Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: And there's a little red box. So good morning, Wednesday, 02/18/2026 here in House Transportation. We have a full house here in the house and discussions related to the Climate Action Office, transportation, emissions goals, issues, challenges brings out crowds. Also there's some action activity today. So we're happy to have an audience and we're happy to have a return presenter. Welcome back to the committee. Thank you. Take it whenever you are ready. Sure. Happy to have you.

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: Thank you very much. For the record, I'm Julie Warren, the Secretary of Natural Resources. And I'm joined by my colleague, Jane Mazorczak, who heads our Climate Action Office. And we're going to provide a high level overview of the recent revisions to the Climate Action Plan and then speak specifically to recommendations contained in the plan that are adjacent to the Transportation Committee's work. So as you may recall, the Global Warming Solutions Act was passed by the legislature in 2020. It established the Vermont Climate Council and directed the council to create and adopt an initial climate action plan by December of the following year. This was a very aggressive timeline. While it says 2020 for when the Global Warming Solutions Act was adopted, it was September 2020, and the Climate Council met for the first time in November 2020. So we had about thirteen months. I say that by way of context just in that a lot of what we did is we prepared the update that was adopted by the council in July was both looking at how things had changed over time, but also looking for areas to make improvements to the initial plan, just given the aggressive timeline we had operated under. The recommendations contained in the climate action plan are sort of grouped into four key areas. We're going to talk a little bit more about reducing climate pollution because that's where the transportation related recommendations come together. Sometimes that's also referred to as cross sector mitigation. But there are other elements of the climate action plan that focus on the role of agriculture and ecosystems, the importance of rural resilience and adapting to our changing climate. And then we've also identified a number of cross cutting measures, so things like education, workforce, and financing and funding that sort of touch across all three of those larger, more technical areas of work. The way we went about updating the plan was to continue to rely heavily on the five subcommittees that were established to support development of the initial plan. Three of them matched the titles of three of those chapters, Rural Resilience Agriculture and Ecosystems and Cross Sector Mitigation. We also have a Just Transitions Committee that was included in the Global Warming Solutions Act. And that is a team looking to make sure that equity is based in or baked into all of the work we are doing, looking for ways to help marginalized and frontline communities, and also ensure that we are being thoughtful about the potential impacts different implementation measures could have, most notably on low and middle income Vermonters. And then the Climate Council itself actually created a science and data subcommittee, recognizing there's some pretty technical work that underpins a lot of what we are doing. We have the benefit of having the state climatologist Leslie and Difini Giroux from UVM as part of the Science and Data Subcommittee, as well as the Climate Council, but also have other academics and experts that have joined us in that space. In Building The Cap, we did conduct extensive public engagement. We held more or nearly 20 meetings, a mix of in person and virtual events, as well as meeting Vermonters where they're at. The Climate Action Office has a staff member dedicated to outreach and education and was able to identify nearly two dozen existing events where we could participate and share information about climate change and the need for climate action. We also offered multiple ways for folks to provide feedback on our draft climate action plan, in writing as well as by participating in one of these public events. And public input really did shape the climate action plan that was adopted by the council in July. I would say the top message we heard from Vermonters as we were out talking to them is there were too many ideas. In total, there are several 100 suggestions in the climate action plan, and that is a lot to wrap your mind around. And so the council did ultimately identify a top 10 priority actions, two of which I'll talk about in just a moment. Concerns were raised about the language not being accessible. And Jane and her team had since hired a contractor that was able to work with them to create a plain language executive summary to the climate action plan and hopefully help address that concern. Obviously cost and affordability was front of mind for Vermonters and how to ensure the necessary funding would be available to support this work. And then there were also technical questions that were brought up in addition to these sort of, I would argue, big picture framing questions, including why there wasn't any mention of geothermal networks in the original draft plan. And so with suggestions like those, we did create a small number of new recommendations. There's some really important context for our work that has been unfolding over the last fifteen months or so, which is that the unprecedented federal investment in climate action is ending abruptly. This means that the federal financial resources available for climate action are quickly drying up. And this is not just about our efforts to reduce emissions, but also disaster recovery and resilience are other key areas where federal funding has played a critical role in the progress we've been making. The federal government is also pulling back on key policies such as their support for vehicle electrification and the deployment of renewable energy. And just the climate plan acknowledges we've not already faced a very heavy lift to achieve the 2,030 emissions reduction requirements of the Global Warming Solutions Act. We've struggled to fully recover from recent disasters, and those challenges are made more significant by the changes at the federal level. So as a result, the Climate Action Plan update really emphasized actions that make strategic investments in resilience, preparedness and community development, recognizing climate hazards will continue to happen. We've had the flood conditions in 'twenty three and 'twenty four and the fairly substantial drought conditions last summer. So it's not a monolith and there's a lot for us to prepare for. Emphasized also making our homes more efficient. So weatherization and helping Vermonters switch to more price stable sources of energy for heat and transportation. Recognizing workforce is critical to this and continuing to build out our weatherization workforce, but also our climate workforce to help implement these actions. And then recognizing ultimately there is need for sustainable long term funding to support this work. So I'm going to shift gears here a little bit and talk specifically about the transportation related recommendations in the Climate Action Plan. And just to contextualize why transportation is important, I assume you've seen this chart before, which shows our historical emissions along with projected future emissions. The blue portion of that graph at the top, the thickest portion is the emissions associated with transportation. So that is the most significant source of greenhouse gas emissions in Vermont. And obviously meeting our climate goals does require us to pretty significantly reduce emissions from transportation. So there are two of our top 10 priority actions that relate directly to transportation. The first is around vehicle electrification and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles through electrification. There are some pieces and parts of that, but it includes maintaining what we sometimes refer to as clean vehicle regulations or advanced clean cars and advanced clean trucks. Those are the California emissions programs. Supporting the attorney general's office and litigation, defending our authority to be part of the California emissions program, and then looking for ways to support both getting consumers into EVs and building out our electric vehicle charging infrastructure. So as folks may be aware, there have been a series of challenges raised at the federal level around California's advanced clean car and clean truck standards. This led the governor to issue an executive order about this time last year, causing implementation of those programs. Subsequent to that, Congress under the Congressional Review Act indicated that those laws were no longer in effect, that is being contested even as we speak, but it has created a considerable amount of uncertainty and chaos in this space. The California Air Resources Board is in the lead in establishing the California standards that we participate in. And they are working on a series of rule amendments that will provide increased compliance flexibility and regulatory certainty for car and truck manufacturers. As a result of that, Vermont will need to go through the rulemaking process again ourselves. It needs to be completed by the end of the current calendar year to remain consistent with California, and we are on track to accomplish. In terms of EV purchase incentives, this green box is the language straight out of the climate action plan, looking to ensure consistent long term funding for electric vehicle incentives and points to a couple of different reports that the Agency of Transportation has prepared that speak to this as well. In terms of charging infrastructure, recognizing that continuing to build out charging infrastructure is a essential component to ensuring or supporting the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. The recommendation tax and ties with modeling that was done is what we call our pathways report. So that was looking at different approaches to meeting the requirements of the Global Warming Solutions Act, as well as, again, work done by the agency of transportation around charging infrastructure build out and know that the NEVI program is really the primary source of federal funding available to us right now to continue this important work. The other of the top 10 priority actions I wanted to touch on briefly, it relates to a cap and invest program. So as you may recall, two years ago, the agency and the treasurer's office were together given direction to look at the role a cap and invest program could play in reducing Vermont's overall greenhouse gas emissions. And that is where a cap in the amount of emissions would be set. And over time that cap is reduced. People either take steps to comply with the cap or are able to purchase allowances under the cap. And revenue generated through the sale of those allowances is then reinvested in the types of projects and programs necessary to drive down emissions. This is really intended to be a multi sector approach, so it wouldn't be limited to just transportation, but also include how we heat our homes and buildings. One of the key components of it is developing framework for the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from fuel suppliers. And that sort of got its genesis, I would say, in the treasurer's February report last year, where he concluded that there is no viable cap and invest program available to join currently, and that it's really important to think about the data we need should we choose to go this direction in the future, including whether and when to establish a greenhouse gas emissions reporting program. The CAP followed up on that recommendation from the treasurer and requested that ANR develop a framework for the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions. That memo was submitted to the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee in mid December, and they are currently working on a bill, H740, that would establish a greenhouse gas reporting program. I think the biggest challenge in this space is the resources needed to do this work and do this work well. I would say one of the things we learned from the Clean Heat Standard, where the PUC attempted to create a similar reporting program, is that without adequate staff to ensure compliance with the requirements, you end up with a partial dataset that is in effect no better than no data at all. I think the PUC estimated only about 55% of fuel suppliers participated in the registry they had established. There are also a lot of affordability concerns that come up every time we talk about a cap and invest program. And so there is work to be done in this space as well before launching full long into a cap and invest, thinking about how those revenues would be used. The climate action plan specifically recommends providing direct payments or rebates and as close to real time as possible to Vermonters to offset the cost of living increases that would occur under such a program. And then also providing direct incentives to low and middle income households to swap out their heating system, change the kinds of vehicles they drive, essentially start to mitigate what otherwise would be some of the cost effects of a cap and invest program. Beyond the top 10, there were a small number of additional priority recommendations that also relate to the transportation space, and they really get into this non motorized or multimodal transportation. This includes looking again at work that was already done by VTrans related to smart growth and some of the work they did under their carbon reduction strategy, both of which provide advice or ideas about ways to approach this work. And then also a recognition that the downtown transportation fund could be leveraged in a manner that that helps further accelerate this policy. So in terms of next steps around the implementation of the Climate Action Plan, many of the recommendations contained in the plan will require combination of the legislative and administrative action. There's both statutory changes that will be required to support some of these pieces, as well as resources necessary to advance key recommendations. The Global Warming Solutions Act does require that ANR adopt any rules that are called for in the climate action plan, and that timeline resets each time we adopt an updated version of the plan. So at this point, if there were rules directed by the plan, we would need to go through the rulemaking process by July 1. However, the cap did not contain any such requirements this go round. In the initial version of the CAP, there was a directive to adopt the Advance Clean Cars two and Advance Clean Trucks regulations, which is why we had moved through that work at such an expeditious pace. The council sort of slows its cadence a little bit in this time between plans and really is focused on monitoring and tracking progress of implementation. Each year, the agency issues a greenhouse gas inventory, usually in the June timeframe. It lags by about two and a half years, the calendar date. So we will be publishing shortly the 2023 greenhouse gas inventory this June that will show our progress to date in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And so that's a place where the Climate Council will check-in and discuss the progress that's being made. The Climate Council is continuing to advocate for resources to make the plan actionable, and that includes working with both state agencies and the legislature to take necessary next steps. The Climate Council in general meets about quarterly during this time frame, And in part, that's to continue to provide a forum for public engagement. And then we will bring our subcommittees together to support the work of the Climate Council. But really, will be about two years before we start to gear up again for the next update to the Climate Action Plan. And with that, Jane and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.

[Speaker 0]: Representative Burke?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah, thank you very much for that, for your work, I guess. What's the difference, or what's your greenhouse gas reporting that's lagging to your NH740?

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: So the greenhouse gas inventory is collecting actual emissions data, Right. And so it comes from a variety of sources and it is all of the. It's all of the sectors reflected on this chart, right? So it includes estimates related not just to transportation and buildings, but also the electricity sector, agriculture, etcetera. The greenhouse gas reporting rule would really be focused on fuel suppliers. So it really would be narrowed to transportation and fossil fuel based heating fuels. It's also, I would say more real time and that those entities would be required to report to the agency at some cadence, either quarterly or annually. A lot of this work right now is our inventory work is performed by we collect data that the tax department and DMV receive around transportation and heating fuel sales, as well as rely on some national level data sets that are downscaled for our use in these other sectors. I might just comment that the real lag in our inventory is actually not caused by fossil fuel sales in Vermont, but the lag is in large part caused by non energy data that we do rely on national data sets that tend

[Jane Lazorchak (Director, Vermont Climate Action Office)]: to be almost two years behind calendar year. So in other words, the secretary issued a press release last year estimating what fossil fuel sales emissions would look like for 2024, which is the first year of the statutory requirement of the GWSA. We cannot produce that number legally required through the greenhouse gas inventory for two and a half years because of these other sectors, but we have a good understanding right now around fossil fuel sales largely in real time. What we don't have is the entities who are reporting, which would be the basis for any future policy considerations.

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: Yeah, thanks for this. Just a question on the science and data committee, subcommittee. Have they sort of given an update on maybe four years ago, here's what we're expect with climate change to Vermont. Have they given like an update? They're about the same, better, worse, or here's a consideration that's more important now than Yeah.

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: So there is a chapter in the climate action plan on climate change in Vermont, where Doctor. Dopini Giroux was the lead author. I would encourage you to both take a look at that, but potentially also hear from her. It is about as comprehensive, a look at Vermont specific concerns and impacts as we have available to us, and have really benefited greatly from her participation with the climate council.

[Jane Lazorchak (Director, Vermont Climate Action Office)]: One addition too is just to note that the resilience implementation strategy created on behalf of an initiative launched by the governor and treasurer's office also looked to modify and speak to climate change impacts in Vermont. We did further research around the chapter in the resilience strategy. We're actually holding a public meeting tonight to benefit legislators at the pavilion to talk about the resilience strategy, so I would encourage folks to join. And building off of that work, we'll be creating an adaptation and resilience index for the state, which was building on our municipal vulnerability indicators tool that was required in the Global Warming Solutions Act and looking to reach consensus around downscale climate data, because we actually rely on significant different models to look at the impacts of climate change on Vermont, there hasn't been consensus yet around the scientific community around what the

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: best forecasting is. Okay, thanks.

[Speaker 0]: Representative McCoy and then Representative Lalley. So

[Rep. Patricia A. McCoy (Member)]: looking at this chart for a lag, because it seems like the last time reported it's 2022, the lag is because you didn't, aren't, you don't have available the

[Jane Lazorchak (Director, Vermont Climate Action Office)]: Do you have it now? We'll produce, as the secretary indicated, the '23 inventory by June. That the Yeah, thank you.

[Rep. Kate Lalley (Member)]: Yeah, am very encouraged to see in the update that the smart growth has been sort of elevated in ways that it wasn't before. It is a great way to amplify public investments in these scarce budget times. I think some of the most effective things we can do and I just encourage everyone to be bold about implementing Act 181 so we can actually have smart growth.

[Unidentified Member (House Transportation Committee)]: Representative? Yeah, thank you for this data. So questions on, so first of all, electric vehicle incentives. Knowing that we're in a tight budget, we really don't have a plan to incentivize electric vehicle purchases right now. And we've had some discussion about could we put this offer tax breaks for EV incentives, which of course would cut into our tax revenue. Just curious if you have any thoughts on how do we move? That's one area where there's a lot of interest. We've seen some good progress, but we're kind of at a standstill. Same with bike ped structure. I mean, you've heard from RPCs over the last week, and so many towns want to do these, want to put in sidewalks, to put in bike lanes, but they just aren't resources. Recognizing, we see the contribution that transportation makes to greenhouse gas emissions in Vermont. We know that, but how do

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: we move these important initiatives forward in such a tight budget atmosphere? So while not a complete answer, a partial answer would be there's a bill, I believe, on the wall in House Energy and Digital Infrastructure that the governor for last year is a climate omnibus H-two 78. Two eighty nine.

[Catherine Crawley (Chair, Stowe Energy Committee)]: Two eighty nine. It's close.

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: H289. Well, actually, Representative McCoy introduced it on our behalf, but it includes in it, RGGI, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which is coalition of most of the Northeastern states down along the seaboard into Maryland, participate in together to drive down emissions associated with electricity generation. Vermont is in the fortunate position of not paying very much into a system, but enjoying significant proceeds. And those proceeds have actually outpaced estimates in the budget. And so there's money sitting on the bottom line of the account. And one of the governor's proposals in that bill had been to take those dollars and make them available for electric vehicle incentives. To date, that bill has gotten not a lot of uptake. That is one piece of a larger set of climate initiatives, but there is specific language in there that identified a funding source to help provide additional PV incentives.

[Speaker 0]: Anybody else on your questions? So one of the things that's going to come in front of the committee that's being worked on in the Senate right now, That's lot about state inspection. A big part of that is emissions from vehicles. What is the agency in any spot and comment on where emissions testing relates to California clean Car Standards and California Air Review. Yes,

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: Air Resources Board. So yeah, I can provide some comment, but I'd also encourage you to hear from our Air Quality and Climate Division who's really the lead in that space. I think first and foremost, it's important to separate safety inspections from emissions inspections that those are two separate bodies of work. Perhaps this can go and sit in this committee. Some other places I know that there's more confusion about inspections not being a monolith. In terms of the emissions inspections, we have to submit what we call a SIP or a state implementation plan to EPA about how we are going to meet different air pollution requirements. We're part of something called the ozone transport zone. And it means that there are concerns about the formation of ground level ozone in Vermont. And we are making commitments about how we're going to reduce our contributions to ground level ozone and at the same time recognizing it's a regional problem. Unlike water quality in Lake Champlain, where you can draw a pretty clear boundary around who's responsible, when we're talking about an air shed as opposed to a watershed, it's water. That's a very long way of saying we will need to do some modeling and confirm that we aren't running afoul of the commitments we've made in our state implementation plan if we were going to go to biannual inspections instead of annual inspections, that's work that is absolutely possible to do. We know that there are other states in the Northeast that have made that change, but it's really important for us to stay in compliance with our implementation plan and remain active with the ozone transport zone coalition. What about no inspections? I don't believe we could get by with no inspections and maintain the commitments commitments we we have have in in the the state state implementation implementation plan. Plan.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Doctor. Worth? Yeah, I think that brings up another aspect of the climate issue is reducing emissions, we also help air quality and public health. That's something that's very often sort of not emphasized or forgotten, we're talking about climate, we can't do anything, it's too expensive or whatever and it's not only for the environment, and affordability too, but we all know that low earth non fossil fuel sources of eating and transportation are also less expensive to operate. Just wanted to make that point. If I

[Jane Lazorchak (Director, Vermont Climate Action Office)]: might, representative for a quote we weren't able to go into detail here on today, but for the benefit of the climate action plan and then for future recommendations and understanding, our office maintains a contract with the Stockholm Environment Institute, and we use that group to maintain something called the Low Emissions Analysis Platform. That model looks at our current emissions and what our current policies and regulations on the book get us for emissions reductions. And then it looks to complement, as you pull these levers, like deploy more in electric vehicles, look at more reducing vehicle miles traveled through smart growth policies, etcetera, what are the emissions benefits you expect to see from those? It's a model estimate. One of the considerations that climate council requested, and we're still looking to consider in future analysis that the state, the agency, the climate action office and the public service department is discussing is how to better understand how you pull those policy levers and the adjacent co benefits you get from things like health benefits, air quality, etcetera. And those are analyses that you can do. And those are things that we're still looking to analyze, understanding that we were under, again, a tighter timeline for policy analysis for this climate action plan, but we have a long term contract with that emissions analysis. What's the name of that? It's called the Stockholm Environment Institute, and I'd be happy to follow-up and just share for testimony the presentation on the analysis they did for the climate action plans around emissions modeling and cost, and we're looking to refine that over the

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: next year.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: That would be great. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Any other questions or comments or pieces? I have a I'm not sure. I don't have the notes on it real quick, so you might have to wait that one out. Why the Downtown Transportation Fund, I guess, was mentioned in terms of why that was particularly singled out in the presentation. Was it downtown?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Right. We can go there and please

[Speaker 0]: Some area that we do have an influence on.

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: Correct. Obviously, the Downtrend Transportation Fund is making investments in our designated areas, and it was identified as a tool that could help sort of promote multimodal for active transportation solutions and may pivot to look at Andrea Wright from the transportation agency who may be able to help with a little bit more detail on that. But just recognizing that these are existing investments and would say in the past, there was a partnership between the Downtown Transportation Fund and the Clean Water Fund, looking at ways to increase stormwater management into those projects. It was a little bit challenging just based on how the funding laid out. But I think that there's some inspiration there to see if there are ways to sort of target and direct those dollars towards some of the active transit and multimodal priorities identified in the climate plan.

[Rep. Kate Lalley (Member)]: Former tie in with clean water, would that be still a way to access more funding if we could do two things at once? And also, more than two things, I'm thinking at least three things because you'd have cleaner air, if you could have street trees, we have a fantastic Green Streets manual that was done several years ago by your colleagues in forestry. So we could kind of thread all of this together. It seems like, again, investments with amplified impacts in an era where we're struggling to keep the lights on, basically. Agreed.

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: I think the biggest challenge with clean water was a timing piece. And that when these projects were coming into the Downtown Transportation Fund for funding, which was sort of the first time ANR would maybe become aware of them, they were already pretty well developed and asking people to incorporate stormwater management in particular, including things like street trees, but also other practices felt challenging to applicants in that moment and that they had already invested considerably in design.

[Rep. Kate Lalley (Member)]: Can I ask a follow-up question? Is there a way, just thinking ahead, that the incorporation of street trees, for example, I think the right facility, right place, could be given some In Chelburne, for example, we have a storm water utility, could this be a way for us to get some credit on our MS4, for example? Or in other, I'm just looking, how can we use these mechanisms more strategically and opportunistically? And we are constantly looking at ways to provide credit for the co benefits that arise from a lot of different practices.

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: Currently, that work is most centralized, I would say, in the clean water space. So how do you account for a wetland restoration project that has habitat benefits in addition to nutrient and sediment benefits, in addition to resilience benefits, and try to make an apples to apples comparison effectively to some other project or practice. It's both art and science, and it is something we are continuing to develop. Jane and her team are currently in the throes of a contract to create a similar measuring and assessing progress tool for the climate space. And then we're also talking later this week, in fact, about how we might be able to help knit together a little bit some of that climate work with the clean water work. So very much thinking along those lines. It's challenging to get them so you can make that kind of direct comparison. And we have these very specific numeric targets, both in the clean water space and in the climate space that also challenge that a little bit. But we're trying. Very encouraging. Thank you. I'll just one more plug.

[Jane Lazorchak (Director, Vermont Climate Action Office)]: The Clean Water program manager will be at our resilience strategy to talk about how resilience come together and where she sees it.

[Speaker 0]: I've got a slide for that.

[Jane Lazorchak (Director, Vermont Climate Action Office)]: I should have ended up. Is there a Zoom link for that by any chance? No, we are just doing some stuff.

[Catherine Crawley (Chair, Stowe Energy Committee)]: It's got a science fair vibe, I would say, where

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: we're gonna have tables and opportunities to interact directly with staff. We might

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: just announce where it is. What time?

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: It's 05:30 to 07:30 over in the pavilion.

[Unidentified Member (House Transportation Committee)]: Really seems happening to me.

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: Yeah, I'm really curious in that Stockholm study, because as we invest in trying to get greenhouse gases down, there are all these other benefits too. I sort of, I really like the fact that he brought up this downtown transportation fund on the transportation side. While I'm not saying $500,000 is not a lot of money, it is. In comparison, it's not. And I think if we applied, well, what are the other benefits we get out of it? I mean, I think we heard almost from the majority of regional planning commissions, they all mentioned this, that these little amounts provided to municipalities to do these small improvements had huge quality of life for these different villages. And so it also was magnified by by the fact that on their action plan, it's sort of saying, hey, this is something that benefits that too. So, you know, it'd be interesting to see what the Stockholm experts would say on multi benefits from something, but it's great to see this as part of the policy recommendation. Corbin Thomasons?

[Unidentified Member (House Transportation Committee)]: Have a question about the potential of cap and invest programs. It was disappointing last session to hear the Treasurer's report on just the lack of viable programs to join. And I know there's multiple steps towards preparing to be able to join a cap and invest program. And one

[Catherine Crawley (Chair, Stowe Energy Committee)]: of them is

[Unidentified Member (House Transportation Committee)]: monitoring for capital investment programs in other jurisdictions. I was wondering if you could share an update on what's been happening in New York or other opportunities that Vermont may have in the future to make more tangible steps towards that.

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: Sure, I'll actually defer to Jane, who's been actively engaged with New York in particular.

[Unidentified Member (House Transportation Committee)]: So New York, last December,

[Jane Lazorchak (Director, Vermont Climate Action Office)]: at the eleventh hour, as they had been preparing a suite of three roles to advance, one would have been a greenhouse gas reporting program, One would have established the cap and one would have established the training mechanism rescinded the second two rules and are advancing only in greenhouse gas reporting program right now. They have finished that rulemaking and are looking to report on emissions starting in 2027 or year 2026. We are working very closely. We have a common interest agreement with New York, where we've been talking with them about resource needs, about what our reporting program would look like, and staying very much in sync with them around if and when they would ever move forward with the other two components and to advance the cabinet investment. I think, as probably noted, the treasurer noted that with the Western Climate Initiative, which is the other program, economy wide climate program, this cap and invest program in the country, is twenty years essentially under the belt already, and so they've had twenty years of ramping up, ramping down their cap, as a result, ramping up cost. And therefore, this point, the treasurer's understanding and recommendation was that that cost impact of joining a program that was twenty years to date, we would be what is called price takers. Our market share would be so small that we would not influence the cost of that cap and allowance. And therefore, that would be a pretty hard economic hit for us to sustain, and as a result, indicated that we should work most closely with New York to monitor them and consider joining with them at the ground level, so that that influence, not to mention that 60% of our fuels comes from New York, and therefore any kind of a program that they would stand up would largely influence the cost of fuels coming into us anyway. So we have a common interest agreement with them. There's much work shared in common with New York, Cap'n Invest, CLENN Superfund, We meet with them fairly regularly to have confidential conversations about next steps.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. Well, we very much appreciate you coming into committee. I think we covered all of the pieces. We have a little bit of an agenda adjustment. So we're gonna move to the request from the committee and some of the members, several members. We have Catherine Crowley from the chair of the Stowe Energy Action Team here that is going to take the chair and transition, and would like to testify on a few related topics. So we're gonna make a quick adjustment before lunch. And thank you, Madam

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: Secretary. Thank you.

[Julie Moore (Secretary of Natural Resources)]: I appreciate the opportunity.

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: I'll set this up. You're headed up. So I think today, a number of energy committees from different municipalities have come to the state house to talk about legislation, some

[Speaker 0]: of

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: the things they're doing. I think this is an opportunity to hear from your committee and particularly on transportation items. Yeah.

[Catherine Crawley (Chair, Stowe Energy Committee)]: Thank you very much. Thank you all so much for having me and hearing my testimony today. My name is Catherine Crawley. I am a resident of Memorial County in Stowe. I serve as the chair of the town of Stowe Energy Committee. We are a seven member appointed board by the Select Board. So I'm going to talk today about in support of the transportation bill, in particular H-eight 63. And I'd like to share my experience in three ways as a resident, the owner, as an energy committee member for the town of Stowe, and then also as an employee of a statewide organization. I'm also the communications director at the Vermont Arts Council. So first, some context. You've already heard a great deal of context from the secretary, which is great, but I'm going to fill in a couple of other things. As you know, transportation continues to be a significant portion of people's household energy costs in Vermont. In fact, transportation is the second largest annual expense for most households, so passed only by housing costs. Vermonters drive more miles per capita than residents of any other state in the Northeast. We're a rural state. We have low population density, so that would explain that. With an EV, your dollar actually goes farther. Combined with maintenance savings, the lower fuel costs of EVs typically result in 6,000 to $10,000 lower lifetime costs compared to gas vehicles, and that's even without any EV purchase incentives. That's according to the latest Energy Action Network report. So replacing gas and diesel vehicles with electric vehicles is one of the most significant actions to reduce climate pollution that Vermonters can take. While EVs are responsible for more DHT emissions during the manufacturing phase due to battery production, gasoline cars have much higher emissions over the full lifetime of the vehicle. H six eight six three gives also gives Vermonters options for transportation beyond vehicles, such as public transit, bike and pedestrian solutions, and having other options other than vehicles is important to ensure a more equitable transportation system and provides public health and other benefits. And crucially, in this particular time, given clean energy policy, regulatory and funding rollbacks at the federal level, state leadership, it is necessary to continue moving solutions forward to reduce energy costs and cut climate pollution. So I live in the Moll County, which you may have heard ranks number three nationally for climate related federal disaster declarations. Like many parts of Vermont, we faced extreme rainfall, powerful storms, and drought. We are about to head into an El Nino weather pattern, which is estimated to hit sometime between June and September of this year. This hot new phase will likely set new global weather temperature records and is sure to supercharge rainfall here in Vermont, unfortunately, and other weather related carnage. So my experience is I leased my EV from Mollie S. V. W. In April 2024. The first six months, I did not have a home charger, and I relied on the network of chargers around the state. I work for a statewide organization at the Vermont Arts Council. So I spend a lot of time on the road visiting various organizations and enterprises that are part of our great creative sector here in Vermont. So it's crucial that when I pull up to a charger, I can rely on it to work. Last year, I was in Manchester. It's a good two hour drive from my home in Stowe. I found a great bank of chargers behind a municipal energy municipal building. And I pulled up to those chargers, but I had to try several of them to get them to work. And at one point, I actually had to call the service number on the charger to have them reboot it to get it going again. So to be fair, problems with machines aren't always the fault of a municipality. But if we had a more reliable, consistent network of chargers statewide, we would have a greater chance of success when we pull up to a charger, which is why I'm so supportive of the provision in H863 related to the EV charging accountability and pricing transparency. Anything we can do cost effectively to do that eliminates the anxiety and challenges of finding charging from home on the road is key. The provision would help EV drivers by enabling them to use a credit card to pay at the charger instead of having to download a variety of apps that may or may not always work and are not always accessible in rural Vermont with connectivity. And then even sometimes the apps don't always provide transparent real time information about whether a charging is actually working, whether it's in use, how much it will cost. So H863 would change that and provide a necessary layer of pricing transparency and assurance to people looking to charge. So while we solve things for people traveling far from home, it's also important to make it easier and affordable to help people charge at home. So after about six months of doing this dance of trying to find chargers away from where I live, I knew it was time to invest in a charger at home. But I knew it was going come at great cost because I needed to upgrade my electrical panel. So fortunately, at that time, I heard about a fantastic program at Efficiency Vermont. And I would qualify to cover 90% of the cost of the upgrade. So I immediately took advantage of that. And I'm ever grateful to Efficiency Vermont for providing the support and enabling to make the necessary changes at home. A friend in Stowe who also leased an EV about a year before I did eventually had to give hers up. She lived in a condo and was unable to get a charger for her multiple housing residents. So she reluctantly went back to gas. However, she would have likely stayed in her EV if a more robust network of chargers had been available at the condo association. They could have supported to installing those chargers, which again is why I support the right to charge provision, which is in the H-eight 63, that right to charge provision for condo and homeowners associations. And I hope you will too. Which brings me to the work of the Town of Stowe Energy Committee, recognizing the value of EV chargers to the town, its residents and businesses and visitors, especially tourism is a big part of what we do in Stowe. The committee has worked hard to explore every possible avenue for expanding our EV charging network. And we have been able to do that through state grants and by partnering with our local utility, Stowe Electric. We were able to get a level three fast charger that had been at the Alchemist brewery for many years and which was about to be mothballed. So this was a level three fast charger, we moved with the help of Stowe Electric to a municipal owned parking lot. And we were also recently granted $19,000 from the Charge Vermont State Program to move another decommissioned charger from a hotel and to move that to a municipal parking lot, which is served by Stowe Elementary School and the town rec department. Those teachers at Stowe Elementary School are very excited about this level two charger coming their way. In addition, we worked with the Vermont Clean Cities Coalition to develop an electric vehicle readiness and charging roadmap for the town. The committee also entered into agreement to utilize the National Charging Smart Program, a free technical assistance program for encouraging EVs and chargers in communities. And our student members researched how to electrify our police fleet. So I'll just conclude by saying that as the federal government advocates its responsibility to protect the nation from the ravages of the climate crisis, it's up to us as a state to be created and do everything that we can to institute low cost policies that speed up EV adoption and give communities and Vermonters greater access to transit and other nonvehicular solutions. In doing so, more Vermonters can reap the cost savings that cleaner transportation provides. Ongoing state action in partnership with so many supportive communities, including us Town Energy Committees, so pivotal in this moment to help address actual energy affordability and the increasingly costly and consequential climate crisis. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify for this bill and in advance for advancing these important policy provisions.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. I appreciate your flexibility and kind of last minute of putting together and the assistance of a couple of the members of the committee to get you here. Representative McCoy? Patricia, you have a roadmap for the

[Rep. Patricia A. McCoy (Member)]: town of Stowe for where there are available chargers? I know you get thousands of visitors. How many chargers do you have?

[Catherine Crawley (Chair, Stowe Energy Committee)]: That is a very good question. I don't know the answer to, but I could find the answer Yes. To that for

[Rep. Patricia A. McCoy (Member)]: Just to get a sense of we have thousands of

[Catherine Crawley (Chair, Stowe Energy Committee)]: thousands of We have a lot of visitors. And I live very near the one level three fast charger that we have, and I see a lot of cars pulled up to that. We were really lucky to get that one. Yeah.

[Rep. Patricia A. McCoy (Member)]: So what happened? You said two.

[Catherine Crawley (Chair, Stowe Energy Committee)]: Yes. So we worked very closely with Stowe Electric and they let us know if a charger within their network is going to be decommissioned. Well, in the case of the Alchemist, they had trouble with connectivity in that particular parking lot. And so they weren't too happy with them. And so we were able to, don't put that on mothballs. We'd like to take that. And we advised the select board that it would be great to move it. And then we looked at a variety of places across town that would work, that would have the right infrastructure to support a level three charger. And same with the one that's going in at the elementary school. Those teachers have been asking, teachers and staff have been asking for many years, can we get a charger while we're in the building? Same with the rec department that's also there that shares the municipal lot. So this is a workplace charger and it was one of the hotels. They're putting in different chargers, so this one was available.

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: Thank you very much for this. And we didn't speak ahead of time, but you hit a lot of points that I like to bring up for this committee, the charging in particular. Have you had any experience with ACCD grant program that helps condos, public municipalities or recreational areas to add in chargers? Have you had any connection with them or are

[Catherine Crawley (Chair, Stowe Energy Committee)]: you aware of them? Chris, maybe you're referring to the Charge Vermont program through ACCD? Yes. And that is that they are we were just recently awarded a $19,000 grant to move this chart. They don't even have to buy the charger. It's available. It's at the hotel. The hotel is undergoing reconstruction and putting in new chargers. So through that program, yes, we were able to acquire that charger and move it and do the necessary make work to get that charger in. So yes, that has been a great program. And as I understood it, they didn't have too many chargers in the Mall County supported through that program. This was one that they could do.

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: Sort of a follow-up. You mentioned a conduit association that someone was living in trying to get a charger. Can you describe what some of the barriers were to like moving that forward? Was it just the association said no? Was it confusion? What?

[Catherine Crawley (Chair, Stowe Energy Committee)]: Yeah, I don't know the particulars, but I think it's a variety of things. It's just as a barrier when you have a multiple family housing situation and you perhaps are sharing parking spaces in a garage or in a parking lot. You have to get agreement from the homeowners association to put in the charger, and that becomes difficult. That becomes a barrier. So what we want to be able to do is make it easier for those things to get done.

[Speaker 0]: Thought it was interesting in that particular piece is that we've had vehicle dealers in here previously for testimony. And it says that the return of somebody who has home charging to stay in electric is at an incredibly high rate in terms of buying again. And those that do not have access to home charging almost always go back. We've heard that from the number one electric vehicle dealer in the state that he can keep them if they've got home charging. And if they don't, then they don't rebuy. So that is direct. It's much something we've heard. And I also hear from the members of the committee regularly that it's sort of like pioneers that are out there and have charters of ride electric vehicles, where they're going get charged if they're out on the cross. And they have to spend quite a bit of time planning their trip in a different world. So it's nice to hear directly from them. So I appreciate your flexibility in getting in. Thank you, Representative Burke, for putting it together. We try to accommodate almost every member requested testimony. But if you want to sum us up before we go to lunch.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I just want to say how impressive it is what you've done in your town. And thank you how great it is to see local action dealing with the problem.

[Speaker 0]: Submit. Thank you, Kim. We are adjourned until 01:15 where we're gonna pick up on the local option tax testimony.