Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Friday when you're on. I'm gonna try and get you out of here, keep you in home before it gets dark. Okay. So we're gonna continue our walkthrough of Bill's. This one is mine, and I put it in because we do have to deal with it or 02:48AM will die. And so we can let that happen, but I think we should know what we're doing and not just let it go with something. So this is just our walk through. The house does have a companion bill or a similar bill and they are taking testimony so given that we have smaller things like education to deal with, I'm probably gonna wait till their bill comes over after crossover to to start taking testimony. So, Ellen, you can tell us what's in it. Ellen Jacobs, the Office

[Ellen Jacobs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of Legislative Counsel. So I'm here on s one fifty nine, and the walk through portion will be very brief. This is an act relating to removing the sunset on 30 BSA section two forty eight a, all section one does of this bill is repeal the sunset that is in the statute. There currently is in statute sunset, currently it's set at 07/01/2026, that no new applications can be filed under this provision. 248A is a citing provision for telecommuted patients facilities. It's in Title 30, so it's part of the PUC's statute. It is a similar, but not identical process that the PUC goes through when they issue certificates of public good for energy facilities. But this is a process for a certificate of public good for telecommunications facilities. It is an option that telecommunications facilities have. It is an eitheror choice they are offered. They can either go through the two forty eight process at the PUC, or they can go through the Act two fifty and or municipal land use permitting process. 248A was enacted in 2007 initially for batch applications, but then was updated to just be for any application, starting in 2009. And since then, there has always been this sort of rolling deadline of whether or not the statute should contain.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It's been almost twenty years. Yes.

[Ellen Jacobs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. And so approximately every three years, the legislature takes it up and reviews it and extends the sunset. So the basic process for 248 bay is that there are three different size categories for the facilities. Mostly you're dealing with towers here, but not always antennas and other, some of the small cell developments. There's de minimis projects, projects of limited size or scope, or full projects. De minimis applications can be processed fairly quickly. There's limited criteria and limited notice that is given, but for the larger projects of limited size and scope or full, there is a first, a sixty day advanced notice process where the applicant provides notice to a list of parties in the statute, including a number of state agencies and the Ablotti neighbors. The municipalities? Yes, the municipalities during that sixty days are given the option to have a public hearing on the application where the applicant and the Department of Public Service attend and participate in discussion on the application, and the municipality can file comments and the Department of Public Service also provides their feedback. And then once the application is submitted, there is a comment period for members of the public or the state agencies or municipalities to file their comments on the application. Then the PUC reviews a number of criteria on the application. They're very similar to the Act two fifty criteria. Then they make a decision. There may or may not be a hearing on the petition, depending on if it has complicated factors or if it's Usually, often size is an issue, or depending on the location, it may or may not have a hearing. So that is the broad, the very high level overview. Okay.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And for those who weren't in the room a few minutes ago, there is a similar bill in the house and give an energy and digital services. I think they have a much smaller preview and purview and twice as long during the day to deal with it. So I'm gonna wait for it to come over before taking testimony. I put this in just because I wanted to make sure there was a vehicle for the discussion because we do need to make some decisions, but

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Do you know off the end? I'm sorry to get you off the guard, but don't expect you to know this. When did the sunset first get past, and how many times have you extended it?

[Ellen Jacobs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's been since the creation. There has been a sunset. And I think which 2007.

[Senator Randy Brock (Member)]: '7.

[Ellen Jacobs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: During the first, it went under significant change in the first batch of amendments. In 2009, the statute was overhauled. Since then, there have been a lot fewer changes. It has been almost always a three year sunset. I do think there was one year you did a one year sunset.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes, it was a one year. In recent years, it's been

[Ellen Jacobs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Much?

[Senator Randy Brock (Member)]: Change.

[Ellen Jacobs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You have not had too There was a recent change in 2021 or 2020. You had some additional provisions around the advance notice procedure and the municipality's hearings that they're allowed to hold.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I can list that up for

[Senator Randy Brock (Member)]: you.

[Ellen Jacobs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But otherwise, there hasn't been the last amendment you did, there were no changes to the statute. The last amendment was here three years ago, you did request a report back from the Department of Public Service looking at recommendations on how to make participation easier. Yes. I believe they didn't actually make any specific recommendations.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I haven't seen any, but we can ask them.

[Ellen Jacobs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then in 2020, you also asked to report on if additional changes were needed to address small cell antennas, and that was also recommended that this procedure covers it. So there haven't been

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: any significant changes in small Small cells are more do they come under the de minimis? Often they do, unless there's a box that gets attached.

[Senator Randy Brock (Member)]: Okay. As I remember, somewhere along the line, and this may have been in the more recent, the reason that we put in the request, because we were hearing, I think, from people that it was just very difficult to put anything in without professional help. Epilepsy and aggravation associated I think with

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: this went in, I think you cut back to, And when this first went in in 2007 was when we were trying to put out cell phones. And I will admit, I have been stuck up to my waist in snow trying to remove a lockbox from a vacation property with no cell service and my cell phone in my hand and having this moment that I could be in real trouble. This is a vacation area. There were no regular residents and I was stuck there. I got out, obviously, but it was you know, so we've been balancing that kind of I mean, in the old days, I would have frozen. We've gotten used to if your car breaks down, you can call for help. We didn't used to have that. We've been through the Bose. Remember the small cells on the oh, that Yeah. Didn't prove to be financially viable.

[Senator Randy Brock (Member)]: And we've been so it's always trying to do that public safety versus neighborhood and aesthetics and trying to find the balance. Wasn't there also an issue that may have led to our request for the PSD to come back with information is that it was a very formally bureaucratic process to make a comment and the ordinary person would find it difficult to do. You had to almost have somebody who had the legal as well as the technical expertise to advise you to be able to participate in this process. The concern we had was this is

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: too complicated for ordinary people to deal with. I think we got more of that. We did a lot of work one year when Jen Center Lyons was here and tried to make the PUC part of, I mean, PUC was fed up when you had utility lawyers arguing with utility lawyers. It was a very legalistic when you started putting cell phone towers in people's backyards, having to go to the PUC, and we did a lot there. And I think part of that is that this was an alternative because the PUC is still difficult, and, yeah, you probably do have to have nobody's supposed to be covered. I think I should take this because I'm not supposed to get it.

[Ellen Jacobs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Have entered actually the Chittenden. So, I have written it down. Since 2007, this would be the seventh extension of hike of the sunset, and they have all been three year extensions with the exception of 2009 when it was only a two year extension. And in 2020, there were a couple of small amendments, but there was an amendment on the point you were just talking about, which is additional language was added that said that the advance notice is sixty days before the application is filed, and you added language saying that the notice that is provided to the legislative body of the municipality and the planning commission of the municipality shall include a statement that lists the right and opportunities available to them to participate in the hearing, as well as provides them the guide published by the PUC on how to participate. So, they do put out this guide of the steps for the process, and so you added that to provide more information as part of the advanced notice.

[Senator Randy Brock (Member)]: So, you can be required to be in English.

[Ellen Jacobs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, well, and yes, so the guide is required to be more easily understood.

[Senator Randy Brock (Member)]: That was what I recall was the issue. I don't know, have we looked at it to say that we think that's a good guide? Is sufficient for the person, the lay person who's trying to participate in the process.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I know we took a lot of testimony last time this came up. Remember Warren being an example, some towns are better prepared than other towns, and when we take this out, we will take extensive testimony, and the decision is do we go back to two fifty, which is in all kinds of flux at the moment. I don't know how we'd fix that, you know, what impact that would have. Do we put it into the PUC or do we make alterations to the present system? And we'll see what the house sends us, because I gather they're taking extensive testimony and we'll see what we need to do. That's been something that we tinker with on a regular basis.

[Senator Randy Brock (Member)]: Thank

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: you, Madam Chair. If you'd like me to table this question for later on when we pick the bill up again, that's fine. I think it's question for maybe you and Senator Brock, is the tenor of the feedback that we're getting so far, including the piece of written testimony that we have on committee page, is that similar to what you've seen every time this through, the sunset process? Yeah. It's similar issues. They're I want somebody seeing they have a player in the field now. A lot of these towers are gone up by people who sell to the public. There is someone out there now who is selling cell service, like, to your public safety organizations, and they seem to be a little less concerned with public opinion, and that's something that we may need to wanna to work with. Generally, if you wanna sell to the public, you don't wanna annoy the public a lot. So we will look it all. K?

[Senator Randy Brock (Member)]: Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: At two. So we have fifteen minutes before we are again for security with rebating. Daddy's confidential, so we are going offline. Terrorists are out there waiting to learn our

[Senator Randy Brock (Member)]: security briefings. So we

[Senator Ann Cummings (Chair)]: can go offline now. We'll be back on at 03:15, And Kirby is going to walk us through