Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Will senate please come to order. Are there any announcements? Seeing none. This is rule 44 a. Pursuant to temporary rule 44 a, the following bill has having failed to meet crossover and being released by the committee on rules are referred as follows. H nine fifty seven, government operations. H nine fifty four, government operations.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Orders

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: of the day. We'll now take up third reading. It's alright. Not in a hurry. We have h nine fifteen for third reading. Are there any amendments prior to third reading? Seeing none, listen to the third reading of the bill.

[John H. Bloomer Jr. (Secretary of the Senate)]: H nine fifteen, an act relating to establishing an extended

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: bill passed in concurrence with proposal of amendment. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed nay. No. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it, and we've passed h nine fifteen.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: There's three of you. We

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: now have h nine twenty eight for third reading. Are there any amendments prior to third reading? Seeing none, listen to the third reading of the bill.

[John H. Bloomer Jr. (Secretary of the Senate)]: H nine twenty eight, an act relating to technical corrections to fish and wildlife statutes.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The question is, shall the bill pass in concurrence with proposal of amendment? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, we've passed age nine twenty eight. Back to seven ten. We'll now go back to the top of the calendar, which brings us to h seven ten. We have on the calendar for action h seven ten, which passed the house on 05/15/2026. It was referred to the committee on natural resources, which reports it is considered the bill and recommends that the senate propose to the house that the bill be amended as it appears starting on page forty three zero seven of today's calendar. Carried. And that with such proposal of amendment, the bill ought to pass. Affecting the appropriations of the state, the bill was referred to the committee on appropriations, which recommends that the bill ought to pass in concurrence with proposal of amendment as recommended by the committee. Please listen to the second reading of the bill.

[John H. Bloomer Jr. (Secretary of the Senate)]: H seven ten, an act relating to defining electricity generating facilities.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Recognize the senator from Washington, senator Watson, for the report of the committee on natural resources.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. This bill has two main parts. One part came to us from the other body and one part we added. For what it's worth, both parts were consensus language developed by the PUC and voted out of committee, five zero zero. What do these parts do and what problems are they attempting to resolve? It is a little bit technical, but there has been a lack of clarity around the definition of plant, when it comes to solar installations, which has led to difficulty when solar installations are near each other, when they're near when they're near each other. When should they be considered the same site? When should they be considered separate? The lack of clarity has led to additional and unnecessary costs as well as unpredictability, for the market. There's a handout being passed out now, which I'm gonna refer to, a little bit later, but I'll reference it when it that's okay. It's great. When it when it comes up. So when should they be considered the same site and when should they be considered separate? The lack of clarity has led to oh, I'm sorry. I just read that. So for, so the first part of of this bill clarifies that definition. In order for the first part, about the definition of single plant to make sense, you have to know that there are multiple financial structures that exist that have incentivized the development of solar. There are three that are relevant here, net metering, standard offer, and power purchase agreements. This comes into play when the PUC tries to determine, when to deem an adjoining solar site an extension of the first site versus a wholly different or separate site. One of the reasons this matters is for the sake of the caps or maximum sizes under each program. Net metering has a cap of 500 kilowatts. Standard offer has a cap of 2.2 megawatts, and there is no, technically, there is no cap for power purchase agreements. However, many of them do top out at five megawatts, so that is not, in statute. If you were to try to site a net metered project on the same site as a standard offer project, you could see how the dueling caps would conflict with each other. Additionally, by preventing standard offer and net metering plants from colocating, we prevent developers from gaming the system and increasing cost cost to rate payers. The standard offer, projects that may also be cited on net metered sites would artificially lower, the bids because of the shared infrastructure that was paid for ultimately by, net metered, the the net metered system, because net metering, has, has subsidies paid for by ratepayers. So conversely, by allowing power purchase agreement projects to co locate with other types, we're encouraging the deployment of solar, in a more cost efficient manner by sharing infrastructure that will lower costs for deploying solar in Vermont. So in a previous bill, as 50 of 2025, we asked the PUC to look into this conflict and come up with a definition for single plant, to ensure the clarity for any future projects. They had a stakeholder process and they came to the policy conclusion that are outlined in this bill. As it's phrased in the bill, sites are considered a single plant unless if it's net metering, for yourself or it's going to be used on-site, it would be separate sites if it's not on the same parcel of land and it's wired to offset separate meters and supplies different retail customers. Part b, is a provision that in here specifically is for common interest communities which include mobile home parks and condo associations. In that case, to be a separate site, it can be on the same parcel land but it still has to go toward separate billing meters and different retail customers. To help illustrate c, I've got a handout which you all now have. In it you can see that you can you can't have a standard offer facility on the same parcel or contiguous parcels with a net metered facility. Particularly because power purchase agreements have no upper limit, they can be cited together, with each other or together with either a net metered system or a standard offered system. However, a net metered or and standard offered system are only considered separate sites if they are not on the same parcel or contiguous parcels, and they cumulatively are not exceeding their respective programs caps. The second half of this bill, starting in section three, is again consensus language regarding the creation of a decommissioning fund to fund the decommissioning of an electric generation or energy storage facility. Section three states that the PUC may hire consultants or retain providers of financial, economic, actuarial, or accounting services, and it adds that overseeing this decommissioning fund is a part of their duties. Section four creates the fund. It would collect money from projects in the form of surety fees. The funds could be used to investigate or mitigate the effects of an abandoned, nonoperational, or disclaimed electric generation or energy storage facility. For that purpose, money can be used for decommissioning and site restoration when the CPG holder is unknown, can't be contacted, or is unwilling or incapable of taking action to decommission or restore the site, or it doesn't take timely action as ordered by the commission. Money can be used to investigate ownership, may take remedial action or pay people that the PVC has retained for the purposes of decommissioning, or they can return portions of the decommissioning surety fee as determined by a formula. You may be wondering how much this surety fee will be or how much could potentially be returned. This is where section five comes in because the PUC is going to come back with a report on or before 02/15/2027 on those formulas, which can, which then can be reviewed by the legislature and ultimately set in statute by the legislature. According to testimony, this new decommissioning fund has the potential to both lower costs for solar in Vermont and decrease the workload for the PUC. We heard from a variety of witnesses, including, Renewable Energy Vermont, Public Utility Commission, The Nature Conservancy, and Department of Public Service. Again, the vote out of committee was five zero zero, and we asked for the support of the senate.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Recognize senator from Washington, senator Watson, for the report of the committee on appropriations.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. Appropriations looked at this bill mainly because it does create a fund, and we're gonna learn more about the, the fees, as we get a report back from the PUC, and it won't be, able to collect fees, or spend any money, which there is none there now until it's been reviewed and approved by the legislature and that was approved by the Appropriations Committee. I'm looking for 70. Thank you. 70. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Recognize the senator from Essex for an amendment.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex District)]: Thank you, mister president. I'm offering this amendment, but I just want to tell you what it doesn't do. It doesn't tell, that, solar can't be, built on prime ag land. It doesn't tell farmers that they can't sell their prime ag land or rent their ag land or do any prime ag land as anything that they wanna do as far as the solar. But we have only an infinite amount of, we don't have infinite amount of, prime ag soil. We only have with what we have. And, since act two fifty has been, enacted, we've lost 59 percent of our, primag land, a lot of that was meant to, primarily protect primag land into infinity. Also, 80% of all solar projects are on primag glands. So it is kind of easy pickings for this to go. And I was asked about where these statistics came from and when I was in front of committee this morning and I had to review in my brain where it was and actually was in testimony because we had this bill in our committee and it just didn't make our final version. So all we're trying to do is to take a special look when you are looking at primaglian and to make sure that that is the best possible use. Because as we know already, we are looking to in the futures well beyond our times to possibly feed the world, and we've done a really good job in Vermont as far as doing that. But if we tie up all of our prime bag land and, and projects, as far as solar or other projects, we just don't have what we have. I also believe that there are a lot of other places that are really proper more proper for solar to be. You can put it on rooftops. You can put it on parking lot. You can put it on, lands that aren't primate lands. Farms used to pasture acres and acres and acres of pasture land with cattle. We don't do that anymore. So, they're probably, too rocky or maybe the grade isn't correct, to to grow crops on, But certainly, well enough to, put solar on or build housing on or anything. I get that, it might cost a little bit more. But I think that the, the people that are looking to build on those types of land can probably do okay with it. Let's be reminded that, solar doesn't have to comply with the three acre rule. They don't have to they don't have a very rigorous act two fifty process. They don't they don't even have to pay for Primax soils like everyone else does. So I I and when they sell the power, they're one of the few people that actually tell people what we're gonna pay. We're getting we're gonna have to pay $21.22 cents per kilowatt hour when we can buy power elsewhere for, you know, $6.07, 8¢. So I just I just really do believe that there's some things that are worth more scrutiny. And and I think at this point in time that we really ought to be doing everything we can do to protect primag soils. And if at the end of the day, it bears out that that's the best possible use in that situation, then so be it. We can be fine with that. But I would just I would just like some consideration as far as before we just That's an easier place to go because all you have to do is pull the truck out there and start drilling holes. It's also been said that these solar panels aren't forever, but they aren't forever. We're already start see now through, some of the sites that are, are solar now have them starting to be upfitted with a more, economical panels and all of that. You know, I and and through testimony, we learned that none of the solar fields that have been turned into solar have been reverted back to primate land. So, I just ask for consideration of this bill, mister president. That's as simple as it gets. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Washington.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. Senate National Resources and Energy did get a chance to review this amendment, so, gratitude to the, senator from Essex for giving us a heads up about that. And we did take a look at this. We have, so I'll just tell you that the, the committee did not recommend approving, this amendment three against, one for and one absent. I think there are a number of, I would say, I think there's a number of issues, with this proposal as it is, in the calendar. I'll I'll point out a few of them, but I I also wanna acknowledge that I I respect the the questions that, the the senator from Essex was raising, and, I think that they are worth, talking about and worth having another look on, though I would not support this particular, language, for a few reasons. So one is that it calls for a full spectrum audit, of the energy payback time. That, as I understand it, is not, it's not a term of art, it is not defined, process. The Public Utility Commission already has processes that they go through, and this is, this would be in addition to that. I think there's a parity issue around what we're asking of other generating technologies as well, if we're gonna ask this of of solar. I I think it's also it could it could be potentially confusing because, we're talking about solar here and full spectrum, in my mind, actually evokes questions about wavelengths and, basically, there there's a lot of spectrum to me is a is a physics word, so, there's some questions there. Also, understanding is that the Department of Environmental Conservation does not approve, licensed engineers, to do this kind of work. Additionally, we don't know, how much if if especially as an undefined process, we don't know how much that would cost. We would have to, invent a it would have to be invented as a process and then figure out how much that would cost. And then additionally, this particularly because this is about prime ag soils, this is going to impact, farmers more heavily than other folks wanting to install solar, and I would say it it it does not make sense to me anyway to, make anything more expensive for farmers at this point, and and especially in as this would, reduce their ability to lower their electric bills through solar generation. And I guess I would also, just push back a little bit, to say that there there is, it is absolutely possible to remove solar panels. It's not if there's pilings, can be removed. If there are, if there if there's underground wiring that can be removed. So all this to say that I don't think, this, amendment is appropriate at this time. However, I I do appreciate the the questions that, that the senator raised, especially regarding, the use of land. Now one of the, statistics that we heard from the senator was that 80% of solar projects are on agricultural, land, though, to my knowledge we do not have any understanding right now of how many acres that that actually constitutes or what percentage of acre of what percentage of agricultural land is is actually impacted by that. And in fact, whether if we're worried about the preservation of ag soils, which I I'm very interested in that, is solar one of the main drivers for the loss of that land? So to that end, we have a I'm proposing a substitute amendment, that would call for a report done by the public service department, to answer some of these questions and make some recommendations. That is something that we could then act on, next year in in considering in considering how we cite solar in the future. So I think one of the things that, likely we all share, and in fact, as the senator from, Essex, mentioned that there are other places that we could put solar. We would love to see more solar go on parking lots, over, existing, buildings, on disturbed land, and one of the difficulties with that is how to make the finances work. So I I thank the senator for for raising this, and would instead offer this as a substitute amendment. So we're asking the public service department to in in consultation with secretary of agriculture food and markets to report back by 01/15/2027, to answer some questions and come up with some recommendations specifically, over the past five years, how many acres of prime ag soils have been developed for any purpose and, how much of that was attributable to solar, generation projects, how many acres of prime ag soils used for solar generation, directly was directly impacted by that project as opposed to just the whole acreage of the project because the disturbed land is much smaller than let's say the whole acreage of the the entire project. Acres of prime ag soil that were active as, agricultural use before, they were developed and what was that use? How much are basically how much are we taking out? How many acres of prime ag soils were developed for, or how much of that land is still owned by farmers, and then, if it was land that was forested, how much of that land has been forest or was cleared for these projects, and then what type of forest are we talking about, and then it asked the commission to include a report on, how to encourage the siting of solar on land that's already been disturbed, including rooftops and parking lots, and potential, potential financial structures, that would make it more appealing and financially feasible to site on those locations. So that is my proposed, substitute amendment, and I did get a chance to float that with the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, and that was supported, this this language was supported, four zero one. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? The question is, shall the recommendation of proposal of amendment of the committee and natural resources deamended as as moved by the senator from Essex as substituted.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex District)]: Okay. Okay. Okay. Yep.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Shall the question is, shall the recommendation of amendment as offered by the senator from Essex be substituted as offered by the senator from Washington? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. No. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it, and we've accepted the substitute as offered by the senator from Washington. Now the question is, shall the recommendation of proposal of amendment of the committee in natural resources be amended as offered by the senator from Washington? Are you ready for the question? Senator from Windsor.

[Senator Rebecca “Becca” White (Windsor District)]: Thank you, mister president. I rise in support of this substituted amendment presented to us by the chair. And the reason I'm in favor of it is for is for numerous reasons, but I wanted to talk about some in particular related to agricultural purposes and actually the beautiful combination of solar and agriculture. I have worked in the renewable energy field for the majority of my career, and while I'm now transitioning away from that and I don't work in renewable energy, I did not see the purchase of prime agriculture land by the company that I worked for nor other companies, largely due to the fact that the cost of prime ag just kept it out of the purview of those companies. So they were not purchasing the high cost prime agriculture land. They were going for land that was lower value. Typically, we saw was farmers like in Heartland, for example, they had a thirty year lease on a part of a flower farm that they just weren't able to grow flowers on. So they had the flower farm still fully functioning while getting a large sum of money to maintain a fifteen to then thirty year lease. So that money actually financially supported them being able to keep their farm running and being able to offset both their costs. And then they were a community solar which meant their neighbors and family were able to benefit from that generation and get as much as a 7% reduction on their electric bill. That's the golden dream. What I saw in other communities like in Middlebury was the co use of solar with bees and shiitake mushrooms being grown under them or flowers. And while I did recommend to folks who asked me about solar what animals they might be able to have under the panels, I did not recommend cows or horses because we knew they would rub up against the panels, and I have seen cows next to panels and I've seen them work there, effectively, I still would not recommend. We did see things like sheep, pigs, chickens flourishing around solar because they were not tall enough to actually cause disruption for the system. So I and goats as well, although again, mildly concerned about them next to any kind of electrical equipment. So I just wanted to rise to note that I think we had this false dichotomy created with the original amendment, which is that farming and solar are at odds with each other. But rather, as an industry professional and someone who has worked in renewable energy, I saw the exact opposite. That in fact, the solar purveyors and the people who were getting leased land were oftentimes working in conjunction to keep farms going rather than having to sell off whole chunks of land for long term fixed development. So I am so supportive of this amendment because not only do I think it substitutes a negative amendment, I could not have supported, but it also begins to answer questions that I think we've had a lot of myths generated about. So I'm so excited to hear what the answers to these questions are, because I do believe that we will find the truth of the matter, which is that prime agriculture is not being wasted with solar development. Rather, it's either being coused, as I described, or not being sold for that purpose because the value is so high. So I thank the presenter of the amendment.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for question? Senator from Essex.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex District)]: I just want to make another point. Every solar field I have has a fence around it and I've seen, and I know it's very important to some people in this room and in this building that, we keep the wildlife corridors open. But when those things are fenced off, they're closed to the wildlife as far as, people, animals grazing on some of this, the best areas that they have. So you're shutting out thousands of acres, or hundreds, high hundreds of acres, sending wildlife that might go through there. I haven't seen any, it's funny. I just haven't seen any, as a senator, had mentioned, as far as any type of grazing within any solar areas. I put on 40,000 miles a year. Every field that I've seen has solar and it's fenced off, it's usually if something happens to get in there, they're quick to drive out so it doesn't cause any damage or get electrocuted or anything like that. So, but, anyways, it is what it is. My amendment though was what it was, and, I thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? Senator from Addison.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Thank you, mister president. I am also offering an amendment today. I rise.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Chittenden Southeast District)]: Are you substituting this amendment? Are you substituting this amendment? Yes.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Or it's a new one. You're not saying It's a don't wanna

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: do it. Okay. Senator, the question is, are you offering an amendment to substitute for this one, or is it an amendment in addition to this one?

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Mister President, my apologies. I thought we had already voted on that substitute amendment, and I was staying up because

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: We accepted the substitute amendment offered by Senator Watson of Washington for the amendment offered by senator Ingalls.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: So we're gonna vote on that, and then seven ten will be asked again

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: if he's going to amend this. Senator from Addison, I think the best place to offer your amendment would be after this next vote.

[Unidentified Senator from Bennington]: Thank you,

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: mister president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Rutland.

[Unidentified Senator from Rutland]: Thank you, mister president. If I may interrogate the the chair of natural resources, the presenter of

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The presenter of the amendment is interrogated.

[Unidentified Senator from Rutland]: Thank you, mister president. So I'm not a member of senate, natural resources. I do have an engineering background. This does this is a there is a certain curiosity here, which we see now the friction between conservation of agricultural land versus sustainable energy production. I get it, but I was a little surprised by one element of the chair's fact unfolding that she provided to the chamber. That was the cost per kilowatt between solar generation and other forms of generation. I'm wondering if the chair could repeat that, data point or maybe it was from the center of Essex. I can't remember in that exchange, but I'd like the chair, Mr. President, if I could either respond to that cost per kilowatt between the two different types of systems Just to educate the chamber. That would be helpful in in in figuring out how to respond to this amendment. Thank you, sir.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. I am unclear about what I don't think I provided any cost per kilowatt hour to this. Oh, okay. The I'm seeing some indications that perhaps you may be, better able to get an answer from the senator from Essex.

[Unidentified Senator from Rutland]: Thank you, mister president. I understand. Thank you. Thank you, senator. What I'm going to do then is I'm going to invite if the senator from Essex chooses, ask him if he could repeat his cost per kilowatt power generation cost between the two different systems that we're discussing today, solar versus other. Thanks.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator from Rutland, I think you should sit down, the senator from Essex should take this floor if he so chooses. Senator from Essex.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex District)]: Mister president. Yes. Solar solar, on the open market is, 21 to 22¢ per kilowatt hour. And, and as far as on the open market, as far as natural gas out of the Midwest, we're looking at $7.08 cents per kilowatt hour. That's that's the difference. That's that is the knowledge that I'm familiar with. And, I'm very comfortable with those numbers. Thank you, mister president.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: You, mister president. Thank

[Unidentified Senator from Rutland]: you, mister president. I thank the senator from Essex. I'm wondering if the chair of natural resources can validate or at least the approximate cost can validate that there is such a almost a three to one cost difference between these types of energy generation systems.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you asking to interrogate the chair again?

[Unidentified Senator from Rutland]: I am, sir. Yes, Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The chair is interrogated as the presenter of the amendment?

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. So I don't have the data from specifically, say, the Midwest, as to what electricity costs out there. However, I'm having looked at, these kinds of maps over time, that is it is typically true that, costs of for electricity in the Midwest tend to be, lower than the Northeast. Now to be fair, we, in as a part of ISO New England, we we do not have access to that kind of cheap electricity and it is mainly cheap because there is a significant dependence on coal, or at least that is my my understanding on it. So it I I do believe it would be, not wholly accurate to say that we could just, go to a different option that's, 6¢, per kilowatt hour, because the, our our grid does not have access to to those generating facilities, I guess you would say.

[Unidentified Senator from Rutland]: So thank you, Mr. President. I'm wondering if the chair of Natural Resources, if she chooses to respond, can at least characterize in our region in our state how the cost between solar energy production compares to the other more abundant forms of energy production for the state. So any cost comparison that help us understand this issue.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. That is a good question. I don't have those statistics off the top of my head. Currently, though as I understand it, because of the production of, solar panels has gotten cheaper over time, the, the cost for, solar power has also, come down.

[Unidentified Senator from Rutland]: I thank the senator. Thank you, mister president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Orleans.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Orleans District)]: Yes. My inquirer of the amendment

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: presenter of the amendment is interrogated.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Orleans District)]: Mister president, would I be accurate in saying that there's a difference between physical connection to the electric grid and contractual agreements that you could probably acquire anywhere in the country?

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Yes, mister president. That's accurate.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Orleans District)]: So we're mister president, we're talking about two different things here. One are contracts where you can acquire power probably from anywhere in the country you want to acquire power from.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Oh, thank you, mister president. I believe that is accurate.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Orleans District)]: And the physical connection to the grid that we're talking about, which ISO New England regulates in this in in dispatches is different than the contracts.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Yes. That is accurate. Thank you.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Orleans District)]: Thank you, mister president.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Washington.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. That that last interchange was troubling. You cannot buy power You from the could buy environmental attributes, you could buy carbon credits, you cannot actually buy power and use it for your regulatory proceedings here in Vermont. You can buy power from Quebec, you can buy power from all the New England states, you can buy power from New York where we have interconnections. We have no interconnections with other states outside of the New England region, New York and Canada. The power that contracts that we have for solar, our utilities have for solar, some of them are loads of 8 or 9¢. It really depends on how long is the contract, when was it built, was there any other subsidies involved. But there are solar contracts that are 8 or 9¢. There are net metering deals where it is 21¢ or whatever the retail power. If you're in WEC territory, it's a very high rate. If you're in Swanton, it's a lower rate, although they just ask for an up curve. So the cost really depends on a whole bunch of different factors. If the goal is to protect ag land then there's ways of doing doing that. I would say the underlying amendment is more anti solar than it is pro ag land because it just asked for this study. It didn't even say what you do with the study. It just said you do a study, you look at the energy balance and the carbon emissions and then what didn't say so I think this the substitute amendment at least gets us some information about ag land I agree with the underlying premise of the underlying amendment which was we should be concerned about ag land whether it be rural development sprawl or any generation site whatever technology is. The underlying amendment doesn't really do anything about the or really anything about whether you're going to protect ag land. The agency of agriculture is involved in every solar project today. There was a comment that two forty eight is a simple project or an easier project, and it doesn't have the onerous of act two fifty. All the environmental criteria in act two fifty are in two forty eight. So they have to meet all the same environmental criteria. The the the ability to for neighbors to complain and enter in an appeal, all that is still there. So all the delays you can have with Act two fifty you can have in February, and all the criteria has to be met. The Agency of Ag is a party to these proceedings, and they can ask for conditions about how to protect the ag land when these projects are proposed. I think the agency does a good job and the solar developers or the utilities have to abide by that. Sometimes they bank the land, sometimes it's about whether they can drive the trucks on the land. There's all sorts of criteria that they need to get the permit because there is a criteria that they have to meet to do that. I really appreciate the effort to protect ag land. I think the substitute amendment does a better job of that. If you want to talk about the cost of new generation, that's the other thing I want to mention. You can buy natural gas power for 4¢ sometimes. Sometimes it's really cheap. But if you want to buy it today when the air conditioning on is in Boston, bet you today the price is going to be 80 or 120, you know, 12¢ a kilowatt hour. It really depends on the day. And if you want a long term contract for natural gas, you can't buy because they don't know what the price of natural gas is gonna be. But if you want a thirty year contract for solar, you can get that, but you can't get that for natural gas. And if you if we're talking about new generation, if we're if our load is increasing, we need more power, then renewable is really the only it's the cheapest new generation, and it's the only kind of generation we're gonna be able to get unless you think we're gonna have a new nuclear power plant, which we might at some point, but not anytime soon, or have a natural gas generation plant in Vermont or New England, which our difficulty is the transmission. One of the reason natural gas is cheap in the Midwest is because they're amidst a bunch of natural gas fields. We have natural gas in the Northeast, but the pipelines are constrained because we're also using natural gas for heating. And when it's very cold and you need a lot of natural gas for heating and very cold, so you need it for electric use, the price is very, very high. So trying to diversify our grid with renewables is is really the cheapest way to go. So I'll I'll answer that. Thank you, mister president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Orleans.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Orleans District)]: So I'm in a little trouble now too. I believe that you can get a power supply contract for natural gas longer than a year. I I'm I'm quite certain of that. Matter of fact, I'm questioning whether or not you can't buy it for extended period of time, and you can buy it. It doesn't matter. You can buy on peak supplies. You can buy off peak supplies. Then typically, utilities look at shoulder months because that's when the cost of natural gas is cheaper. There is transmission restrictions. There's no doubt about that. In the winter times, it typically goes towards heating and, home heating,

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: and that's priority number one.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Orleans District)]: And then it also goes to electric utilities after that. But to say that you can't get power supply contracts for natural gas, over a period of time, I'm I'm not sure that's true. Thank you, mister president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? The question is, shall the recommendation of proposal amendment of the committee on natural resources be amended as moved by the senator from Essex as substituted. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. No. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it, and you have further amended the recommendation of proposal of amendment on the committee of natural resources. The question now is, shall the senate propose to the house to amend the bill as recommended by the committee on natural resources as amended? Senator from Addison.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Thank you, mister president. Thank you for the correction on the right time to do this. I for that. Excuse me. I rise to request support on my fellow senators in this amendment with effective dates in sections one and two of h seven twenty. An act related to fine electrical electricity generating facilities or plants as they'll soon be known as. This amendment removed the effective date two years from July '1 '26 to July '1 '28. The effective date for seasons sections three and four would remain unchanged to July 2026. A date extension for sections one and two on h seven twenty allows the land use site impacts and identification of preferred site electrical generating facilities or plants to be addressed appropriately with comprehensive testimony in the next legislative section section. As a member of the senate agriculture committee, I regularly hear testimony from the agency of agriculture, food and markets, providing their data on decreasing agricultural land. This is a food security and natural resource issue which brings significant impact to the future of Vermont farming communities and overall stabilities. According to the data from the Department of Public Service, there are approximately a 108 solar sites between one to five megawatts in Vermont. For context, that shows up about 25 to 40 acres. Within this smaller sampling of total solar projects, 75 of these sites are on agricultural fields, which are high majority, which is the higher majority of the total. Compared to these 13 sites on forest, nine sites in gravel pits, four sites in quarries, and four sites in landfills, and three previously developed sites a wild source. This list does not include the eight thirty five or so sites of 50 kilowatts and 99 kilowatt projects, which are larger than the projects found on most homes. Also, is a 20 megawatt project in Ludlow. Vermont built on a 90 acre Vermont built on 90 acres of agricultural land and cleared forest. There are also 20 megawatt projects that received a certificate of public good on the Public Utility Commission and will cover approximately 200 acres of agricultural land and clear

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: cut forests.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: H710 encourages additional of this project in existing sites, that's a key point here in existing sites is what it does. And with an already high percentage of projects on agricultural lands, this will increase the loss. Specifically eight seven ten secondtion 134 on page 43 on today calendar refers to continuous continuous parcels yet there there have still been no assessments on land use and preferred locations for projects most of which are currently on agricultural lands. The Senate Agricultural Committee never received received a review testimony on h seven twenty. Despite the impacts on agricultural lands, The Senate and Natural Resources and Energy Commission did not take testimony on-site impact of seven ten, which will undoubtedly accelerate loss of farmland. Prior to passage of section one and two of this bill, there must be a comprehensive testimony and discussion regarding the proper siting of energy generating facilities or plants to assess the impact of future farming in Vermont. It is an urgent it is urgent this discussion happens as we move forward with expected increase in renewable energy projects due to the Renewable Energy Solutions Act Standard Act. The senator from Washington's amendment on seven ten which directs the Department of Public Service to issue a report on the land use impact will include very useful data. It will also perfectly justify the ensuance of an amendment to attend the effective date of H710, because the information gathered in this report will help reasonably direct our efforts and give us answers. I, like many of Vermonters, do support renewable energy in Vermont. However, in these projects need continued incentives and mandates to be viable, we need to take a good hard look at the industry and the role they should play in Vermont as well as what impacts they are having on the environment and the electrical rate prices. Food security and health healthy agriculture community is our community and economy are vital to the continuing success and stability of Vermont, and agricultural lands are essential for this future. Getting ahead of the accelerating expansion of renewable energy projects to ensure proper site will serve Vermont, and date extension helps create this opportunity. Adding two years seems like a good goal, good compromise to use the data that we received to make the best decision for Vermont. I thank you Mr. President.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Washington.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Thank mister president. The Senate National Resource and Energy also took took a look at this amendment and are recommending not, approving it. Three opposed, one in favor, and one absent. And I would just point out that none of, seven ten refers specifically at all to, agricultural lands. The first two sections here are about clarifying a definition which has been, troublesome, and, all of the, the stakeholders, that were part of this, came to consensus on this policy language, and so I, see no reason to, delay it at that point. I I think the the question about, preferred solar siting is a wholly separate question and is a welcome discussion, but this is about the interplay between types of solar projects, standard offer, net meter, and power purchase agreements. That is all. It is not to do about ag lands otherwise. So, I recommend that we, not support this amendment. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? Senator from Washington.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. I'm getting confused. I think it was last week we were told that real Vermonters were hardy, frugal people, and they just wanted to be let alone and not have Montpelier tell them what to do with their land. Now we're being told that we should regulate what they do with their land because they shouldn't be allowed to sell prime ag land. Well, if there's no eminent domain happening here, no one's taking land, this is a free will contract. The farmer is either selling or leasing land to a utility company, and I'm just trying to figure out when it is okay for Montpelier to tell people what they can do with their land and when it's not okay for Montpelier to tell them to do what they want with their land. And I'm afraid that may be when they are or are not doing what I think they should be doing with their land, and that's pretty hard to legislate.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? Senator from Addison.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: I take the senator from Washington for her comments because I do I have a hard time telling farmers what they should do with their lands. I believe this is more looking at when the utility company wants to expand and if it's already on land that could be expanded and if the farmer may feel often or not that this is how I'm going to keep my farm is to sell off that land. I'm a 100% agree with that, it's the farmers decision. When we have land use and they put it in land use and they lose the rights to their land, I think believe that we go through the PUC which is totally different than going through Act two fifty. You have a lot bigger say as an individual or community with Act two

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: fifty than you do with

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: the PUC. I don't know if this after doing the study, if that might give a better perspective on this, and that's the only reason I'm asking for two more years. It's just what we said time and time again, data, data, data. This will give us the data to make the correct choice in 2028. Thank you, mister president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Washington.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. I interrogate the presenter of the amendment.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The presenter of the amendments interrogated.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Mister president, I'm just confused about the the comment that this is gonna help ag lands and that the bill that we're talking about, H710, will have some impact on ag lands. So can the senator explain what in 07/10 is putting pressure on ag lands?

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: When we talk, Mr. President, thank you for that question. When we talk about contiguous, continuous would mean we're already let's say we have I'll take out one pant, and they already have a 100 and something acres of solar field. If the farmer decided, hey, I want to add on to that solar field, H710 is going make it a lot easier for him to do so. Which is a good thing and one thing but what does the community have to say when you're setting high above that and looking out right now you have 100 meters when the Sun hits it right just right it's super bright. Add another 100 acres to that what's it going to do to property values and such. I believe if we wait for their report back you may have a better understanding of how it's going to affect Vermont. Thank you Mr. President.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: I didn't hear anything in there. What in 07/10 was going to make it easier for solar projects to be built on ag lands?

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: That, if it's contiguous to that ag land, it will make it easier for that electric company or persons to expand on to the ag land.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: In which way does it make it easier?

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: It lightens the the rules of that you're encouraging the expansion of solar fields under the standard energy standard act.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: I don't see anything in 07/10 that makes it easier. I think it defines, makes definitions. I think this this issue of single plant is an issue whether it's a 20 kilowatt net metering array next to a 50 kilowatt community array or the example of 100 kilowatts. It's just trying to define when they are single plants, when they're not when they're separate plants, and then therefore they go into different regulatory directions. I don't see anything here that makes it easier once once it's decided that it's contiguous. So I was wondering if the senator could point out where in the bill doesn't make it easier to permit.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: Mister president, that comes under interpretation. My interpretation of contiguous is making it easier for them to move forward.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: I think senator Thank you. Yeah. I think this is is more about an anti solar amendment than it is a pro ag land. So I think their their thing you could propose, you could just say you can't build solar on ag land if you wanna protect ag land. I think our agency of agriculture and food markets is doing a good job in these solar projects to protect ag land. If you wanted to really protect ag land, then you're going to want to have this kind of regulation for development. The number one user or loss of land is about development and sprawl. If people want to propose a statewide zoning and state regulations on where you could build to protect ag land, that that would make sense if you're I wouldn't support it, but that would be make sense if your goal is to try to protect ag land. I see this as just a way to attack solar projects. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? The question is, shall the recommendation of proposal of amendment of the committee on natural resources be further amended as offered by the senator from Addison? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Nay. Nays appear to have it. Nays do have it. The amendment has failed. Question now is, shall the senate propose to the house to amend the bill as recommended by the committee on natural resources as amended? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. No. No. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it, and you've proposed to the house to amend the bill as recommended by the committee on natural resources as amended. The question now is, shall the bill be read a third time? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it. You boarded third reading of h seven ten. We have on the calendar for action h five forty two passed the house on 05/19/2026. It was referred to the committee on education, which reports that the that it has considered the bill and recommends that the senate propose to the house that the bill be amended as it appears starting on page forty three twelve of today's calendar, and that with such proposal of amendment, the bill ought to pass. Affecting the revenues of the state, the bill was referred to the committee on finance, which recommends that the bill ought to pass in concurrence with proposal of amendment as recommended by the committee on education, with further proposal of amendment as found in your calendar on page forty three seventeen. Affecting the expenditures of the state, the bill was referred to the committee on appropriations, which recommends that the bill ought to pass in concurrence with proposal of amendment as recommended by the committee on education. Listen to the second reading of the bill.

[John H. Bloomer Jr. (Secretary of the Senate)]: H five forty two, an act relating to terminating testing of schools in Vermont for polychlorinated biphenyls.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Recognize the senator senator from Chittenden, senator Ram Hinsdale, the report of the committee on education.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Chittenden Southeast District)]: Thank you, mister president. Many in this chamber are no stranger to discussions around PCB testing in our schools. But this is the first time that we are taking the issue up in the Senate this biennium. I suppose the core, the bluff, if you will, with a nod to the Senator from Rutland, is that the House proposed to end PCB testing in schools as administered by the state And your Senate Education Committee unanimously voted to move in a different direction that recognizes the, what I might call the inconvenient truth between not knowing what PCB levels, air levels exist in our schools and having the full resources to remediate any alarming levels of PCB contamination that we might find in our schools. Mr. President, senators may recall that in previous biennia, it has been the Senate that has set aside I'm gonna use some rough numbers. I'm looking at counsel out of the corner of my eye, but I don't have all of the data in front of me, but the Senate in the past has set aside about $38.40000000 for PCB testing in schools. We have spent a vast majority of those funds. I believe there is somewhere around a million dollars left of funds. I got a slight head shake. It is a minimal amount left that will not cover the full amount that would be needed to cover the cost of testing, even indoor air testing in the remaining districts and school facilities that are essentially buildings built before '19 as you heard earlier today, as we discussed facilities master planning. So recognizing that we have, maybe only between a third and half of our schools built before 1980 tested, and we found varying levels of PCB contamination. There were a number of reasons that are spelled out in more detail in the bill that your Senate Education Committee did not feel it was prudent or in the best interest of our schools and our children to simply terminate the program, at this time before all schools have received funding for testing, and without a statewide umbrella program, for schools once PCB contamination is found. It is certainly understandable to members of your Senate Education Committee why there were efforts to simply end the program and stop in a time with no resources, seeking out PCB contamination, when we have no dollars for remediation. For the school districts and the school facilities where PCBs have been, found in unacceptable levels, unacceptable thresholds, especially for younger kids, Those school districts have had to do a lot of logistical gymnastics, moving uses of buildings, continually testing for PCB contamination while trying to improve airflow or leave certain parts of the buildings untouched. And some of those districts are still finding high levels of PCBs in their air. So it's extremely challenging, once you discover, PCB contamination at unacceptable levels to simply, get on an affordable and clear consistent path for remediation. That said, it's probably important to underscore once more that PCBs are a very toxic carcinogen and, they have a more of an impact the longer you are exposed and the younger you are when you are exposed. So it has made a difference and certainly given, parents and children and employees in our schools a lot of peace of mind, to change the use of facilities or to move, kids of different ages to different locations once PCBs, are discovered at unacceptable levels. Mr. President, I'll now walk through the strike all amendment proposed by your Senate Education Committee. Section one of the amendment changes the date by which we are requiring PCB testing in schools. If we did nothing else in this bill, we would have to move this date out or do something with this deadline because it is essentially coming up midway through our next biennium. Our committee chose to move it out to 08/01/2031. You will hear further proposal of amendment in that regard, and the timeline was something that was under discussion throughout in our committee as well. Section two of the bill, while in this case we have had funding for PCB testing and remediation, we have not had a dedicated fund. So this sets up the school PCB program fund, puts the small amount of remaining dollars in that fund and gives the opportunity for other streams of funding to come into that fund managed by the agency of natural resources. I would particularly draw Senator's attention to, on page 40 three-thirteen, to numeral one and two of section two, because this is one of the major compelling reasons that your Senate Education Committee wanted to continue the program. Whether or not this was considered on the house side, I am not fully aware, but, our, attorney general's office and our state, with the involvement of AOE and ANR are involved in a complex multinational lawsuit, to try and extract, dollars back, for all of the damage caused by known PCB contamination in building materials before 1980. I believe it is a lawsuit against Monsanto. And if a school district did not participate in PCB testing or remediation under the auspices of this program, it is far more difficult for them to get, compensation or to show the costs that they incurred for, PCB contamination. They would essentially be on their own to be a party in the lawsuit, which is going to be near impossible and simply inefficient. So it was important to us that we look to create this fund and look forward hopefully to future success in recovering some of the cost of this contamination from the past from the polluters themselves. In section two as well, I would draw folks attention to subsection A where the prioritization of how funds the existing funds or any future funds that we allocate are prioritized so that we can really look into PCB contamination as part of our master planning process as it relates to, a lot of the discussion we had this morning around H95. It was important as we talk about school construction in your Senate Education Committee that we think about the reality for many school districts that or potential CISAs and merging facilities that they be well aware if that facility has high levels of PCB contamination and the cost or the possibility at all of remediation. So PCB investigations as part of facilities master planning get first priority. Indoor air quality testing, there are about two thirds of school buildings built before 1980 that have not undergone testing. My recollection is that testing is about 40,000 to $70,000 per cluster of buildings or per campus. And that indoor air quality testing is really critical to knowing if you have moderate or elevated levels of PCBs that require some change in how you use those facilities and how you move forward. And we have not gotten through two thirds of the school districts that are eligible for that indoor air quality testing. Over time that I believe that's up to about $10,000,000 and we have about $1,000,000 left in the fund. So the question is by some deadline, are we going to try and seek out additional monies at least to do indoor air quality testing, potentially part of our larger school construction conversation. These are sort of housekeeping provisions related to how the fund would be administered. And then section three relates this program to school construction as was mentioned this morning and in the previous section of this report. And the PCB testing needs to be complete as per the standards of the Department of Environmental Conservation for construction aid that may be available in the future from the state. The Agency of Natural Resources is supposed to report back to us by 01/15/2027 in consultation with AOE as to the additional cost to the state to complete testing, mitigation, and remediation for PCBs. This really probably gets us into the same figures or at least the same number of zeros as our school construction problem. We have a lot of buildings that were built before 1980. When we talk about the testing, it's a pretty finite number, but we have a very, we have a varied

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: experience after that with which schools need significant

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Chittenden Southeast District)]: We remediation and if we would move forward with remediation of those school buildings. And we have asked it for in this report, a plan to fund the costs necessary to complete the testing mitigation and remediation. Mr. President, rest is effective dates. And we would ask the senate for your support on a vote of six to zero out of senate education. Thank you, mister president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: I recognize the senator from Chittenden, senator Gulick, the report of the committee on finance.

[Senator Martine Larocque Gulick (Chittenden District)]: Mister president, your finance committee took a look at h five forty two and were faced with two options, either cancel the the program or, go with this new date, which was 2027, 07/01/2027. Faced with those two options, actually came up with a third and we decided to change the date to 08/01/2035, giving us more time to potentially find some funds to pay for this program and also to let the current litigation see itself through. So the instances of amendment that you will see, first one, we strike out the date in section one and change it from 07/01/2027 to 08/01/2035.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: And in

[Senator Martine Larocque Gulick (Chittenden District)]: the second instance of amendment, section two ten BSA sixty six eighteen a, we just changed the language there. So we struck out the language in the education version of the bill, and we changed it to any litigation recovery by the state for the cost of addressing PCB contamination in schools, less attorneys' attorneys' fees and costs. And that would be that that's the language around the litigation and making sure that any money that comes in is placed into that special fund. We also changed the word appropriated to transfer. So clearly we were concerned about the fact that this feels like an unfunded mandate, but hopefully pushing that date out will allow us to see it to fruition. And the vote in committee was six zero one, and we ask for the senate's approval. Thank you, mister president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: I now recognize the senator from Washington, senator Watson, for the report of the committee on appropriations.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president and senator, appropriations, to take a look at this bill, and it was mainly sent to us because it created a fund, to, potentially receive funds that there should be a settlement on regarding the litigation. It could go into this fund and then be used to help with remediation mitigation or the testing. And it could also potentially receive reimbursements, from schools that had previously received a grant from the state, for PCB investigation, but had won a settlement, and we could also potentially transfer money into this, this fund or it could also receive any gifts or donations and, we, approved, this bill and pass it out of committee at seven zero zero Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The question is, shall the recommendation of proposal of amendment of the committee on education be amended as recommended by the committee on finance? Are you ready for the question? Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Virginia “Ginny” Lyons (Chittenden Southeast District)]: Thank you, mister president. Senate Health and Welfare did not spend time, reviewing the bill or taking testimony, but we did discuss the proposal from the Senate finance committee and unanimously support that, that proposal. Thank you, mister president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Chittenden Southeast District)]: Thank you, mister president. Just in case anybody was wondering how your senate education committee felt, I would say our straw poll was extremely informal, but the date is something the deadline is something that we've had a lot of conversation about. And I would say I I probably had the strongest feelings on having the date come sooner so that we had a shorter timeframe in which schools were expected to complete their testing. And I think that was, you know, mostly my bias as a mom Mr. President that we're talking about the really critical time of growth and brain development of young kids and the longer we wait without knowing the level of PCB contamination in a school, the more risk we put on our children. But that said, our committee was relatively fine with the date change in understanding the realities of the cost and pressures on our testing program. Thank you, mister Chris.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? Senator from Windsor.

[Unidentified Senator from Bennington]: May I

[Senator Rebecca “Becca” White (Windsor District)]: interrogate the presenter of the bill, please?

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The presenter of the bill is interrogated.

[Senator Rebecca “Becca” White (Windsor District)]: Have we done, mister president, any study on effects of the students that have been in the building since 1980 or beyond, and their effects of any health concerns?

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Chittenden Southeast District)]: Thank you, Mr. President. I'm aware that that came up and that we heard from some superintendents who are responsible for the handful, I would say the handful of schools where the PCP levels have been so elevated that they've had to shut down school buildings or gyms or, you know, move children out of a particular facility. And they are trying to collect informal stories from alumni of those schools about long term health effects. Sadly, as with many of our toxins and carcinogens that affect younger children and younger people, The impact is seen some decades later, but certainly we heard plenty from the Department of Health and the Agency of Natural Resources that this is a very, you know, this is a, in some cases fatal and cancer causing toxin and does more greatly affect younger children exposed later in life?

[Senator Rebecca “Becca” White (Windsor District)]: Thank you, mister president. I I the health of our children are is paramount, and and I I just and I've been banging on the drum of data, data, data. And so I I I don't want to be a hypocrite in any way, shape, or form, but I just wanna make sure that whatever we do, that there is factual data to back up whatever we do. So thank you, mister president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? Senator from Franklin.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: You, mister president. May I interrogate the senator Brooke, please?

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Presenters interrogated.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: I'm not saying that I'm not in favor of this, mister president, but I was wondering about where this arbitrary number comes about in the state of Vermont as far as what level is dangerous to our students here in Vermont. And I was wondering about what that level is here in Vermont compared to say the CDC level at the federal government. I heard there's quite a variance in what those levels may be.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Chittenden Southeast District)]: Thank you, Mr. President. As I said before, I don't have the exact parts per million or trillion in front of me, but I can say Mr. President that the state uses a different standard for measuring what is an unacceptable level of PCB contamination in the air. So the state relies on standards that are set with indoor air testing, and a lot of that can be mitigated through airflow and measures like that. The EPA standard is somewhat of an inert measurement of the core of buildings, the inner building materials. And so their testing relies on getting into the core of a building and understanding from there what PCB levels exist in a more solid form. The cost of testing in Vermont and the ANR administered program is much more about measuring indoor air quality in a number of different like parts of buildings, like facilities. And then has from there, I think a scientific, I would say a scientifically agreed upon amount of parts per whatever in the air that would be unacceptable and that also is measured at different age levels, Mr. President. So something potentially could be used as a faculty lounge or a janitorial closet that has less use or use by older adults than the levels that are considered acceptable for pre K or elementary school use.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Mr. President, I too am not a scientist or whatever else, but I had heard, and it could be not even factual that the state of Vermont's levels are like 15 nanometers versus compared to the federal level being 600 nanometers. I'm just wondering if possibly the senate could comment on that, if it's everything about that accurate or not.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Chittenden Southeast District)]: I was looking for counsel O'Grady's furrowed brow on this one, but they are two very completely different measurements. One is a part per, let's say part per million in the air. One is a molecule level, in a more inert state. So, we asked for more information from Department of Health and Agency of Natural Resources and they have sought out national experts and, the measurements, well, I believe I recall what we were told is the measurements are so different, that there's not really an apples to apples comparison that can be made between an inert core of a building and the air quality that you're experiencing in different parts of the building.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: I thank you, I thank the president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Windsor.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor District)]: Thank you, mister president. May I interrogate the reporter of the bill, please?

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Presenters interrogated.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor District)]: Thank you. The report I just to follow-up, because Windsor County has had, several incidents of PCB being detected in our schools and had, lots of work has been done trying to navigate around that, and you the senator had mentioned cancer, so I'm just curious, we're yes, we're very concerned about our children, we're also incredibly concerned about our faculty and staff, so I'm curious in your discussion of the ill effects of PCBs, have we in fact had any cancers detected in Vermont as a result of PCB exposure and or any deaths? That is, that's my question for the reporter.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Chittenden Southeast District)]: Mister President, I know that the Department of Health came in feeling, giving us very strong testimony that PCB exposure in Vermont has been linked to increased terminal illnesses, mostly cancers. I don't recall if they, you know, cancer often results in death. So I'm not sure if there was any more escalated mortality that they were seeing in particular areas, but we do have cancer clusters and we do tend to try and measure and study through ANR and the Department of Health, how those cancer clusters relate to the presence of asbestos mines in Vermont, copper mines in Vermont, super fund sites and, you know, your occupation, whether it be working in a school or having grown up in and around a school environment that has PCB contamination. Mr. President, I suppose I would just add that there with testing air quality, there are a lot of ways to mitigate the, continual exposure, by using the facility less often during the day, not using it for recreational purposes, not having younger children, and they're using it for storage, etcetera. And so, mister president, in a majority of cases where there's been moderate or even, high levels, unacceptable levels of contamination found, the question has become, how do we use, these parts of our facilities, you know, not necessarily shuttering them in most cases.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor District)]: Thank you. I assume that we've had, with that answer, I assume we had no witnesses say there had and test to testify the fact that there have been no cancer cases related to PCBs, is that what I understand and no deaths associated with PCBs?

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Chittenden Southeast District)]: Mr. President, I would not I I think we always struggle in our, public health, metrics to measure absolute direct links to things, especially when they're longitudinal. What I can say that might be a helpful addition is that the agency of education, the department of health, and the agency of natural resources all came in strongly wanting to continue the program in some form or fashion, not feeling that it was compelling to simply stop testing, thereby no longer, measuring whether or not we have a problem. That can still mean a problem exists and it can still mean that you are exposing younger kids or more vulnerable people to those toxins, when you can avoid that without shutting down an entire wing of a building or a facility. So we did have strong feelings from scientists and attorneys and public health officials that this is very much a known hazard and the exposure levels are fairly clearly linked to different types of cancer. And while we can study more, the program is relatively new. So where they have discovered high levels of PCB contamination in our schools has been in the last five to seven years. And so Mr. President, think a lot of people are nervous now about their future, maybe getting their own screenings more often, but we don't yet have enough data to directly, empirically link any particular school facility exposure to a cluster of of, cancer cases.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor District)]: Thank you. As this chamber knows, I am no stranger to strong feelings, but strong feelings are not data and or cases that are directly linked to PCBs. I think our ongoing concern here is that we are requiring a very expensive testing program, and we have no money to remediate it. So, yes, I believe in identifying the problem. No question. But until we're ready to deal with the solution, I really have a hard time supporting this work. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Martine Larocque Gulick (Chittenden District)]: Thank you Mr. President, I understand the desire for comprehensive data we do not have that yet but as someone who served on the Burlington School Board and then saw the Burlington High School demolished because of extremely elevated PCB rates, this connects in my own mind and experience with the fact that prior to the discovery of the PCBs there were a couple of cases of people who developed health conditions who sued the school district. Those suits were eventually settled and they are confidential but I can say that one of those cases was someone who worked in the area of the school where the readings were the most elevated. In my mind that is a very strong connection and what I will say is that the House for some years now has advocated ending testing and I know that their concerns come from a good place. They want school districts to be able to continue to serve their kids. They don't want disruptions. They don't want kids in trailers. They don't want school buildings razed to the ground. They also had concerns legitimate about the level of money we have available to remediate. No one has mentioned the environmental contingency fund that still has about $3,700,000. So we have the 1,000,000 and the 3.7. So there is not nothing. But what I would say is that at this point, we know that we have a high school that was destroyed completely because it was completely unsafe. My kids went there. I am angry about it. But there's no one to be angry at. There is Monsanto. We are suing Monsanto, and there is the inevitable rush of human beings to create convenience via chemical. So those things I can blame, I assume. But at the end of the day, my daughter graduated from Macy's. That's where we moved all the kids to the downtown Macy's. We have a brand new high school coming online but it was a 200 plus million dollar cost to the taxpayer picked up largely by local taxpayers. So all I would say is if you believe that stopping testing will make the problem go away it won't. What we have done to cooperate with the housing administration is to agree to slow test Find more money, slow testing, but not stop. I believe in a world of horrible options, that's the best before us.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: Thank you, mister president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? The question is, shall the recommendation of proposal of amendment of the committee on education be amended as recommended by the committee on finance? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Ayes have it. You've amended the recommendation of proposal amendment of the committee on education as recommended by the committee on finance. Question now is, shall the senate propose to the house to amend the bill as recommended by the committee on education as amended. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it. And you've proposed to the house to amend the bill as proposed by the committee on education as amended. The question now is, shall the bill be read a third time? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, you've ordered third reading of h five forty two.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: K.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: S one ninety seven was passed by the house with a proposal of amendment. The question is, shall the senate concur in the house proposal of amendment? Senator from Chittenden Southeast.

[Senator Virginia “Ginny” Lyons (Chittenden Southeast District)]: Thank you, mister president. As you will recall, this, s one ninety seven is a bill about primary care, and we've been working. We worked principally last year with hospitals, and we've worked also with hospitals in another bill. This bill is about bringing affordability into primary care and aligning primary care, different types of primary care practices with sustainable payments and payment reform. So as the bill has come back to us from the house, they've made some changes to our our legislative intent. They broadened the legislative intent sections to ensure that we're improving patient experience of care, improving population health, reducing costs, improving the well-being of clinicians and staff. And I think they're all important. In particular, we know that we've been losing primary care docs and practices simply because they can't afford to work and live in different parts of the state. So the purposes of the bill have also been expanded or changed somewhat. Let me just say overall, the bill is pretty much as it left the Senate and the changes that have been made are clarifying changes and somewhat of an expansion. So the the purpose of the bill is to develop a framework for implementing a universal primary care, which means ensuring that primary care is accessible across the state. Our bill focused on what's known as the blueprint for health and looking at how to expand patients' medical homes and community based services and integrating those in with primary care. This bill looks at primary care generally, so looking at those practices that are clinically affiliated with hospitals, those practices that are blueprint practices, and those practices that are independent. All of that is all within the intent and purpose section. The next sections of the bill on definitions on different practices for the blueprint of health, blueprint for health are all consistent with what there have been no changes to the underlying bill as we passed it out from the Senate to the other body. There is, one section of the bill, in section two seven paragraph seven ten, which has been, stricken from the bill, but then moved, actually not taken fully out, but moved later on to become part of session law. That's the establishing spending targets. Section three of the bill are designing payment amounts or payment methodologies or both for primary care, and what would be necessary to transition the blueprints per member per month payments for primary care practices in the state. So how can we build sustainable payment for all of our primary care programs? The in addition to that, to extend the definition beyond the blueprint. There's also operate operate putting an operational plan in place, to establish, the payment changes should they take place. The the there is money needed in one part of the bill, so what we've asked for is how much money would be needed in order to implement the operational plan, and that is something that the director of Blueprint will help bring back to us in 12/20/2026, and at the same time have reports to the health Reform Oversight, Committee. There's also, a section 3A has been added to evaluate how and if the health care claims tax might as reported, is a report, and how the health care claims tax might be utilized to facilitate, payment reform for our primary care, folks. Then section four of the bill, they took out some language that is not relevant, and then section five of the bill was moved from the earliest part of the bill to, become session law, and that's the target for spending. Then there is, a section on a possible schedule for payments. Should pay a payment operational plan be put in place, what would that look like? What would the schedule be? Then section six is a is a section added by the other body. One of the things that we look at in our committee all the time is the relationship between the regulatory organizations in our state. So we have the Green Mountain Care Board, the Agency of Human Services, Department of Financial Regulation, each of whom have different regulatory work. So we've asked those folks to get together and to come back with a recommendation about how they see their responsibilities. What are they doing and what do they recommend that they do? So this this section of six of the bill asked them to bring in recommendations and, about their own regulatory roles. Then, on January in January, we'll also be asking for recommendations on the distribution of those responsibilities, and they'll also be reporting back to the health reform health care reform oversight committee before January 2027. So they'll be we'll be maintaining some. There is a section that was removed, reimbursement report, a report from the Green Mountain Care Board, an update to one of the reports that they did in 2015 and then in 2017, the money just isn't available for those reports to happen. They would have needed $3.50. I forget exactly how much, but in the 100 thousands of dollars that and we did not feel that it was essential to the work of the of the bill. Then there's also a Section seven is a continuing look at how to build community settings and community work into, our into our primary care, practices. This is the same language that we had in our bill as passed out of the Senate. They did add clarification that any reporting will be consistent with the statewide health care delivery strategic plan. And then finally, section eight, which is the regional Universal Primary Care Program report that is the same as what we had in place. In other words, asking the treasurer to work with other Northeastern states to see if there is an opportunity for collaboration on primary care that will be, we'll have an update on that in January '27. There's language, taken out, that is now included in the budget, it's on a medical student loan reimbursement. And then Section nine is there's no changes to that. That's a prescription drug notice program for folks when their prescription drugs are, eliminated from their insurance coverage that there's a timeframe within which they should be notified about that coverage change. And then the effective date is on passage, and then the title of the bill was changed to an act relating to reform for primary care. Senate Health and Welfare Committee reviewed this, and we support the changes and ask, the Senate to concur with the proposal that came back to us from the House. Thank you, mister president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The question is, shall the senate concur in the house proposal of amendment? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and we've concurred in the house proposal of amendment on s one ninety seven.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Orleans District)]: Okay.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: S three twenty eight was passed by the house with proposal of amendment. The question is, shall the senate concur in the house proposal of amendment? Senator from Windsor.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor District)]: Thank you, mister president. And the answer is yes. We would like the senate to concur with the house's further proposal amendment with our own further proposal of amendment. So we appreciated what the house has done in large measure. They've added some good things. I'll just remind everybody what s three twenty eight is. It is our miscellaneous housing bill that we passed in March from this body. It includes everything from measures that it and how we embed our new housing targets into our town plans to expanding our housing financing options. It extends our down payment assistance program, permits manufactured housing by right in our towns, and it also brings more attention to our service supported housing, the need for particularly our intellectually developmentally disabled Vermonters who need housing and are losing it at a rapid rate. So I would just like to if I I will be speaking both to the amendment and to the underlying bill, which has come back to us, and I'm incorporating our amendments in comments as I go through the bill. And about halfway through, I'm gonna yield to the senator from Chittenden Southeast to finish up the bill. So you have the amendment on your desk I believe and I'll just start with the first section. The first section is new is a new section and it would

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: just

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor District)]: simply add a requirement of the Secretary of State to provide on its website or otherwise distribute in public in to the public information about Vermont's common interest communities. As you may remember from our bill which the youngest the newest member of the Chittenden and Southeast team reported last week, we have some very strong everything from manufactured home communities to condos and other home own associations. We have quite a few common interest communities, but there's not there's not a lot of information about them. And so this is a new section that was not in 03/28, but is good for providing more information. And as you will recall, as we go later through the bill, our own legislative council is going to be doing, we hope, a fairly thorough review of how we can improve and unify some of our common interest community work. So we're very grateful to him for having take taking that on this summer. The service section two is the service supported housing. This is pretty much the same thing. They've made a minor change, but as you'll recall, this creates the service supported housing advisory council in the Department of Aging and Independent Living, and our hope is they're gonna be making recommendations to us as to how we can create more housing. Happily, it looks like the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board has found some additional money to continue our pilot on creating more service supported housing for this very special community of Vermonters. So there is not much different there. In section three, it is also pretty much the same language. The senate this this increases the statutory authority for the state treasurer to as you know, we have the local our LIAC, our local investment advisory council, which takes 10% currently of our of our lending capacity, of our our cash on hand, and lends it to housing projects in particular, but could lend almost any project they feel they're they're supportive of and worthy, that's worthy. And as you'll recall, in 03/28, we increased that ability by two and a half percent, which is gonna raise another 30,000,000 in lending power, which is very exciting. So we support that 12 and a half percent. What we don't support is the additional piece because they can do that the the of using 1% of that credit facility to use for for this pilot, which I'll describe in the next section, they can do that already, and it's up to the discretion of the treasurer to do that already. But we do continue to raise in this additional two and a half percent. Continue to raise another 30,000,000 for lending to housing projects, which is really exciting. And thank you to the treasurer's office for that. What is new is section four. This was proposed originally, and and there was no ownership for this pilot. And so we rejected it in the senate, but the house worked on it further and has come up with a great pilot, it's called the Off-site Construction Accelerator pilot program, and it's designed for rural communities who may wanna get together if they're wanting to build to develop some housing, they could do a bulk purchase of modular housing and draw down the and and reduce the cost hopefully of of of that kind of construction, and so the the they will be working with the treasurer's office who have kindly taken on sort of ownership of this pilot, and we'll be hearing how this works. And and I'm very excited about this. What we did do is we added language to we added we asked to add the Vermont Economic Progress Council as one of the consulting members on their advisory board. So we support the project now, but it's owned by the treasurer's office, and we are looking forward to seeing if this actually can reduce the cost of housing in our rural communities if they can bulk purchase. Section five is pretty much the same. We added similar we we clarified some language. This section expands the definition of an eligible facility or an eligible project for our Vermont Economic Development Authority, and it adds their ability to lend to housing projects, which is great, but this but they are only going to be able to do that in situations where which when VHFA is is I believe I have to clarify this. They VITA cannot fund portions or cannot sorry, Vida cannot fund portions or phases of a project use utilizing funds from Vermont Housing Finance Agency or if that portion or phase of the project is being primarily developed for occupancy of persons and families of low and moderate income. The VIDA money will be lending for mostly for all other kinds of housing projects. Then we get to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency sections, sections five a and five b, these are read together. This this takes the rental housing revolving loan program within the VHFA portfolio, and it was created in '23, but it was created in session law. They wanna put it actually into statute. This does that. And then the second change in five b, this change allows a developer to access both this program, the revolving loan program, but also low income tax credits enabling creating more units for lower income for Monterey. So we thought these changes were were good and we support them. Section sorry. I'm moving along here. Section six, this is our VHIP section. We not we lobbied hard to get more money for the Vermont Housing Improvement Program, which this body has supported this chamber

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: has

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor District)]: supported enthusiastically over the years. And however, the house had asked the Department of Housing and Community Development to be able to advance monies to developers. We thought that was too risky, and we we struck that. And I anyway, so we're we're not always risk averse, but in this case we were we're risk averse. Then we move on to section seven, which is the special assessment bonds, and this is absolutely the same as what we passed out in March. This authorizes the municipality to issue special assessment bonds to fund public improvements in infrastructure. And section seven a just enables this with the bond bank. Section my last section is section eight, which are the

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: municipal

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor District)]: plans, and we added this section would amend the statutory language regarding the housing element of a municipal plan to require the housing element include an analysis of the regulatory and physical constraints preventing development in our towns and communities. And they have two things, they have they have two aspects that they wanted municipalities to come back to us with having analyzed, and this adds labor as one of the additional constraints. If there wasn't enough workforce, if there wasn't enough labor in the area as that is an additional constraint that they might consider a barrier to developing more housing. And on that, I'm going to yield to the senator from from Chittenden Southeast. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Windsor yields to the senator from Chittenden Southeast.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Chittenden Southeast District)]: Hi. Thank you, mister president, and it's a privilege to follow the senator from Windsor one last time on a housing bill. Have been quite a duo over the last several years, and it will be hard to lose her voice on moving a lot of these important affordable housing measures forward. Mr. President, just two things as people start to glaze over or come in and out of the room, but I wanna remind people of with our omnibus housing bills. Number one, you can pick up, you know, any major publication nowadays see that housing is still a relatively bipartisan issue in Washington. We are still getting funding. We are still seeing large, far reaching omnibus bills passed that help advance all types of housing, permanently affordable housing, long term rental housing, and single family home ownership. All are critical to our economy, and all remain on the table in Washington for funding and, further enhancement. And second, mister president, we had a very long debate this morning and this entire session about rising property taxes. There is truly only one mechanism by which to lower people's property tax rates, and that is growing the brand list. Everything else may bend the cost curve or contain costs into the future, but when you grow the brand list, we have actually had years in the past that a few of us remember where the grand list has grown so significantly that we have been able to reduce the homestead property tax rate. We have not seen a year like that in a long time, but growing the grand list is the most organic way we have to reduce property tax burdens for individual homestead property taxpayers. With that, mister president, section nine of the bill is a return of provisions from the original passage of s three twenty eight out of your Senate Economic Development Committee, building on the sections that were mentioned by the senator from Windsor. This seeks to end discrimination of any kind against manufactured housing in the state. For many of us having pilots and trying to, expedite or in many ways encourage manufactured housing, which is becoming far cheaper, especially as other costs like lumber and labor rise. The ability to erect manufactured housing, both single family or multifamily housing, It does present significant new cost savings for ownership and rental, but that does heavily rely on getting through regulatory barriers quickly and not seeing discrimination against manufactured housing simply because of its housing type. This is a national effort where we have seen more and more states create a manufactured housing supply chain and reduce regulatory barriers across multiple state jurisdictions so that eventually we can have potentially a New England building code and manufactured housing components that are cheaper to acquire along that supply chain. Mr. President, I'm now going to refer to our amendment as well as the underlying bill, if I may.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: And

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Chittenden Southeast District)]: section nine was a change that was also supported by your Senate Natural Resources Committee to start to transition our phrasing around by right developments from an allowed use to a permitted use. I really hope this makes a difference, Mr. President. You may have heard me say this before, but we are trying to reduce the number of conditions that a municipality may place on certain developments like accessory dwelling units, like duplexes, and like manufactured housing, or in some cases, quadplexes along water and sewer so that they become permitted uses and do not have significant conditioned barriers. Mister president, the the final part of section nine, I would ask members to to bear with me because it's not particularly intuitive as we discuss this evolving area in the housing market, but this is what our data is pointing to and a lot of what you see in this bill is trying to get at what we see in the data. You're an exciting person upstairs. What we see in the data is going to create new units of long term rental or long term ownership in the state. I think it's no secret and it's not unique to Vermont. This is a story that's come out of Portland, Oregon, Austin, Texas, many places around the country that accessory dwelling units and duplexes are where you're going to get a lot of value, in creating new long term opportunities in the housing market. We have sought to reduce a lot of barriers to ADU and duplex development as a permitted by right use, but, we still see a lot of struggles to invest in what is an expensive renovation or an expensive new build in your backyard, if you face the real estate encumbrance in the future of required owner occupation. So at the intersection of landlord tenant law, municipal law, and real estate law, we are seeking to get rid of more of the municipal owner occupation requirements on accessory dwelling units and, duplex developments so that they can be built in the first place. Mister President, these have become a long term rental solution. I think a lot of people can picture the accessory dwelling unit in the backyard and the person who rents affordably there for years upon years. In places like, for example, the the city of Burlington, they still have an owner occupation municipal ordinance, but they also have a ban on short term rentals. So effectively, they won't allow two long term renters to be on the same parcel, they are actually just creating an artificial shortage in the number of long term rental units that are available since short term rentals are essentially not allowed. Both this provision and the next provision have a sunset date placed on them so that we can engender conversations in municipalities around removing some of these owner occupation requirements that stop investment and development from happening because it is hard to go at time of sale and have that encumbrance on your property while having that conversation around what tools are now in municipalities toolbox to limit short term rentals or to tax differently vacant housing and short term rentals, Mr. President. I lost my place in this. So section 9A are those sunsets. And there's also another counterintuitive piece of this. And I'd really like to thank Ellen and Cameron from legislative council for helping us continue to refine the Home Act and work on areas where pressures to develop more and pressures to develop less kind of conspire to make no development happen. And one of those unique scenarios is where a municipality can sometimes require more development on a parcel and the market or the financing only bear out a quadplex or some number of units that is four or less. And this gives both developers and the municipality freedom to have more flexibility in their zoning for when they are trying to seek out multifamily housing between two and four units and when they truly want to require a much larger multifamily building. All of these, both of these provisions that I've discussed have a sunset so we can really study the conversations that happened around them. Section 9B is changes to the state community investment program. Designated downtowns village centers, those kinds of designated areas have long been the purview of the Senate Economic Development Committee and the House Commerce Committee, as they are sort of where we've determined that the land use is fairly settled. And we're now talking about how many resources go into building infrastructure or redeveloping housing, commercial property, etc. One of the remaining challenges we face in those designated areas is the split of resources like downtown tax credits and whether they go to historic downtowns or downtowns that are in desperate need of infill development and strip repair. So as we bring our infrastructure program online, as we bring chip online, it was important to us that we not squeeze out opportunities to streamline funds and move away from historic preservation being the highest priority where we have competing environmental and flood resilience priorities to develop housing outside of our floodplains. Mr. President, just for the sake of expedience I was gonna go more quickly through sections on reporting and the final sections of the bill. We had a lot that we tried to accomplish on common interest communities or HOAs or condo associations. There were a lot of restrictions on use, implements and enhancements you may make for energy efficiency or gardening or things like that, we really would like to look ahead to limit the ways that those squeeze out certain lifestyles, lifestyle choices, as well as types of families and youths. But it is a very complicated area of the law. So we are going with a study instead. We have back in our farm worker housing proposal and looking ahead to on farm housing and how to study looking back where we have been successful investing in farm worker housing and looking forward where we need both financing and regulatory barrier reductions to on farm housing. Section 12 is something that I believe that came to us from the house that looks at private equity and corporate purchase in our housing market, that can be in a whole multifamily building, it can be in a series of houses, it could look, a lot of different ways. Our committee has taken a really deep look at this in the past as it relates to senior and age restricted housing, because often that is sold on markets outside of the state, they can see multiple rent increases and they don't even know who owns their building. But we're happy once again to look at corporate purchase of housing. Will say for future members of this chamber, one of the best ways to reduce corporate and private equity purchase of housing is to have strong tenancy protections. Vermont has the lowest out of state capital investment and ROI on its housing market for Wall Street investors in the country. It's about 3% of our housing market at least it was last year. And a big part of that is having tenant protections that don't allow a lot of churn and a lot of eviction for non payment of rent. Mr. President, there's a section that we delete that was a VHCB language that that was included in the budget. I think my chair was gonna speak to some effective dates and our witness list and I would just once again like to thank the senior senator for Windsor for being such a visionary and good thought partner on housing. Over the years, we've had a quite monumental work together and she will be missed on that front.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Windsor.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor District)]: Thank you. Thank you, Senator from Chittenden Southeast. Led by example. We have done some great stuff in the last four years. The effective dates of we proposed changing the effective dates to add the sunset as the senator had already referenced, and that is effective January 28, and the remainder of the act is effective in July on 07/01/2028. We heard from 37 witnesses over the course of of the whole journey of this bill, And our straw poll on this amendment is was five zero, and we ask for your support to both concur with the house and our further proposal amendment. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator from Windsor has moved that the senate concur in the house proposal amendment with further proposal of amendment. Are you ready for the question? Senator from Caledonia.

[Senator Scott Beck (Caledonia District)]: Thank you, mister president. I, I think the senator from Chittenden Southeast for her remarks, but just would add that there is a second way to reduce property taxes and property tax rates, and that is for government to reduce spending by a little bit. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. The ayes have it. The senate has concurred with the house in proposal of amendment with further proposal of amendment.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: We

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: now have h nine zero seven. The house has considered the senate proposal of amendment on h nine zero seven and has concurred therein with further proposal of amendment. The question is, shall the senate concur in the house proposal of amendment to the senate proposal of amendment? Senator Vyhovsky for the committee.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden District)]: Thank you, mister president. The house did not change any of the work that we did in the reports repeal section of the bill. They simply added the sister state bill that went that we passed and went to the governor. The governor's office was concerned about one part of the bill, so we changed that, and it was put into this bill as a vehicle to move it forward with the governor's concerns answered. So we asked to concur with the house. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The question is, shall the senate concur in the house proposal of amendment to the senate proposal of amendment? Are you ready for the question? Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: If I might just ask one clarifying question of the senator.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senators interrogated.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: Thank you for that. I'm wondering, is the language in the sister state bill or sister city bill, is that exactly what came out of our chamber?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden District)]: It is not. The one change to the language was the part of the language that the governor's office was concerned about, and it is why they vetoed the bill. So we changed that to answer their concerns and put the rest of the language into this bill.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: Sorry, I was I was imprecise. So other than that change, it is exactly this? Yes. Thank you, mister Kesha.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and the senate has concurred in the house proposal of amendment to the senate proposal of amendment on h nine zero seven. Okay. Yeah. It's

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison District)]: on guard. Yeah. We

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: have the report of the committee on conference on s two two three. The committee of conference has submitted the report found in your calendar today, and the question is, shall the senate accept and adopt the report of the committee on conference? Senator from Bennington.

[Unidentified Senator from Bennington]: Mister president, some of you may recall or maybe one of you who then will recall, s two two three, the I went to his body, I don't know, two or three months ago. A little bill, focused on creating a summer study to look at the caliber of our especially interior lakes, and as and to come back with, proposed legislation, recommended changes via policy or or legislation, to on the one hand, strengthen environmental protection, on the other, provide regulatory certainty and support public uses of water. This is one of those bills that is supported by the need for which was sort of acknowledged and supported by everybody across the spectrum involved in this issue. And so we, the house made a couple of, changes to the bill. We met in committee of conference, and by the way, the committee of conference report was all six members of the committee of conference voted in favor of the report. So we have the study committee is made up of a combination of legislators, the secretary of ANR, an ANR scientist, business interests, environmental leaders, and a representative of the Lakes and Ponds Association. The house added a few more, somebody from the Green Mountain Water, Environment, Association. That's those are the people who basically work in municipalities and do hookups and deal with water quality. On the memph Lake Memphremagog Watershed Association and one person from the Lake Champlain Citizens Advisory Committee. We met. We agreed to that, and in the process agreed to increase the number of legislators, from, two in each body to three. And by the way, no with not all from the same party. And the house also has added a provision that seeks a report from ANR by January 15 of this coming year with regard to the advisability of a certification program for wetlands professionals for the purpose of defining wetland boundaries. So, it's a little bit loose right now how that works and so, who's a professional who's not. So the question is, should we have certification program? This this will just look at it. Ask the ANR to look at it, come back to the report. So, very simple. I think the conference committee lasted maybe twenty minutes at most. Pretty straightforward, and we have to provide support and, to adopt the report of the committee of conference.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The question is shall the senate accept and adopt the report of the committee of conference on s two twenty three? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and we've accepted and adopted the report of the committee on conference on s two twenty three. Senator from Chittenden Central.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: Thank you, mister president. We we have made good progress, but my hope is to have us leave closer to 04:30. So with that said, mister president, I would ask that the rules be suspended in order to take s two twelve and activating the portable water supply and s two zero two and activating the portable solar energy generation devices off the notice calendar and up for immediate action.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Chittenden Central has moved that the senate suspend its rules in order to take s two twelve and s two zero two off the notice calendar for immediate action. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Ayes have it, and we have suspended the rules to take up s two twelve and s two zero two for immediate action. Two twelve. F two twelve was passed by the house with proposal of amendment. The question is, shall the senate concur in the house proposal of amendment? Senator from Washington.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. So the other body did make some changes to s two twelve, and, long story short, we're gonna recommend concurrence with the house with the other body's proposal of amendment. And so I just want to walk through what some of their changes included. So the first major change was that we had had a section that referred to the secretary adopting general permitting oh, just for context, this is a bill about water and wastewater, general permits, in case you I you had forgotten. So this did, we did have a section that allowed the secretary to adopt, general general permitting, for projects that were low risk, low impact, or low complexity, and, what, the other body did with this is that they they wanted more specificity, and so they listed out several scenarios, that would have essentially qualified as low impact, low, low risk or low complexity. They called those out specifically, these are situations where for the water wastewater permits, there's issues around subdivisions or, boundary line changes, or situations that that have small potable, potable water supplies which are defined as less than a thousand gallons per day, and similarly, for wastewater systems that have less than a flow of a thousand gallons per day and, that they don't have, the need for any variances, related to hydrogeologic analysis, etcetera. So, that was a change, we thought that was fine. The next, major change was that they added a report on something called overshadowing. So, this was a new term for us, overshadowing is, what can happen is if you are building a, well, on a particular parcel, there is, an area around it that is you're from certain activities within 50 feet of that well, and that's to protect the water quality of of the well that you're pumping out. And that if that if that area, that radius goes on to another person's property, then that is called overshadowing, and that neighbor is then prohibited from doing certain activities within that 50 foot radius, and that can be problematic. Other states deal with this in other ways. There might be easements, they might have to, have a sign and release, there might be compensation involved, but Vermont does not do any of that. We have more of a first in time rule where basically if you're the first one there, you get the rights to do that. And so this is just a report on the benefits to having an overshadowed area or an area that has restrictions around it. It asks for, to evaluate the alternatives, to, limit the need for overshadowing, ask for the frequency and additional steps and any additional information that we might, need in potentially changing our rules around overshadowing. The the the next major section that they changed, we had a a cap of $50 for, fees for water or wastewater projects, that were in designated areas. Because the designated areas have significantly expanded, between the time the bill was with the senate and moved over to the other body, the DEC did some financial analysis to determine based on the expanded amount of designated areas, how much that would cost them, and they came out that that would be potentially very expensive for them. It could be, up to $50,000. I'm sorry, $500,000, in losses for them if if, places were to take advantage of that even though it's not, taking advantage of very much now, it could be a problem in the future, so they ask to remove that. And then the last part that they changed was about allowing municipalities to create permits for discharges of I'm sorry, pretreatment pretreatment of water to be discharged. For example, breweries have a lot of pollutants that could potentially be going into the water, and so there's agreements now that between municipalities and these kinds of industries that they must pre treat their, their effluent to avoid spikes, which the wastewater treatment plant is otherwise unprepared to, to deal with, and so it's, allowing ANR to, delegate to a municipality the the regulation of pretreatment. However, that is we we need to get confirmation from the EPA that that is allowable so that we have the authorization to do that and so that section is contingent upon getting notification from the EPA that that is alright. Those are the changes that they made and we recommend concurrence with their changes four zero one. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The question is, shall the senate concur in the house proposal of amendment? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed nay. The ayes have it, and the senate has concurred in the house proposal of amendment on s two twelve. The house has considered the senate proposal of amendment to the house proposal of amendment on s two zero two and has concurred therein with further proposal of amendment. The question is, shall the senate concur in the house proposal of amendment to the senate proposal of amendment to the house proposal of amendment? Recognize the senator from Washington.

[Senator Anne Watson (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. Again, we are recommending concurrence with the House's proposal of amendment and so just to explain what they oh that was on a vote of four or a straw poll of four zero one, and just to explain what the other body did, with, our language, this s two zero two was primarily about portable solar, though the other body had included a language around appliance efficiency standards and codifying to maintain the status quo what the appliance efficiency standards are currently, and the Senate's proposal also included, language regarding, the applied sufficiency for, standalone electric motors. The other body did not like that, and so they simply removed it and that was their proposal of amendment and we thought that was fine. We were gonna argue about that and so, again, we concurred with their proposal of amendment four zero one. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The question is, shall the senate concur in the house proposal of amendment to the senate proposal of amendment to the house proposal amendment? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and we've concurred in the house proposal of amendment to the senate proposal of amendment to the house proposal of amendment on s two zero two. Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: Thank you, mister president. At this time, I would move that the senate suspend its rules in order to message actions just taken on S197 and act relating to payment reform for primary care, S202 and act relating to portable water solar energy generation devices, s two twenty three and activating the water quality of the waters of Vermont, s three twenty eight and activating the housing and common interest communities, h nine zero seven and activating the legislative review of reporting requirements, h nine fifteen, an act relating to establishing an extended producer responsibility program for beverage containers. H nine twenty eight, an act relating to technical corrections to fish and wildlife statutes.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Chittenden Central has moved that the senate

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: I assumed you were right. Okay. If I might have meant.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: Mister president, I would also like to message actions just taken on s two twelve and activating to potable water supply and wastewater system connections.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator from Chittenden Central has moved that the senate suspend its rules in order to action to message our actions on s one ninety seven, s two zero two, s two two three, s three twenty eight, h nine zero seven, h nine fifteen, h nine twenty eight, and h two twelve to the house for with. Are you ready for the questions? It's S212. The last one was S212. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and the motion carries. Senator from Chittenden, you had handed me a conference committee. Do you want to take up S 202 208? Sorry.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: That was an announcement for conferees.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Orleans District)]: Yes. So yes.

[Unidentified Senator from Bennington]: And

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: if I might move to suspend the rules in order to take s two zero eight off the notice calendar for immediate action.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from senator from Caledonia.

[Unidentified Senator from Bennington]: Brief recess, please.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: We'll take a brief recess. Come to order. The senator from Chittenden Central has moved that the senate suspend its rules in order to take s two eight zero eight off the notice calendar for immediate action. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and we'll take s two eight up for immediate action. Where's two zero two? S two zero eight was passed by the house with proposal of amendment. The question is, shall the senate concur in the house proposal of amendment? Senator from Windham.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Windham District)]: Mister president, a conference committee is being requested from s two zero eight.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The question is, shall the senate concur? Nope. That's not the right question. Senators move that the senate refuse to concur and appoint a committee of conference. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it. Committee of conference for s two eight zero eight will be senator Hashim, senator Baruth, and senator Mattos. Senator from Chittenden Central.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: Thank you, mister president. I would move at this time that the senate suspend its rules in order to message the action just taken on s two zero eight.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator from Chittenden Central has moved that the senate suspend its rules in order to message our actions on s two zero eight to the house forthwith. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed nay. The ayes have it and the motion carries. Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central District)]: Thank you, mister president. Pending further announcements, well, actually, before I make that, just for clarity's sake, I'll ask, senators to keep in mind we'll be running at least two sessions for the rest of the week. So in at ten, and then hopefully stopping at noon, back in at two and then as we move through the week we will then start to come in a third time or fourth time or fifth time just quickly to act on what the house has sent us and to get things back to them but at least so far, it doesn't look like we'll be anticipating late nights except on a possible last night. So with that said, mister president, I would move that the senate stand in adjournment until 10AM Wednesday, 05/27/2026.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Chittenden Central has moved that the senate stand in adjournment until 10AM, Wednesday, 05/27/2026. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and we'll stand in adjournment until 10AM, Wednesday, 05/27/2026.