Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So I'm assuming we're somewhere else.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: We are

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: live. We're back in house transportation on what is this? Wednesday, 02/03/2026. And we always have a lot of blocks on the agenda for committee discussion. I let a little more committee discussion go on in that last section. I try not to and to direct the witness testimony, but now going back and forth across the table is okay. We can pick it up from there. As an overall process, we're going through the T Bill in terms of the language and the different sections. We've heard from Ledge Council walked us through. Now we're going to hear agency piece through the rest of the week. And then we're going to be adding in anybody that we think will be impacted by that T bill language. So that's that process. We still have a couple more budget presentations that are going to be back, and maintenance is going to be back. And there's a couple other pieces we haven't heard all of it. And then we can bring back and redo any parts we want from there. And then there are a couple of bills that we're going to dig further into. I think I heard a bunch of discussion about Representative Burke's bill related to the local ops tax on fuel, etcetera. We're still gonna dig into it no matter what we hear. I'd like to hear it. Think the public deserves to hear the option.

[Candice White (Member)]: It's a conversation starter.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Starter. And I'm very interested in hearing that starting conversation. But it's going to be open to So we have the T bill, we have the budget, we have a couple of other bills we're gonna dig into, and the schedule will go through there. I will also add that anybody that watches the Senate activity, they are heavy and deep into the miscellaneous motor vehicle bill and inspections and a few other projects, but they're certainly getting a wide range of work and input on inspection of the pieces. That by the time when we spend our time in March, we're gonna spend a significant time. Hopefully they'll have gone through some of the noise and figured out some of the pieces and it'll be a little smoother for us when that time comes or not. But there is discussion of a public hearing for state inspection feedback. And I have not seen the date yet, but there is a discussion about that. I had indicated we would be willing to participate as a committee. I guess I should have asked first, but I didn't. But I think we want to hear what anybody that would want to come in and share information from the public. So I did say that the committee would be willing to. The catch there is it is usually an evening event. So I don't think the date has been picked yet.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: There has been a set date, but it would be Wednesday night from six to 07:30.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Some coming Is Wednesday

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: it the Senate Transportation Committee?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Senate meeting hosting it, it would be labeled as a joint.

[Candice White (Member)]: Think it's a really good idea. Are so many opinions

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: on participate,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: but I can't make you be here. You know, that's that's your choice every day. But there's going to be a a public hearing on Vermont state vehicle inspection, and we will

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: as many members as can be there,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: we'll hear what the public has to say. It will be on Wednesday night. Yes.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: That's Farmers' Night. I don't know if that matters.

[Candice White (Member)]: It starts at 07:30, though. Farmers' night, this starts at four. So I'm

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: more aware of it than I?

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: What is it gonna be?

[Candice White (Member)]: So they're talking about six to 07:30.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: Six to 07:30.

[Candice White (Member)]: And it'll probably be in Room 11 or something.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Yeah, I have a lot of specific stuff, but I know that at least we're planning it for a Wednesday at six from six to 07:30.

[Candice White (Member)]: And they can probably also have a Zoom option and go to seven Yeah.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Those are pieces that I know are coming. If there's any other parts that we had, we have to get, we will be getting some testimony on the update on sort of the EV, ACCD, where the registration money goes and what progress have they made on the money we've given them. But I mean, in terms of the transportation registration for EVs goes to infrastructure, we had them in last year, and there was a way to label it, what level of progress had been made with that revenue. Well, now it's been another year, and we're certainly going to take testimony on what they've accomplished with that.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: And there's 800,000 in the budget to go toward that additionally from the registration fee, think, right?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I think maybe Mollie can help us or not. I'm a little bit on the spot. I'm not sure what exactly that number. We

[Molly (Legislative Counsel)]: talk about this in more detail.

[Candice White (Member)]: A

[Molly (Legislative Counsel)]: proposal last year it was a one time transfer that we were transferring the revenue raise to ACCD. It is now being proposed to sort of amending some statute to allow this money that is raised from the ED infrastructure fee to be appropriated to ACCD. It's $1,000,000 this year, but there is some language in the big bill that would essentially no longer make it a transfer from the agency to ACCD, but would allow an appropriation from the T SPOT directly to ACCD.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: So is it just a cleanup of the

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: It is a change

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: of how, it would be

[Molly (Legislative Counsel)]: a policy change, essentially how these funds get to ACCD, and again I can bring in the language and sort of like

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: talk about any of that. It was clear that the registration fee would be used for this program. This may be

[Molly (Legislative Counsel)]: It still will be under this language, it's just it's a little bit of a technical, but there is a policy change into how it is transferred technically.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So I

[Molly (Legislative Counsel)]: think when you see the language it'll make more sense, but it's a million dollars of the governor's proposed budget that will be going to ACCD.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: And that million dollars is the amount expected to be raised by the additional registration. If so I remember when that fee was added to electric vehicle registration, it was specifically to go to that. And until such time, I think until mileage based user fee comes aboard. So that's still happening this year. And they come in tomorrow, right? They are. They're

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: on the agenda. Yes,

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: correct.

[Candice White (Member)]: I just want to comment, that was the thing that most people were complaining about when I told them that it went to that proper. Which

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: is going away next year.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Think it stays until the mileage Well,

[Candice White (Member)]: we'll see. What

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: was

[Candice White (Member)]: the cost on average, a person who drove 70 miles a year, what did they pay in these tests? You mean the rate for mileage based? You know, in other words, is this amount the right, the correct amount of what we're paying for the registration? Is that what we would have spent?

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: No, no, it's lower now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Candice White (Member)]: So I think getting that with the mileage, should be happy. Well, I mean, let's go back

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: to At the the point, and I've said this before, last year and probably the year before, really where the rubber meets the road is when we come up with what is the rate for mileage based per mine.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We also have a testimony we took last year. The Agency of Ag is supposed to be coming up with how weights and measures portion of electric charging, that it matches electric charging and your inspections of electric chargers. Have equipment to test the level two, level three. There was some iffy and they were that's been put off too. We'll have to look for an update in that area as well. And meeting with the

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: On that same topic, have a couple of bills up there that addressing charging, electric charging, making sure the rate is posted, making sure cards and that the uptime is posted so people know whether they're online or not online. So that's up there too.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And that's an interesting question of jurisdiction, Whether that really is powered or not, just like what we're doing

[Candice White (Member)]: right It's a national company.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And under their PUC type work, sort of under that right to charge idea.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: That's a separate one, but yeah.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I've been asked if they were going to look at it. I'm not sure how that so maybe there's a conversation that needs to happen with the chairs of a couple of other committees to see whether or not, can we, are we, should we be in that arena or not and how far without some work with another committee? Maybe there's some joint work that needs to be done there. Certainly we're not going be experts on what goes on in that area of charging for it.

[Candice White (Member)]: With energy and technology.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'm wondering if we need some conversations and some

[Candice White (Member)]: help from another area. Wouldn't that be language that we would want to have as part of the vendor the choice of vendor going in to install these level twos and level threes? I mean, they've obviously been installing them. But so maybe to look back at what the initial charge was to say that you're a vendor that's awarded this money to put it in a level two or level three, that you are making sure you're following this criteria.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: You're thinking of the

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: NEVI. NEVI or the

[Candice White (Member)]: Well, NEVI or the ACCD.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: ACCD. They're actually publicated people.

[Candice White (Member)]: I guess I'd say, like any state. But there are other companies that

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: are just putting these in, right, that have no state, not to us. What what people are trying to say is, hey, if you have a public charger, then just like you have a gas pump for the public, you're to put the price on. The price has to be visible so people know how much they're paying. And then we're also saying, hey, and I think you're right, go to another committee, hey, and you can't force us to like capture your act and that's the only way to use it. If it's for public, you ought to be able to have reasonable payment method, which would include a general credit card.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: If private enterprise, unless you're under a contract to do certain things, and I don't know what the leverage is that you would produce a contract for such things, it's free enterprise, and they can say, I will only charge Teslas, for example. I

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: think this is also a commerce issue, commerce and economic development. We're jointly looking at this. They should be involved.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: Well,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: doesn't mean we can't start the conversations. No, Saying that I don't know that Certainly the last thing that I would like viewed in the building is that I'm outside of our I think Maybe particularly sensitive to if I do it.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: I think there is legislation that says you have to take

[Candice White (Member)]: cash

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: for certain businesses, isn't there? What you mean? That you have to accept

[Candice White (Member)]: cash. I think there's another solution. I've had a constituent asking about that. He wants to be able to pay a couple dollars for a cup of coffee, and there's certain places that only accept credit cards.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: I don't know if that's a

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: issue, legal tender, and they don't have to accept it in commerce.

[Candice White (Member)]: You Yeah, think, during May,

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: you do it on my terms. Pardon me.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Unless I want to smoke or I want to Stop making it When do you decide when it is your business and when it isn't? That's interesting. That's not for this committee to decide. We can't decide that. I'm just saying that it's only partially true, Chris. Some version of it. Specifically, as far as feedback, budget testimony or questions about the building of the budget or particular areas of the budget, or is there anything that is out money related to the T Bill that you want to hear more about? We do have maintenance coming back in. I'm not sure where we are on the full list of departments if we cover them all. Is there anything in the area? We obviously spent some difficult conversation this morning. We have a couple of others. Is there

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: any area that you want

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: to hear more about in terms of this money? The fidget? Yeah, so the 10,000,000 transfer, I mean we could say, oh, you know, yes, we like it, but it's obviously going to go through appropriations and maybe an education. So do we need to talk to them or coordinate with those committees? Like, if this happens, what are you gonna do?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I can say that some of those conversations are happening. Well, not with the education chair, but at this point, but with ways and means and appropriations. Those conversations are But we haven't taken any testimony on that, And I'm not sure where we vote or not. But we should at least have testimony on what the $10,000,000 does to other areas' money. So that would be start with Logan and ask him which direction we want to go on that. What's the impact on the other areas? Please, professor Zwick, I'm sorry.

[Candice White (Member)]: On that topic, have we heard from other people, appropriations, or any other committees about the use of that $10,000,000?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Not in any official capacity. They're aware of the presentation from the budget. As far as appropriations goes There was

[Candice White (Member)]: pushback about it.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: What I would say is what I know so far is that the head of appropriations said, let me get through the Budget Adjustment Act, and then we'll start on the budget, and we'll have our initial presentations from the largest pieces. I'm aware what she she's aware of the budget, but they're just starting Okay. And then transportation will go into, the agency will go into the folks and start discussing it. But beyond her awareness and knowing it's on the plate, those are the things that I'm But aware of so I don't have more than that. Unless you were gonna go, go ahead.

[Candice White (Member)]: Well, just a follow-up on that point. I think it

[Unidentified Member]: would be really helpful to understand better what the implications are of pulling that 10,000,000 out. We're talking about it in a silo related to transportation, but I guess what I've heard folks, the conjecture is that it would have an impact on property taxes given our obligation to school budgets. So it would be helpful to have a sense of what that looks like if we're pulling that funding.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: I think it's got less than a penny, I think, for every $15,000,000

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: that's a

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: paid. Yeah, I'm probably good to hear. I

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: have made a note, I'm looking over your shoulder, and I've got the thumbs up confirmation that that is now in progress.

[Unidentified Member]: Thanks.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Perfect. See how quickly you can make the difference? Representative White?

[Candice White (Member)]: Two things. First of all, when I look at the overall budget, Some areas I'm really like caving. I have a good idea of what that is. I think we understand the cost there. But when I look at bike and pedestrian facilities, transportation alternatives, environmental policy and sustainability, I I would love to see what programs are listed underneath those different categories. Because we've had some testimony about a number of different programs that may fall under one of those. But I guess I'm just not as clear about what specific programs fall under those categories so we can see the bike and pedestrian facilities has a 12% increase. Transportation alternatives has a 30% decrease. But which programs are in there?

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: You can speak to the translocation alternatives. They have a set amount every year that they award, so that's constant. But why it fluctuates is the receipts that they anticipate that have come in for those awards that were given out in the prior years. So those numbers are always gonna change. That's just what's anticipated. Don't mean that the awards are the same. It's just what's coming in first, the number of bills. Is

[Unidentified Member]: that a grant program?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah, it's a grant.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: It's full of federal aid. 80.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: You want to add to that, or it's another subject. I wasn't sure that she was done yet. I'm saying that I was going to comment on what you said. But if it's staying in the same subject, I'm happy to have her join in. I'm not trying to you had said there was more than one thing. When you mentioned the particular ones, we did have Andrea write in on environmental policy and sustainability. We have had but it may not be hitting the mark, I guess. It might be another way to dig into

[Candice White (Member)]: I kind of want to

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: have a

[Candice White (Member)]: subcategory, like bike and pedestrian facilities. Is that the MileageSmart, the Save For Us to Schools, where do those fall underneath these? I guess I would just love a chart that

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: In effect, a subsection of Yeah. Each Well, a little parentheses in a list and a contact name next to each one. Without changing the one on the transformation page, we're talking about helping we had made this I do recall that suggestion of having the 5A, 5B, five, six, the different sections in the white book under in the piece. But we don't want to make the page too big. But putting each section from the light book into the piece. But we may want to have something that also has the head of each one and perhaps another breakdown list underneath each one. That's what I'm hearing you're saying. Yes. Yeah. You want to add to that?

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: I just think in this Sorry.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I think you were first. If you were changing subjects, I want to hold that note. If we're on this subject, I want you to join. I wanted

[Candice White (Member)]: to say that we had talked about this yesterday. Transportation alternatives, we were talking about how the 80% went to percent to the clean water and 50 for there was a list of eligible things that you can do with that one from federal. And that was what the discussion was about, and it said we had a bill that just came out yesterday, was to do 80% of everything else instead of 20% to the water. Yes. And excluding more money for the well, was my of my things that I'd like to see more money for the social distancing schools. So remember that we had that discussion here So you can look on the online, there's a whole list of all the eligible, like look at transportation alternatives, there's some chance it was, but it was a lot of other things. Yeah,

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: good amount of the TPI money is towards options. I mean, there's always that, it takes up a big chunk. And I think the testimony we had yesterday was those funds, those federal funds, get home. They can't. Here are all the things that they can be used for, including cell chains, but they don't have to be. They've mentioned some states, 100% of it goes through head and fight sort of projects. And I think what's on the bill now is consider changing from fifty-fifty to eighty-twenty. So more goes toward the transportation, less goes toward the water quality projects. And I think the argument was water quality projects get funding from a number of cities. This isn't the only one.

[Candice White (Member)]: Do we need an actual bill to change the split, or was that just kind of like a decision

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: No, that was that's statute. We have to change that. And which we have, I've lobbied for that. It's able to, with the prior experience support, that we changed that spirit.

[Candice White (Member)]: To do eightytwenty?

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: No, to get away from the eightytwenty. Changed it to because I despise.

[Candice White (Member)]: We changed it because

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: I agree with we're doing.

[Candice White (Member)]: It was in a time when the Clean Water Act was going into effect, and you needed money, and everybody was talking about clean water. But now I think it could change that. I

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: forget the breakdown, but

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: we did change that. And we would then use language in the form of a bill that we would then potentially, not that

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: we're doing that, potentially then roll it into the T Bills?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yes, we're still not going to pass a, everything we're gonna do would have to be a roll with some sort of an addition or whatnot. So yes, that's just as far as process goes. The idea is noted as far as doing so we can get a

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: little more digging into that. Do we ever eliminate debt programs? Do they just continue on? I mean, we heard one yesterday. Amen. Well,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: we're never gonna spend money only

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: to give away, to be effective on what, three?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: That was ridiculous. That whole program should be fictionated by

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: But the other additional thing is they provide waivers. So there isn't any reason why they couldn't use that same system to provide waivers for no money.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Right?

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Sorry, Jeff.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: It's a one year waiver, you need to get one bite at the apple. But the argument was they were doing a waiver. The reason why we came up with this, wasn't on board with it, but the past is that we're doing away with these waivers, We need to backfill it with this program. Okay. So then that reassured it. Because that was my point. If you add 500,

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: put the $20,000

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: to It's add these

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: very expensive to buy a new car.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: The other thing.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: We're gonna

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: take $10,000 and buy them a new car that passes admissions.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I haven't been on the committee a long time, but I would say that if project has ended, it's generally related around the funding. The funding didn't come any more from the feds, and so we pulled back our e fund piece if there was one, and that's how a program generally gets ended. As far as the one from yesterday, that's on the agenda again at 01:15 this afternoon, I think it is, something like that, some follow-up, and there's some work being done to figure out where that money whose money is that? Whose program is that? And know, that's only part it's supposed be part of a drive by, but, obviously, we went we'll flip into it.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: You know, federal money is ours

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: too. Yeah. But I mean as we think of too. I mean, whether it's

[Candice White (Member)]: Yeah.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: T fund money or it came from a general fund money or who and whose and whose budget is it. We're gonna hear about it at 01:00.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: I'm sure somehow there's a a string attached to everybody's wallet somewhere along the

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: line. I couldn't argue that.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: That was that was the craziest thing I've I've heard here so far. That was the craziest thing.

[Candice White (Member)]: One sec, I just had a second part of that question, which was that, will we have an opportunity to share the bill that some of us put together for the committee? Friday.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well, there's a bill introduction on Friday, but if you're asking about it, you'll have to ask if you want it to be presented and then suggest witnesses that you'll want to have. If you wanna see a bill that's on the wall, act at a banque beyond the introduction, I guess start with asking and suggesting who you'd want to have present. But I guess to be very clear, I don't have any on there that I intend to do anything about until somebody asks me to. If that makes sense. Well, that's not true. Actually, already committed, we're going to do testimony on Representative Burke's bill on local options tax potential for I've committed that we're doing that, and we're working on it. I've asked about what witnesses that we're going to do. And I am going to bring Representative Mollie's bill on covered bridges with some background testimony that I don't suspect that the bill won't go anywhere this year, but they're both conversation starters that I'm interested in. So those I am putting on. And I guess I'm saying, should I be asked to dig into that other bill, I suspect we'll have some time to dig into that bill, but you're gonna have to drive that. I'm not running private

[Candice White (Member)]: for Maybe

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: it hasn't been. Does that make sense?

[Candice White (Member)]: It just got introduced. Did it get introduced on the floor? The light assigned? You're out. Is it here already?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'm not sure if that answered your question or not, but you're gonna have to Ryan, you're gonna have to witnesses who won't discuss how much time, if that's what you're asking for, but I'm not doing that. I

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: am personally interested in learning on a more granular level what of our environmental investments, the range of environmental investments that we have been investing in for past number of years are delivering the most bang for their buck. And I think perhaps we might have some of the data at this point to start to see patterns. So I guess I'm wondering if it's possible to almost kind of do a sort of audit of all the things that we've been investing in to learn how it's doing so that given our very limited resources, we can be as strategic and effective as possible. So I would be interested in learning what has just been hitting it out of park for us. And then what seems like it's very promising, but maybe needs some tweaking, like we learned from when we had to talk about public transit, that we struggled particularly in the winter with buses, EV buses in the state. And that's due to our climate and our topography. We've also heard in other instances, maybe not this year, but last year, I think, that the car share has been very helpful. I just would like us to know how we're doing now that we've been at this for a few years and just to have more of a sense of what things are rising to the top in terms of really cost effective investments.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: My general reaction to that one, at least that part of the environmental piece, is the timing of certain guests' arrival that are in the background and others that are

[Unidentified Member]: It's giving me shares. Listening,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I would ask them to sort of take that in and think about what that might look like. I don't know what it looks like. I don't

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: know what kind of work to entail.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I don't have an answer to that. The people that I will ask

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: are hearing it. Yeah, think we would

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: need to make a list of which programs, they can Absolutely, see what yeah.

[Candice White (Member)]: Which ones

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: would need?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I don't know, we don't have to comment on or not if you wanted to comment on that at all.

[Michele Boomhower (Agency of Transportation)]: I may, Chair Walker, Michelle Blue Power, Agency of Transportation. I think the level of specificity that you could provide relative to the information you're looking for A benefit could mean, you know, was there a chloride reduction? Was there a Th2 reduction? Was there whatever? So I think we can, if you can be as specific as possible, an environmental benefit could mean six or 25 things. That would be my only feedback to folks that are putting this list together, things you'd like to hear about.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Are you looking to add to that at all? I'm sorry.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: I mean, that's the first thing I came to mind, too. Ingrid Wright, the workers' environmental policy manager for the agency. And yeah, that was my thought to narrow it down to what, when you say environmental benefit,

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: what do you mean? Are you talking about GHG

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: reductions or talking about equity? Are you talking about resilience? We have a lot of different programs. Then I guess the only other request in that would be that we have some time to put that together because it's a big task. And you're like, yes, we want it all. So either me or Fiona certainly give us some time to figure out where.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Mr. Chair, I would suggest that the climate action plan could provide some of the metrics. It's really just asking how effective we have been in this sector with our goals, what's working, what is maybe not working so well, and what are things that might be promising if we were able to invest more money in them. Just, you know, we have limited amount of money to use.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Burke has asked for some testimony on the climate action plan, I believe, right?

[Candice White (Member)]: The particular individual that we're I working think it would be Jane was her chair.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: They're the list of requesting and being worked on

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: and

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: testimony. So it sounds like we need a bigger conversation, but that's part of the direction that you're talking about. I haven't had further notes. I'm not sure which one of you guys is next, but

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: it's pretty similar. So there are a couple bills up there that I assume we're gonna hold off till we get the DMV bill. There's a noise bill up there that passed from the Senate last year that I'm hoping to take a look at, but I'm assuming it'll be after the T bill gets through.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Anything related to vehicles would be

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: in the second half of the month. So we won't bother now, but we'll get to it. I

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: think you were asking other presentations, I would like to revisit the Vermont Intermodal Roadway Guidance. Roadway guidance. Roadway That's the design specs for roads that we had in here last week. I had some questions.

[Candice White (Member)]: I'm

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: sorry, I didn't know I got upset. I didn't display my upsetness.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I didn't know you were upset. Just said it was different. You didn't know where we're at?

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: I wasn't upset. So the point is, I do have three questions in total, and I don't know if we've heard back, but so I'm not pressing, is my point.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Those are the design standards.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Yes, the design standards. They had

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: to come up with a new term, so everybody had

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: to They got involved, Paul.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That's all. Budget. Anybody else that you wanna hear from? Any particular other pieces on the budget that you wanna hear about?

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: The LCT on support for highway, maybe we can get an idea of a controversial statement. I guess just how are our town highways doing and how are they faring, I guess. And is there a particular ask through VLCT on highway town, municipal funding needs or holds or changes to policies that they're recommending.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Maybe, you know,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: a little bit of

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: a apologize for the past, but I

[Candice White (Member)]: think there is a little

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: bit of money to be given. But, you know, typically at Burlington Airport, I would come in, give testimony.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: If you're looking for blogs to fill, they're easier to present. Not a must, but if you're looking to work on a schedule. Mean, there is money that we do give them, I forget what it is for these date numbers.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: The last part I guess I would add out is the speaker had mentioned in a couple of different things that have been discussed with some not necessarily other budget impact. The review of some of the sales tax items versus purchase use tax items, e bikes and bicycles and auto repair parts and trailers and things of that nature that are sales tax that perhaps may or may not be should be considered potentially purchase and use items. So we're gonna look at taking some testimony on that. And there might be some testimony on, we have classes of registration and now we have this, what's it, the conventional hybrid that's driving mileage plays up pretty substantially. And when they're starting getting into the 40s and 50s and 60 miles per gallon, maybe there's a registration fee to capture that lack of gas for the use of the road that might not be a mileage based user fee, but it might be a class of registration on vehicles of a certain efficiency because they're not paying, they're not helping support the road at that point. So I don't know what the flexibility is in multiple levels of vehicle registration, but I think it's something we're going to find out about. The speaker had mentioned that we should have detention explore some other options in relationship to vehicles that are perhaps if the gas tax revenue continues to go down, why is it going down? We know that, but one of those is high efficiency vehicles and the technology is driving that even higher. I believe we received testimony earlier that one of these new conventional or this one of these new hybrid models, one of the biggest sellers in the lab, we're getting an estimated highway of 50 plus.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: I'll say know I'm looking at you,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: you seem to know a lot

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: about My average has got almost 140,000 on it, and I've averaged for the entire time 51 miles to the gallon. Absolutely.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Guess that's the translation of what I said isn't it?

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Say tax break

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: for people who drive VAs. Hit the ones that are advisors.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's 11:00. And thank you very much. I'll try to see what I can do to add those to the And agenda for those of you who said they had other things that they're of interest, you can keep coming at me outside committee. Now, I put all that away, Andrea Wright is back to join us again, return presenter.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: I'm just being sarcastic.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Brad? We've got Brad here too. Two returning.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: Hey, Brad. I got a sea turret out here.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's like weekly talk shows and returning guests. And welcome back. You need a minute there. That's cool.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: So you're there. Okay. That's what

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I do usually. Kinda back and tired of taking, but I we have a few weeks behind or days behind. Come up with recommendations and what additional work you want. It's interesting that you're not the only one that shows significant interest in the other if you don't adopt it. So we've been the primary driver on this committee the last couple of years. Apparently there's someone else with a significant interest.

[Candice White (Member)]: Exactly. Yeah. So

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: It was good. Which is probably good. Yeah.

[Candice White (Member)]: It's happy to. It's a little bit.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Oh, we're getting closer. I recognize something. It's coming, I think. There's no worries. I should have had you come up to the chair earlier.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: I think we're all set. Excellent.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Everybody's always got more to check and things to read and text to answer.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: So a

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: little extra time built into the budget is just fine.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: Are you taking this off?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We are live. We never went off. All that work was out there for the public consumption. But now we're at the 11:00 reporting and updates, welcome back.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: Thanks. For the record, my name is Andrea Wright. I'm the environmental policy manager. Brad McEvoy, the service manager. And we're here to give an overview. I'm going to give a brief on the biannual energy reporting pursuant to 19 BSA, Section 45, Heating Systems. And that was incorporated into statute through Act 148 of 2024.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And I'd like to add for just a second that there was some media coverage recently on the auditor's report about what transportation is or is not doing in relation to that report. And unless you'd like to make a comment to that, I think that the suggestion that I received, the feedback I received is there's a lot more going on in the transportation world of how they manage their energy consumption than what that auditor's report may or may not have portrayed. And this helps speak to that if that's

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: It is. That's great. Representative? The statute that this biannual, every other year, report, Is it just for transportation across the board on all?

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: This and 19 VSA is for transportation only. There is other statute that talks about the state agency energy plan and the agency implementation plans around that, but this is just for transportation. Brought up by Senator Perchlich, I believe, in 2000.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: I don't know got that. Representative Burke?

[Candice White (Member)]: Yeah. So on that topic, so I'm assuming this is maybe, might be, or not part of the recommendation of the Climate Action Plan for

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: There's no specific requirement or recommendation in the Climate Action Plan for state agency buildings. There's thermal recommendations, Okay, I wasn't sure what I mean, there was a priority recommendation. Yeah, this was brought up, was to address the comprehensive energy plan. Yeah, okay.

[Candice White (Member)]: The requirements set forth in that. Thank you.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Representative Pouech, just one last question. In the state auditor's audit and report, is this specific in there or not?

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: I don't think so. I don't recall seeing that. Was really, that it really is about BGS. All of the statutes related to that are about BGS, and there's certain entities in state government that have to report, that own buildings, that have to report to BGS. We report annually, and then they report, I think it's biannually, but they do also provide annual updates in the comprehensive energy plan. Chapter nine is the state agency energy plan. So when PSD does their annual reporting, they include that in

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: there. Thank you.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: So just getting back on the topic of being grounded, In accordance with the renewable energy goals for the Comprehensive Energy Plan, as I mentioned, the agency needs to strive to meet at least 35% of its thermal energy needs from non fossil fuels by 2035 and then 45% by 2035. That is what is in the comprehensive energy plan and where our targets are. It speaks to the need for the agency to use more renewable fuels. They won't see more use of wood in this language to heat our buildings and also increase the use of electricity that's generated from renewable sources. It also states that when we're building new facilities or replacing heating systems in existing facilities, that we will prioritize switching to high efficiency and advanced heating systems. And then it has a requirement for that biannual reporting. We are required to report just to BGS. It's not a report to the legislature. And we have to do that by October 1 of every other year. It was put into place in 2024. Our first reporting year was this past October 2025.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Any new buildings? Are they going to be uprooted them to when you can?

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: So the new Swan Garage was completed last year as their primary heat source is wood pellets. And then

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: about regular firewood, we always catch up firewood or wooden side roads, right?

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: We do And the garages? The smaller garages. That garage is too big to be able to do out roller boilers, but we do have, I'll speak to it later, but I think we have 24 garages now that have outdoor rollers. We're just completing one now in North Montpelier, that's replacing an overall system. That's wooden duff

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: would go. Corcoran wood,

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: yep. We're coming out of way for free. So

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: we'll go through the buildings this week.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We got lots of questions.

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

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: We went, was it last year when you went to clean up in the garage?

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Swan. Swan. Swan.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: It's

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: located in the Swan?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's in It's in Swan.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Boundaries matter.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That section that you saw where that new garage is what they call the development zone, the tractor supply is in the swan there.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: So we'll start just with an overview of our AOT facilities space. The facilities program that Brad manages provides services to the entire agency. So helping make repairs, renovations, the new builds that we have, They manage all of that. The program also assists our aviation group, our rail, and the Department of Motor Vehicles with the management of their facilities. So all total, that means that AOT is managing four thirty buildings, totaling more than 1,400,000 square feet of space. So we operate most of those. We do have some of those facilities that we lease out, especially for airport and rail facilities. So those facilities are included in this square footage. We also have some facilities that we are leasing, and that is not included in the square footage of these buildings. And that's just because they have different billing, lease structures, requirements, different things in there. So that's not included in this square footage. It

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: shows welcome centers. I thought BGS was in charge of that, and we just pay them. So AOT owns them, BGS operates them. They do a lot

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: of the maintenance, whether they're a maintenance program. We do occasionally go in and help on some projects, sidewalk projects, other things. What AOT does do the plowing, a little bit of maintenance, but BGS typically operates and maintains.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: But if the heating system crapped out and you had to replace it, that would go to AOT then? That would go to BGS. BGS. Okay. So then this list has AOT and BGS responsibilities.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: Only for the welcome centers. That's serious.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Okay. BGS is a lot more

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: than the Brooklyn side, especially with

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: the Happiness. Besides those? Yes. Okay. I'm just trying to Yep.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: And then that equates to about 900,000 square feet of owned space that we heat.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: Present what? Andrea, can you just explain that I'm looking at, we've got 1,400,000 square feet of total space, 900,000 is owned. Looks like 130,000 is rented.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: 100,000 square feet of that space is heated. That should be humid. Okay. That owned maybe three lot in there.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: Owned and heated. Okay. So there's a couple 100,000 square feet of building space that's not heated, we don't need to worry about that. Salt sheds, storage sheds. Gotcha.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: We definitely go on a footprint and not a volume, but certainly heat would equate, like the need for heat.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Okay, so shouldn't it say 900,000 cubic feet? It would be

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: a lot more cubic feet than 900,000. That's a square feet.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: So we've got this 27 or something. Okay. Got it.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: Yeah, I mean some buildings have nine foot ceilings, some buildings have 20 foot ceilings. Okay, so just getting into sort of the process that we use and some of the challenges that are associated definitely have some similarities to what was presented in the auditor's report that BGS deals with. We have a process where we have 40 plus bill payers that are entering this information into systems, for billing, so that we are paying our bills. And that is we have a collection of a very large system, four thirty facilities, by many different people with a lot of different billing structures. Some of those are in complexes. We get one bill for propane. Get another Some of them are metered differently for electricity. So there's a lot of different kind of constructs that we're working under, That certainly does introduce the opportunity for some level of inaccuracy or inconsistencies, and then just human error as we are manually typing in a lot of this information. So there's definitely some challenges. We have different reporting systems for different consumption or sources of consumption. We have an internal system that we're tracking for paying our bills, that has electricity and, well, maybe it has everything. And then in addition to that, we were also, in conjunction with BGS and their reporting systems, trying to use energy it's called Energy Star for Portfolio our facilities. So different systems there. We did run into challenges at one point. I can't remember the year, maybe 2018, Yeah. I That we started having some difficulties with entering data into that system. So we've been working with BGS. They have been working on trying to get a system where all of state government can kind of do this consistently. So that's definitely a challenge. It's difficult to separate out fuel usage for our thermal uses versus our vehicles. Same thing with electricity. It's hard to say if we're using electricity for baseboard or heat pumps or lighting or charging infrastructure. So those are all separately metered. Again, the way that we pay them, those meters could be all lumped together. Separate facilities could be lumped into one bill, depending on who we're going with for a provider.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: There are all kinds of questions. Representative Harvey and Representative Casey.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: What's an Energy Star manager? Is that an actual person or is that

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: a It's basically a database repository where it's got all the facilities in there, BGS buildings and DOT buildings that were supposed to fully pull everything into kind of one central location. But we ran into those problems when we build a new building, we'd have to get in touch with BGS. Try to keep that updated with square footage of buildings we're have demo to replace and it's just the system wasn't very user friendly. No, from BGS, Brian Souech was going through some issues trying to get that system updated as well.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: It's not an actual person or data, it's just a system.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: It's a database management system. So

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: is there a reason we should be separating out our electricity usage? Do we need to do that in order to reach the 35% by or is it just because we want enough? Well, this report asks us specifically, or the section 45 asks us specifically for the thermal energy usage, and we can get into a little more specifics of what they're actually asking for in that language. So depending on what we're being asked to provide and track, yeah, there's different needs to work it out. Overall, the energy consumption, not so much. Correct.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Yeah, I could see it be a challenge. That's where you have a facility that has electric heat pumps really, whatever, they're using electricity and all of a sudden we put in a couple of chargers in there. Now it looks like their electricity consumption has gone up, but buying fuel has maybe gone down. And yeah, sounds like a real challenge to keep track of

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: 100 and something buildings. He pumps actually don't really draw that much juice actually. Use a bigger breaker, but they downsize the size of the breaker that.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: They're quite a

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: few of them. Like them. Were good. They're not good. They're and super cold. Well, you get down below thirteen fourteen below now your efficiency

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: is getting whacked and your electric bills going up. Just for reference on the electric electricity we did recently put in within the last couple of years, a level two chargers at all of our district offices. So nine locations around the state, they're not on separate meters. So, as we're using those charging or people coming in for meetings, obviously, those costs and look at those for up. Don't really have a way to separate and track those currently. Thank you. Remember? It's just a side question, are those apartments open as public? They're not. A lot of them are blind, Yeah, sure. Side Paying for the electricity.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: So challenges always present opportunities. There's definitely some work going on in our agency to track our own processes and really do sort of a continuous improvement, how we could get things more consistent. So we're working on that internally. Like I mentioned, we're working with BGS on what system that they might develop or purchase or whatever that might be. So all kind of working towards that. I think the auditor's report might speed that up a little bit. And it sounded like Commissioner Mollie had a response to that and has sort of a roadmap on how to address the findings in that report. So we certainly will be working with BGS on that as well.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: So, Jason, I just want to comment. With all the things that you're doing, you're supposed to be doing a pretty good job on fuel oil. The things you're doing, I like

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the idea of burning wood. I mean,

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: you're handling it anyways here and there. So I think it's a good idea. I think you guys are interested to know how much you would have spent if you didn't do some of these things. Sure it's big savings and just let you know I appreciate that.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: Yeah, no, we're definitely trying to convert where it can where it makes sense. As systems are aging out, we're starting to fail if we have the opportunity. And we'll show some examples later to try to be more efficient and get away from fossil fuels. That's the direction that we're going.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: So this is a summary of our annual thermal energy usage. As is required in Section 45, we have to report for the last two state fiscal years. So this table really is just giving you a sense for the different types of fuels that we're using and how much of each is consumed, and then it correlates that consumption into metric So let's see here. We are asked to provide those bullets there, the percentage of thermal energy used during each of the previous two fiscal years, as I mentioned, fossil fuels versus non fossil fuels, the non fossil fuel percentage by fuel source, and then each type and amount of wood fuel used. So this language really is focusing on trying to get our heating systems to a renewable source. We have a little bit of a challenge in some of those, meeting those. The non fossil fuel percentage by fuel source, We report that here in the percent BTUs from wood, and right now that speaks to the challenge of separating out the electricity. So that's really the only thing that we can report on right now. For non fossil fuels, we can't speak to what we're doing for electricity. And then each type and amount of wood fuel used, you can see there in the chart, there's sort of a blank line for purchase because we are using the wood fuel that we're using is the cork wood from our projects. So there's no cost there. We are also using pellets, as Brad mentioned, in some of our newer facilities. That's not captured here yet, I believe just because it's so new. Two, two years would be able to provide that breakout between wood, core wood, and pellets or other sources of wood heat. Possibly the thermal consumption from energy electricity, but I'm not sure that we'll be able to meet that challenge anytime soon. So overall, we've held steady over the last two years, state fiscal year 'twenty four and 'twenty five, with a slight decrease from 'twenty three. And really, it's a pretty minor decrease there, but there's a lot of factors that go into that, heating degree days, the different space. So that's and then the shortfall falls of our energy, our data collection.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: So this doesn't take into account degree days, heating degree days. No. Yeah. So that is fluctuate.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: I guess you can't compare unless you do.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: Remember? I'm just trying to figure out how this translates into 75%. Is it possible, or is it just too complicated to

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: is just our thermal. That is our overall consumption of energy. So, that's only one piece of the pie. I don't think that we've calculated our overall, certainly not for this report. We probably could, and maybe Ari did do that. I can check to see if we have that at the ready. You provided it if we do.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: Well, I was just questioning because that was in the statute, that you were trying to meet a certain goal. And I just wondered, of these numbers, what was I'm not sure what

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: it mean, the way the language is written in statute is really sort of providing that overall bigger goal, but then it speaks to more of the thermal sheet of that, and not the whole thing. So I don't have that right now.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: Fine. I just wanted to expand that, just the chart.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: And then I think we just have a couple of slides for Brad to go through to give you a sense of what we're doing at existing facilities, some of the upgrades that we're making, and then our new builds as well.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: So this kind of shows you some recent projects we've been doing and kind of a total overall of what we're doing as far as energy goes with our EV stations, outdoor boilers. You can see on the top left photo there, that's a Burton garage. The photo below is our LED lighting. I think we've done about 90% of all the maintenance garages have been converted to high beta LEDs. We have a few left to go. We try to do at least a couple of years to try to get those all completed. Cancel arrays at our garages that we own that power those directly to us. We do have four sites that are leased out. Basically we have a lease where the owner of the solar has their raise, we get some benefit back to us through the grid. Those have been in place for about ten years now. The other photo there is a Tomlinson garage, that was an oil heat in that building, we converted that all with heat pumps. Even with the cold we've had, we had many complaints this year, which is good, surprising, but in a good way.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: So you sold heat in that, is that what you're just relying on just the heat pumps in that?

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: Just the heat pumps there, we had solar and heat pumps on that site.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Okay, Guys use the air conditioning during the summer?

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: They don't typically air in the garage during the summer to be able to use it? Yes, they can cool

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: the space.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: They're excellent air conditioning. They can cool the space. Air conditioning.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: We actually just ran into a problem yesterday at Scotney the garage we've had a problem with that oil fired boiler for a while, been making repairs. We're getting an estimate now to convert that building to heat pump as well. Just smaller to big garage, a scenario like that would work fine for a heat pump size. We're completing now North Lawn Player Garage that was a propane system that's being converted to outdoor boiler that should be online for the next heating system. We're already starting to put up wood so I think we'll have close to half of our hybrid maintenance rooms are now burning cold wood. Does

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: that picture there in the bottom with the double stack compressors there, they used, would that work at all down about? No. The sole? The

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: They have a backup generator, power happens to go down, they can still generate. The reserve. Are you seeing savings from these? Probably over time, it's a bit of cost of installing them. And that's one of the things that the chart is trying to track. We're not necessarily going in and engineering every time we change out like this was the high pressure sodium picture we had before. Now we're going LED. What was that kind of buyback breakeven time? That's something we're not currently doing much of quickly, rapidly. Any of our new designs, let me go to the next slide, are all meeting the latest energy codes. Typically we're surpassing those codes. The Swanton project that you most of you visited last year, wood pellet boilers, heat pumps, plenty of EV solar, EV infrastructure, two different solar arrays. That's gonna be gonna be the new standard for any large garages. The new center garage project will be also wood pellet and heat pump for the office area. The only fossil fuel will be our backup generator, which we kinda have to do if we have a long outage to be able to maintain. That is kinda the new structure going forward. The challenge you've been representing years ago. That's great.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Because currently, the current site was now shuttered at this point was oil and the new site will be with color. Yeah. And so I heard you say, you know, hey, sometimes there's a project like, let's just change the lights out. Nobody sits down and figures out the cost paid down, which makes total sense. Do you with BGS when a project comes up maybe not so much a new building because you have an architect who helps sort of put that. But if you got a, you know, in the old oil burner and you're like, okay, we're gonna change it. Is it all within house of somebody looking at it and calculating the size of, you know, whatever heat pumps you might need and going through that or do you utilize like efficiency Vermont? Do they provide services to and how is the decision process done?

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: So we typically would look at a system that we're starting to have to work money into what we know it's getting repairs. We do have engineering consultants on retainer that can go look at the systems and try to design. They will sometimes work with efficiency Vermont to see if there's rebates that we may be eligible for. The contractors will typically get those back to us and costs on the project so we can do

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: it that way. I'd say it's like any other business who might be upgrading their shopping center.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: Yeah, I think the whole idea of us reporting to BGS is for them to look at the whole state portfolio and say, why is this facility using so much higher than otherwise? And then they could go do, they could work with Efficiency Vermont and do an energy audit and make recommendations, but we're sort of doing that on our own.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: The real challenge is so many moving pieces.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Represent Yes. Casey and then represent what?

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Is that silo filled with pellets?

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: It is. That's a 18 ton silo. They come with a basically a tractor trailer that's got a back that fills it from the top down. The new center garage project was since it's a bigger square footage, that's actually a 28 ton saw it all going in there. I will say that all of our fuel contracts for the garages, the new center garage included even for wood pellets are all bid out through BGS. That's a commodity contract for all the fuel. So the new CG site will have to go up around P. We'll get bids back for costs for pellets, then they'll award based on-site site specific on that.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Do you get quite I'm sorry, I looked at you. Do you

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: get quite a few bidders? I don't typically see those. I do get the bid results. I know Swanton site we only have two bids. So that vendor also supplies the public safety barracks that's in St. Albans. So they're probably delivering in the area anyway.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Did you see a big Now you use pellets other places in the state obviously, right? Did you notice a

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: price BGS does. The Swamp Garage is actually our first pellet because majority of our garages five, six bay. We can do with the outdoor cord wood much much cheaper to install the system and much cheaper to maintain and be able to fill and operate. Yes, I just wanted to dig in a little bit to the solar arrays. So are those can you just go back to what you were saying about the solar arrays? Those are installed by a third party and we are contracting with them or how So there's 10 that were installed by OT that are owned by OT that go directly back to offset electric bills at the garages. Some of them are generating enough, if it's a small garage, we can actually put it on another account that's within that same district. So they're offsetting or are we actually drawing energy directly from the solar arrays? It's both actually. They're net metered. We're seeing a benefit to both and we can if we're generating more than what we're using on the site, we can use a visual location. But you're not putting that on your chart of heating oil, fuels, wood, because that is generating energy and

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: Yeah, and that chart

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: is just

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: for thermal consumption. Okay. So that's, yeah, it's just

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: the heating. And solar is not being used to heat any of the bubbles? Okay, so it's just being used to go to the I thought you said it was going on heat pumps and heat pumps do heat buildings,

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: so I'm confused. Well, Go ahead.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: The Tonbridge site, it's of only ones we have, solar and heat pump, so that is offsetting there, some of the thermal usage as well. Okay, that's the Tonbridge site does use solar for heating, but all the other solar sites do not contribute to heating? Strictly for electrical. Strictly for electrical. Okay. It seems like we've got so much space, buildings, and roofs, and it seems like solar would be a good thing to be bringing more of into AOT, because aside from, I mean, there is a very substantial cost to installing it obviously, but after that it's free energy from the sun. We did add it to Swanton, we've got a pretty substantial, probably our biggest array actually. So I think after a year or two, we'll start to be able to see what that full generation is, what we're seeing for a benefit. We certainly can add it to other places. It makes sense we initially installed our arrays, so we installed with our state dollars at sites, they've changed some of the net metering rules, we're not getting as much benefit back on a lot of that, which is why we kind of run away on some of those installs available garages. Okay, thank you.

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: So back to this annual report, '19 BSA 40 '5, it is just for gum, there wasn't any other requirement, okay. It's for heating systems, yeah.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: So just a long day to show that we're doing other things than just thermal to try to make all of our buildings more efficient.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: And we are still providing all of the other data, all of our energy data to BGS. Think that's all we have.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well, it certainly sparked plenty of questions and interest. So anybody else have any other?

[Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Just you can see how difficult it is. I mean, I guess when this was passed, if anybody say, this is gonna be really hard to collect this data, it's a moving target.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: It's also difficult to just sort of the nature of our highway garages, mean when you got 14 by 14 overhead doors all opening at once and you lose all the heat, I mean we're going radiant in most of our garages now, we've actually converted a couple to, we saw cut the slab out and tied the outdoor wood boilers to the radiant. So that's been a good benefit. So yeah, I mean, we're doing as much as we can really with what we're giving for dollars and obviously the new builds it's much easier to incorporate efficiency right into the design from the initial scope of the project.

[Andrea Wright (AOT Environmental Policy Manager)]: Yeah, our implementation practices seem to be a little bit in front of our tracking collection of data and tracking practices.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: You take a thermal imaging camera and you put it on those doors. Do it at people's houses, I say, hey, I'm losing my heat. I go over the windows and doors. Everybody thinks they got great windows and doors. They they shoot like crazy.

[Brad McEvoy (AOT Facilities/Service Manager)]: And your roof really boosts the whole system. Just the new center around, you don't turn it over that door. As those starts opening up, mean, we're gonna lose it pretty quick. Our insulated doors, we replace most all of our highway urologists with insulated doors, much more rated door to at least keep them normal than the other doors. I'm gonna

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: put my bed next door to sleep next door.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. Well, Andrea and Brad, thank you very much. We appreciate the update and the required of the piece. And so for the committee, we