Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Matt Walker]: Good afternoon, House Transportation Committee on, what is it? It's Thursday already, March? Twelve. Look at that. Thursday, the twelfth. We are working on or gonna look at some work that has been done with representative Pouech and with our alleged counsel. We've taken quite a bit of testimony. Agents at Ag was in. We heard from ACCD. We've heard from another we had quite a presentation, as I recall, on electric charging issues. And that had prompted some significant extra work by some of the committee members. And so I'm going go to Representative Pouech who sort of got us where we're And here for then we're going to hear what he's been working on with Logan. Then given the constraints that we've learned about, we won't figure out how we're going to

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: move forward or not from there. But I want to at

[Chair Matt Walker]: least make sure we get some fairness to the committee.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Sure. So the concepts are, I think, have been adjusted based on some of the testimony we have. In particular, the testimony on charging sort of the wild west. And I think we had in our bill, our alternative transportation bill, the idea that public chargers need to take credit cards. And that's been floating around here in the state house for at least three years that, hey. Let's make sure public chargers do that. Well, come to find out, we found in our existing laws the requirement for public chargers, public equipment like this to take multiple forms of paint. So there's a couple pieces here. One is the fact that there's a whole mix of laws that already exist that control electric charging equipment, public ones in particular. And we're just all sort of learning that. So the second half of this is really work, put together a working group that looks at what are all the regulations that already exist that impact charging. And so that's the second half. And then the first half is is what perhaps could be one of the biggest pieces to support public charging in Vermont. And is that to is that that is to put the real time status of public chargers available so people can see where they are, how much they cost. And for the most part, most do this, but not necessarily all. The Navy chargers from the federal government, they have this built into their requirements. So there is a realization that public chargers that are available to the public need to be have visibility. And there is data that shows having that visibility for everybody in an easy way to see it will increase uptake of electric vehicles, which is the goal of our state to meet our climate change. So that sort of is where these two pieces are coming from. And I'll turn it over to Damian, I guess, to read the language and explain what it says.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Thank you for the record. I'm Damien Leonard from the Office of Legislative Council.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Pull up

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: make sure I got the right document here.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: So

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: the language here, what it does is it takes our existing in title 19, we have a chapter at the end of the title that deals with variety of electric vehicle related sort of miscellaneous EV sections. So it adds definitions of what a charging network provider is. This would be the person, which could be a corporate entity, an individual, etcetera, that operates the digital communication network that remotely manages the chargers and is responsible for operating and maintaining them, supporting the equipment and other facilities. And it includes networks that delegate or contract with other people to do portions of that work. Charging stations are what you would think of. It is the group of actual chargers that is available to the public. Charging station operator could be different than the charging network. So this could be, for example, the chargers outside the building here are on the charge point network, but the operator is the state. BGS controls those chargers. So that's really the difference here. Connector is that is the plug that goes from the charger to the electric vehicle. Direct current fast charger is what it says it is. It's a charger that enables rapid charging through the delivery of DC current as opposed to alternating current. So that's what we would also call level three fast charger. And then the other changes to that section until you get to level two charger, just renumbering. Level two charger are single phase AC chargers that with a maximum output less than or equal to 80 amps. So that works out to about, I think, 15 kilowatts, if my math is right. But that's a that's a very fast level two charger. Many of them are, you closer to 40 to 60 amps. NEVI standards are it's the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Standards, and they have a variety of sort of standard requirements, including for connection to the network. The new definition of port is so what you'll see on some chargers is if you think of a standard charger, it may have a cord coming out of each side, which would be two ports. Sometimes you will see two cords coming out of each side to fit or even three where it'll fit different standards for the high speed plug. And so a port is just the side that you can plug into regardless of which connectors you use. That brings us to the substance here, which would essentially require that a network provider or operator of a charging station would make available to third party software developers free of charge data necessary to provide real time information on availability, power delivery rating, and price of each charging station. So there's sort of the the basic things. Is someone already using the station, or is it out of service, or is it otherwise available? How fast can it charge the car? And then how much will it cost per kilowatt hour or for time parked there, etcetera. There are different ways that the billing works. It would require the secretary of transportation to adopt rules to implement the provisions of the section, including requirements for the type of data to be provided, provisions to ensure that the data is accurate and reflects real time conditions, and definitions of what it means to be available and what real time is. So, for example, real time may not mean up to the second. It could mean updating the network every five to ten minutes. Something like that. Requirements that the data include geographic information so that you could plug it into something like Google Maps or Yahoo Maps or another GPS software to navigate to it. Requirements that it comply with industry best practices and standards, including those NETI standards, the certain national standard, and then provisions permitting charging station operators to attach reasonable conditions to data use to protect any confidential business information provided that those conditions wouldn't prevent this data from being used by the third party software developer that creates the sort of charging network map that's generally available. So that is the real time charger information. Should I keep going, or do you want

[Chair Matt Walker]: to pause there to There's questions.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Representative?

[Rep. Candice White]: Will this information be available on PlugShare or on any type of like, if it's a ChargePoint, it should be available on ChargePoint, but I guess it could also be available on PlugShare. What's the mechanism for?

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So for committee members or folks listening who aren't familiar, PlugShare is one of the third party software developers that creates an app that you can have on your phone that pulls down from multiple different charging networks, including, for example, off network providers like a dealership that may have its own chargers with a function where you can pay. But it'll integrate from ChargePoint and Blink and Flow and Electrify America and all these different providers and provides data on the price, the availability, and the speed of different chargers. There are other ones too, like a better route planner and other apps that are out there. So yes, that would be a third time third party software developer.

[Rep. Candice White]: Okay. I think this is a very valid idea. I am unsure of the entire universe of third parties that provide this data. In my EV, I can go into my nav and say, add a charge stop, and some chargers come up, a lot of them still don't come up. They're just not on the software that's on my EV. So I find that PlugShare includes a lot of them. Not always. There are just a number of different third parties. I'm not sure which one is better than the others, but I don't have a sense of the universe of those. I don't know whether you do or whether this legislation would require that this information is shared with all of them or some of them.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: What it requires is that the information is made available to third parties With respect to the third parties themselves, it's up to them whether they integrate it and how they do that. I certainly don't know the entire universe of third party providers. Mentioned a couple of the ones that I'm familiar with, but there could be any number of them out there. And I imagine there are new apps being developed by folks who have an idea for a different approach. This just makes it generally available to third parties so that if they wish to, and if they design their app in a way that it can do it, it could scrape this data and put it out there for folks who use their app. And I know some manufacturers would also likely be considered third parties where they're now developing their own apps to identify chargers that work with their car or the car that that the EV owner is driving.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Yeah. I mean, it's the Wild West out there, as we know. So this isn't picking who do the third parties might be. For the most part, for public chargers, it's to their advantage, and it's why most of them do provide this data out there. It really is to ensure they're all out there. And so there are, I think, three states now that have this requirement in. A couple of things to consider. I mean, would be a starfake from chargers from this point on, you're gonna need to do that. But yeah, that's the idea. And we can bring in some testimony that there's some really solid data that says that range anxiety that people have, and they're worried about how to do this rather than become an expert on like you've all become to have a third party app like bug share, to be able to pull up all where all the charges are, that they're online, they're working, and what the price is so that you can make decisions going forward.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Any other questions?

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: All right. Step one off page four and then number four. Yeah. Requirements of the data provided pursuant to subjects in A of this section include geographic information sufficient to support third party mapping software. Do you mean where the EVSE is located, that geographic information? Yeah. Okay, and will this require being in an area that actually you have service in? Or does it matter? I guess it's good to me. That's just

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Yeah, it's a good question. There potentially could be some public chargers out there that

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: are in a rural area.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Potentially that aren't online, but I don't know of any that because they have to monitor their charger. They can't send a worker there. So it's possible there might be one that's not connected, but I wouldn't know of one because again, they can't run their charger without being able to control something.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: This isn't me trying to find the charger. It is me trying to. Yes.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: So this just says this is where the charger is located in the same way you can find a coffee shop if I you're in a strange

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: guess I'm gonna harken back to several weeks ago, representative White mentioned something about being at some new charging station and you met difficulties with the reason because you couldn't

[Rep. Candice White]: Something happened. I think I was just talking about this. No, can I

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: answer that? I don't know.

[Chair Matt Walker]: There's some background information that you might like to share with us, Representative White.

[Rep. Candice White]: Yes. I was recalling when I used the Bradford Neve charging station this past summer. And one of the issues I had with it was that it was a bright, sunny day, there was no shade around the chargers, and you had to be able to scan a QR code to get directions on how to, I can't remember if it was, I had to download software. So the brightness was one issue. The other issue was very weak service. So those two issues both contributed to a less than successful experience. So this

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: language here doesn't get to issues of cell coverage near the chargers or issues of how user friendly the particular charger is. What it gets to is it allows the third party software developers to basically drop a pin or have a link that you can click on that drops a pin on Google Maps or whatever mapping software you use So then your car can navigate to it. So that's what this does. It doesn't address issues like that, which are a variety of user friendliness

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: Okay.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Problems. So the second section here would create a current EV charger regulation working group. The groups would be oh, I'm so sorry. Trying really hard not to

[Chair Matt Walker]: to get that reminder. Oh.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. So it creates the EV charger regulation working group, which would analyze the current requirements and recommend changes to the laws and rules in Vermont that would eliminate duplicative provisions, address regulatory gaps, and increase the number of EV chargers in Vermont. So before going further, now, the regulation of EV chargers is found both under the public service statutes as well as title 19 highway statutes. So you and they don't necessarily completely jive with each other. And then you also have agency of agriculture who does weights and measures, who checks them to make sure they're actually you know, similar to a gas pump where you wanna make sure that when it says it pumped a gallon, it actually pumped a gallon. With the chargers, they're making sure that it's actually giving a kilowatt hour or kilowatt of electricity when it says it is, etcetera. So there you have regulations in multiple places. So this would have the working group consist of the secretary of transportation or designee, secretary of agriculture designee, commissioner of taxes or designee, chair of the public utility commission or designee, secretary of commerce and community development or designee, and then a representative of the public power supply authority. So they're sort of a trade group that represents our public utilities. The working group would be charged with identifying and analyzing the current legal requirements, including requirements with respect to chargers that are available to the general public around parking, parking charges, time restrictions, applicability of Vermont taxes, requirements for signage, requirements for user assistance contact information, requirements related to disclosing charges that are applicable, display of information relating to inspection and certification, permissible formats for payment forms of payment, availability of information related to charger status and usage, and other requirements related to, like, location and accessibility. So that that's for public chargers. And then with respect to chargers that are available to a specific subset of the public, such as to tenants or guests at an apartment building or tenants and guests of a business or I'm sorry. Customers of a business requirements applicable to the chargers where the owner charges for the use of the charge charger and requirements applicable to charges for which no payment is required. So some businesses offer it as a sort of encouragement for customers. And then with respect to private home and business chargers, any existing legal requirements related to installation use and disclosure of data. And then any other legal requirements related to the use of standard electrical receptive receptacles for charging electric vehicles. So this gets away from the traditional sort of charger that you might think of to a and gets down to a 120 volt or two hundred two hundred and forty volt outlet, which you might find at, for example, a campground or something like that. And they have some out here on Aiken Avenue for chargers or for electric vehicles. It would also charge them with identifying and summarizing the available information that are available to the public, electricians, and other persons who install electric vehicle chargers, determine if there are any legal or regulatory barriers in Vermont to the adoption and increased availability of the chargers, identify any gaps in the existing laws and any potential legislative or regulatory action to address those gaps, identify instances in which Vermont has overlapping or conflicting laws or rules, and address necessary act identify necessary action to eliminate those instances, and then also examine the impact of peak electricity rates on the availability of electric vehicle chargers and whether there might be potential legislative or regulatory actions that could mitigate any negative impacts identified. And they would have the administrative, technical, and legal assistance of agencies of transportation, agriculture, and the public utility commission, and they would be charged with reporting back by December 15. As far as meetings, the secretary of transportation would call the first meeting on or before September 15, and then they would select their own chair and cease to exist on December 31. Since they're all state employees except for the one private group, there's no compensation additional compensation provided in here. So that is that.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: I guess sort of a summary is, as we've had testimony here, there's a lot of moving pieces and really nobody knows all the rules associated with it. So public charging, we're starting to get a good handle on it. But then again, if you have a condo association and they wanna put in some chargers for the people who live there, what are the requirements if they don't charge people to use it? And what are the requirements if a visitor comes and they want to charge for it? I think, you know, became clear when writing grants, at least from my understanding, ACCD is that as they approach places like that, it's not clear what the rules are. So this is really just what are the rules? And where are they? What are they? And hopefully this group get to come to agreement that yes, those are the rules. And they ideally will identify here are places where the rules are unclear. They're not complimentary. They're going against each other or here's some clarification to the rules because we want people to feel comfortable putting these in. And if they have to charge sales tax, they need to know that upfront. And this peak charging piece, we're finding out that there are some utilities, particularly small ones, that have peak charging during the daytime. And that would prevent anybody from putting in fast charger because the cost would be so expensive. And I think there's a car dealer in Swanton who put in a couple of fast chargers, then got hit with the peak charges and said, we can't afford this, and they took them offline. So I think that's maybe a much longer term issue, but those small utilities that have very high peak charges, those areas of the state are not going get any fast chargers because of it right now. So that's really to understand what's going there. And I think there's a knowledge that that problem exists. But at this point, nobody's really going after it. Is it something that we can work with?

[Chair Matt Walker]: Representative White?

[Rep. Candice White]: I think this makes a lot of sense. I appreciate this bill. A couple of questions. Applicability of Vermont taxes. We had a brief conversation in here in committee a couple of weeks ago regarding electric vehicle charging. We learned that some chargers are adding a 6% sales tax. I think we question whether is sales tax the appropriate way to tax, or should it be a different tax or similar to the gas tax and coming into the transportation fund? I guess I'm questioning, do you wanna be any more explicit about that section of applicability of Vermont taxes? I'm also asking her rep McCoy's memory of my challenging and charging experience this past summer. Would you wanna add anything in here about ensuring that use of public chargers is clear and successful. Because if you need a good connection and you can't get that, so that just causes problems when people are trying to charge. So wondering if there's any language about usability for the customer that you'd want to consider adding to this.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Well, I don't get to consider adding or subtracting language from it. That's that's up to all of you. The in in the there is the language about whether there are any requirements related to the availability of information, the location and accessibility, availability of contact information for user assistance. Certainly you could tweak that language, but that would really be a call for Albeit if you decide to move forward with this. And it is really asking them to kind of say what what are the various requirements. And the answer may be there are no requirements around, you know, whether you do provide a contact phone number. It's just, you know, you need to get and I don't know the answer about what all the requirements are on this, but that's really what this is asking. Always tweak that language if you decide to move forward with this.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Yeah, I think the testimony from weights and measures says, hey, based on what's required for say gas pumps and what's in state statute right now, When he goes to look at, not only is he measuring the right electricity, but he's looking at the signage and all that. And you can see, he showed us all the websites he's going to try to figure out what's going. So there'll be a piece of that, minimally it's got to be working. You've got to be able to read the thing that may not help your son fix problem. But I think that part of that is already in here. But what are the specific requirements for a public charger? And I also throw out there, how do you define a public charger? If a condo association doesn't charge for using it, is it a public charger or is it a private charger? And what are the requirements? Do they have to collect sales? Do they have to collect sales tax on that or not? I'm not sure anybody really knows for sure or can be very, it's clear, this feeling. So those are the kind of questions you're just trying to determine. Once we've determined it, I think this committee has said, hey, I think public charging sales tax is like a gas tax and should go to the transportation fund. And certainly, as right now as cars electrified and they aren't providing the 30% gas tax sales from out of state that we presently get, they're gonna be going to these chargers. So we're gonna wanna, and will be subject to sales tax, we probably would wanna steer that toward transportation funding.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: Representative Keyser? Building on

[Chair Matt Walker]: that,

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: is there anything in that bill that requires them to look at the infrastructure of the way that the charging companies reimburse or pay their taxes? Because it comes straight through. Probably That's the question. In other words, where's the sales tax? Because you can't charge sales tax. And if you charge sales tax on a system that's already been taxed, that's a slippery slope. So it would be the backside where you'd be getting each sales tax, not on the charging side. So

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: we already have existing laws about when the sales tax is charged and when it's not. So I think part of what this would be looking at is when does it apply to the charger and what taxes apply. So you do have different scenarios where in some cases it's the electric utility that has the charger and they are selling the electricity right through the charger. In other cases, it's someone who's paying the electric utility for that electricity. And so you do have different scenarios. It would be part of explaining why you may see different charges in different places and also identifying does that make sense. So, yeah, I think that that's one of the pieces here. And I can't answer, not a tax expert, but it's you do have different steps in the electricity

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: transmission

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: picture there, where in some cases it's still electric or GMP who operates the charger. In other cases, it's the state of Vermont. It's the local store. It's a gas station that contracted with the network to put some chargers in to get people to come to the convenience store.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: Representative Chloe? So, Damien, you mentioned that some of this bill is AOT, some of it may be of service statute, some may be the agency of agriculture. Will this bill need to be vetted by the committee on energy and infrastructure, or will it need to be vetted by possibly commerce, because it's going to be a commerce thing too, I think. I don't know if all of this is within our book.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Ultimately, the question of who it needs to go in front of is a question for the chamber and in consultation with the house clerk. And the house has rules about when things fall into different committees' jurisdiction. I can't answer for sure. It does have implications for energy infrastructure. I'm not sure which committee oversees weights and measures.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: So

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: yeah. And there there are potential tax implications. That said, it's also a study, so it's not requiring legislation. So I don't know if it's it needs to make it would need to make a formal stop or whether it's the sort of thing where they could do a drive by. But yeah, these are questions I can't give you a firm answer on.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Do you want to go ahead? Yeah, I would say it's a really good question, but I mean, we're not changing anything. We're not making any policy decisions. It's really what's required now. And at this point, I've been hard to say, we've only discovered a few of these things by sort of looking around and finding out some of the rules that we we didn't or myself didn't even understand. So it's really just to get information. And then from there, whether there's a problem. If there's holes that we want to fix or policy decisions to make to encourage more successful public charging.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I think that, well, don't think the manager will respond. I think that testimony that we've heard and the significant amount of work that's been done here, to me, outlines the problem pretty well and outlines a lot of challenges, but also identifies how many different layers it hits. So one of the things that I've been doing is, well, we met with the Speaker, we also had a planned discussion with Chair James and have highlighted sort of the issue, we haven't done it quite to the language. But this, what I guess I'm saying, a lot of great work, a lot of clearly on what are the problems and the challenges. And when we dug into it the level that we did, it was clear that there's more questions than answers. We aren't the committee that deals with charging landlord, tenant, etcetera. But that doesn't stop the part where it's a legit question and some work that needs to be done by some piece. And although I don't think I could say that I want the Secretary of Transportation to run this, I've been trying to encourage Representative Pouech to really outlining the problem and figuring out that this is something that we can move forward is where I'm sort of at as that spot. So I think that figuring out what we can do with it, I just know that PUC, ag, this digital infrastructure, they're outside of our area. But I think we, by the work the committee did and then by the extra work that Reverend Pouech has done, shows some areas that are worth. So trying to figure out what we do with it. And I'm not sure that I could say that we could support to put it into the T Bill right now. But I think we can I'm willing to put more committee time to it and finding some place for this thing to grab at home. Representative Lalley had your hand up. Don't know.

[Rep. Candice White]: No, I'm back.

[Chair Matt Walker]: The agency may or may not want to accommodate. I don't want to put them in a spot, but they have to. Representative White, if you had your hand up, could certainly go.

[Rep. Kate Lalley]: I did. Well, I guess my one question was, if it doesn't go to the T bill, where would it go?

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: I feel like it

[Chair Matt Walker]: should go into digital infrastructure. Would like to get Chair James to take it up because they deal with energy and digital infrastructure. But I'm not certain of that. Our conversations right now, they're like, I'm not sure. And of course everybody's saying my calendar's full until crossover. But they didn't say that it wasn't

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: a worthwhile deal. When there's a will, there's a way. Obviously, we're going to be getting a lot of bills from the Senate. Hopefully, we can find a I think that's what Chitt was saying. Hopefully, we can find a match.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I don't know if the DMV bill would work for us,

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: but I

[Chair Matt Walker]: don't want to hold out hope that that doesn't seem to have that kind of piece. I think there's work here worth

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: So

[Rep. Kate Lalley]: are we thinking we would put this policy piece in our T bill, just the study? Is that what you're thinking? Or the DMV bill?

[Chair Matt Walker]: I'm very reluctant to put it into the T bill. Because it is way beyond our normal, or I consider it beyond our normal activity and obligating our Secretary of Transportation to try to work with these other without even hearing all the rest of the testimony and what our situation is. But I'm trying to say I don't want to let it go either.

[Rep. Kate Lalley]: You're trying to figure out a path forward for us that doesn't encover the agency, right? In an

[Chair Matt Walker]: area that's not there.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: Responsibility. Okay,

[Rep. Kate Lalley]: all right, thanks. I was just trying to figure out what the path forward might be.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Yeah, and who has responsibility is a great question. We have a bill there, I think from Rep. Campbell, talking about making chargers more visible and also requiring that they take credit card payment. That's what the bill was. And the speaker put it here, it's a transportation. So, and he's from the, you know, energy and infrastructure. So it's hard to say exactly where it goes. Yeah, but somebody's gotta grab it and run with it, I think. Otherwise, and that's probably why there's so much confusion already around these things is because it's touching a little bit of

[Rep. Kate Lalley]: everything. That seems like, not that we get to make this decision, but the commerce angle seems to make maybe intuitive good sense right at where we are now. Because there's a lot at stake in terms of, well, just many things that all kind of have a bottom line thread in common. So maybe that would be, if we could perhaps ask you to have it, it's believed our committee relieved of this bill and sent to Congress or something like that.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Well, not a bill. Was part of the private

[Chair Matt Walker]: This is a potential amendment. I asked this be done as a potential amendment. Do we amend

[Rep. Kate Lalley]: a bill that's on our wall and then send it? Like put your thing on Scott's bill and then send it? It

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: would have to go on

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: the floor. Yeah, you could vote it out.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Goes on the floor. Think you could vote

[Chair Matt Walker]: in and consider short form

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: as well. Usually when you want to weave yourself with a bill and send it

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: to another committee, it doesn't hit the floor.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: Representative Mollie stand up and say, the House It

[Chair Matt Walker]: is a vote and there is an opportunity to

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: Then we vote on whether it moves to the other side?

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: No, Resident Lalley was saying is that she would want it amended first and then send it over. If we just took something off a wall, it would be that big.

[Rep. Candice White]: Yeah, it's just to kind of like, know.

[Chair Matt Walker]: What was your hard stop, Tom? It's $2.45. Okay. We have the committee discussion on the agenda for right after this next section. I'm gonna ask if there's any more specifically on this language. Some question, anybody can have a last question on that. We're gonna go to the transportation alternatives language that Damian had worked on about the changes we made in regards to the water. Remember, this is about getting the federal funds out the door and do as many projects as quickly as possible. But I want to move to that while he's here. We have committee discussion time available after that before floor if we want to pick back up on this conversation. But I want to follow what we have to have our life counsel for and what his availability is and then we can go back into because we weren't technically in discussion and why I'll start allowing that back and forth. It's all fine when it's not a controversial item, but it's not the way we do it. So I correct myself. Can we move to the you have received an email copy of the updated language. And we had asked them to make changes. So we're moving off of that piece of proposed language. We're going back to the old police language that we asked you to work on yesterday. Think so. While we've got you, we'll go from there. And we'll go back to community discussion with VP for when we can.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It's a Pulling up the document here, and it does seem like we worked on this about a week ago, according to the timestamp. It was yesterday.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: So what is the time

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: is oh, no. It's 03:10. So that's two days ago. That said, it says version two at the bottom. I forgot to update the time stamp when I then revised it, but it'll say there'll be a v two on the the little document number at the bottom. The so this language, I ran it by the agency of transportation after we met the other day and made the I've made the changes. So what this does here, the first change in subsection c on page one, line 13, changes the after this fiscal year, this coming fiscal year, it changes the maximum grant to $600,000. So that's up from 300,000. In subsection there we go. F one at the bottom of the page, this takes away the 50% dedication to water quality projects and allows the grant funds to be awarded for any eligible activity with no set aside, and it applies to fiscal year 2027 and thereafter. And then on the second page, the next section, this amends the session law that created a temporarily higher grant allocation amount. So for the through the current fiscal year, it leaves that at $600,000. For the coming fiscal year starting July 1, it increases the maximum grant to $1,200,000 for one fiscal year. And then after that, it'll revert to $600,000 if you don't extend it.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: So I think Got a question from Yeah. I got a question.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: Please go ahead. I thought we were gonna sort of dreadfully give a couple of examples. The chairs serving on and salt sheds in there that got crossed out. I know we had to cross out the 50%, but we sort of wanted to make reference to that, maybe reference to another one or two

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: groups that are eligible for the company.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I apologize. I thought that the committee had decided not to do the exam.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Not to do

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: like the whole exhaustive list, but possibly do one or two because we were gonna lead the chair one and itself.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Right? Yeah, I am not keen on I am trying to be very clear. But obviously, it's not easy to be that way. I believe we are trying to get as much as not to lose the federal money, get the federal money out as quickly as possible and increase the flexibility to the agency, but by no means reducing our commitment to water quality projects being available to this program. And if there was, I thought there was language that would leave the water quality and salt shed, but without referencing the 50%. So I was just trying to find my language and I must have done it. Maybe I didn't have it previously, it was from the presentation. Or maybe it was just on the board. Yeah, I started the language part and I appreciate what you're saying.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: That's exactly where I'm You just have to reword it, but that's what we're gonna have done by referencing one or two.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I do not wanna take out I don't want to take out the references to salt sheds, but I do want to take out references to 50%. Yeah. Represent power.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Yeah. So, you know, maybe we we need to put that back in because it says reserve for municipalities for environmental mitigation. We could say, you know, these funds are for and we could talk about the transportation stuff. You know, one one sentence, this kind of stuff, such as and then environmental mitigation projects, you know, relating to storm water and highways, including milks. And having that in there. No, that's And then it also just sort of says, hey, the other part of it, those are all

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: Not limited to, but here are a couple of examples.

[Chair Matt Walker]: David, I'm sorry. I did not comment back when you asked me to. You definitely put in the more hours than I did in reviewing it. I didn't do it. I forwarded it back on And I think I was a bit unclear. But I apologize, I can't put my fingers on the language that I thought that I had before where we were leaving salt sheds and adding those. Just there are eight or 10 other criteria. I was going point to what we were going do.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: In just a second here.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: I

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: that. Well actually I don't know, it was online. I

[Chair Matt Walker]: was working off of this

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: I think.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I know I've been working off of this, because we're pointing to this a number of times. Yeah. Yeah. Feel like I'm gonna put it in the tubal section. Let's see here.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Of the napkin.

[Chair Matt Walker]: It went on the back of the napkin and it didn't survive.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: If you give me a second here. I think the question is just what which projects do you wanna call out?

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: My personal preference would be socials and,

[Chair Matt Walker]: I forget the terminology.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Safe routes to schools, preservation of historic transportation facilities, recreational trails. These are all eligible uses.

[Chair Matt Walker]: So there's We don't want to list them all. Just Let's do a couple.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: I forget the category. I don't know that people. Why did you just say wastewater or something?

[Chair Matt Walker]: Yeah. So the Salt sheds and the storm water. Yep. And the safe routes to school infrastructure are all examples of the many objects eligible. I'm not sure exactly how that wording works, I'm just not gathering, I must have been looking off that section.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: It could just talk about two main categories, projects and systems that provide safe ride routes for non drivers and then the storm water, you know, that sentence there is Indian. It could be as simple as that. Yep. Okay.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Well, this is what I was working off of. I must not, I didn't actually work off the language. Right. It's like the structure.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Give me just a second here.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: I'll pull up the language. Fine.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Two and

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: three. Mollie,

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: k.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Activity.

[Chair Matt Walker]: It is so check it. It's it's in check and check. Let's see.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. Let me pull up the language that I've added. K. So this would say grant program funds shall be awarded for any eligible activity, including environmental project mitigation projects relating to stormwater and highways, such as eligible salt and sand jet projects and safe routes to schools infrastructure. So that and then, you know, any eligible activity, the list is longer. Like representative Pouech mentioned, it includes all sort of nonvehicular transportation and includes recreational trails, etcetera. And I just had to move that down because of the way the sentence is structured. That used to be part of the 50% language. Does that work? If it does, I'll I can send it back for editing and include it in the t bill draft or if that's the committee's pleasure.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I'm I'm I must I got a little I just let myself get a little distracted on scheduling a few other things. Grant from Shelby is awarded for any eligible activity including environmental mitigation projects related to storm water and highways such as eligible salt and sand shed projects and safe routes to school infrastructure. In accordance with the priorities established in Subdivision 2 of this section. Yes,

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: representative. What did you say, Phil, about non vehicular? What did you say? That came right out of the presentation that said projects and systems that will provide safe routes for non drivers.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: Infrastructure, I mean, I'd rather have that because I

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: think Oh yeah, construction, planning, and designing of infrastructure related projects and systems that will provide safe routes for non drivers. I think that one's better than safe routes to

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: school, because that's more of your comfort zone. Because

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: it is the infrastructure they're trying to solve.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That's a mouthful.

[Chair Matt Walker]: They're pointing the specific up on the top, think, another page.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Think it's a second bullet.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right.

[Chair Matt Walker]: The rest of the committee wanted to The salt and

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: projects wouldn't be eligible.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So eligible SALT and Sanshed sand projects was in the underlying law. I don't administer the grants, so I'm not sure what wouldn't be eligible.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: I guess they're all not, they've got be eligible because of the, correct me if I'm wrong, David, they're the closest to the water. That's right. So it's the distance that, so they won't tell them.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: I think that infrastructure, this one, this one is hard to encompass the same unsaved and it's been a bit a The

[Chair Matt Walker]: point two was that, where is that? The 600009.2 is corrected in here. Programs in the state fiscal year shall not exceed

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You wanna use the non drivers language from the handout? We're in there. Doesn't matter.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I'm sorry. Safe routes for non drivers.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Is that okay with everyone? That's what's in the handout.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I'd I'd add. This is trying to speak to representative Burke. That's actually not here. Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It goes on to say including children, older adults, individuals with disabilities, etcetera. A lot of people are to get. Yeah. So, but non drivers would include the Yeah.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Yep. I guess this would be one of these cases where the people that administer the project were here. They know what we want. We're giving them more flexibility.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: And this doesn't tie their hands at all.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: No, no,

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: The program, the requirements are all written down.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: This is just sort of like what the Senate's gotten done in the past where they take projects out and put them to the front to highlight. We just want to highlight what's underneath. Thank

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: you for that preview of my work in the next month. That starts as soon as this gets lost. Does the money part get identified correctly?

[Chair Matt Walker]: The effective date is correct and the money part correct, I guess is the question. Yeah. And are we going back to the other 600,000 after next year?

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Is that set up the way

[Chair Matt Walker]: you wanted that set up? Yeah.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And so this will all take effect on July 1, which will and that'll modify this prior law here, which set the the max cap the maximum grant allocation for the coming fiscal year. So if that takes effect on July 1, they can go ahead and issue $1,200,000 grants or grants up to 1.2, next for the during the coming fiscal year.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I didn't put this piece as Let's send it back to editing. Send it back to piece, send it back out to the committee tomorrow morning, 08:45, where markup is on the schedule. This potentially is a move into the T Bill. With anything else, anybody's looking to still potentially we're going start at 08:45 and make sure that we can be where we're at. I don't anticipate from what I gather that we're going get back here in the committee tomorrow afternoon. Would be, floor could go on from what I gather in quite some time. If there is available time after lunch, we're going to pick up mileage based usually for the weekend. If there's not, we're going to do the floor and be done for the weekend. But we're going start at 08:45 to mark up where we're at and make sure the committee is where it is for any additional work and whatever. Have another meeting on the T Bill date. I just got another request. I'm not sure if I I didn't feel like that was entirely clear yet exactly when we are filling it out. You'll see in next week's schedule that Tuesday, we have testimony on the local option tax and on the federal rail banking and another time to markup. So we'll be looking to potentially vote on this on Wednesday at the last of the conversations. So those are the steps, and that's where we're at. You're gonna send us the final version of this so that we could potentially put it into more money?

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm gonna send it out for editing and ask to get it back, hopefully, by the end

[Chair Matt Walker]: of the day so I can wanna go back to Yeah. With that, we can go back to the conversation. We'll go back to the presentation. We can all call it now a committee discussion where we can discuss that where you can ask your questions back and forth across. Where we broke the rules earlier, we won't have those rules. I may want back to talking about the representative Pouech's potential or his language if, Damon, you feel like you have what you need.

[Damien Leonard, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I do. You even have

[Chair Matt Walker]: a few extra minutes that you didn't expect. That is great. I appreciate it. We will see you tomorrow morning at 08:45.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: See you

[Chair Matt Walker]: in the morning. What is this and updates on mileage based language for us to we'll look at. It doesn't mean we'll be able to action on it. And then we'll see what happens after or after lunch. Yep. You. Hopefully that's clear as mud to everybody. And let's go back to where we were talking about I could put our guests in the room on I think I may have already spoke to it. Normally after we hear on language, the first thing we'll do is ask the agency to comment on language. Whether they want to or not, I don't want to make you. And we didn't do that. And that would be part of the sort of the next steps.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: So I did share this with Yeah. So what are And you just tell me where we are. What are we discussing? Oh, we're going

[Chair Matt Walker]: back to where we were with the EV And charging we're in committee discussion piece so we can go back and court the cross and kind of pick up where we are at, which was to my mind figuring out what we might or might not be able to do. Normally we get to this spot, we have language, we've heard it. The first thing we usually do is go to the agency for their feedback and then we go to witnesses. But I am still saying this is out of our jurisdiction but that doesn't mean that I still think there's value. So I'm gonna figure something out. I'd like to figure something out. You were gonna say something and then No.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: I was saying, shared it with Patrick and I shared it with ACCD and weights and measures so that with the expectation to get testimony on.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Thank you, Daniel. Thank you. See you soon. Sure,

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: for the record, Bonepower, Agency of Transportation.

[Rep. Candice White]: I appreciate deliberations

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: on this because it is a very complex piece of work that needs to be accomplished in some manner that is very cross cutting. And I think at this point, as has been recognized, it's a bit sort of far afield from the agency's main mission to address most all of the elements that are in this. I mean, certainly are tasked with building the infrastructure and making sure we set guidelines and address the issues that you've identified here. But then when you get into the taxi policy and some of the elements related to the sort of energy elements that the Public Service Department covers and weights and measures and everything else, it gets a bit more complicated. And I think that perhaps one way to think about this would be to perhaps set up a meeting, Representative Pouech, with you and some of the key folks like Patrick and Ron Lyon, and make sure we get everybody sort of at the table and talk about, are there any things here that any of the groups are already working on that they could sort

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: of

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: be perhaps coming back with legislative recommendations for next year? And then what are the parts that are not being worked on? And then who is the responsible party? Then what's needed to engage them to work on something? And would there be money required needed to advance those things? So I think having the comprehensive list is super important. We've made a lot of progress in that regard in terms of what you've outlined. Many of these things are not new. We've looked at them in prior years. I guess that would be the agency's feedback for you at this point.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: So that's on the sort of second part of this. The first part was, I guess, probably the same answer on availability or transparency for public chargers, particularly fast chargers. That would sort of say the same thing, yeah.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I would, you know, I think representative McCoy did sort of mention the commerce angle of things too. It's like, I think we're also like in this very sort of trying to do apples to apples between EV charging and gas stations. And are we going to have the big banners on polls about the price of gas for EV charging or not? There's so many things that I think we haven't also because everything is becoming more digital, a lot of people probably don't even pay attention to the signs of gas stations now because they have GasBuddy. That's what they look at. So it's what is the best approach for the future as this type of infrastructure advances? And think once again, that's a little bit outside of our venue.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Which, thank you very much, puts us sort of where we were sort of at, or sort of at it, saying, how do we bring up let's find this as a legislative, administrative struggle. I feel like it's gonna be one of the second times where I feel like we're doing something and don't know how we break through.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: I shouldn't have brought up that, but I feel like we're stuck. Yeah. Well, think this suggestion from Michelle is a good one in that I've already been communicating with these folks and I can see if in the next week I can get some people at the table and just sort of say, how do we move this forward or what's already happening? But, you know, I don't think those different groups are going to they're gonna do their pocket of stuff and that's it. Breaks and measures, and I don't blame They're gonna do what's required by the existing law. And, you know, that's gonna leave other things just sort of floating there. So somehow we gotta you know, I think it's probably the legislature that's gotta pull it together. But how do that happens? I'm not sure. It's not the first time I think you run into different committees who's responsible and then the ball sort of never gets carried across the commission.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: I think our best bet is to see what bills come over from the Senate. And then depending on what one links up, you know, we can have with the chair and say, hey, know, this is what we want to work on. Are you willing to work with me? And it just gives us more time, but there's got to, I would bet that as far as something coming over from the Senate that would find It's some germane too. Yeah, germane too, yeah.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: They put an amendment onto that

[Chair Matt Walker]: Well, when it comes

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: to me, we'll just sit down with me and say, hey, can we do a drive by or get the bill submitted to us?

[Chair Matt Walker]: After this week, I'll have people sit and check with me and say, what do do about this?

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: I think. Lisa, go ahead.

[Rep. Candice White]: I do think that this bill is somewhat indicative of how state government operates, where agencies are really good at their lane, but often they're not talking to each other because they are focused on what is in their purview. And so I think it's important to have bills like this that really require multiple agencies to look at existing policies from the customer perspective, like how is this ultimately affecting the customer? And so I think it's really important to be bringing those agencies together. So that's just my show of support for trying to move this forward.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: Yeah, and to that point, I mean, remember when we first started talking about EV charging stations, we started talking about pricing and what it should be, and then all of a sudden somebody told us, well, that's not within your purview. I'm thinking, oh it's going to be the energy committee. They come out with agriculture related. Agriculture, how could they possibly be in charge of energy? But they are, because they say, oh it's a roots in the atmosphere, and they're like, okay.

[Rep. Candice White]: You never know. Southways. Yeah.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: I mean transportation in itself falls into, wait a transportation picks roads, but there's some healthcare pieces to it. I mean there's economic development piece to it. Every community touches some, but there are some topics like this one that is like really spread out and needs to be sort of brought in. I

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: agree with that, and I think we could probably find a dance partner who's no doubt

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: in our sail like that.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Is so funny, he's been here for

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: a while.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I'm sitting here going, does that work? I've never done that. So he's like, this is something we can do. We've done it before. But a lot of us, I'm sitting here going, I'm not sure how that works. What do say? If there's a will, there's a way? Is that what she said? Since

[Rep. Candice White]: we made it into

[Chair Matt Walker]: a priority. So scheduling wise, I don't want to shut down the conversation if there is any. Scheduling wise, now we sit here at 02:30 and Damien's not available. Patrick and Damien both are not available at bigger chunks tomorrow. The mBuff is still the priority of pushing it through. He's got to work on the language and the request that we made today. And he had to work on changes in the request that we made yesterday. The queuing up of the local options acts, Logan was in here for a little while. He's working with, I forgot his name. He's in JFO that's coming in on Tuesday. So now we're hurting for time, but now we have time. We don't have any witnesses. So that is sometimes happens mostly because the deadline has been is up in

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: the air a little bit. Yeah, I just because I had

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: to leave the room for a bit, did we take out that national, whatever, inflationary thing yet?

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: That's not in the language now.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: It's not in. We took it out. I don't think that's even removed.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Did we? Did we actually take

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: it out?

[Rep. Candice White]: We didn't remove it. Just did it. It's unresolved. Okay. My understanding. You took it

[Chair Matt Walker]: out even more.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: I think you need.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: Wasn't that the language that we took

[Rep. Candice White]: No, I even

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: mean, really, that, yeah, it's going on. I think that we need to take that out for sure. So I don't know if we get that message to Damian before he comes back.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I don't don't know if have further hear any comments about that. We can do that right now. We're opening committee discussion.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy]: I think

[Chair Matt Walker]: We need the framework around mileage based user fee to move forward. But we do have to make decisions on that piece. It does not have to be, in my mind, completely prescriptive because it's their job to put the pieces together in terms of what does the programming allow and what doesn't allow. They need to be told the direction that we want to go and make it work. The escalator is a big one. That one does have to be decided. But there are, I guess, the workings versus the policy. There are some policy ones still out there. I agree, you can still talk about that, right? I don't have trouble unless we're out of order in some way to really understand what everybody's opinion on that is and the new attendee code. Right now it's on committee discussion. Yeah, no, that's Damien's not available. Yeah, sure. You were gonna say something.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Yeah, I may be repeating myself, but first of all, I committed to getting knowledge based use of fear. Think it's the right thing to do for a lot of reasons. But it also feels like it's feeling a little rushed in that we're just getting the language together. Think, And you know, the administration sort of last minute decided, okay, let's really push this. So it's sort of, you know, I almost wonder if we shouldn't be doing the same thing and tying it to the DMV bill and, you know, working a little more through some of these kind of questionable issues. I don't know. It while I wanna do it, it feels like it it feels a little rushed, and I wanna make sure it's done well and makes sense. Even in the language we have now, we didn't quite have all the language in there yet because there were still some questions. So I just put that out there. I'm willing to work on it as much as we can and see if we can get it out. But I think it's a lot to get out in just a couple days.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: On that No. I was just saying within that, there's still a couple options. I I guess, you know, another option, like I said, we really want it in the T Bill, but we could not include it, wait for it to go over the ways and means system by us, and then maybe a couple of days we can do an amendment there or probably bias in another five days or so and wait till it gets on the floor and then somebody could offer an amendment to

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: the T Bill. This has got to sync up with the T Bill Yeah, okay.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: Now I just don't think we'll be on the D and B Bill, but we probably could maybe buy some time, but ultimately if you're talking about extra, maybe five to five days, which is

[Chair Matt Walker]: quite a bit if that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: I don't know if it depends on two predicated on the conversations.

[Chair Matt Walker]: That for some reason are different than

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: the Yeah, they're different, so it all

[Chair Matt Walker]: depends on that too. Well, I appreciate that because that might give us the week that we need to feel more comfortable about it. On that same route or direction, it's not the same direction, but you're feeling about whether it's, you know, whether we don't have enough time or not, I don't know if we're safe rushed or not, but I, the comments, the discussion that says we as a committee or we as a legislature have sort of said we're definitely going to mileage based user fee for everything is not something that I am sold on at all. And I fought against it and lost under the idea that it was intent language and economics change last year in the community conference. Because I'm not sold that that's the way to go entirely for everything. I'm fairly likely to potentially lose that argument or not, but basing our decisions when we make comments and say, Well, when we go to gas or when everybody goes to this, we haven't made that decision that we're going everywhere to there. So that part is something that gets to me that I does say that feels, I feel rushed, because I haven't come to that total acceptance that that is the way that it should be. I don't mind reiterating it. Understand the user pays, but I can get a more efficient vehicle to save on my gas tax. I don't want to be limited in how many miles that I go. I want as much economic activity and, I don't know, go west young man in freedom to go everywhere. If I can pedal the damn thing, should be able to go as far as I want. And I don't know that that's a good argument. I'm just saying that's where I'm at with this sort of thing. I'm not on the idea that we should be at the total amount of miles, that we don't want to be limiting activity. We want to limit the impact on the environment. We want to collect the most amount of money. We want to fix the roads. I sure don't want to slow down people from going places and doing things. I just haven't come to grips on that. So I'm not saying that we've made a policy that we're going to go this way for gas,

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: for all vehicles. That was thrown in by the Senate. It was and I lost.

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: We both did, but its intent might Right,

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: we get that. And we really need to be clear on that because we need to break one from the other. And it's great that, you know, in developing the mileage based user fee for EVs, there was also some thought, hey, someday, you know, this might be the direction we're going. But 30% of our gas tax is paid by out of state buyers of gas. And if we were to go to mileage based user fee for everybody, that means you're not charging gas tax anymore, and you're gonna lose all that revenue from out of staters. So this is a that's if we were to go in that direction, it's a long term. It ain't gonna happen in the next couple of years. So we shouldn't get too tied up in that. And, you know, the mileage base for EVs, I think makes sense. And I'm willing to to work through it. Just feels like we've only really had two sessions going over the language and every time, at least I have a lot of questions to make sure it makes sense. And it's not a huge burden for people to meet the requirements and keep it as simple as possible. And take out the inflation factor too.

[Rep. Candice White]: Representative? I appreciate Representative Pouech's numerous questions on the mBuff because it's helped us see how it's going to unfold. I feel like having taken out, I think we took out two sections of fees, because I was concerned about too many fees there. And again, just remembering that this is to equalize EV drivers and gas drivers, not to penalize EV drivers. I thought representative McCoy's suggestion about looking at the registration fee, that might need a little bit more thought from the agency, the two year, the one year, when January 1 rolls around. I don't know if they've come to a decision on whether they do limit it to one year registrations while this M Buff gets off the ground. But I don't think we got a resolution on that. And the inflator, I think a number of us are against that. I appreciate that Rep. Tomlinson brought that up last week, but just inflator, if there's none on the gas tax, is a no go. I'd also be willing to tie it to a gas tax inflator, whether that would be pulled out and defeated. But I feel like I'm willing to take a stand to say, we've got to deal with this gas tax issue.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Fine.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Could you let Patrick get to our discussion, or invite Patrick Gittenden into our

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: He's

[Chair Matt Walker]: got some comments, I think it's worthwhile to hear them as we keep going. I didn't mean to interrupt. I thought you were done, okay?

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: I am. I mean, I'm

[Chair Matt Walker]: done done, but I'm saying I thought that you'd finish that thought. I'd like to have him join us on some of that. I thought we sent some pretty strong messages about the need to look at revenue over all of last year, we've come a long ways in educating the entire body. I didn't realize something in the last bit that we have to educate the body on solving the T fund doesn't solve the town highways problem, which is why I'm really pushing that we will be rushing a piece in potentially for that.

[Rep. Candice White]: Excellent.

[Chair Matt Walker]: The escalator for gas would have kept it out, so a lot of these problems of where we are today, but that's the realities of where we are. Patrick, appreciate you hearing and And being out this is important to us. The commitment of electric vehicle drivers to willing to pay their fair share has been steadfast and clear all the way through the process. Also understanding we're not getting the revenue from out of staters that use it is also an issue. We want to make sure that it's fair, and we want to make sure that it's spot. And I think there's still a lot of work to do between now and January 1. I do recall you said that it was very likely that you were very confident we would get there. So thank you for coming back and keeping us going forward.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Sure. Thank you. For the record, Patrick Murphy, state policy director. I think I'd want to start by just framing this whole discussion. We've talked about what the driving rationale behind this has been, which has really been work that the agency has been doing since 2021 when it first held meetings for a road usage chart study. And that led to an implementation report that was released in 2022 and shared with the legislature, and then a number of pieces to various transportation bills that directed the agency to continue working on this and authorized the agency to seek federal funding to be able to implement this, something that now seems like it was it will be a rare opportunity to be able to do that. But when when you just step back from the MySpace user fee program itself and think about, electric vehicles and how you compare electric vehicles to gas vehicles. I think it's somewhat apt analogy that you're with a gas vehicle, there's all kinds of different problems that come with it. With an electric vehicle, the rationale behind the design of this is to be able to do the same kinds of things that a gas vehicle does without the negative impacts, to be able to improve the operating system of the vehicle itself so that you're building something better for the long term. That's what we're doing or trying to do with this Miler Space user fee program, and they're not always going to be exactly analogous, because we want to do, continue those things that aren't working well with it, but we don't want to be repeating past mistakes that we see with the gas tax, which is really an ongoing declining source of funding. There's no way around that given how vehicles have become and are becoming more fuel efficient. And so I think you even saw that in some of the language discussions that we've had, like trying to jam what is brand new program into old language to try and create some equivalency between a gas vehicle and a electric vehicle doesn't always work out. So what worked for diesel vehicles around penalties isn't going to work for an electric vehicle. So there does need to be a kind of acceptance of doing things in new ways, what we're trying to do with this language is to make it as specific as possible so that the committee and the legislature feels comfortable with the direction of where we're going with the program, but also, as I I said, I think, earlier in testimony, to remain flexible enough to implement it in a way that's that's going to work as we develop the actual systems to do this. I've heard many of your concerns about the inflation adjustment factor, for example, an inflation adjustment on the gas tax is sort of building off an old system that's declining. Looking at the data, we do see that an inflation adjustment is a good policy to be able to maintain the purchasing power of transportation fund dollars. The index itself that we've recommended that was referenced in the UVM Transportation Research Center's report is used by three other states right now for their fuel tax. Another state has their own state version of it's either Minnesota or Michigan has their own state version of that. But then there are other states that have other indicators, so that's something for the committee to consider. What we've talked about in response to some of the concerns that we've heard from the committee, I think it is possible to have language that would make that kind of inflationary adjustment effective upon the inclusion of more vehicles into the program so that it is done in a more coordinated fashion with the rest of the fleet that is still under paying what the average gas vehicle is paying now in fuel taxes. So when you look at, you you think about the mileage rate as 1.4¢ per mile, and you evaluate what range of vehicles are paying right now, we do have a very inequitable system. Households with lower incomes tend to drive less fuel efficient vehicles, that's borne out by the data. But on average, vehicles paying under the average 23 miles to the gallon are paying a much higher rate than just 1.4¢ per mile. So when you go down in efficiency, you're paying far more on a per mile basis, and then as you increase efficiency above the average, you're paying increasingly less on average per mile, and so it does leave a number of vehicles that are paying beneath what would be effectively 1.4¢ per mile. So that is a suggestion for your consideration that if that the inflation adjustment is not thrown out altogether, but that you consider a different effective date that is based on the inclusion of more vehicles above the average mileage rating to make sure that it's coordinated with the rest of the fleet that is paying below that average. I'll pause there for discussion, but happy to answer other questions that come up.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: I'm happy to leave that inflation factor in there, but rather than say once electric vehicles get to 20%, it could say this inflation factor takes effect once the same inflation factor is put on gas tax. That's the fair approach. Or all vehicles move. Or all of them. Yeah. I think Yeah. I'm not for adding an inflation factor just for people who are driving EVs. I think the rate of 1.4¢ is a is a slight compromise because we know EVs are very efficient vehicles for the amount of electricity they use per mile in comparison to fuel driven vehicles. So that 1.4, I think, is a pretty good compromise to be a 100% fair right down the middle. But to say that's gonna go up and the rest of the fleet, the majority of it isn't, that doesn't seem fair. Good work.

[Rep. Candice White]: Patrick, just to clarify what I heard you say, you said that Minnesota and two or three other states currently have that inflator on their gas tax, inflator tied to the construction index.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yes, so there are several states that have some form of gas tax that's tied to inflation, but there are four states that specifically have it tied to highway construction index. Three of them this very index that we proposed and a fourth that has its own state version of the index.

[Rep. Candice White]: And do those states also have that inflator on their mBuffs? Do they currently have an mBuffs?

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: No. I mean, if we're gonna be the first state to implement a mandatory MIMO space user fee.

[Rep. Candice White]: Okay.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So those yeah. Those states many of those states just have, you know, much higher flat fees, much higher than ours at $89.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Couple. According to Google, 26 states plus DC have some kind of an automatic adjust Are we listed as one of those?

[Chair Matt Walker]: Because we do have automatic adjustments in the past, but it's not. If the price is lower, the amount we collect is lower. If the price is higher, then we collect it higher.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: There's a group of states that have it similar to aspects of ours that have it tied to the actual price, so it's based on the sale price. But there's fewer, maybe about a third that have it tied specifically to inflation.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Patrick, I agree with many of your parts, one of them being that having an inflator is a good sound policy when you're It's amazing how your laws would tend to have that if you're making laws in the time of high inflation. But when you ran a twenty five, thirty year period with no inflation, there wasn't a lot of talk about inflators. I agree that it's a good idea, and I agree it's a good sound policy so we don't have to revisit fee increases on a regular basis because they're kind of in effect designed to keep up. Unfortunately, have or fortunately or on the other side of that, we have a significant issue with affordability in the state and we have held a very strong hard line in many cases about raising any fees. And I think this committee is right in the middle of that argument right now, right in the middle of that, squarely in the middle of that situation. Think that don't right now know what CA, the path it's going be forward. We can't do anything about it right now in terms of other than to make sure we're clear on those that are here's position because we're not going to take action without everybody here, or at least without the intent to have everybody here. Now that Patty's gone.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Sort of where we're at

[Chair Matt Walker]: in the middle of this situation.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: And I should say, I mean, the primary objective of the agency is to get this in place to fill the hole that we know that we have now. The idea behind the inflation adjustment is to address the holes that we know will be there in the future, but if it's the wish of the committee, then I think the agency is fine with delaying a decision on an inflation adjustment in this particular phase.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Go ahead.

[Rep. Candice White]: Yeah, Patrick, I hear what you're saying about Gas taxes are maybe paid at a higher rate by low income Vermonters because they tend to have less fuel efficient cars. On the other hand, I think Vermont spent what, 23 or $25,000,000 in EV incentives,

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: a

[Rep. Candice White]: portion of which, I think a majority of which were directed to low income Vermonters so that they could take advantage of these incentives to buy an EV and save money. I don't know if there's data on all cars in Vermont, what kind of cars are driven by, which income level that might inform our conversation. And I don't wanna put you on the spot, do you feel like the suggestion that putting an inflator on the MBUF as well as on the gas tax, the same inflator on the MBUF as on the gas tax is a valid proposition?

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I mean, would say that the administration has been clear that they do not support an increase in gas taxes, And so an indexing of the gas tax would be an increase in the gas tax. There are just concerns generally that you have what is a more regressive tax that is increased and made then more of a burden on those households. Yes, we were very intentional about making sure that the incentives that we administered were focused on those who needed it most in households with the lowest incomes. And the unfortunate reality is that funding is no longer available, and it's no longer available at the federal level as well, so these vehicles are still out of reach for many. For those that weren't able to take advantage of the incentives and for whatever reason, and that still find themselves driving fuel inefficient vehicles, that's where the concern is that you have inequitable system right now. Putting aside the question of fuel efficiency and the impacts to the environment, if you're trying to create a fairer system, you would get to a point where most vehicles are paying roughly the same on average on a per mile basis, and so we're just, we're pretty far from that at this point, but, you know, directly to your question about responding to the notion of pairing this with a gas tax indexing proposal, the administration would not support that.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Representative Pouech? I agree with you, Patrick. The gas tax is a regressive tax. A mileage based user fee is also a regressive tax. It's not a tax based on what you can afford. It's a tax based on what how much you drive. And same with the gas tax. It's not a tax on how much you can afford. It's a tax on how much gasoline you buy. They're both regressive.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yes, they're both regressive. What I'm saying is there's different degrees of regressivity, and in this case, I think right now, we have a gas tax which is actually more regressive.

[Chair Matt Walker]: So we know where the agency and the administration stands. Will have to take a, when we have as close to our 11 members, whether it be tomorrow morning at 08:45, where we try to mark up what we can on the bill and perhaps we may have everybody there we can make a decision on a couple Is there sorry, before I I was gonna adjourn, but I wanna Was there other significantly concerned Was there another decision lined up on the inbox that we were going to need to make? We decided to remove one of the penalty pieces. He's coming Our alleged counsel is coming back with additional language. We're gonna go through it again. Was there any other major decisions to be made on that? Or was it more of an understanding and thesis? Okay.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: I don't think there was anything

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: I'm

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: trying to understand. I'm trying to understand it from the average person. How's this gonna feel and look? Right.

[Chair Matt Walker]: And I appreciate that. We need to continue to go down that path. So we'll we'll probably take the opportunity for doing markup than we have most everybody, and we can also make some sort of decision on this piece. Representative White?

[Rep. Candice White]: This is not in the language for the mBuff, but I'm thinking if it does get off the ground and it launches 01/01/2027, would it make sense to request from the agency a six month, just like brief summary to the committee, just how it's working? Because I think it's a new program, they're trying to figure out and make it as successful as possible, but it'd be helpful to hear how it goes that first six months.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Well, it's going start on January 1, and whomever is sitting in these seats will be here January. So I absolutely agree they'll report it, but I can pretty much be sure that everybody in the committee will want to know. So we'll have them in the chair

[Rep. Chris Keyser]: Do you

[Rep. Candice White]: think it's unnecessary?

[Chair Matt Walker]: I think the topic's completely valid. I don't think we're going to need to tell them to do it because we're all going to be well, not we, but somebody will be sitting here wanting a we'll be at real time as it's implemented. And I think we'll get that piece. Now, that doesn't mean that maybe we want some kind of, I don't know, an update that if it's September and it's not gonna happen, what were to happen? I guess that is a legit. So what happens when we leave? Also think we could expect another update come May just because the agency and the bills moved on in terms of downstairs. That doesn't mean that there's not three more months worth of work done before we leave in May that we can't call them back in here and say, Where are we at in May? And then sort of ask, what kind of update could you give us in September? Think that's legit. They can send us an email, an update of what if something does come up, what's gonna happen in the meantime between now and then? The secretary will have the leeway to make decisions or no? What's the take on that, Patrick, in terms of coming back in here before we adjourn and giving us an update and then some sort of update in the fall that says, here's it's still progressing or it's not, or that's maybe some kind of I don't want to report, I'm not looking to put this in the bill, I'm looking at what could we expect from the agency in that area.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah, no, I'm fine to be able to do that both at the end of the session and later in the fall, And then just as part of our federal grant, we're going to be developing a final report, we have language in it in the grant agreement itself, that we will deliver that report to the legislature in the following year, in 2028. So that is the expectation that we've had, is that we will come back the following year and be able to discuss what went well and if there are any adjustments that needed to be made, and sort of just general data about the program and how we envision evolution of it. And then I just want to emphasize, because there have been a number of questions about the details of what happens in X situation or Y situation, these have been things that we've gone through and discussed and that we will be working through with the IT developer, where we're going through all the different potential business case issues that come up and figuring out whether there's a solution for it and how it might be, how big of an issue it might be. And so, you know, one of the things that had come up before lunch was something around, you know, how do we make sure that we are able to pursue money in the case that a vehicle is retired early or something. There may not be an immediate solution for all of these different use, you know, edge cases. There- there just might not be a solution in the same way that there isn't necessarily the best possible solution for traveling out of state or between jurisdictions, but it doesn't mean necessarily it's a huge problem if there's, you know, the scale of it we're talking about is 13,000 vehicles at the moment, thereabouts, and that is why one of the primary reasons why we're starting with this group of vehicles because it's smaller because we know for a fact that they aren't necessarily paying the equivalent fair share that other vehicles are paying. So we will be working through all of these issues and appreciate the questions, but also the flexibility to be able to address these as they come up through the development process.

[Rep. Phil Pouech]: Thank you.

[Rep. Candice White]: I just have one more question, Patrick. Last year when we were finalizing the T Bill, I think it was in the T Bill, we made sure we put money towards the MBUF program because at that point the federal funding was unsure and perhaps clawed back. Did that federal funding come through or did you end up using T fund revenue? Do you It was a couple $100,000. I don't remember all the details.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah. No. There have been in two successive T Bills funding set aside $350,000 each, which has become the state match for that federal grant, and we were, it took a while, we were ultimately awarded the grant, and we executed that agreement in the fall of this past year. So we are spending down on that federal grant. I think what you're referring to is that there was at one point during the legislative session last year, a move to see whether there could be general fund dollars pulled into this in the event that we weren't able to access the federal funding. And so that didn't ultimately get included in the appropriations bill, and so we haven't spent anything other than what was originally authorized by you all for a state funding match to that federal grant.

[Rep. Candice White]: Thank you.

[Patrick Murphy, State Policy Director, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Sure.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Okay, we have got to go to the floor. I appreciate the conversation, those of you that stuck it out. Everybody's got things going on with much bigger business in the building today and yesterday and tomorrow. We will be back at 08:45 tomorrow morning. We are adjourned.