Meetings
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[Speaker 0]: Good evening, almost. Good afternoon. Wednesday, 03/18/2026 here in house transportation. We have, 10 members in house and one on dialed in. We are at the end of a culmination of thirteen, fourteen weeks, two and a half months of work on the T bill. And we are at a spot where we believe it's all come together, both on the financial side and on a language and the law. So everybody should have received a copy in the email. They also have copies on your desk for those that ask for it. The editors are back momentarily with that final piece. What I'd like to do now is, if we have a motion, that we would We have our clerk, Lieutenant Tomlinson, is nearly ready to go. I would like to would like that's the price you're possibly about. It's a 1 shot. I hope that we approve draft 4.1 of the transportations. Legislative councils got
[Damien Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: a comment. Just wanted to add one minor change that is that the allocation of fiscal year 2027 m buff revenues to town highway Yeah. The effective date on that was made 01/01/2027. So it's consistent with the other mileage based user fee that wasn't in the draft you reviewed. Okay. That's the only correction to note.
[Speaker 0]: So should I reference 4.2?
[Damien Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: Nope. It's 4.1, and I'll I'll send a clean copy to the committee to post. Okay. But that was just cleaned up in the editing process. So, otherwise, you're good. I just wanted to make sure you know everything you're going on.
[Speaker 0]: Comments before we vote?
[Chloe Tomlinson (Clerk)]: I have a question just in looking at the final bill, that on page five and page seven, there are virtually identical sections regarding during an emergency event. I just want to make sure that that was intentional.
[Damien Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: That is intentional. The first of those relates to bonding for compliance with the terms of a contract. The second relates to bonding for compliance with tax and unemployment insurance obligations.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I just have one clarifying question too for Damien. Think on page 30, at the end of the mBUF, there's a page and a half of hours of the commissioner.
[Speaker 0]: And
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I don't remember us reviewing this. Is this just sort of boilerplate that gets put in
[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Or
[Unidentified Committee Member]: running a program like mBuff?
[Damien Leonard (Legislative Counsel)]: This is so the we did review this on our first time through the mBuff draft. These are somewhat boilerplate powers that were taken from the taxing authority. In revising them, there was one power that we took out because it didn't apply to the mBUF, but the other ones we've left because they all apply their authority to adopt rules, prescribe forms, contract with the account manager, enter into agreements with other states for reciprocal enforcement, and then the whole hearings and compel attendance of witnesses, and then the examination under oath, and then using a judge to enforce subpoena. So if someone is appealing but they won't share their documents, the commissioner has authority under the sections we referenced in 105 to 107 to use subpoena, and this just calls it out again, same as we did in the taxes. So they they're based on boilerplate that's used in all of the tax sections with the tax specific provisions taken out.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. Thank you, guys.
[Speaker 0]: Others? Question? Ken Wells, can you still hear us? I am. So I guess we'll ask Kirk to call out. Call the
[Chloe Tomlinson (Clerk)]: vote. Okay. Rep Burke? Yes. Rep Casey?
[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Yes.
[Chloe Tomlinson (Clerk)]: Rep Corcoran? Yes. Rep Keyser?
[Speaker 0]: Yes.
[Chloe Tomlinson (Clerk)]: Rep Lalley? Yes. Rep McCoy? Yes. Rep Pouech?
[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Rep Pouech? Pouech? Yes. Yes.
[Speaker 0]: I certify I am Kenneth Lance Wells, Orleans County District 3. I vote yes, amen.
[Chloe Tomlinson (Clerk)]: Okay. Brett White? Yes. Brett Walker?
[Speaker 0]: Yes.
[Chloe Tomlinson (Clerk)]: Great. It's eleven-zero-zero.
[Speaker 0]: I'd like to thank all the members of the committee for their work on the bill. I'd like to thank our legislative counsel and to thank our JFO for help. I'd like to thank, and she's listening, our committee assistant who wasn't here on our big day. I'm disappointed about that. I appreciate that. To the agency and all of the witnesses, the agency and all of the members of the agency that have participated, as well as all of the witnesses that have joined through, I also felt the need to kind of sober the moment in that this agency and this budget has gone through some pretty substantial difficulties from last fall through the first of this year. And I think it was important that the committee recognized the kind of financial situation of the T fund and the entire infrastructure that we have is still a significant issue and that there are many people that have brought lives and been substantially disrupted because of the situation of the T Fund and our projects. So I appreciate everybody having kept that in mind all the way through. I also very much appreciate that we universally agree on finding every way possible to support our towns and municipalities and their highway budgets and the issues they face with their own roads and bridges. And solving the T Fund does not solve the problem for the highways. I appreciate everybody. That is very much a nonpartisan issue. And I appreciate the work that was done there. In the T Bill, I appreciate everybody's efforts, particularly call out the work to support the public transit including Mountain Transit Authority. Hopefully a large economic opportunity up in the Northeast Kingdom will be able to move forward before the next time we get to a T Bill. I don't want to leave anything out, but we don't want to carry on for too long. Also, partners that were impacted by a number of pieces in the bill from the RPCs took a significant testimony there, leads the cities and towns that help all those communities. So I appreciate all the work. I appreciate very much the eleven zero vote. I appreciate your hard advocacy for the areas that you were a particular interest for. We didn't get everything that we wanted. Nobody got everything they wanted. What I've really learned over the time that I've been on the committee is incremental change is how the most work actually gets done. And I appreciate everybody's support on that. Thank you very much for the eleven o vote. We will be back in committee tomorrow morning, and we will talk about 09:30, and we will talk about presentations and sections and where the T bolt goes from here. Is there anything to add? 09:30. Let's go with 09:30 tomorrow. It's right. Tomorrow's Most wonderful. Thursday? We'll go at 09:30 tomorrow, and we'll pick up from where we