Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: For those that you believe and don't believe, I hope you have the best day and don't walk under any ladders or see any black cats or anything like that. Other than that, Senate Agriculture is preparing to vote out their our work that we've done for the first half of the year. It's a miscellaneous bill that has quite a few sections in it. Very proud of the work that we've done. I think we've really worked hard on this bill. Got a lot of subject matter on it, a lot of technical corrections that's going on, but the crown jewel of this bill is that after the Supreme Court decision, we were able to work closely with a lot of partners throughout the state and restore most of what actually maybe felt was lost during that decision. I want to thank the Supreme Court for the way that they made their ruling. It made it so that we could work, and the way I interpreted what their findings were, that if you believe that you have something, you ought to say it, and that's what we've done. The committee's found a way to restore, again, probably ninety five percent of what farmers had, and that it also worked closely with city, region towns, and found a lot of balance. I also want to acknowledge the stakeholders groups that work closely with us. I know good legislation sometimes is when you have something that not everybody was happy with, but at the end they could coalesce around what we have done and all that is still always cause to happen. We've done a pretty good job, I believe, threading the needle as far as how hemp is going to be marketed in the state. We've brought protections to hemp growers, hemp producers, hemp marketers, and again, it's something that is a work in progress, but the framework to ensure that that hemp business is viable in the state of Vermont and protected. I think we've covered that, working very closely with the Cannabis Control Board, again, a lot of stakeholders who are involved with that. This committee works very hard to protect the smallest of the small, and the large of the large, and everybody in between. And I don't think that we've been malicious to anyone, which certainly would never be our intent. I would always ask that people who feel that they didn't get all that they wanted to reach out to us and keep working, because nothing's ever fine. We're just going to take a few minutes to go down through this bill. We're going take a vote, but I'd like to give everybody in the room, the committee members, any chance to make comments as we would go. So I always I will apologize to senator Major, but I always start amongst on this side and leave us for last, and so I don't get disinspected that way. Is there a column?

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I have quickly perused what is now draft 4.1, which includes the changes we talked about yesterday, and I'm fine with the bill. I think the chair has made a very good opening statement about this. I have a feeling we're gonna look back on this in a few years and realize that it's a landmark bill in many ways because it restores a lot of what most people would have assumed was true before this summer's decision by the Supreme Court. And this will frame it so that it's fairly clear, at least what this committee, assuming this gets all the way through to the finish line, is intending. I think if you spend any amount of time in this building, the word compromise has to be included in your vocabulary, and this represents to me excellent work in that way. I think the very small farmers will benefit from sections one through three, and the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and the Agency of Agriculture also worked hard together, come up with what they felt was a fair, equitable compromise. So I'm ready to vote it out and get it on the floor next week and watch it hopefully get to the finish line. I realize it'll go across to our very hardworking colleagues in the other chamber, and they may choose to keep a little bit in some fashion. But I think it's a great film, and I think everybody should be proud of it.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Member)]: Very well. Good. Yeah. I I don't have much to add, I don't think. I know we talked a lot about what the section 10 and section one and section seven. I appreciate all the conversation that that we had about that. Ultimately, it's out of the bill now, but I think that that that discussion and how we went through it was one of the reasons why I'm being here, having this discussion. So I was I was very happy to to have that be part of my experience during the first term. And everything else, know, we've already discussed.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: Senator Huffernan? I wanna echo what Senator Plunkett said. The debate we had during the solar fields was heated at times. Senator Fingers brought us all back out

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: of control there for a

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: moment, but we had a real good back and forth, and I don't understand why it got taken out, but I thought we were, what our objective was to protect prime ag soils, and for some reason, powers that we didn't think that was important enough, and that's a shame. But great debate back and forth, a lot of good testimony that our farming community is doing well. They could all use more money, but that's all of us could. Working with you other senators has been a pleasure, and I'm looking forward to keep doing it for the rest of the session. Yeah. I'm happy with it. Joe and Richard.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Well, first of all, I appreciate the senior senators and their guidance through this as they did get contentious there for a little bit, and sometimes when the sausage is being made, it you can fuck that out.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: And to your

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: point, senator Ingalls, at, earlier, you know, when the Supreme Court said what they said, you know, so you kinda throw up your hands and and go, that's not what it was meant. But at to that point, it gave us an opportunity to fix, and that's the most important thing. And so there's there's no wiggle wiggle room now for that. We have the right language, and we can go forward. So I I do appreciate everyone in here and their participation in this and all the the bodies that that came in and gave their opinion as well. I thought it was very important to to get this right and I

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Member)]: think we did so. So, I appreciate it.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you, gentlemen and for those that aren't aware that might be listening, we've referenced section nine, section seven that did not make the bill, the solar citing parliament language did not make the bill. That's what happens in politics sometimes. But

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: if you guys are all set, I would entertain a motion to take the vote. I'll move we vote draft 4.1 of S-three 23 out favorably. This is a strike call amendment. Second. Jake,

[Speaker 0]: can I hear from you which call the roll, please? Yeah, it's

[Jake (Committee Assistant)]: just for the act relating to the miscellaneous agricultural bill,

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: point one. 4.1.

[Jake (Committee Assistant)]: 4.1 of Senate Bill three twenty three, roll call, will commence. Senator

[Speaker 0]: Calamore? Yes.

[Jake (Committee Assistant)]: Senator Heffernan is a yes. Senator Majors? Yes. Senator Plunkett? Yes. Senator Ingalls? Yes. He just voted five-zero-zero.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, so what I'd to do is let's get a copy of this bill for Heffernan, and let's just go offline for a few minutes and give Linda time to do those copies. If it's okay with you folks, let's try to go down to the bill and divide it up about. She wants to be comfortable