Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Good morning, we're back in action. It's going to agriculture. We're going to spend some more time on S-three 23, our miscellaneous bill. We're going to talk about Section 10. I think it's very important to understand that this committee has not made any decisions on anything. We do have a wish to keep our ag land protected, our prime ag land protected. This bill is coming for us. We are taking testimony and we are just trying to figure out if there's a path forward. So we had a little heated and contentious day on Friday, and I want to avoid that. I really do. I to just have a discussion to everybody's position, and everybody will be heard, everybody will be respected and honored, and I'd like to keep that conversation in that way. We're gonna start off talking with Steve Collier, General Counsel, AG Chief Agriculture, Chief Markets, and the AG Chief's gonna tell us where they are at this point. Counsel, the floor is yours.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Thank you, Senator, and thank you all, senators, for having us here. I know there's a lot of witnesses, so I'm gonna try to do this very quickly, but I'll stay around if you have any follow-up questions. I'm happy to try to help. But I I think it's a there's a lot of things that support here.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: But from our perspective, there

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: are sort of three big principles that come into play, and that's what makes this such a tricky subject. First of all, agricultural soil. It's a critical resource. It doesn't regenerate quickly if ever, and we need it to grow food. So it's sort of hard to overstate the importance of having agricultural soils in Vermont so that we can have farms. Another critical principle is renewable energy. We not everyone agrees, but I think most people abroad certainly agree that renewable energy is important for our future. Being able to generate energy without emissions is certainly, based on our estimation, better for the planet, and I think that's certainly widely held opinion or beliefs in Vermont. So there is a need to develop those resources so that we're not creating more emissions. So and solar is one of those resources that can be put almost anywhere. And so from that perspective, it's quite a useful type of renewable energy. I think another issue that really is at the fore of this, at least from our perspective, is private property rights. So private property is not anywhere near as open to being used as it used to be. I mean, there's no question if you look at our history that the ability

[Unidentified committee member/staff (brief interjections)]: to use your own property from what

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: it was a hundred years ago to today is vastly diminished. There's a lot of well intentioned and sometimes very good policy reasons for that, but there's also no question being able to use your own land is something that, you know, some people very feel very passionate about. Some people, especially in rural communities, that's all they have, We lose sight of that sometimes. With land, when you live in an apartment building or you live on a quarter acre downtown, you have a very different relationship to the land than when you've lived for sometimes centuries on a certain parcel of land, and and that's how you support yourself. You're wildly hooked your family. So telling people what they can and can't do with their land, obviously, is a when the government does that, it needs to be thoughtful and has to have a balanced approach. So you take those three things together, private property rights, the the need to have agricultural soils, and the need for renewable energy, it's a pretty big challenge. And I what we do currently is we we implement the system that is in place, and I do think that agricultural soils are protected in that system somewhat. They're they are in and so solar goes through act two forty eight, which is the PUC, the Public Utility Commission. Through that process, all energy projects in the state have to go through that. Solar does that as well, and if you destroy agricultural soils in an energy project, you have to pay for that medic you have to pay for what you destroy so that other land can be conserved elsewhere. And, generally, it's at two to three times the rate of what you're destroying. So normally, if you're destroying 10 acres, you've gotta pay enough so that Vermont Housing and Conservation Board can buy 20 to 30 acres somewhere else to have a conservation easement so that that land will be preserved. That's the balance that we currently have. That is true in solar when there's a permanent impact. So if a cement substation is being built on the solar a solar energy project, then and say that takes a quarter of an acre, then a solar developer will have to pay for that quarter acre of lost soil. However, most of soil is in open space, open field, and it needs to be in a clear space to get the developing energy from the sun. So if you look at a 20 acre solar development where what's all on field, solar developers are not paying for that lost 20 acres of soil that's that's there. However, there is a legal in in the law, there's something that says that whenever you put solar on prime ag soil, that prime ag soil remains the zone that's never touched. So what it's saying is that when that it's primate soil even when there's a solar field on it. And when you get a certificate of public good from the PUC, there's an there's a required as part of that project. So every solar field that is put in place is supposed to be coming out at some point in the future, and when that does, that field is still supposed to be prime back soil.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: That's I call that yeah.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: What what was the genesis of that that law? What? I just just it it just seems like I I understand we we have to have conservation, but why was that a set aside?

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I wasn't at the agency at the time that that was put into place, but I I think it was designed, from what I understand, to accomplish two things. One is to facilitate solar development so that instead of having to pay a potentially huge mitigation fee, you don't have to pay the pet. And I think, to be fair, I think on the flip side, it's also to protect agricultural soil, so that eventually it could return to farming. I think that was the goal. But the, you know, the I I sort of call it a legal fiction sometimes because we believe that that's what's in state. That is what's required under the law. None of us knows what's gonna happen in twenty five years, fifty years. It's, my opinion. It's at least as likely that that will continue to be solar, especially if solar continues to be how we generate electricity, then likely, it will just be replaced with new panels, and a new CPG will be issued. But we don't know, and and maybe it will, maybe it won't. Maybe solar will stop being something that's valued, and it will all revert to agricultural land. So I think the issue that so many people have is we don't know. And so when you're saying that this is still a primate soil, and we have never have seen an instance where a solar field is removed, that's a

[Unidentified committee member/staff (brief interjections)]: tenuous bet to rely on the future of farm soil. And and, counsel, I guess the the

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: I almost can can understand staying prime ag is the length of time. It's two and a half decades. Yeah. I'd like to think I'd be a. Probably not. You know?

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And so I'm betting on it.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Well, Well, thank thank you. You. I I appreciate appreciate it. It.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: So if if that twenty five I mean, twenty five years, and that that's the issue that I'm I'm running up against, is the the the length of time. Not even if it's going to be prime ag afterwards. You know? It may be, and and it could be. And we don't we haven't seen any evidence of that because

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: it hasn't been twenty five years.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: So I'm I'm struggling that's the part I'm struggling with probably more than anything. You know? I I wanna see solar fields, I wanna see conservation, and I think it's important. But, it's just that length of time that

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: I'm struggling. I'm struggling with senator Major, but it's this. We have plenty of land. What's over wrong? And I've said it over and over and over. Stay out of our prime ag land because, again, you tie it up. This whole bait and switch thing as far as, well, we're gonna take this, but we're gonna go over here and conserve that land. Well, why don't we just conserve it all? I mean, why do we have to do that bait and switch? I don't get that, and I get it, and I want renewable energy. I want to get to a few facts that I think that we know. Act 50 was put in place to protect prime agsulin, to protect farming. Since Act two fifty's been put in place, I think we lost 57% of our primag land.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, think it's about 56, Senator,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: is what I remember. Not of

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: our primag land, of our harvested crop land, so land that the state of Vermont is actually using to produce crops, yes.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: There's a number floating out there that we've lost 41,000 acres in a period upon, and I know do you know what that number is? I've seen the 41,000. I just can't recall. I meant to look it up before the meeting, and I did not. I know

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: in the last USDA census period, which is a five year term from 2017 to 2022, that we lost 11% of our agricultural land during the harvested crop land, it's not primary soil, but actual used crop land. And that might be around that number, we have a little under 500,000 acres currently being used to grow food crops in Vermont, I believe, which is about 9% of Vermont, which is by far the lowest it's been in our farming history.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: So let's do the math. 11%, five years' time that we've lost. We are less than twenty years away from losing and ever been to it.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: There's a certain amount, over 200,000 acres, I believe, that's conserved through permanent conservation easements. So there is some that is that is protected as well as it can be. That doesn't necessarily mean it's used for farming currently, but it does mean it can't be used for other things, and it can't be ruined. But you're right. It's I mean, the reason Act two fifty, as I understand it, was implemented was we lost about half of our farmland in the preceding forty to fifty years, and so that was people were nervous about that. At that time, we had about 420,000 people. Now we have about 640,000 people, and we've sort of gone up, gone up at about 50% of our population, and we've lost more than half of our top line during that time. So there it's a it's a big concern. Know, when you when you talk about like, it is not an infinite resource. And the and the flip side of that is it is for somebody who owns that property, then trying to decide what to tell people they can do with it. I think that it's a really complicated issue, and I don't think I think there's a balance that's in place right now that at least in theory is workable, but that doesn't mean it's the right balance. I think it's it's always worth looking at the balance. Is this the right way? Is there a better way when you're taking ag land out of production to to do something about that? Is there a better way to incentivize not being on ag land? I think one of the things that frustrates us the most is that a lot of the times, the reason it goes on ag land is because it's relatively flat and clear. So it's more of a it's more of an economic basis, which is not that's not to say that we don't have to consider economics in our economy. We all pay for electricity. None of us wants it to be know, more expensive. That's a cost of doing business. So but when you those trade offs are tough, and and I think everyone agrees that when you can put solar on rooftops and parking lots, you know, that's a win win. When you're taking ag lands out of production to do it, that's a much more complicated analysis. And it would be wonderful if all of the solar panels could go on an unused hillside instead of a, you know, a flat perfect ag field. I don't

[Unidentified committee member/staff (brief interjections)]: think it works very well on

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: the hillside because you don't get sun for most of the day. But, anyway, there there are some really important issues, and it is worth you know, we don't we don't know how to fix it, but we know it's worth consideration, and and it maybe could be done That's why I

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: have one point. Don't lose your thought. So if it's not hurting the land more of a comment than it is anything, and it's not gonna be we don't have the right people in the room to even talk about it, but we have people in the room that would gonna have a lot to say. If it's not hurting the land in any way, shape, or form, maybe we ought to find a way to put it on what we would call some of the wetlands that we have or the wetter lands that we have. If it's not hurting the land, areas that are dropping ducks, but probably grow a few weeds on there that are susceptible to wetter land. Just to comment on that. I just wanted to Senator Heffernan, go ahead. I have some more to say about that.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: So when it comes to solar, I think the issue is sometimes where solar goes, because there's not anybody that does not, hates, doesn't say, Hey, we shouldn't have solar, From what's happened, what's happened with other panels, that either solar project people are like, Well, my phase three's here, this makes the most sense, most cost effective. Well, that's

[Unidentified committee member/staff (brief interjections)]: what I would glad if that's what

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: I was doing. However, as we do this, they should be put through the same gamut that if I was gonna put a housing development there or a industrial project there, which they're not, they don't, which I don't believe is right because it does affect the land. It may change in twenty five years. That's twenty five

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: They don't have a three acre rule that everybody else has, but it was.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Just having to go through the same gamut and what I've heard is, well, if we have to do that, it's no longer cost effective for solar to go there. And it's like, well, guess what? A lot of industries said, I wanna put my build in there, now I gotta go through F-two 50 and all the stuff they wanna do, now it's no longer cost effective. Let's just have it all on the same playing field that wherever you go, that the town has an input. I know what's happened up in Lowell, I totally understand why the solar company wants to do it. They have phase three right here, and it's a perfect setting, but it's not a perfect setting for the town, and that should be accounted for. Does that mean the farmer can't sell it? No, I'm all around the farmer's shit. I don't want to put solar there because they're giving me the best price. Well, then it's up to the people of the town to say, either we found somebody to come and buy it at the same price. But I, my biggest point here is that if solar comes in, they shouldn't have to be put through the same regulations that if it was industrial or a housing project or whole cost effect, go through Act with 50 and let people have their say. Other than that, farmland, I drove around this weekend, and there's, it'll be a long time before we trip all our farmland, honestly. You know, it's not gonna disappear in twenty, thirty years. Some of you, all of us, you lived up in Northeast Kingdom, I lived down Addison County, it's changed some. But the major fields are still being farmed, and I'm, you know, concerned about it, but not to the point that we're at critical mass that we're gonna lose this land to solar fields or housing, just, Vermont's made it too hard, it's not gonna happen overnight anymore. But when it comes to what we're talking about solar today, it's just, yeah, you can be solar, but you have to go through the same gamut that any industry has. And that that'll end it right there for a lot of it because You

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: do get into the part of it as far as where that low project is, again, and I just want to really emphasize that we are just having a wide range of discussion and we're trying to get everybody in, promise. Everybody's going to have a say. But you do get into what is best use. When you talk about that little project, is the best use of that land solar? Because if the town's ever going to expand, that's where they would expand their housing into, the same area. I think a lot of that comes into it as well. I don't want to get too far in the weeds of it. I just got a couple more questions and- There comes. Committee as well. Does the agency have a say on these projects when a large vast of ag land is going to be consumed in one of these projects? Are you consulted in any way? You have a say in it? We are required to participate in

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: the bigger projects. We can. We have a right to participate in all the projects. And what what what we focus on is the so sort of either temporary or permanent impacts at primary soil. So if it's temporary impact, we we we weigh in to require the developer to mitigate the temporary impact. If it's a permanent impact, then we talk about off-site mitigation and those fees. So something like a road may go in this temperature temporary. It may have geotextile fabric underneath it to prevent soil compaction. There's reclamation guidelines if any soil is disturbed. So a lot of what we're doing is to ensure that the soil that is there is protected as well as possible. Permanent impacts where you're never gonna get the soil again, patent be compensated for. So we have a say, but it's it's on prime egg soil, and it's somewhat limited by that legal the legal proclamation that it's still prime x soil. It's not considered to be destroying the soil, which in theory, again, is perfectly legitimate in practice if it may not.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Last thing I want to say, and then again, committee, please, I'm not shutting down discussion, but we'll get to our witnesses, is we have talked a lot in this committee about property rights by owners, and that is, I'm sure we're gonna hear that today on the testimony that we have, and that weighs on us heavily when we talk about all of this issue, and we talk about that a lot. There's somebody that's owned hundreds of acres at times and all that. I choose to do what I want to do with the property. It's never in current use or that's just what I do. Everybody has their own feelings about what they do and how they've done it. I've never had anybody tell me what I was going to do with my land. That is not our intent, although it sounds like it is a little bit. We're taking testimony, we're listening, and we're a long ways from nothing. We have a pretty good discussion going. So Can I counsel throw

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: in one quick thing that I wanted to mention, there's also agrovoltaics, which is the combination of solar and agricultural practices? We've been we've been excited about that. We want to encourage that. It's not particularly robust in Vermont yet, but but there are some examples of it. Some of it can be grazing, like, sheep. Others can also be, growing certain kinds of vegetables, root vegetables or leafy greens. Actually, the shaves from the solar panels can be helpful. It's more labor intensive often, but there the only point is it's worth knowing that there are ways to combine the the uses, which, you know, is obviously better than when you're completely taking it out of production. It's not been heavily adopted in Vermont, but there are some people doing it. And we're we always encourage that to the extent that we can because that's fantastic if you can actually still use the land productively if you have the.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: We know states are are using it or where?

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: From my memory, I don't have a tremendous amount of knowledge on this, but I think California has done some some some pretty important work, and we have people in the agency, though,

[Unidentified committee member/staff (brief interjections)]: who know much better than I

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: do. We did have Peter Sterling in here, and he's out of town I guess now, but again we listen to everyone, and it was his estimation that we're only using four zero nine acres of prime ag land. I it seems a small amount. Seeing what Senator Heffernan observations are driving around, it's hard to know what that number is, but it just seems like if that's all that's being impacted, that we have plenty of other areas to put that type of solar panels, whether it's over parking lots or buildings, land that isn't pasture lands that don't have to be hillside or rocky, but maybe it just wasn't good at growing crops at that point in time. Are, again, we're looking for a lot of conversation to happen. Counselor, anything else that you

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: would like to add? No, I really appreciate you taking time to consider this issue. So one of the provisions in section 10

[Unidentified committee member (brief questioning)]: is that the agency of agriculture being a required party in any sort of citing situations. Is the agency in favor of that?

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I mean, we don't think we need it, because we already have the right to intervene in any case And where there is so and also, that might require that we need more people than we have currently. Just because so it's, you know, it's not as simple as just saying we should be I think we want to be there whenever it's important for us to be there. We don't if if a parcel doesn't have any primax soil, there's no reason for us to be involved. So I I think we're comfortable with where it is. Okay. But, obviously, if the standards change, then our our role in them, then that's The general process might change as well.

[Unidentified committee member/staff (brief interjections)]: Thank you. Sure.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Harish, are we good to move on? Yep. I've got a list of people here. I'm just going to start from the top and go down to the bottom. I'm going to try to prioritize the people that haven't spoken to us yet. And so the first person that I have on my list is Ben Walth, our Climate and Energy Program Director for the insurance research group. Welcome, sir. The floor is yours.

[Ben Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG)]: Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity to come in. For the record, Bennington Walsh is set with me, Berg. I'm trying to try to share my screen here. So I decided not to bury the lead. I'm here for a few reasons, but right at the top of that list is the fact that if this were enacted, it would drive up the cost of electricity with Denver. We also have concerns about it making it harder to build solar, the climate impacts, but really we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs for on ratepayers if this were to

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Well, let me add though, you haven't been too concerned about that because you guys are already driving up costs because you're getting $0.21 per kilowatt hour. I think now it's getting down to 16 and you could buy it on open market for 6¢. So you guys have driven up costs already, so are you really concerned?

[Ben Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG)]: We are, in fact. Vermont has been seeing its electric rates obviously go up as they are everywhere in the country, but go up less than the rest of New England in large part because of investments that Vermont has made and things like efficiency and renewables. We are now the lowest rates in New England. We fully admit that the renewable energy standard that we supported in both the the 2015 version and the one that was updated a couple of years ago will have some upward pressure on rates. We did everything we could to minimize that in that bill, but it is getting a real bad. It is reducing carbon pollution dramatically. It is getting a lot of renewables built. This bill, in our estimation, I can get into why this is the way we see it, would drive up rates with no discernible benefit to Vermont ratepayers, unlike the renewable energy standard, which does have benefits to Vermont ratepayers and the world at large. So specifically what I would draw out of rates really boils down to economies of scale. Tier two of the renewable energy standard requires that 20% of Vermont's electricity by 2035 come from newly built renewables in the state. Some of that's already constructed, some of it's underway now, but something like half of that number would be constructed under this bill if it were to be enacted. This requirement in that law is that those projects qualify for that portion of the law be no larger than five megawatts in size. That's roughly 25 acres. The section 10 limit of five acres, as you heard from the Public Utilities Commission, mister Faber last week or it was two weeks ago, essentially this would ban all solar in the state above one megawatt in size. I think there's some caveats to that, but largely that would not be happening anymore. And those projects are substantially more expensive than five megawatt projects simply because of economies of scale as you have with almost anything else. I looked at data from the National Renewable Energy Lab, other states in the Northeast, Massachusetts. When you're looking at those two size categories, and this this data is not precisely one versus five megawatt, but it's close. You're talking about about a third more expensive in Massachusetts, also about a third more expensive in New York. Renewable energy Vermont estimates that it'll be 18% more expensive in Vermont, though I think that's a pretty conservative estimate. So to the extent that the renewable energy standard dictates the amount of renewable energy that's being built in the state and this bill would increase the cost of that renewable energy, it will drive up rates. If you add that all up, and there's a couple of ways to do the math, I don't have all those equations right here in front of me, but over the life of the systems installed over the next ten years, it would be hundreds of millions of dollars in additional cost of remodeling measures. I'd also I'd also wanna talk a little bit about version of farm land to other uses. The American Farmland Trust, and this data is from some testimony they gave about a month ago to house ag and some modeling that they did several years ago on solar specifically. They estimate that about 41,000 acres of, ag land will be converted away from ag land in the state of Vermont by 2040, and that 1,200 acres of that would be sold converting ag land. I actually think that number is probably 50 to a 100% higher than 1,200 acres because that analysis was done before the renewal boundary standard was updated in 2024. So we'd be talking about more like 2,000 of those 41,000 acres being from solar. So we're talking three to 6% of total farming conversion coming from solar. I do not wanna diminish the very real downsides of farming and conversion, but when we're talking about that as an issue, focusing on solar is focusing on three to 6% of the problem and leaving the other 94 to 97 of the problem. The other thing here is this actually wouldn't reduce our main conversion for solar. It would have the effect of fright, which as anyone in this sort of space knows, fragmentation generally has its own impacts, its own negative impacts. So the Department of Public Service estimates that over the next ten years, every year, we'll need 40 ish to 50 megawatts of solar per year to be constructed in the state to meet the state law. Assuming maybe 10 or 15 megawatts of that is from net metering, meaning small solar on rooftops and backyards, that sort of thing, And 85 megawatts is from other solar. You're talking about 30 ish megawatts of solar per year from these five megawatt projects. Five megawatt projects because those are the most cost effective. So that's generally the size that is being built in the long because it's the cheapest. Utilities are looking for the cheapest power that could beat the law. So keep rates down for repairs.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Naturally, what is what is the construction of solar doing? I mean, might it be cheaper for us to buy the glut of solar power that's being put up naturally versus to take our own lands and to produce it at a higher cost?

[Ben Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG)]: So the renewable energy standard contemplates that. Some of that is not deliverable to the state of Vermont. Obviously, if you're talking to Texas or California or something that those electrons are never reaching Vermont, you can't have a contract for them really. It does have a separate tier of new renewable energy that's required that is required from the region, which is New England plus adjacent areas where you can deliver the power. So roughly Quebec and New York, that is an additional 20%. And so the idea behind the renewable energy standards, making sure we're getting some renewables built here and giving utilities flexibility to get an additional amount of renewable energy from potentially Vermont, potentially other places. Hopefully, of that would be things like offshore wind. It could be larger solar or wind here or elsewhere in the future.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: But this 42 to 50 that you're talking about in in this time frame is all if we constructed every bit of that in Vermont.

[Ben Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG)]: It is tier two. So there's tier two that's 20% and then there's an additional tier that's also 20%. So that 42 to 50 megawatts is specifically what's called tier two, which is the instate up to five megawatt renewable tier of that. Anyway, so boiling this down, and I know you have a lot of witnesses I wanna get to the end of my presentation. If you're talking about 30 megawatts a year, give or take, that's about six five megawatt solar base. If this log

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: And 25, the five megawatts of that 25 acre figure? Yes. Okay. So it's 300 acres a year.

[Ben Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG)]: Yes. Something like that. And so if you are looking at those six arrays and instead you say, okay, they can't be more than one megawatt, then you're looking at 30 arrays instead. So over a decade, that's 300 sites with solar versus 60. You're not actually reducing the amount of farmland conversion, you're just spreading them. I also wanted to touch on the life cycle greenhouse gas assessment that's required in section 10. I want to be very clear. I know there was a conversation about is that already required for most development. It is not. This would be a unique requirement specifically on solar. There certainly are greenhouse gas analyses that are required, environmental analyses that are required. This is a much higher bar that would be much more expensive to me because it is a full life cycle grade assessment on a site by site by site product.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: And I think a lot of that might have come from that. Those are a lot of the claims that the solar people are making. It's like almost like you already have that information available and we would just be asking that you share that information with us because you're already making those claims. And so why not just show us what you're doing?

[Ben Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG)]: Understood. The difference is the way the bill is written in, it requires a site by site analysis of every component from the mining of the iron to get the steel, to manufacture the steel, to turn it into mounting, to ship it. That's what this bill requires. What we have is a very clear understanding of the life cycle impacts on greenhouse gas basis of solar and other energy sources. This is again the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. I know that the text is small. This is on your site. The red circle on the left red oval on the left is solar photovoltaic. The red circle on the right is natural gas. I circle natural gas because in New England of marginal emissions, we use one extra kilowatt hour, it's almost certainly coming from gas. So it's really solar to gas. That's the fairest comparison here. So obviously you can see natural gas is a lot higher. I won't dwell on that. For solar. The point I want to really emphasize here, if you see if it's alright, I'll stand up for a second. This blue section here, the top of that blue is three quarters of all of the analysis in here. So if you're looking at solar here, essentially almost all of the analyses of solar life cycle emissions are, as you can see, very close to zero. Obviously, there are real emissions, and there are better and worse projects. But from our perspective, spending requiring every single solar project in the state, I see nothing in this that would exempt small rooftop arrays, your neighbor putting 10 panels on their roof. They have to hire an engineering firm to do a life cycle assessment of the impacts of that those 10 panels. To have every single solar project in the state tell you whether they're amazing, good, great, or pretty good when we know that all of them are a significant benefit to the state of the greenhouse gas business doesn't make sense. And again, most of those costs would be passed on to ratepayers because the Rutland District requires that this power be purchased. I'm almost done. Last You're fine. The last thing I wanted to touch on is you mentioned senator chair, we have plenty of land, but prime ag land is really a top concern. The way this bill is constructed because it covers forest land and ag land, it covers almost the entire state. Once you subtract out water, wetlands, developed lands, forests, and ag, you're left with about 3% of the state that's in a category called other perennial vegetation. I'm sorry. I don't have a source here. This is the agency of agriculture, I believe. I threw this in at the last second when you made that comment, so it's not in the version online. I'll share another version with the source. So this is our concern that this is not well, it's it's a component of our concern. This is not a bill that is laser focused on prime ag land. That's about 380,000 acres in the state. It's a bill that covers almost all the the land in the state, Even just the agricultural land definition in the bill is 1,350,000 acres in prime primary, which is prime and statewide. And then an additional number that I don't know, which is the local importance, that could be up to 450,000 acres that's in a sort of separate category. So you're talking like a million and a half acres of agricultural land, only 380,000 of which are fine agricultural soils, and then almost all the other land is being taken up by the other restrictions. Bottom line from where we sit, section 10 of three twenty three results in higher costs for solar, all solar, including residential and all the rest, higher costs overall for ratepayers by eliminating the cheapest distributed solar, fragmenting solar development without actually reducing fragment conversion, and hundreds of millions additional dollars that ratepayers are paying. So we do have a few suggestions if we're interested in trying to reduce the amount of Agonhanks converted for solar. One, as a general rule, we strongly favor a balanced approach that has small, medium, and large solar in the mix. Right now, our policies are really incentivizing small solar net metering and these five megawatt projects and really not not a lot. We've had programs that incentivize the sort of medium sized projects. Those have gone away. We could come up with some new version of that. That's to incentivize? Require mean, there's different ways of going about it, but right now we essentially have the renewable energy standard which drives solar to the cheapest end of the spectrum, is five megawatt projects. Have net metering, which is rooftop backyard, maybe a small business having a two acre array or something like that. So a more of a rounded picture that has different sides the set. Incentivizing or otherwise driving development towards dual use or agriculture that you've just heard about from the agency. We are all for that. It is an emerging space that's very promising. This building might result in some additional agrivoltaic construction, but because that's gonna be higher cost really good, a need is a burden in some way incentivizes that business. Similarly, solar parking lots, ground fields, landfills, etcetera, marginal land that really can't be used for other stuff. We have pushed very hard over the years for programs that drive solar towards those locations. Again, the reality is those are more expensive locations to build. If you're putting solar in a parking lot, that's amazing, but it's a lot of steel. It's trenching through pavement. It's a lot of concrete. It's a more expensive system to build than building something in a greenfield. That's just the reality of it. So one, there's gonna be a rate impact, but we need to balance that with the land use impact of not doing that. And two, you need something to actually put a carrot out there to make it financially viable for those kinds of things to be done. Absent that, you gravitate towards five megawatt greenfield projects because they're the cheapest. And then last, and I recognize that this is not something that everyone in this room is gonna be a big fan of, if we want a more diverse energy system that is not so reliant on solar on greenfields, not having a band on electricity would be a good step forward.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Or could just burn more natural gas. I mean, you know, that That

[Ben Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG)]: would also that would also do it. We would not support that.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: That's how I figured that. I wanna ask you a question because you're the only one in the room that probably could answer this, I don't even know if you're the right one to answer it. But it goes along the lines where Senator Heffernan was doing, having questions with the agency of agriculture. Why would you guys be exempt from the three acre rule when everybody else has to comply? And I get it, because I know your answer's going to be, well, because it's going to cost us more. But we spend a lot of time, and our farmers work very, very hard to comply with three acre rules and water runoffs and all of that stuff. Why would you folks exempt from having all that fun as well?

[Ben Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG)]: Generally as a state policy, have, and I understand that this is not perhaps something you support. All electric generation transmission distribution going through well, let's just focus on generation section two forty eight of title 30. Most of action 50 is incorporated into that. It is not identical to action 50. Electricity is something that is sort of integral to modern life, and we have decided as a state to have a specific lane for it to go through that is regulated by the Public Utility Commission, which has expertise in electricity usage. I am not an expert on the three acre rule. I understand that you may be hearing from other environmental organizations that have more expertise in that space, so I can touch base with them and let them know you asked that question. That's what I

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: figured right now. You, Ben. How does VPER feel about all these big deals going in and the power not staying in Vermont that we're getting card credit, you know, we're not getting to use the energy that we're creating, that the sun is shining on Vermont. Yeah. You know, BPerg is very much for Vermont. How can you be what's the thought there? Are they good with it? Because I that's one issue I do have, is that we have big companies coming in, putting in very large beans, and then that power goes to somebody's list.

[Ben Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG)]: We are not big fans of that.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: To

[Ben Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG)]: be fully blunt, I will say our proposal wouldn't need to ban it. I I'm gonna say sort of two broad things are gonna feel like they're move they're pushing in different directions. They are to a degree. I think they're all very valid. One, there's really nothing else that Vermont produces that we are offended by somebody else trying to buy. If Vermonters have a dairy farm and they produce milk and they sell it out of state, nobody says, how dare you not sell it to Vermonters if you're logging your land. How dare you send that timber out of state, etcetera, etcetera. So I do think that's valid.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: But Counterpoint to that. Sure. That if we didn't produce enough milk to feed our own, which we more than do, that milk probably would not leave the state. So we're not chewing up all power that We could chew up all power if these solar fields are made. Yes. That's my opinion.

[Ben Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG)]: Yep. Absolutely. So let me get to the second half of that point. Again, I think the first is valid. But the second part is BPR strongly believes believes it has for a very long time that as a state, we should be producing as much power as we can for a a very, very long time. We have relied primarily on other places to shoulder the burden of the power that we're using. Coal fields in West Virginia, gas from Pennsylvania on down. And so, yeah, it bothers that we have very large solar arrays going in and just shipping the power out of state, shipping all the benefit out of state. There are certainly things that could be done to make that less likely. One reason that we were so supportive of the part of the renewable energy standard requires regional new renewables that don't have a size cap. That second 20% that I mentioned earlier is it makes it much more likely that something I assume you're talking about these 20 megawatt solar arrays because most of the five megawatt solar arrays are actually solar arrays that if larger solar arrays being built in Vermont, there's no market for that power. There's a requirement on utilities that they get power from arrays and that for the second 20% tranche, an array like that actually could meet their requirements there. So those arrays, I could see and we certainly would hope that over time, they stop selling power to United Massachusetts or wherever else and start selling power to find utilities. I'd also be entirely fine with having a differential tax rate for larger solar arrays above that five megawatt threshold and powering the money back into in state renewable development or efficiency. I don't believe there's a bill on that right now. And so there are not so many of these solar arrays that would be an enormous amount of revenue, but I

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: think it's a reasonable policy and conversation we have. Okay, I want to continue on and hopefully have any more questions for Ben. Ben, thank you very much.

[Ben Walsh (Climate & Energy Program Director, VPIRG)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Appreciate the great testimony. We appreciate it very much. I'm going to skip over just a few people that are because I just wanna get some folks that we got in there, and I'd like to start with Jesse McDougall. I think I saw you online. Jesse. Well, we'll come back to you. We have Dan Kenny, Lone Oak Farm, Rutland. Hi.

[Unidentified committee member (brief questioning)]: In full disclosure, I used to own Catamore Solar Yeah. For lunch. Only work is cooperative, and I checked the records the other day. I'm not involved with them at all anymore, but I think there's 33 full time employees. You state your name, Matt.

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: Yep. Same name as introduced, Dan Kenny. I'm now a farmer. I own 300 acres down in the. I do have a 500 acre solar farm on one of the properties that helps pay the taxes. Between the rows, we're planning on planting high bush blueberries to have them pick your own operations, which will hopefully help me in my retirement.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Did you say 500 acres?

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: 500. It was about 500 kilowatts. Oh, 500 kilowatt.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Okay. I got you. I

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: 500.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: I still say it's fine.

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: I no. I own 300. So okay.

[Alison Despathy (Vermonters for a Clean Environment)]: Okay. And

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: that 500 kilowatt had to get taken out of current use. I had to pay money to do that even though it's gonna be agrivoltaics. So it's still gonna be farmland. And I I feel like that's a crime that I had to pay to take it out. And the town was very excited about me doing that job because it was gonna still be farmland.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: About how many inch acres, Dan, that's out on the 500 kilowatts. Is that

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: Well, they maybe take seven out, but as if you do a bird's eye view, the panels, it's literally an acre footprint of actual solar panels.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: K. So you have 500 megawatts on an acre of land?

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: Yeah. Three three acres of what the fenced in area is. Okay. So but I mostly care because it just doesn't feel like, you know, what comes up in my mind is that flag don't tread on me. Like, I pay tax on that land. I've got other property that I would like to do another 500. The state needs it. The work is needed. It's good work. Guys that used to work for me, they came right out of high school. We had to practice again on the new electricians. They're all buying houses. They're all paying taxes. They're all having kids. The law needs all of that.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Yeah. We do. We just lost 1,800 people in the last year, so we agree with you.

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: So I just don't like what I read, at least when I read the law or the proposal. I was like, wait a second. I wanna put a dollar story, and it looks like I have an easier pathway than I do to do this solar farm. Why is that? I mean, I've been around solar for going on thirty years. I have seen jobs get taken out. And they don't the land is very reclaimable.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: It's been part of a field band. How big?

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: How many acres? Small. Probably probably an acre. Yeah. But it's it's very much you know, the the gentleman was speaking before me, Ben, you know, it is expensive to do it over a parking lot. I'll put those bids together. If we never win those bids, it would be great if we did, but the infrastructure to do the solo over a parking lot is very expensive and not a lot of production with that expense. With the same expense on a field, you you could have another 100 kW worth of production. But my my big problem with this was just the feeling of, wait a second. I pay taxes on this land. I steward it. I don't wanna be so humped as to think that I know exactly what's best, but I wanna I do think I know what's good as a as a land steward for the property. Right. Like, right now, that 500 kilowatt piece allows my former wife to live on that land, and I still farm it. But she's got a twenty five year lease that more than pays the taxes. And I think there's a lot of farmers that confuse that.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: When you chose the field, did you choose it because it's close to power line or it would be out of view? Or what did what determine when you decided to pick where you were gonna pick put your solar?

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: I I don't think it would be considered exactly primate. But according to this bill, I think no matter where it was, it would have the same

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: But I think US department

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: chose When that field, it was a lesser field. It wasn't my biggest field. We we we cut trees around it to open up the sun and got, like, 30 cords of firewood out of it. You

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: know? So So basically, you took a field that wasn't as productive and said, hey. I'm gonna use

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: it for I'm trying to turn this into some. Okay. Yeah.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: And I think the point that you make, Dan, is very well taken as far as that you're laying on all that stuff. But it's the way all of any time you're gonna put up a structure of any sort that everybody has to deal with as well. It's not that they're picking on you because you wanna put solar. Anybody who is going to put a building on that right there is gonna have to make those same decisions, pay those same taxes, and go through the same permits, and go through the same thing. It's not really picking Excuse on you any different

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: me? Not everywhere.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: I think

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: everywhere. The zoning is very nonexistent.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Well, we have 102 towns in the state that don't have zoning, but yet, with this Act 181 that they have going on, the LERB Land Use Review Board and all that's going on, all of those decisions now are being You're going to have to make those same decisions and your same costs and all of that, So it's coming. If it's not right there right now, it is coming. So it's not unique to anyone that wants to put up solar that it's my land and I hear you, believe in me. As you heard me say, I've got my own land a lot, a couple 100 acres or more at several different times in my life, and I would be as bothered by it as anyone. But I do hear you. But also, anybody who's going to put up a project that's going be deemed somewhat commercial is going to have those same same issues that you've that you've dealt with as well. People are gonna come in and tell you what you can and cannot do. It's not just it's not

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: just a solar issue. So that's fine. You know, quite a bit about where I chose. We had to run pre phase power off the road, and the solar company that developed the technology, they paid for that. You know? And so there's one piece that's going on with solar production in the state, and that our infrastructure is getting a little bit of a health and being fixed. I know since they put that three phase up that road, nobody's lost power on that road.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: You chose that. So is it out of view of most of the public? Like Yeah. So

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: this is I think this is

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: what this whole committee and what everybody's searching for that we're all for solar. But like, again, Lowell is right in the middle of town, and they're like saying, God, we really don't want that. So then all the neighbors would be just like, you know, different Essex when Amazon wanted to build a new facility up there. The town people said no, and it's like, what are you saying no for? But they didn't want it in their town. They could have put solar on the roof, could have been great, but they turned it down. So as a farmer, I used to be a dairy farmer as well, it's like, it is my property. I should have the right to do it. And if the solar company has the most money, I'd probably sell it to them. But if the town folks or somebody says, we really don't want it, we have the money, then it'd probably go that way. This is what this committee is torn between, giving the farmers their right, but also hearing the public going, you know, when we decide to do this, it should be right for everybody and you're never gonna have everybody. You're very wise on where you chose yours to try to keep it out of the view. I've been to many solar, just like this is a great spot for solar, and then there's other spots like, oh, I get to Yeah.

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: Mean, that's, you know, we could all argue that. I I see you know, I I drive and I see a big old car dealership going in on a on a farm field. Hate for any of the money. You know, it's all in the eye of the beholder.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Well, then

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: You might need wind, and you may think it's ugly, and I may not like it because it's got moving parts that are gonna break, and it will be down more more often than solar. Mhmm. But, know, travel outside of the state. You know, sometimes, you know, my partner moves here to California, she feels like she waits into her museum. It's like it's something. Tossed over the museum. And sometimes that museum is always us back.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: So you're you're in my district, so I'm so, obviously, your opinion matters lot to me. And I I the the one thing is that I I

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: just keep coming back to is and I know

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: the the land isn't really the best land for farming, but if after that's twenty five years is gone and we and say they wanna pull up, do you think it would be able to you'd be able to farm again? Oh, yeah. You would know better better than any.

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: Yeah. It's in better shape now than it was before the solar because of the work they did to to grade it and get it.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: At some point, I I would like to visit, and so I'll I'll connect and Yeah.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Again, I think that's important and important. But in likelihood, being honest with ourselves, I see the value to you to add that. And then as you said, your other significant other maybe or Hector or whatever, twenty five years of a guaranteed income, and when it comes to renewal time, I don't see you throwing that away.

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: No. We would negotiate a better lease.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: But

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: it's Good for you. You know, it may it may be at a point where it just gets pulled and turned into scrap metal, and all of the bottle become, you know, the next state truck that's driving down the road. It's all recyclable. It's it's probably come out as quick as the one end.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Yeah. We're gonna move on unless there's more that you've got to say. No. I appreciate your time and We we appreciate you very, very much. You again, you're you're bringing in the insight that's very important to us. We appreciate that.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: And a unique perspective of being both farmer and someone that's Yeah.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Somebody's got a little business as well. So that's that's very valuable. Yeah. And the

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: only thing I would wanna add is to to remember the the jobs and solar to the state.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Yeah. Absolutely. Really. That's that's very important. Thank you.

[Dan Kenny (Lone Oak Farm, Rutland; farmer)]: I gotta. I actually have a little style, so gotta go head back to Royalton, but thank you, gentlemen.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Thank you, Hannah. Thank you, Alyssa. Jesse McDougall. We have you now. You're on mute. You're on you're on. Trying to figure it out. Nothing, pros. Not your pro. Okay. We'll move along. We'll keep on trying you. Now we have Okay. Okay. Can you hear us?

[Jesse McDougall (Farmer, Shaftsbury)]: I can hear you. Can you hear me?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: We can hear you. Go ahead. You might

[Jesse McDougall (Farmer, Shaftsbury)]: I be just apologize.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Ahead.

[Jesse McDougall (Farmer, Shaftsbury)]: Thank you for having there are just a few points I'd like to make the, just for the record, I'm Jesse McDougall. I'm a farmer in Shaftsbury. We're a fifth generation family Vermont farm. We're a working farm. I've also taught ecological restoration through agriculture at Bennington College. Our farm, we graze sheep here, and I do support renewable energy development. We are a neighbor to the Shaftsbury Solar site. So I have a, unique perspective on this conversation, I believe. Our farm sits on a ridge between the greens and the Taconics. The west of us is a several 100 acre sand pit, and to the south of us is the proposed several 100 acre Shaftsbury Solar site. The $1,000,000,000 energy corporation developing Shaftsbury Solar chose the site that they did to the south of us because it was bisected by the regional energy line. And it was cheaper for them to bulldoze the mature forest and scrape the fields there, the old old dairy farm fields there than it was to develop in the solar, I mean, in the sand pit on the other side of our property. I don't even know that they considered the sand pit. They they found the farm on the regional line to develop. And, I'm actually a member of the Vermont I mean, the American Solar Grazing Association. And if I ran the world, the first thing I would do in that sand pit was if I were charged with regenerating it was put solar panels in there. The shade would help us speed the biological regeneration of that land. And the point there is, it is it was cheaper for this energy development company to bulldoze a forest than it was to, develop in degraded land and use solar as a way to regenerate it, more quickly. And I think that's an important there's an important distinction that needs to be made that I hear getting hinted at today, but not explicitly stated, and that is who is developing the solar site. A neighbor of ours to the east, a farmer, a dairy farmer, called me one day and said he wanted to put solar on his land and could I talk to him about it? And I went up and I walked his fields and, I was all in favor of it. He he wanted to do it in a respectful way. He wanted to do it on a limited scale. He had a great lease, and it paid his taxes. And, he developed in a way that he could graze our sheep under his panels if we wanted to. And in that way, it was a win win win. But the the, Free Point Energy, which is an oil commodity an energy an oil oil company, oil commodities trading company out of Connecticut, has no such plans. Obviously, they're not, it's, it's, as any Vermont farmer will tell you, it's always cheaper to build it fast and big than to do it correctly. And the, I think that the five acre limit in this bill is precisely the tool we need to differentiate between those local farmers who want to put solar on their land as a means of income and a means of energy production, because they're the ones who know the land and know how best to do it or do it, to most benefit and least destruction than these giant solar energy developers or wind developers that do it indiscriminately because it is the cheapest way for them to do it. This Shaftesbury site is right on 7 near the near the state line, I was toying with the idea of putting a big billboard that said, welcome to Vermont, the energy capital of Connecticut. Because what I see happening is these these companies with the money are buying up vulnerable farms, up and down the the the power lines, and developing it as cheaply as can be developed. And, you know, with all due respect to mister Shapiro, who I do respect and appreciate his work, I would, he says economy is a scale, which has been historically the death knell for a lot of Vermont farms. Vermont does not scale well. We have a beautiful but inefficient rolling landscape. And if we are charging toward economies of scale, it will always be cheaper to bulldoze than it is to build things correctly. Our town has several solar projects owned by the community. It has projects farmers put out on their land. I have solar on my barn roof done within context and done respectful of the land and the neighborhood and the landscape. I see it as a valuable tool. And yes, it is much more expensive to do it that way per kilowatt, but it's also the right way to do it, in my opinion. And watching the last point I'll make is watching this Shaftesbury solar site, the solar project steamroll my town and turn neighbor on neighbor, all of whom want what's best for the environment. But it came down to those who believe technology will save us and those who believe ecology will save us. And it turned very bitter and very contentious, I was very saddened to see it. But those of us who didn't wanna see a farm and forest destroyed were villainized and at every level, those of us who were fighting against this project were told there's nothing we can do. The town couldn't stop it. The legislature, the the representatives I spoke to said there's nothing we can do. My hope is that this bill will give us something that we can do so that it it somebody has some, there's a threshold here for destruction that is untenable. I think family farms in Vermont are vital infrastructure. And just as a ship captain wouldn't destroy the lifeboats because we haven't used them in a while, I think it would be folly to allow these mega corporations to steamroll through Vermont as they did my town. Thank

[Unidentified committee member (brief questioning)]: you.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Thank you, sir. Any questions? We want to thank you for coming in. Very valuable testimony. We appreciate it. Are you with I don't have anyone here. I got some other folks that are Okay.

[Unidentified committee member/staff (brief interjections)]: Just

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: here for support. Okay. Sounds good. I'm gonna go to rep Burt. Would you like to add on some comment?

[Unidentified committee member (brief questioning)]: Get out of my ass.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Change on that. Can I put some desk away? Just dying.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Morning. Morning. Morning. I'm gonna

[Rep. Burt (Vermont House of Representatives)]: describe Bert for the record. I don't think I got a whole lot that I need to add to what's been said. I will say that a lot of what the gentleman from referenced was the renewable energy standard. And that in order to meet those goals, we have to do X, Y, we have to do X, Y, and Z. We have to. And you know, in speaking with

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: a representative from Green Mountain Power,

[Rep. Burt (Vermont House of Representatives)]: their task was trying to keep our rates as low as they can to our customers in the state. I'm all for that. We all know we've got some of highest energy costs in the country. We keep them down as much as we can. And so, between those goals and between the needs of our citizens for power, it's done in an affordable way, we're left with putting renewable energy, putting solar panels on the cheapest location possible in the cheapest way. Contrasting that to that we have these renewable energy standards, where are the standards for working lands for agriculture? Where's the agricultural standard in our statute? Where are the goals for 2030 and 2050 for our working lands and for agriculture? In comparison to the goals that we have outlined for renewable energy, there's hardly anything. That's probably our leading problem. That's why we're coming up against this. That's why I think there are people waking up and saying, We have an issue here that needs to be stopped. We need more guardrails, we need more ways to address this, and we don't have enough language in our statute to protect farmland. We had Act two fifty one in place. That was really, essentially, as you said earlier, it was meant to do that, but renewable energy doesn't go through Act two fifty. It goes through two forty eight. So we have two options for us. Think we've to develop more goals for the working lands that makes it clear the legislature has in mind, for our state in terms of its most valuable resource, in my opinion, Our most valuable resource is not renewable energy. Sorry. It's a need, but it's not necessarily a valuable resource that we have. Most valuable resource is our land and our people. We need to protect both their, the interests of others. You have language in front you right now where you feel like you can move the needle in a direction, and it's hard because we don't have that statute that renewable energy has to work with to be able to say, Oh, we have to meet these goals. I would love to be able say, Well, we have to meet We also have to meet these goals. We need the relatives. Not gonna happen with you guys right now, but I think there is opportunity to move the heels in the right direction. The man that came in the farmer who's chasing the scow right now, you know, he has, already works, it's under five acres, and he put it, like you asked, it's on land that's less valuable for crop production. Did it the right way, and he's trying to produce crops in between them. But I think it's also a fantasy to think that we can put up 100 acres of rice and then say to farmers, okay, now farm in between it. Right? We took cheap, we took the best land that you have, and now go ahead and farm in between the panels and make a living. Why are we sacrificing our farmers? We need those other goals. We need goals that align with agriculture to be able to stand up alongside them with low energy. And I think because we don't have those, we're seeing them proceed. Right now we have an opportunity to move the needle in the right direction. You guys are gonna figure out the best way to set this thing. I think that's all I gotta say.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Any questions? Want to state that when you mention Green Mountain Power, because I actually have two brownfield sites that we've looked at, put solar on and they're attractive to do it, and we're probably gonna do it. However, when we're working with two different power companies, Vermont Co op and Remount Power, Remount Power's all for it. Vermont Co op's like, we want nothing to do with solar fields. So it's it's kinda interesting. And each different power company, what their truth beliefs are about about solar. So you you mentioning Fremont Power brought that up. It's like, You know, we'll see more solar where Green Mountain Power is compared to thermoelectric and some other coal.

[Rep. Burt (Vermont House of Representatives)]: I will say that they did say that they pay about, they're paying 4 or 5¢ from hydro coal batteries, and then at the best rates that they're getting from the larger scale solar, it's between 6 and 8¢. Yep. So even if we're trying to get the cheapest possible solar, we're still paying about 50% to maybe 70% more. Thank

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: you very much. I want to bring in Alison Despathy. You, and did you want to add anything to

[Alison Despathy (Vermonters for a Clean Environment)]: Well, was gonna actually offer, I know Annette has some good information.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Okay. Let's go with Annette.

[Alison Despathy (Vermonters for a Clean Environment)]: Can also go tomorrow or Thursday depending on your schedule because I know you guys are cutting into it.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Okay. What's, Annette? Hello? Hello. How are you?

[Unidentified committee member (brief questioning)]: Well, I'm You've

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: got about twelve minutes or so on that.

[Annette Smith (Vermonters for a Clean Environment)]: Thanks for asking. I want to thank the committee for having this discussion. This is so incredibly important and long overdue. I hope that you will find a way to keep the conversation going. I have a a few comments to offer on specific things. One, I have to do this. I hope you'll forgive me. Steve Collamore mentioned Act two forty eight. This is a correction I give to a lot of people. Act two forty eight, I think is the mental health confinement law. So we're talking about 30 BSA section two forty eight and a lot of people get those confused. I've heard comments that this is singling out solar. But this legislation is proposing changes to section two forty eight that governs all electricity generating projects. So it also relates to power plants, gas pipelines, transmission lines, wind, anything that is regulated that is an energy generation project. And so this is not singling out solar. This is putting in standards that would affect all projects. Couple of years ago, we went through a process in Senate Finance Committee because Senate Finance has the excuse me. Well, I don't know if I can do this.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: It's painful. Okay.

[Annette Smith (Vermonters for a Clean Environment)]: I was afraid I'd lose my voice.

[Unidentified committee member/staff (brief interjections)]: All

[Annette Smith (Vermonters for a Clean Environment)]: right. I'll try. The Senate Finance Committee is the committee of jurisdiction over the PUC, and the renewable energy industry came in and said that they wanted to eliminate aesthetics from this part b five, section two forty eight. And we showed that there was no issue with the the intervention of the public, and that it would have affected all projects. The bill never made it out of committee.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Yeah. Annette, why don't we let you have a break here? And I just also wanna are you you're good? You're here to listen? Okay. Yes. We'll we'll let you take a break on it. We'll we'll chat with you tomorrow. Would that be okay?

[Annette Smith (Vermonters for a Clean Environment)]: That'd be much better. Thank you.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: All good. Allsys, come on. Okay. Thank you.

[Alison Despathy (Vermonters for a Clean Environment)]: So Allsys and Despathy, Vermonters for Earthling Environment, thank you so much for having me. And as Annette said, just thank you for this conversation. It is long overdue. Annette tried very hard to have this conversation when the Renewable Energy Standard was being developed, because you could see this is gonna be a big issue, and why don't we get ahead of it? And unfortunately that did not happen. So just a few things. One, I think it's important to recognize, and I think Ben took off, maybe Steve could correct me on this, but when they talk about the acreage that's in solar right now, I really think, and we have to confirm this, that four ten acres is just referring to the top of the post. So we're not talking about the whole coverage. Because when they talk about impervious surface, they're talking about just the top of the post, so they don't count the panel. And this is why the three acre rule oftentimes doesn't apply. So what this starts to bring me into is the massive incentives that the renewable energy industry has right now, and how this is then conflicting with this private property piece. Because if they did not have these incentives, I do not think we would see these projects coming. And Senator Perchlich and I had a conversation probably this summer because he used to be the head of Renewable Energy Vermont. And he said, Oh yeah, we got those incentives put in place because we were trying to bring it forward. Well now it's here, and they're doing fine. And so the question is, if we were to get to the root of the problem, it would be we need to correct these incentives and correct the renewable energy standard. But right now, there's not an appetite for that. There's bills in different committees, and they are not being taken up to really sort of correct this problem at its root. So where that leaves us is, what can we try to do to, and keep in mind, this isn't banning anything. All this is doing is giving the tools to the Public Utility Commission so they can have these in-depth conversations with all of the parties involved. So they can have the developer, they can have any of the neighbors, the interveners come to the table and say, okay, what's going on here? Let's talk about this. Let's go through this process. This is the Section two forty eight process. And it's also much more difficult than an Act two fifty process in the sense that you need money and lawyers to participate. So these big developers have money and lawyers. Act two fifty, the neighbors, the community, they could come to the table much easier. This is incredibly legalistic and difficult for people and towns to get into. I don't know if you guys had a chance to see Margaret Cheney's concurring opinion in the Shaspersbury decision, but you could see she is asking, she was asking Vermont, is this what you want us to do? You want us to cut down 40 acres of forest in Shaspersbury with 36 mature, 36 acres of mature forest. Is this what you want us to do? Do you want us to set up these projects where then the power is gonna go out of state to Connecticut en masse so they can meet their renewable energy goals. And so this was her concurring decision. This is her concurring opinion. This bill, which I have some changes that come to I think some of the issues that have come up, this is a response to that. They need more tools. So if they have tools where they could take into account, where's the power going? And this is one of the things that came up in her opinion, is she said, they don't have a power purchase agreement right now. Is this power staying in Vermont? Where is this power going to? Who's buying the rest? So I think these are some of the issues that we're looking at, and we just want to make sure that the PUC ask and and Senator Major, you said this the other day, you guys want to do what's in the best interest of Vermont. For the environment of Vermont, for the people of Vermont. This allows them to have the tools to make those decisions. Who is this going to serve? Where is the power going? What's impacted? And how do we address those issues? I just want to come back also to understanding a little bit, and I don't need to get into the weeds on it, but I just want you guys to have a sense. Every lister, appraiser, or assessor that I talk to in Vermont gets so mad because when there's a renewable energy project for solar, what do they have to do? They click on the box, exempt from education tax. They're not paying education tax. They pay what's called a uniform capacity tax, which you talk to any investor or tax person, is a fittance. It's $4 per kilowatt over a 50 kilowatt. So the project that, I'm so sorry, the farmer who was in here chasing his cow, the project that he talked about is a 500 kilowatt. He would pay as a uniform capacity tax $2,000 Every year doesn't go up. And that would be rated at about 1,500,000,000.0 in value. Can imagine if you had a commercial business that was rated at 1,500,000.0 and you had a locked in tax rate of $2,000 a year, hadn't changed since 02/2011, Don't you, can you imagine if our property taxes didn't go up? So this is just an example of one of the incentive incentives that they have. There is a bill in ways and means that would bring up the uniform capacity tax, because again Senator Perchlich said this was put in place to incentivize this, but it has not changed. So they're getting a massive break on education tax. That does go to the education fund, I should say. They also get a locked in property tax rate. And Thomas Hand had mentioned this. The land is valued before the project's on it. So can you imagine again, if you had a commercial business and your land was there and that's what it was valued at and that's what you were taxed on versus the entire business that's on top of that. So they're getting property tax breaks, education tax breaks, they've got a renewable energy standard that forces the utilities to buy this power from them, right? Even if it's more expensive for Vermonters and even if it goes on to destroying some of this environment. So we've set up this entire pathway for companies like Three Point Commodities, and Annette mentioned they have a checkered past. They have paid $98,000,000 in fines for money laundering and bribery. This is who we, and they've also paid fines to Romania, energy regulator. This is who we're bringing into the state because we basically rolled out the red carpet and said, you're not gonna pay much on education tax, you're gonna get a locked in property tax, the utilities have to buy this stuff, or you could sell it out of state, like the place where that was foliage solar, right? So the Lowell Solar situation, bless you, the Lowell Solar situation is, again, I just wanna make sure we're all on the same eighty, ninety acres, half ag land, half forest, that was cleared, it all goes through Connecticut. They get the power, they get the renewable energy credits, and the other thing that I wanna add to this is, we have no idea what they're making. So they they go to the PUC, this is what we need to get for the kilowatt per hour, and the PUC has to go through that, but every single utility in this state lays it all on the table. BEC, Green Mountain Power, this is what we make, this is what we spend, this is what we think the rate should be, whereas you've got these solar developers hooking on on a massive scale and we have no idea. There's no regulation for what are your profits, how much are you making on these recs, there's no transparency around it. So there's a lot of incentives, plus the federal subsidies. You can see Shaftsbury was pushing hard because they wanted their 20,000,000 for the federal money before that stuff went away. And so this is the situation we've created, and this is where we've landed in here with the PUC needs more tools. They need to be able to make a judgment that would be in the benefit of Vermont, whatever that means. In the benefit of the farmer, in the benefit of the town, in the benefit of the power that we need here, they need the tools. And I will say, my husband and I go round and round on this because he's like private property, it's private property, it's private property, and that's his thing, and I'm like that too. But if this stuff didn't have the incentives in place, it wouldn't be happening. That's where until we can rectify that situation, I think we need to give the PUC the tools so they can try to make these decisions for does this project make sense? Is it in the best service of Vermont? And where do we land there? There's a few other pieces, but I

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: don't made the point well, was asked.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Very good job.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: So any questions for Alison?

[Alison Despathy (Vermonters for a Clean Environment)]: And it's lunchtime, so.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Just want to just take a few more minutes. I don't have any more witnesses on my list. Was anybody?

[Alison Despathy (Vermonters for a Clean Environment)]: Addison, Chris.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: No, Adam says he's fine. You're fine, right Adam? Sure.

[Adam (Chair, Renewable Energy Vermont), substituting for Peter Sterling]: In case, Arnold, you're allowed? Oh no, Mr. Chair, I'm here all the time and

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: You're more than welcome to come up.

[Adam (Chair, Renewable Energy Vermont), substituting for Peter Sterling]: I'm on your agenda, so I wanna be loyal to the committee.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Come on up. Come on Yeah. Well, least, sir.

[Alison Despathy (Vermonters for a Clean Environment)]: Thank you so much. Yeah. And the other thing is Annette will be able to get in. I know she'll have some helpful info for tomorrow or something. Okay. Hopefully, if that's okay. Thank you.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Yes.

[Adam (Chair, Renewable Energy Vermont), substituting for Peter Sterling]: Mr. Chair, members of the committee, Adam DeCresse Group, chair of Renewable Energy Vermont, subbing for Peter Sterling, who's naturally on school break time away. So I'm only gonna add a small thing to the discussion, because I think you're having a good deep dive on this conversation. One or things. For renewable energy Vermont, been with them a long time, mindful that this this intersection of energy policy, land use change, the environment, private property rights. There's been a lot of tension and work that's gone into these laws over the last fifteen years. And I'm one that understands, you know, that while our message is we don't own the weight of the ag soils that necessarily are being placed upon this from a scale perspective, I do understand it's appropriate scrutiny. We're here to answer the questions. We think we have good answers. I should note, Renewal by Nature Vermont's membership does not include the major industries that's developing the project, the large project, so I'm not here to discuss them at all. I think we're the smaller scale folks. One point of information, then off to lunch, which is, electricity's such a complicated topic, and when we talk about the power, there's two things about the electric markets, because we're in a regional grid. Generation of the kilowatt flows onto the pole and to the use. It's the power purchase contracts that are separate from. So when we say power is going out of state, kind of unlikely, electrons go on to the system and then travel to their use very quickly, ISO New England ensures that the tub is full of electrons. Then they have a market where all the contracts go in to make sure it's reconciled, that it's all paid for and contracted. So it's really these two tops that sit next to each other. I don't mind the conflation because it's natural to see people buying it as the user of it in this market. But what I do know is that we're trying to build a strong, local, resilient grid that has distributed generation that's here, light efficiency, it reduces savings on the lack of need to build more infrastructure. And like development, every project's controversial and every project is in some way needed and they're all in Vermont subject to unusually strict regulation.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Clerk, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: That's you have, sir. Thank you very much.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair, Senate Committee on Agriculture)]: Thank you very much. Okay, well we've taken it right down to the last minute, and I want to thank everyone for coming in. Great testimony all the way around. As I've said, we've made no decisions about anything. That's what we've done, is taken testimony and just trying to figure out if we've got a path forward. So more comfort. So I want thank everyone for coming, and I hope everybody has a great day.