Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay. It is Wednesday, the and we were gonna have one presenter, but she was having under the weather and having some problems with her internet and probably couldn't get where we wanted to do, so we're just gonna spend a few minutes to talk about our miscellaneous ag bill and see where we're at and start lining up. After today, I mean, after this week, we're gonna have about single digits as far as we finish the fill ups. So we're making good progress, and we just wanna make sure we're still on track. So committee, sections one through three. We kind of know what's going on with that. We should hear back by Friday as far as where that is, and I just think that we can quickly have that kind of wrapped up depending on where all the stakeholders are at. From what I understand, they're making progress. Anybody else have any more to add to that? Yes.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Thank you, mister chair. Yeah. Just wanna on the record, though, I did receive word from Vermont Farm Bureau. I understand that the House Ag Committee met with Jill Remick about proposed changes within current use to allow for grazing rights. What struck me as interesting is the tax department would look up files with Schedule F to confirm that the landowner did in fact receive money for allowing a farmer to graze animals. So it seems like we're trying to remove Schedule F in some cases, but include it in other cases. I just want to note that I understand that in the spirit of compromise, there'll probably be some movement on the monetary threshold, whether it's still gonna be at 5,000 or whether it goes between 2 and 5 or back to 2. I don't know. But I still think it's important. At least we think about putting, and I know that the Ag Department is already an agency of the well developed to be Schedule F back in, but it does impact grants as well from the federal government if you don't file a Schedule F. That's it.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: On that, I don't think that there's So there's a few things in politics, right? There's a few things that you do. You have the administrations, you have the House, and you have the Senate. This is Senate Agriculture. I want this bill to be Senate Agriculture's bill. When it's all said and done, I know we have stakeholders that are coming in and all that, I want it to be something that we can be happy with. We're in here doing a lot of good work, and so I think at the end of the day, if we just wrote something right now, everybody's a winner. And so I want to just keep that in mind as well. So if that's something that has to be there, or whatever, when it's all said and done, I don't think there's any poison pills that we're gonna have to agree to or not agree to. So I, I, and I've left it up to the committee, a lot of this stuff, and the stakeholders to have the compromises, but what I want to do by Tuesday at the very latest, if Friday, if we can't get done Friday from what we hear, on Tuesday, I wanna wrap this sucker up. Okay. One through three. Thanks. No no matter where it goes, it's we've had times. We're self employed deadline, but I thought we might do it last week. We gave them a whole extra week and there just comes a time, I can remember being in this situation before with Senator Mazza where I was just trying to get some compromises done and then Senator Mazza said, Ingalls, there's just times where you just gotta make a decision. And I think that we're at that time, like one through three, because I think they can argue about it in a good way, not saying that it's adversarial, but it's just time. Unless anybody else has some more thoughts about one and three?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Good? Yeah.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay. Tuesday at the latest. Four and five, I think we pretty much have decided that maybe that was not gonna make make the cut. Yep. Yep. How does everybody feel about that? Okay. Drag that off. Yep. Accessory on farm structure permit, We talked about that offline for a second. We haven't really taken any testimony on it. Senator Major, what do you want to do with that? Do as a committee whatever you tell us.

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: Let me just see if I can get some suggestions. I'll make a couple

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: of calls, Timothy. Okay. All right. I just

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: I'd like to if can, I mean, I'd like to see if we can help?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yep. I agree 100%. If there's anything that you need me to do, let me know. If you need me to reach out to anyone, let us know, let the committee, whatever we can do to help. Okay. Okay. Seven, I think we're just down to a simple definition as far as just to change the language to make it a nonprofit, right?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Right.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Sir Plunkett, you're on that, as far as the language part of it. Sorry to make you the language guy, but I would appreciate if you were the one that would keep that on track. And then we could close that out. Got everybody's understanding? Yes. We haven't done a lot with farm kitchens. So next week, we're either gonna take some more testimony on that, refresh ourselves with that, but it's still something that's hanging out there that we haven't really taken a lot of time on. So any thoughts on that other than

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Just that we need to go on. K.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good with that for right now? Yep. Okay. Section 10, we're gonna talk about that some more. We have some more discussion going in on Friday, and I think the struggle is going to be for us is to recognize what our goal is, which is to keep people off of primag land. And it just happens to be that we're talking about solar siting. This committee believes in renewable energies, but we also believe that our ag land is premium and that we need to find a way to have a compromise to keep them off of our,

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: off of our prime ag lands. I honestly think that's gonna come down to how we word it and say that because there's, we wanna protect our farmland, yet we have people that own the land for generations and they may say this, we're gonna give up this section because the town's moving this way and it makes sense for the town to move this way. And if we put it in such a law that they can't sell it, you know, I just don't believe it as legislators. That's what we should do. There's enough uproar, then somebody might come along and buy land to protect it. But I still wanna leave that choice up to the landowner. So having I'm a hard time with that because, you know, we don't want to lose them to solar fields that, and we don't want to sometimes lose it for housing, but I'll give, case in point, my family farm is on the Northwest Side Of Bristol. Beautiful prime ag, but at the same time, if our town starts to grow, that is the only, were separated by a river and a valley and then we separated by a drop. So the village, one of the best ways to go is the norm. And, you know, if our society grows and we need housing and we put such protection on that land, that's what worries me. Is it good that we did that? Yes. But is it bad that we stifled ourselves, some other way?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: So I think it's concerns. So to your point, a couple of things.

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: One is it's a little bit exclusionary to solar fields.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: That's why I included that.

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. The the and I'm and I'm glad you you did that as well. I think one of the things also we're kind of telling the landowner

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: what you can and cannot do. And I'm not sure I'm

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: I'm good with that. The the last thing is, yes, we wanna protect the the this farm, and and I don't know if we can give right of first refusal to farmer that we open it up and if and have x amount of days where farm any farmer can can do that. I I just I have I have an issue. You your your family farm, and you just you want to get out of the farming business. Your family wants to get out, and you want to sell the land, but you you can't. You can't, you you know, you can't, you know, make it or to to grow your town. You know? I I I'm I'm having difficulty with that. Now all that said, you know, like and I've been the one of the centers, mostly been right along. Our our charge is to protect our farms, and we're I'm I'm scared. I mean, look at that. Our dairy farms dwindling exponentially. I just, I don't want to, but I don't want to have a hammer to

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: stick that spoon into the table.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: So it's gonna be in the verbiage about, because if the farmer chose, say, we could go to the land trust and say, okay, I want this land protected forever, so I'm making this decision that from here on out, nobody, so I sign on to the land trust. If you're another farmer that say, now I want control of my lead right up until the day that I'm gonna sell it, and then I can decide if I wanna sell it to my interest or a big industry, you know, the manufacturing company that this happens to be a partial when zoning all works out. But as legislators have been in so they can't. And the other thing is like when they come in and farmers are saying, know, we have a lot of small farmers come in and saying, you know, where our land's going, but we can get in and drive around and I can show you meadow after meadow after meadow that's growing up because it's not getting fired because there's not enough people fire me to do it. Down in Addison there's meadows that aren't touching the motive. They're not prime ag, but they're ag, they can grow. So I get torn and sad because I am. I wanna protect our, what, our most valuable resource is our earth to grow our food in. But we've seen, you know, with New York, we're learning from other states, like you said. So it's that balance we have to find for our fellow Vermonters that we don't, one that said, I wanna conserve it, there's an avenue to do that. The one that says, I bought this, and now I wanna sell off some of it to either keep farming or to sell it here to buy that farm there that's closing. I, I, you know, somehow we have to word it that it protects all parties. Because if there's a big enough uproar that, when we had, back in the '80s, parents had thought of subdividing some land in the town, they had zoning meetings and that. People were like, We don't wanna see that Meadow Building. Mom and dad said, All right. At that point it was, Give me $100,000 And nobody wanted go

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: up there. Yeah.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: And also it's like, we ended up, between the head of Director fifty and once you saw all the stuff you had

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: to be there, he's like, Nope, the good founder.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: That's my concern for my caliber of owners. Yes, I want to protect their countryside, but I don't want it shut down. We've going to that land for thirty years and decided now, hey, this is what I want to do with it.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just want to position what I'm saying here. This second 10 is specifically about citing solar, new electric generation facility siting. The first two provisions, I don't have any trouble with, but maybe now that you've mentioned that, Steve, the first would add the Agency of Agriculture into the PUC and ANR. Which I like. I think that's good too, because we're talking about farming. Interesting. And be clear, that's for every energy facility, not just sold. Okay. Feel like heard yesterday.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: Yeah. Interrupted just to that. They brought that question up. We should have ag come in and

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: ask Yeah.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: Sorry, Brian.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: No. No, that's all right.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Yeah. Then the second piece of that was to redefine primary agricultural soil and then add in secondary and local importance agricultural soil. And I think I'm fine with that too, and I don't think there's anything in section 10 that if a farmer with fifteen, twenty acres wants to sell to someone that's gonna put houses there, this doesn't address that. This is only if you're bringing in an electric generating siting situation, I think. And the third provision does go on from there.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So the five acres. Yeah, requires, you know, certificate of public good. I just think that that is beyond us. Yeah, and that's why I think there was a little bit

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: of a bump in the road in the last twenty four hours on Yeah, that I get that. I understand that too. So I don't know. I need, I guess, clarification from Bradley, Schulman, or whoever, that would say if a farmer wanted to sell it for anything except solar or gas, he could, he or she could. Because I don't think there's anything in section 10 with prohibition.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: And I guess that just opened the door that we've been talking that would better preserve it.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I think there's really kind of a couple things going with all the discussions that were going on that section 10 probably isn't gonna get in as with depth of what you've said Senator, but I think that those are discussions that need to be had over and over and over again as how much do you want Senator Major as well, the IAA, our charges to protect the farmland, yes, but at what cost and who do we wanna and whose rights do we wanna take away? Do we wanna take the landowner's rights away to make sure that we protect our farmland? So that thankfully at that point in time is not part of what we're trying to do in Section 10, but it's a discussion that I want to keep on having over and over and over again. Whether we're all back here at the same spot next year, I think it is a discussion that has been waiting to be happening in this building and it needs to be talked about. And whether we carry it later on in life or if somebody else carries it on, I think it's very valuable discussions because we are responsible to make sure three hundred years from now that we haven't used up all our land to grow food. Mhmm. So I guess the the other

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: thing I have a little bit of an issue was is that why are we just excluding solar? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. And and and I if I'm in the solar industry, which a lot

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: of people in there, just gotta read a letter from.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. Then

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: that that that says unsolicited opinion on S 32. And, you know, there's a once again, I'm not on stage one. Why why aren't you excluding buildings? Why are you excluding, you know, I I I almost think it sets us up for some kind of lawsuit because That's what I was

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: thinking about. Sorry to interrupt, but it's Why like pricing only on one thing

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Rather than

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: Why just why just this industry? Why not any other industry? Why you know.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: Of course, Act two fifty comes

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: in, and that and that doesn't

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: Is it on solar fields?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Why not? I mean, it's good.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: Yeah, because it goes through the streams again.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Right. So,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: yep. And again, kind of getting in and out of Section 10 and out of Section 10 a little bit with what we're talking about, which is fine. I like that. You go into some of these communities, as Senator Heffernan was saying, and the only place to expand is going to be on a prime bag piece of soil. I can think of the problem they're having at Lowell with their solar exciting field is at. If they were to expand ever, the only place that they're going to be able to expand housing into is the field that the solar people want to take. So they're having that wrestling about is it best use? Is that what people have come to Vermont to see? And the town is basically saying we don't want them there, but there's other forces saying, well, we are charged with other legislation that you guys have passed in the building that says that we have mandates that we need to meet, and so this is what we need to do, and this is where we have a chance to do that. But yes, I think it gets down to, there's a lot of communities that the only place that they're going to be able to expand in the coming years is what we're trying to protect. So I think what we've got out this conversation is that one thing that we need to talk this agency of agriculture to how they feel about some of the language in this bill. So I will get, we'll get ahold of them.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: I think adding them into the mix here would solve a lot of our problems. Then you have an agency coming in to ask the area of expertise that they have. Very good. People can come in and get Bruce and say, Yeah, we need this resource not here.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay, so we'll have a conversation with them. Ready to move on? Yep. Yep. Section 11, milk producers. I think it's- 11. That's pretty much, if we just said the language in that bill, we'll just, what I'd like to do is just one last time before we agree to anything, have Bradley go down through that and make sure that we would be all good with that. Yep. Well,

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Yeah. I guess. They made a case for it. I don't know. There were no new positions created, and it seemed like it expanded the ability of the agency to grant more money to farmers, I don't know, seemed like a good idea.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I didn't have any problems with that. I think if the language was good and everybody was good with it, that's something we could just check off the list when we go down through it the next time. So no more new testimony is on that. 13, again, something just repealing something that they haven't done for a lot of years. It's non controversial as far as what everybody's saying, so we would be good with that. 14, again, just they're not trying to do anything. All they're doing is just allowing them not to time out on their ability to take a test. That seemed pretty harmless. They're not lowering the standards. They're just allowing people to take the test until they can pass it or whatever. 15 through 20, probably the easiest part of all of that. That was over in ten minutes as far as the testimony we have in that. I mean, think we should be very good with that. Mhmm. 21 through 22 was just them consolidating the way they were doing their business. I was very happy with everything that they said about that. If anybody wasn't, I think I could agree with all that language. Twenty three and twenty four, removing the permit fees. Everybody seems to be on board with that. I haven't heard in the building as far as anything with that. Section 25, I don't know if that's something that we're gonna have time to get into with the floor drain stuff. If you guys wanna take more testimony on that, it's really up to you guys. I'll do whatever. I know that it gets people pretty anxious once you start talking about it, but again, we have time, you guys want to talk about that some more. Just to reiterate what it is, it really is about washing vegetables and having the water go out through in daylight versus going into a system and all of that. They said they're allowed to do it outside of the building. They can spray the hose in all they want, but as soon as they come into the building, it changes all of that. Do

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: we know why that provision, an was Ag request that it be in there?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, I think that call came from Paul.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Paul Ralston? Yeah. Oh. And that's calling for a study, though, to Right. That

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: sort of

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: going up. There is that,

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: sure, but it's also sort of, well, because we don't know enough about this that's why it's in the very We don't know if we don't know.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So we heard Paul's position on that, which again, maybe we should just have a chief agriculture come in and talk about that. Yeah. And then we'll see where that goes and see where if that's gonna involve ANR.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Well, it's requesting ANR and, agency of, ag to be a state worker group for the report. So it's both agencies.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Then Linda, do we have, well, we probably don't have it conveniently, but we have two other things that we're talking about. One is we're going have some new language with a cannabis control board. They're coming in and they're going. I think they're they're going to get that bill is going to come back. When we talked spoke the other day, is anybody have any problems with the health part of what the cannabis control board is asking us to do? I think we were very clear of where our position was, is that we weren't trying to change policy. We were just trying to support their policy, and we're going have some more language. We're going to talk about that some more, so we'll have some more discussions, but does anybody now have any hair standing up on the back of their neck about any part of what we talked about so far with that?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: I think it's gonna improve for hemp fiber. Honestly, not

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: just for the medicinal cells, but it's for the fiber in that tube, because it still has. It had to be washed. Now we have to give it to the dentist.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: It's worth it. Not gonna give it to

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: I guess

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: I'm fine. So we got some language,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: then we'll back on that. Linda, the only thing that I would ask, we have a bill that came in about current use and sightings. We don't need that today, but if we can have that for tomorrow just so that we can pay attention to that. There are two other bills that we have. One is the cannabis bill, hemp language that they're working on in the language that we talked about yesterday, and Bradley had some questions about it. James Pepper are going back and forth about how to get that, so we'll get that language back in there, make sure you guys are good with that, but we do need to take some testimony on this other language that Linda will get to us. What it is, is about current use, farm structures, and what's happening is a lot of the towns now are losing their positions as far as listers and all that, and so if Senator Major was building a building on his farm, the town lister would come by and say, Well, Senator Major, you're in current use on that. You got to make sure that you apply for this and apply for that. There's three farmers right now that put buildings up and thought that they were automatically enrolled in it and then come to find out that their tax bill went from like 30 to $50,000 higher because that building did not get put into current use automatically. Know, I know there's a lot of different positions to be said. Let's see some language before I start throwing out assumptions about what I think or what it is, but I think we should take a look at that, and we have time for that. That will be next week. And that's a separate bill? Well, we'll bring it in as part of The only way that it can be anything is that we bring it in as an amendment to a section of our miscellaneous bill. Going down through that, I don't think we're that far away, right?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: When you talk to Moltsovar, you're not getting about the effect that they, if you want.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I think the hardest part that we're going to have is to determine where we're going to be on this section 10, and then once for three, but again, I think that we can be agreeable, you know, to almost anything. I just I wanna get I want everybody nodding their heads in the right direction on that, and and I think that can add.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Yep.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: K. Any more questions about that? We'll take a little break. Everybody good with that?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Yeah. Linda will go off for a moment.