Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good morning, we're back. We're gonna spend some time a little bit on Section 10 that we weren't able to get to yet today. We have two folks that have some words that they'd like to say to us about Section 10, the solar siting. Who would like to go first?

[Allison Espeffi]: Probably Annette.

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Annette, are you on with us?

[Annette Smith]: Yes, I am. Okay. Thank you for having me back.

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, hope you're feeling better today.

[Annette Smith]: I am feeling better. I hope I can get through this today. I want to thank you for giving me a second chance. My name is Annette Smith. I'm Executive Director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment. I am here to speak about protecting agricultural lands and in particular from solar development. Linda, I need to share my screen. Try that again. So I thought it'd be worth looking at why are we focusing on solar right now, and how did how did we get here? And so it's important to understand that Vermont is way ahead in solar development. We're we're leading all of New England and and compared to any other state. So this idea that we we have to keep building more solar is one that is really the result of the industry's very aggressive push that has been accepted by the legislature and the renewable energy standard. I remember when it first was done, I ran into Darren Springer and he said, well, you should like this. And I said, well, this wasn't done with our communities. It was the utilities and the developers that got together with the state agencies, but our communities were left out of it. And then the update that was done a couple of years ago was, as I understand it, a result of negotiations with utilities, renewable energy Vermont, and Vperg. And it was not a public process. I participated in Department of Public Service stakeholder group, and then I watched the Renewable Energy Standard legislative stakeholder group. But what came out of it was what was referred to as a a grand bargain. Representative Dick McCormick called it that. Once the bill came out of the house and went over to Senate, they were told that they couldn't make any changes to it because if they did, then, the whole thing would fall apart. The real issue that they wanted to deal with was the 500 kilowatt net metering projects that were being used by many of the companies to get the high net metering rates, but they weren't they didn't have any customers. So they were essentially just putting wholesale power up on the grid. So we have ended up with a requirement now by the tier two for the utilities to purchase more renewables. It was interesting to see the word affordability on the first slide of one of the presenters yesterday because affordability never came up the entire time that this res was being discussed. But this chart shows that the res costs had been calculated to be 32,000,000 before the the change and then you can see the orange line is tier two and what those costs are intended to are expected to be for customers. The affordability aspect of it all of a sudden came into play after this rest was passed. And in the climate council meetings, I was proposing that we do something to create incentives for the built landscape for solar and disincentives for Greenfields and forests and they representative Green Mountain Power push back and said, oh, no, we can't do that. That would raise. We we have to look at affordability. So this has been very frustrating to see how there's this disconnect that this would have been the time with tier two to place some restrictions or standards on where these two tier two projects should be located. I don't know if it's possible to go back and do that, but there's one suggestion is that we are acknowledging with this these orange bars here that we are going to be increasing rates for people. And so, you know, canopy solar canopy parking lots cost more, but can't this money that's being grown into the increased rates be used to put projects on parking lots? The Lowell project is a very good example of one of the sort of strange things that's happening. So this is Vermont Electric Co op service territory. And the area shown in pink and yellow is what's called the Shei Sheffield Highgate energy interface. It's the risk grid constrained area. And the Lowell project is so five megawatt solar project is proposed to be in that grid grid constrained area. And there's another one that's over three megawatts up near J. And the entire reason for these projects is to meet the tier two requirements for Model Lecture Co op told me that. And that apparently they have to get do even more. What I find curious is as as you heard yesterday from the representative that electrons really just flow into the grid, and they're they're used locally. Well, it is very well known that the the Northeast Kingdom and this grid constrained area has far more generation than can be used locally. So why we're adding more than eight more megawatts to that area is a puzzle where the where the power is needed is in that green area. And so why why aren't we creating some incentive or some mechanism to have these tier two areas built where the power is needed. Now, whether or not that could be done in a way that said, hey, you've got all these parking lots in Williston that that I mean, I'm I'm trying to figure out how to make things positive here. And one of the best things I heard yesterday was the VPG presentation that said that they have long advocated for solar canopy on parking lots. And I am not aware of that. But if they have, I think we have some common ground here. And instead of saying, oh, it just costs more. Can we look at how to make it happen? One of the other things that I heard mentioned, mister chair, was you talked about wetlands and should we build them on wetlands? I I mentioned before, this is the Barton Solar Project. It was built on a class two wetland.

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Bless you. Bless you. Here.

[Annette Smith]: And it had so much sediment running off of it. But it the farmer across the road dug a trench to drain the sediment into a stream. I actually filed public records request. I was afraid the farmer was gonna get in trouble. Didn't anything about it, but it's an example of what happens when you build on a class two wetland. And then the developer is suing his installer in federal court. And I just pulled this up to give you an example of the extent of the litigation. This is a federal court case. And every one of these is an item that has happened. It's scheduled for a hearing. And so the most recent one is is February but this started in 2021. The same developer had a site. It's at the intersection of I 89 and I 91 on the South West Side and it involved also a wetland and then the the court proceedings that I've read it indicated that the that also had wetlands and the issue in this case was that fact that the site was wet meant that there were frost heaves and so when the when there were frost heaves, the racking would move up and down. The post would move up and down. So, in that other case, the developer and the and the installer had to come to some agreement. So, I think the idea of building on wet sites has real problems that are best not looked into. I did want to talk about the mapping of solar site or Primag. You heard that a site in Wallingford was on Primag. And so I pulled up the map for it. And there's a small corner of it that's on Primag. And I I looked at the filings for the case and there's only one reference in the filings and it says that the project is not on soils of agricultural importance. So, I I I'm not sure that that was an accurate. You know, overall, I think that what we are we're trying to grapple with here is the the idea of creating an an an incentive to do things where the land is already as as I think Greg Cox talked about it hardscapes. And to create a disincentive. Now, this is obviously all about money. In my presentation that I gave previously, there's a a link to something called growing solar protecting nature. And it was a very extensive report done by the Mass Audubon and Harvard Forest. It its conclusion is incentives and disincentives are what we need. And so while this section 10 of the bill, and I think that Alison will offer some comments on it, is a good step. It's just one piece of it. The PUC needs more to be able to do more to protect our environment and our agricultural soils and our forests. They've made that clear in the Shaftsbury Solar decision. But these issues of protecting farmland, I think we're going to see it with data centers too. And so that goes to Act two fifty and you you all might want to take a look at why Act two fifty has not protected the farmland and what could be done. I mean, this practice of mitigation, it's always just driven me nuts. Mitigation doesn't work. Whether it's for deer yards or for for ag soils. Yeah. So you pay money to to put some other land out, but you're actually losing the land. And so I think that that this is there there has to be a way to direct about the developers. I mean, we we heard it said, well, it's not really the utilities. It's not really the developers. It's the utilities who are deciding where these things are going. Now it's the legislature who is that has put us in this position of requiring the utilities to do more. And then the developers are just going to where there's capacity on the substation and where there's power lines. And that that's the formula for them to do it the cheapest. But then we have the developers that have this nice little Vermont hat on and almost as soon as the project is either got its permit or it's sold, it's being sold to a hedge fund. We've got this really ridiculous tax benefit that they've, I've just gotten the data from the from the Department of Public Service to to ground truth amount of money that is being raised through the uniform capacity tax and we filed public records request from the tax department. We learned that they had 200 people who paid the tax for 200 entities, and it amounted to a little over $1,000,000. And so I got the data of actually how many every grid connected project in the state. And by the way, the PUC doesn't keep track of all the built projects. I was very surprised to learn that. So the Department of Public Service data shows that there are over 900 that should have paid the tax. And even even if they had all paid it, it would only amounted to $1,600,000.

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Versus what what if, on a normal rate would it have been? Do you know that?

[Annette Smith]: Well, the way that this was set up back in there's a report from the Department of Taxes back in 2012 where they said that you could set this up at $4 or $10 and the legislature chose $4 So even at the high rate, you would choose $10 a kilowatt instead of $4 But what should it be? The head of the Listers Association says that there is a standard formula, and it's not based on cost. So for instance, the 500 kilowatt project costs over $1,000,000 But there is a standard formula that every lister could plug in. And I'm not the one to speak to this, but I have heard the the response that it is a very simple thing to have the listers do to plug in this formula. And then and and this idea that they're locking in the value of the property for the entire life of the project, I mean, that's great. So the ones, you know, initially when this was set up, this was to help build our solar industry and we have matured. And now these benefits are flowing to these very wealthy investment banks and hedge funds. And in my presentation previously, I can show you if you want. I have shown where Norwich Solar and Encore redevelopment and these other companies are selling in Thomas Hand's MHD projects. He's he's they're all selling their projects. Thomas Hand said in Lowell that I think he's permitted 27, and he's sold off at least 22 of them. And so that's a whole other piece of it. Also

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: It's helpful to at least make a point because here's here's the point that I really wanna make to everyone, everyone. The only thing this committee is interested in for anyone. And if anybody just wants us to go away, stay off our farm fields. Stay off our farm fields. We're out of the fight after that. And then everybody else could go on. We're not anti solar. We're not anti housing. We're not anti anything. We just wanna protect primag lands before anyone that wants us to go away and quit talking about this. Stay off our farm fields. It's all we're asking.

[Annette Smith]: There's a rumor of an Amazon site or something, and ICE was scoping out where it might be. Once again, it's on gorgeous farmland. I mean, the our farmland is sitting ducks for those sorts of things. So, it it you know, how to how to do that, not just at the PUC but through Act two fifty. We we supposedly have the mechanism at act two fifty. At the PUC, the the role of the ag agency when they talk about participation, well, sort of. I mean, it's always a lawyer. It's often a different order. I think they have lawyers from the AG's office. They don't really know most lawyers don't understand the PUC. But they enter into an MOU. And as both Jennifer Blay and Jesse McDougall described, one of the things that happens, which the attorney for for the ag agency didn't mention yesterday, was scraping off all the prime ag soil and piling it for the life of the project. And in Shaftsbury Solar, actually planting trees in it. And it completely destroys the life. There's no way that it's being preserved that way. And that's it's it's really not protecting farmland. And as I pointed out, the projects aren't gonna be decommissioned anyway. This property rights issue that's come up, I think, is a very important one. I've been since I began my work dealing with pipelines, I've always been a proponent of property rights and, you know, the idea that you can't tell people what to do with their land and

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We do all the time whether it's solar or anything else. We do all the time, and I get it. I am sensitive to the property right issues. I really, really am, but the whole world's based on zoning and regulation and all of that. So it's not new to what we're trying to do.

[Annette Smith]: And the idea that we have a lot of farmland now, yes, but it's amazing the power of the bulldozer and how fast we can lose it. And so we can see a lot of our most important areas go away. I mean, the this Fair Haven solar project that's on some of the most gorgeous flat farmland, 100 and some acres. It's just really is that what we're doing with with our farmland? And so I I'm trying

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I'd rather to be honest with you as far as, again, a lot of this for other is for other people's listening. I there's a couple things I'd rather have. I'd rather have that be a field that people would come and visit, and I'd rather see it in production of growing food to export to the world versus solar panels to export power to the world. There is a clear difference in my mind with that. The

[Annette Smith]: challenge is figuring out how to achieve what you're trying to achieve. And I can see a number of different mechanisms. One is this relatively short and simple fix through the PUC because they are the regulators. They have turned down a few projects, hardly any. I mean, the the number of solar projects that have been denied is maybe fit on one hand. And I have never seen them deny a project on the natural environment which I think is what Shaftsbury Solar Project was an obvious choice to deny on the natural environment. It obviously is having an undue adverse effect on the natural environment. Giving the PUC tools they need is a good first step. Beyond that, I think we have some interest in moving citing to Act two fifty. If Act two fifty could be do better at getting rid of this mitigation, that might be a one method so that you just can't. If you're going to try if you want to try and do something on prime ag soil, sorry, you they say no. Now, Act two fifty hardly says no to anything either. And and so then the real challenge is that these disincentives don't do it here because you're going to run into roadblocks. Do it here because you'll get a green light. That's where I'm trying to figure out how to how to get. I I was told that people in people who've gone to Connecticut say there's solar canopy parking lots all over the place. Okay. So the one at the Rutland High School that was done by Phil Allen at Same Sun. And I understand A Johnson did it. Well, let's find out. How's it going? Did it really cost that much more? If it did, what were the barriers to it? How did it happen if it cost so much more? That's a really wonderful development there. It allows the cars to be in shade in summer. It it allows them to be protected from snow and it's generating electricity and it's part of a larger project that's on the roofs of the the school building. Why can't we do that in the built landscape? That's where I'd like to see us try and figure out how to create incentives and incentives generally means financial. And so when you have net metering, that's where the PUC looks at the rates. And so they have incentives and disincentives in there for what they call preferred sites. And so yeah.

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: On that is that they don't have to comply with the three acre rule. The whole parking lot that they just did in Rutland had to comply with the three acre rule, but then they were yet allowed to put panels over the top of it, and they didn't have to comply with the three acre rule, but the building that sits right next to the panels had to comply with the three acre rule, but everybody around them had to comply, but they didn't. I'm going to wrap this up because I think you're making our point for us and I think we could probably talk a lot longer about it than you know, than what we have time for.

[Annette Smith]: I want to mention that that issue was raised at the Vermont Supreme Court recently and I thought it was a winning issue And that that they just used the post and not the whole panel. And even though ANR has never promulgated rules about it, there's no guidance, there's no law, there's nothing in it that says it. It's in a response to a question from during a general rulemaking, the court deferred to ANR. So that will require some sort of legislative action. I think other states have made sure that the panels are viewed as impervious surfaces. That is another thing that could be done. And thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you. Thanks enough. Allison.

[Allison Espeffi]: Yes. Okay. Allison Espeffi from Modern Spherical Environment. Thank you for having me back. I so just wanted a few last things I wanna touch on, and then I just had some language that we had, some of us had worked on to make amendments to for you guys to consider. So, the thing I would say Annette brought up, and I hate to use this word, but I just wanna be very honest here, is there is a scam going on, and it's putting at the expense of Vermonters and the expense of our environment, including our farms and our forests. And I feel like that's what we're looking for. And Chair Ingalls, you had said this a bit back early on about just trying to bring some fairness to it. And we don't expect, I don't think anyone expects this problem to be solved in here, but this could be a really good first step. And obviously Senate Finance has jurisdiction over Section two forty eight, and so if it was to go to them, if you guys were to feel like there was something here and the conversation should be continued, then we could talk to the Senate Finance Committee about Section two forty eight in this process and continue this conversation. I And will also say on the record, I have tried to talk to Peter Sterling from Renewable Energy Vermont and he will not talk to me at all. And just trying to say, could we come together? Could there be a stakeholder working group to figure out what this could look like that then we could report back to you guys as the legislature to see this is what we've come up with to try to make this happen, because clearly there's an issue. I just came from the Supreme Court this morning where the Shafts Ferry Solar decision was being appealed, and they're trying to move that forward because the community is not happy with that at all. So that's where, back to Margaret Cheney, Commissioner Cheney's opinion, concurrent opinion, one of the things she said in there about the Shaftesbury decision was, we've got these 40 acres of forest, there's 34 to 36 acres of roof chore forest. If this is about greenhouse gas emissions, that is massive carbon sequestration, right? You talk about mycorrhizal fungi, you've got incredible amounts of carbon sequestering going on. So her question was, if we're gonna knock that down, is this project ever gonna offset what we just did there? And that comes back to that greenhouse gas audit that we're looking at to see. The other thing I just wanna bring attention to, as just part of an honest conversation, is are we really moving towards an energy transition? We've got data centers, we've got AI, we've got completely high levels of energy ramping up all the time. We know where we live, and we know that we're not gonna be dependent on solar, and we need a big, slow power. And so that renewable energy standard right now is making Vermonters not only pay more for electricity, but also pay to hide the fact that we have to use nuclear as a base load. So meaning utilities are gonna be expected to be 100% renewable, but that's not real, right? So, they have to buy renewable energy credits that then the ratepayers have to pay for. So, we're like adding more costs on top of more costs. So, that's a whole other thing, but basically in this, I'll just wanna share what we had sort of shifted around. There's not too many changes here.

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: And Rob, we'll put this on, Linda will put this online for

[Allison Espeffi]: you. Oh, yes. And you know what, I did not send that in because I was over at Supreme Court listening to that. I'm so sorry. Can, do you want me to do that right now, or do you want me to just go through? What

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: teachers for you, Linda? Pardon? Do you have a copy that you can send Oh,

[Allison Espeffi]: we'll send it to Linda right now, yes.

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Didn't Got a cabinet copy, she's gonna send it to Conference Room.

[Allison Espeffi]: And then we can pull it up, yeah. I'm sorry I did not get to that.

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: And we're probably not gonna go through this right now. I'll send, we'll And read

[Allison Espeffi]: actually, I don't even know if we have to look online. There's literally just two things that I can say. We took off the Agency of Agricultural on the first page because they should only be party when it's gonna be at a certain, we just kept it as is, where they, this is on the second page, they just have to come into play when there is going to be a proceeding for a facility that has a capacity greater than 500 kilowatts. And so it wouldn't, you know, and it normally wouldn't hit any sort of home net metering projects or anything anyway, but we just made it that this is when they have to intervene, not on everything, because I know that was the question. The other thing that we did was just resolve the issue of primary agricultural soils as defined in 10 BSA 6,001. It covers all of the categories, so we can just call it primary agricultural so we don't have to cite secondary and statewide importance. And then the other piece that we did was, oh, the audit. The audit we shifted to, again, a facility that has a capacity greater than 500 kilowatts, so that they would be responsible for the audit versus smaller facilities. And then, I think the only other one, we got rid of the acreage. So, like the five acre piece that I know was a struggle and sort of people were saying was arbitrary. And so, again, what we're trying to get is, until we can sort this out ideally with a stakeholder group of everyone coming together to figure out how we make this happen to protect farms and forests, this again is just providing some straightforward tools so the PUC can make better decisions and say, where is the power going to be going? Is this serving the community? Is it in the right place? How is it going to impact Vermont? How is it going to impact the community? And then the PUC is better equipped to make good decisions that serve Vermont, so we're not getting into giving a bunch of money in our environment to companies like Greenbrier who get a bunch of tax breaks. So, can certainly can figure that out. This would just allow better tools for decision making. Okay. So those were some of the big shifts.

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I think that was helpful. I think in some of our discussions you pressed upon some of what our concerns were, so.

[Allison Espeffi]: That's what I was listening to, is acreage and audit.

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I think you hit them all, to be fair. So we're

[Allison Espeffi]: That's really it, yes. Okay. You Yep, so

[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: thank you Annette. Thank you Allison. Thank you. We're gonna jump off of this as far as taking testimony. Does anybody need a break before we spend the last, a little bit more than an hour just kind of, what I'd like to do is just have an open discussion with the committee, maybe just quickly go down through our list of where we're at again, where, what we thought that we are, And, you know, think we're getting there. Anybody want a break before we you want a five minute break? Sure. Okay. We'll go five minute break and then we'll come back and then we'll switch.