how that would impact their ability to do any kind of emergency planning, and sporting execution projects, and the state has a mitigation plan, a lot of different things. So I don't know whether it's touching something so well, but we can find out.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I hope that gets right.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Did you see where there are several billions released today, yesterday? To FEMA?

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: FEMA released several billions of dollars, and

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: we were included in the

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Oh, well maybe this is it. I don't know, this was written a couple days ago.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah, this was last night.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah, great.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, really.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Good news.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Anybody have any other questions related to the D Belt piece and schedule for next week? Damon, good to have you back in the committee again and thank And you very we are adjourned.