Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Good morning. We're running a few minutes behind. We're having a great discussion with the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. It's always a lot of information. I think probably we would have scheduled two hours. Could have billed that and run over as well. We're gonna spend some time this morning on F-sixty, an act related to establishing the Farm Security Special Fund to provide grants for farm losses due to weather conditions. That bill has had wide ranging support on both sides, and as much as it's had support, it's had some difficulties going through some of the committees on the House side for whatever reason. I've asked Senator Plunkett to break down with what we've got back from the House. Senator Plunkett and I had some discussions with some folks the other day, so I just think it's I think that Senator Plunkett is better served to break this down than most. Senator Plunkett, go ahead. Floor to it. Thank you, Chair Ingalls. I wanted to start off by saying that I discussed it a little

[Speaker 1]: bit with Michael O'Grady, who's the legislature drafting the bill. He did provide us with a side by side and a section by section which are on our our committee page. So this is really real his moral of presentation. I'll have a bit more of it. I can say that perhaps he couldn't say. If Linda, if you could pull up the side by side sentence for the folks. That's the wrong one, is it? The wrong one. That's the section by section. But just for the committee, we went through this last year. We you know, the bill, but the the the fundamentals are that it's establishing security fund. We had it for farms solely to respond to the disasters like we've been having, floods, drought, that sort of thing. So that would be more of

[Speaker 0]: a

[Speaker 1]: rapid response to recoup losses for for farms. So we passed it. It went through. Administered by agency of agriculture, food, markets. The awards are given by a review board of certain stakeholders, the different representatives of the different categories. So went over to the house, and as I think we had discussed and we had expected, forestry was added to it, so the the title of the bill would now be an accurately into establishing the farm and forestry operations here in special funds to provide payments for farm and forestry operation losses due to weather conditions. And there we have the side by side, and the the side by side has the highlights like we've seen before. Those highlights are the changes. So the left hand side, s 60 as we passed it, s 60 on the right as the house passed it. The section one is findings, and none of the findings are really operational. Findings are used to interpret the statute, presumed by courts if it comes to them, maybe by the agencies in their implementation. Much of it is is just changing the the definitions of some of the language, adding forestry overall to our findings, but it's still the same of recognizing the need for security funds for boar farms, forestry operations for extreme environments. The definition section, you can scroll down blend it to section two. Yeah. And you'll see that it's a different subchapter and different statute numbering. That's because we we passed another subchapter of last year, that subsumed that subchapter, so that we renumber that. That's the only reason for that.

[Speaker 2]: Jumped off.

[Speaker 1]: EC definitions just adds forestry. Essentially, it clarifies a little bit what a fire event is, and forestry operation is cross referenced to definition title 10. Scroll down to four six four two, and I will learn how to do this so that I don't have a way to do it every time. That section, just adding forestry operations. Four six four three has a little bit more added. So adding forestry operations. And one change that I think is wise was the change, the word grants that we had, to payments. Grants is a specific term that a global need carries certain requirements in the state. Mhmm. So calling it payments for sort of restriction it might have. And this You haven't changed that yet because

[Speaker 2]: the sales seat says grants and some

[Speaker 1]: No. On the right hand side, that's how it passed. That's how it came back. Was from the house. Says payment. So the one on

[Speaker 0]: the left is the one on the left, side of the cup red.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah, yeah, and right the one on is, yeah, the right one is the one that we're discussing But if you go down, as we go down a little bit further, it's this list of any state, but I guess grants against Oh, that's a different paper. I'm sorry. Payments, it also talks about what the payments would be it puts a couple of more limitations on it. As we had discussed, we we kind of knew that this would be a fund that would not be enough, and that's supposed to be rapid or as rapid as possible to to farms and not forestry operations. And some of the concern has been as well. It's first come, first served. This fund is gonna be dwindled very quickly. So part of the the limitation that the house added was adding the the word unreimbursed. So if a farm or or forestry operation has already been reimbursed for the loss, they can't get rid of it. And it's it's Yeah. And I think it also, and this will be perhaps part of how the Agency of Ag implements it, that if they know they're gonna be reimbursed, they would be able to get the payment that it would be part of the procedures. The other, and perhaps more substantial limitation, is that the maximum annual award, would be up to a maximum annual award of five percent of the undesignated and unreserved funds in the Farm and Forestry Operations Security Special Fund at the beginning of each fiscal year, provided that the award shall not exceed $150,000 per qualified applicant farm or forestry operation per year. So what we had, the senate had, was a limitation of not not more than a 150,000. This pins it to the 5% of whatever is in the fund, presumably on July 1 is the beginning of the fiscal year. And so that'll be, you know, if there's only a thousand dollars in it, it's $50 that could possibly be awarded as a maximum. I think it

[Speaker 0]: Senator Plunkett and I had some conversations, nothing that was on the line or anything like that, I think the agency might have some concerns about somebody coming in and depleting all the funds, but what I'm seeing in the language that there's there's a maximum reward, but there's no minimum reward. Right. So it doesn't mean that if there's a million dollars in there and five people apply, that they all get $150,000 I don't see that in here. Am I missing that?

[Speaker 1]: No, I think that's right. If the total 5% was awarded to each applicant, then that would get through 20 applicants. So it it does at least establish that there could be 20 applicants that that could get some award. But Yeah, no matter what the money is. Yeah, no matter what the money is. And right now, the money's

[Speaker 0]: zero, so And that's maximum. That's maximum. I mean, it could be they

[Speaker 1]: could decide to make that smaller. Yes, Yes. And and that will be up to the review board on on what the payment would be and what the losses are, and that brings us to my screen keeps jumping around, so apologies. It's got just pretty surreal. What's that? Yeah, if we can scroll down to where am I trying to go? Page five.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Up a little bit. Keep going up

[Speaker 1]: a little bit. These are the definitions of losses. So okay. So on page five, you'll see the list of losses that are reimbursable. So so these are the losses that a farmer forestry operation can apply to have reimbursement for. It adds, obviously, timber, logging roads, and inability to harvest timber. So most of that is just adding forestry products to it. But it does limit to some degree what losses can be compensated. And if we can keep scrolling down to the but, yeah, stop right there. So subsection b here, the secretary shall develop a streamlined application for awards under this section that shall include a list of what the application's gonna require. The house added a requirement for the applicant to list any state grants or loans received for their operations in the past five years, for the amount, source, purposes of funding. So that does add a little bit of paperwork for the applicants. Presumably, this is something that perhaps the agency of Ag Ag already has, so they'd be able to to supply themselves, or I don't know this, whether operations have their records of that, but they can quickly do that. Any reason they put that in there? They didn't want some business getting more money than another than getting over the last five years? I believe that's correct, and it doesn't necessarily limit the award. It just adds another bit of information for the review board to look at before making an award, and it might be that just gonna take some hypothetical that, you know, some, you know, 2,000,000,000 farm operation had been granted a billion dollars five years before, and now they're asking $400,000, and there might be some some questions whether or not that's that's a loss that should be reimbursed. And and let's just share. If you can keep scrolling down, then I'm just gonna I'm

[Speaker 0]: just gonna look at the

[Speaker 1]: big screen because my my screen keeps jumping around. Where do you want me? Right there. This is the changing fund to secretary. That's just a little bit of cleanup to make it clear that it's the secretary of the agency of agriculture, food and markets that establishes the application process. Can you go up just to sub five?

[Speaker 2]: Four on our side and five on theirs. Okay. Down a little bit. To me, that's a, Well, I don't know if it's a very substantial change, but instead of using Schedule F, you just have to

[Speaker 1]: report their income. Sorry. Sorry.

[Speaker 2]: I don't know what the rationale was. Was it maybe to facilitate paperwork on the farmer's end? But to

[Speaker 1]: me, they're already filing a Schedule F. I think I'm assuming, and I did not research this, and I apologize for that. Can ask Attorney O'Grady on this, but I believe that Schedule F is exclusively performing. Oh, Forestry would not have a Schedule F, so instead of specifying income and expenses, it just talks about income and expenses in all of its Yeah, I get it. In one way

[Speaker 0]: that the farm could do it

[Speaker 1]: if it didn't really need be scheduled out. And it scroll down to the bottom of oh, right there, Linda. Thank you. Yeah. And the house, I I think, wisely added that the secretary can pay their reasonable administrative expenses from the fund so that this doesn't add an additional burden on the agency that is otherwise funded. So, if we go down, yep, and this establishes the review board. Obviously, it adds forestry operations, adds the commissioner of forest parks and recreations, and also further down, we'll see two forestry operators that are added to the review board. So this has stakeholders regarding forestry, which makes it a relatively large board. And there was some discussion of, well, we have this other board that's going to review the applications and and give the awards. Is that something that will be a bottleneck? And the anticipation is that it wouldn't be. Presumably, they can come up with with procedures to to make it relatively rapid. But the rapidity of it, I believe, is at maximum, once the application is complete, it goes to the board, I believe it's total of thirty or sixty days before the award is supposed to go out, so that is pretty rapid.

[Speaker 0]: I know that she was concerned about that, but if are to do with what we were trying to do, which I think you've said it perfectly at the beginning, was to quickly get the money out the door. It is what it is. It might take some people uncomfortable. At the end of the day, if it can't happen, it can't happen, but we might as well try to make it quick money.

[Speaker 1]: And I know many of the boards that are granted by the state are done by boards who do a review, so it's not just a state agency presenting, you know, some sort of money, and I don't know if it's a it would be a question of, I guess, in the board, knowing that there are some of their own operators on the board that that know or, know, there is an addition to the board. There's a term limit for board members, and perhaps, and also, I think, from the house added a conflict of interest section. So folks that are on the board don't have to comply with the conflict of interest that I think everyone at the state has to. Anything else, till the last page, just adding forestry to it, if we can take a look at the last page. So this is a new section, contingency of funding, and what this does is, so the general scheme we have is that the agency of Agricultural Food and Markets will set up the program, and The contingency of funding is saying, well, the agency doesn't have to do that until this is funded by the general assembly. Even if there are funds from outside, my reading of this is that setting up the fund would not be there wouldn't be a duty to implement until the general assembly appropriates funds in just the major 2027 or or later. That maybe is worth some discussion whether or not the the agency, if there was funding, regardless of whether it was appropriated, whether they would do it, doesn't restrict them, but it has the duty to be only after it's appropriated. And that is the new bill. Other than that one question on whether or not the fund can be set up even without a general assembly appropriation, or if it would be, I think it's essentially the same as what we agreed to, and tossed over to Ben, with the addition of forestry, obviously. Frankly, from hearing from today, the integration of farms and forest sounds to be a lot more than I had known before, so it does make sense to have forestry.

[Speaker 0]: So unanswered questions as far as so it, let's just talk broadly. If we wanted to pass

[Speaker 2]: this bill

[Speaker 0]: out right now, could we do that? Yes, sir. Everybody happy with that?

[Speaker 1]: Yes.

[Speaker 0]: So let's talk about what we're gonna do then. Yes. Well, do have I don't know if

[Speaker 2]: it's a question or just a clarity issue. It presents on this side of the general assembly a little bit of a wrinkle since we don't have jurisdiction over forest products, so that natural resources does. That's one thing, and I don't know whether that's enough to in other words, it could go somewhere else, even if we pass it out of this committee. I don't know whether it would or not. The second question, it seems to be silent on an external appropriation, and I don't know what that means exactly if, miracle of miracles, we happen to find somewhere else to find some funding for this. Would the Agency of Ag still be able to implement this, or it's not clear to me. It just says that the duty to implement is contingent upon, again, a general fund appropriation. But if it's not a general fund appropriation, what do

[Speaker 1]: we do? My reading of it is that they have authorization to do it. Oh. If the general assembly appropriates funds, they have to do it. Okay. But I don't think they would be required to if there was money that was funded in. And to answer your question on outside sources, the definition of the fund, and this is section four six four two, it's not a community that you share, where you have the side by side. The funds shall consist of funds transferred by the general assembly, funds from public and private sources, secretary accepts for the fund, and funds from federal government aid or state support of farmers or forestry operations suffering income loss due to weather conditions. Funds could come from anywhere, setting up

[Speaker 0]: So that's answered to your satisfaction? Yeah. Well, okay, I get it. Okay. Any Any more questions about if we wanted to pass this out right now? Could we pass it out? Any more questions about that? Everybody in agreement, they could be fine with that? Even the few questions

[Speaker 1]: I brought up aren't questions enough for me to not agree to pass it right now.

[Speaker 2]: K. So I

[Speaker 0]: think that we ought to give Southern Natural Resource a drive by on this and Mhmm.

[Speaker 1]: Have them

[Speaker 0]: look at the language so that we're not stepping on their toes. And then I wanna keep possession of the bill, but I always have them look at the language. And then I kinda had talked with them informally, but they haven't seen the language. I don't know. Maybe they have, but they haven't seen it from us. Then other than that, I don't mind having it here for a little while longer to further some discussions, but then at some point in time we should just pass it out.

[Speaker 2]: Can I just talk to a

[Speaker 0]: broader Absolutely? That's what we're doing.

[Speaker 2]: It's not specific to S-sixty, but a broader question. Obviously, the House has forestry in their act. We don't, and sometimes, and this is a case of that, is problematic because there are drive bys where, guess my question is, and I defer to the elder statesman in the room, Should we I mean, somebody must have come in.

[Speaker 0]: Call them old.

[Speaker 1]: Elders are sign

[Speaker 2]: of respect. And, yeah, that's what I thought. You know? And I don't know if if if we want to to to take over Forrester. Just so there is No pressure.

[Speaker 1]: So there's

[Speaker 2]: continuity, and we're not having to because it it adds an extra step to what we do, on a continual basis. This isn't the only bill that there there there's been some situation.

[Speaker 0]: Well, I think that's a discussion to have with the pro temp. Yeah. And I think it's a good discussion to have. We did the same thing in our other committee with institutions because before you guys were in there, we didn't have when Brian and I were in there, we didn't have the prisons. That was in judiciary. And we got that moved from judiciary back institution, which it was an institution to begin with, but then they got put in the judiciary. It does happen. A movement of subjects, of departments, do happen. I think that's a good discussion to have. I can spearhead that and come back. Yeah. That sounds good. That's good. Makes sense.

[Speaker 2]: Mean, it just It grows in the ground. Yes.

[Speaker 1]: Erosion, erosion happens on logging trails quite often, you know, I think that's why it sits over there for whatever reason. Well, feel But it's like our farmland gets eroded as well, and

[Speaker 2]: we try to deal with it here.

[Speaker 0]: I think there's a lot of reasons why things get moved around. Know an institution's part is because Senator Sears at that time wanted to control that, and that's what he did. I'm sure at some point in time, if we looked back far enough, there was a reason why. Might not just be that because at one time agriculture wasn't even a full time committee. It was actually a third committee. There were people that had their two regular committees, and then ag was the third committee. And they didn't meet every day. It changed a little history lesson. Maybe it just got switched over. I But think that's a good discussion to have, and I appreciate if you would spearhead that. Yep. Okay, I just want to make sure the committee's in agreement that I'll have a chat with the chair of economic development or natural resources and ask that they do a drive by on the bill and that will still have possession on the field and that that we'll sit on this for another few days in the next week, see what happens. There are some ongoing discussions going on, but at some point in time we will have to just pass this out. Senator Plunkett, you answered this question, because I was going to ask it, but with what you went back and read again, you're comfortable saying that any of the dollars that come into this fund can be disbursed by the Secretary of Agriculture?

[Speaker 1]: They could set up the fund even if there is a general assembly appropriation, and then steward the process and then

[Speaker 0]: the review. The language is in there well enough to where we wouldn't have to ask for a language change if all of a sudden we got some monies from an outside source. I believe that's correct. Okay. Good. We good? Yeah.

[Speaker 1]: Got it.

[Speaker 0]: Senator Plunkett, thank you for that. It. Thanks Very very great job. If you ever wanted to be an attorney, you

[Speaker 1]: might have a few. Any

[Speaker 0]: questions? We have some folks in the room. You hear our plans? Hear what we're trying to do? Okay, fine. Sounds good.

[Speaker 2]: Okay. But before we go along, yes?

[Speaker 1]: I do want put on the record, I was going make this joke before it then decided not to, but I will. It is only half of a joke, but I saw this as sort of my interview for legislative counsel because I have such great respect for all the legislative counselors that we've worked with, and they work miracles. Yeah, they do, they work hard. I deeply appreciate them. Real good. Okay, so we're going to call it

[Speaker 0]: a day. We'll go off and thank you everyone for a good morning.

[Speaker 1]: Thank you.