Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We are live. We are late. But that is going to be the next probably at least two weeks.

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: But she's

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: still through all the bills. Sure. Now Sonia Gulick has gone home. She didn't know well. She just came into the Yeah. Okay. So as soon as she gets home, I have a feeling she'll be joining us on Zoom. She was on for her. So today, we are starting with s

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: two eleven, then we're going to S 23 26. These are

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: motor vehicles. And Sandra Westman is here to explain why we aren't going through at least

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: I've got two things. Thank you for having me in. There is

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Who are you? I am. Why did

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: I I'm getting there. I'm getting there. But thanks for having me in. I'm Rich Westman. I'm the chair of the Transportation Committee Center from Memorial. And let me start with 02:11, which is and give a blanket statement about what we did. What you basically have in front of you is a bill that asks the agency to come back with a plan on why, if we went to two year inspections, what that would look like and answer some of the questions that are in front of us. I would remind the finance committee, we are on a track to go to vehicle miles traveled for electric vehicles as of January 1 year. We are presently working on language that will be in the T Bill that has been presented to us by the agency to transportation around vehicle miles traveled. Their whole effort this far has been that the way we would do vehicle miles traveled is the odometer would be read at the point of inspection. And the bills that we received and all of the pieces that we've got had no way didn't take any of that into account. So if we were going to go ahead and you're going to try to move to vehicle miles traveled, we would have to find another way to do that. Therein, we ask in 02:11 for them to come back with a proposal. We also have EPA requirements that we as a state have agreed to, and the EPA requirements that we have agreed to, there apparently are ways that states have got around this. For there are 15 states that have every other year inspections. But most of those aren't Northeastern states, and are because of where we sit in the country, our regulations are stricter because of our air quality pieces. So we asked them, if we were going to move to every other year inspections, how would we do it and not fall out of requirements for EPA? So we felt that there wasn't an opportunity for us at this time. We couldn't answer those questions, so what we did is basically ask transportation to come back with us with a recommendation about what you would do to do that. That's the high level of what, two eleven and

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We have it because there is a fee mentioned in here somewhere.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: Fee, and I think the fee was mentioned in the underlying bill, and you have that. Okay. What you have in front of you and both joint fiscal and legislative council with Damian and Logan can explain as far better than I can in detail. But I wanted to alert you, what we did is we voted a bill out. There was two sections in that dealt with trucks and trailer coaches and purchase and use tax. We got information that when Joint Fiscal did their analysis, found at a minimum of 1,200 vehicles that they would have changed their rate and we would the estimates were from joint fiscal that there would have been at least a 1,200,000 poll put in the bill after we voted in at it. We immediately advanced also trailer coaches. Weren't made aware of how many trailer coaches could be sold, and they couldn't report that to joint fiscal, which all would have an effect. In some vehicles, it was around 1,000 a vehicle. So we decided at that point because the numbers weren't I

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: know. I'm sorry. I thought I was supposed to be in appropriations.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I was just get me.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: I'm actually gonna get I'm gonna do $3.30 instead. 03:30 instead. Okay. Well You can? I'm gonna do $3.30. I appreciate it.

[Unidentified (committee member/staff) — primary]: $3.30. Sees I'm sorry, Sandra.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Your bra or standard your Do it. Can you text them? Do you have their numbers? Okay. Will be heading to the office, and see. And they weren't going to be here, so.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: So what we did is we have a strike all amendment. That strike all amendment is really what we're we as a committee are recommending. It takes both sections that dealt with the purchase and use tax out, and and we were dealing with the underlying, what was brought from us from DMV, were the recommendations. We felt without good information, we couldn't go ahead and change the statute, so we took it out. And that's not to say that sometime later in the session or when the miscellaneous DMV bill gets to the house, they might have better information than they dealt with, but we confident we could. So at that point, that is to explain to you why the amendment from us is really the building of Thank you. Is that

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'm feeling the bill of the amendment. I'm not sure what we do if we approve the bill or the amendment because

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: I'm not I'm not sure either, we felt

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: because I think you took out our our area of jurisdiction.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: There are some fees.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: There are

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: some There's fees out a, in section 15, there's a towing fee. In section 17, there's a snowmobile fee. In section 19, there's a $40 yearly fee for commercial driver's licenses. And then in section 26, there's the twenty sixth annual registration fee. So there are some very small fees, but the largest area that was in us before And was that's totally out from ours, what they'll recommend. Thank you, Justin. Unless there's questions, I'll go back to appropriations and we'll wait for the Senator from Addison to show up.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: The senator from Caledonia has shown up. So if the senator from Addison needs to go to a real

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: meeting I think they said 03:30 because I forgot to go when I was supposed to go, so they must have moved my bill to 03:30. Okay. Because I was supposed to go at the beginning of the meeting. Yeah. It's good. I know. And I completely forgot, but it's good because we went ahead and quorum at five Yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So we move ourselves along. Thank you. Thanks, Matthew. Okay. So, Damian.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Good afternoon.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Is this 02:11?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: I can start with 02:11.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well, bill are those? Which ones are on the issue?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Yeah, I think 211 is first and then 326.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: And so let me go ahead and share my screen.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: It's 326. The bill isn't. I hope to see it, but anyway.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Okay. So 211 here. So as for the record, I'm Damian Leonard from the Office of Legislative Council. As senator Westman stated, originally, this bill would have shifted us to a two year inspection schedule and would have had some revenue impacts because it it changed the fee, and then you would have had fluctuating inspections because most people wouldn't have needed to get an inspection for two years, etcetera. What this instead does is it requires the secretaries of transportation and natural resources to develop a plan to transition inspections to a two year schedule beginning in 2028. And importantly for this committee are items four, five, and six. As part of that plan, they have to propose a fee structure and address the potential for different fees charged in relation to the inspection of different vehicle types. So for example, school buses have to get inspected three times a year, and there's no proposal to change that. Commercial motor vehicles, like buses, have to be inspected twice a year. So if you're carrying passengers, no one's proposing to change that. This is like passenger cars are proposed for the two year inspection. So because of that, you could see some changing fees proposed. The next is in identifying the anticipated impacts on the revenue and how to mitigate that. And then the third is including proposal for amendments to the mileage based user fee, which the house is working on in the t bill that would address this issue because right now, the reporting of annual vehicle miles traveled is tied to getting your abdominal red at your inspection. So if he moves two year inspections, obviously, that could affect the ability to do that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And that would be a much larger bill to pay in two years than in one would be.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Right. Although the the current mileage based user fee proposal has a options for quarterly and monthly payments, and there's discussion of a potential for a pay as you go. Although it's not clear how you would be reporting your odometers, other states have something set up where you can take monthly odometer readings and share them with the state.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: My car seems to know everything, including when the driver needs him a cup of coffee. Perfect. They can't read the odometers remotely at this point?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Well, so other states that are working on mileage based user fees, some of them have apps that you can opt into. It is privacy issue.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yep.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: But there are states that there's a variety of approaches. One of them is app based where it tracks where your car goes. One of them actually allows for geofencing so that and this is one of your options in Oregon so that your car knows when you're in Oregon and you pay for the miles you travel in Oregon. And it knows when you left Oregon and you don't pay for any miles that accrued while you're outside of Oregon, although and then there are various privacy provisions in there, so it's not tracking where you drive your car, etcetera. Because that distracted. Right. So there there are

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Like, is this like selling sports betting where they know exactly where you are located?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Right. So there's the the Vermont proposal, I would say, is the simplest of the mileage based user fee proposals at this point because it's just tied to inspections. But if you want to a two year inspection, obviously, that would complicate things. There's potential to prorate the fee or something like that, but it it would complicate things.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. Especially when I was working, I put on a lot of mileage, but that is also a deduction, you know, if you're paying, so you wouldn't wanna do that annually, probably, if Right. Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: And there there are states too that allow folks to pay either they can choose either to pay a statutory rate or a per mile rate. That's not currently in the proposal here in in Vermont, but that's another thing that's been discussed and testified on. So for folks who don't wanna have to report every year or two years, they can say, I'm just gonna pay the flat fee, which is tied to some some mileage where they set the cap, basically. So if you can travel a lot, you can just choose to pay the cap, or if you have privacy concerns in those states, you can just choose to pay the cap. So But that's $2.11. Logan, do you have something on that one? K.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No money on that one? No? No. Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Yeah. So it's just to report back with the plan.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Fee is in this bill, therefore, it's ours.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: We're fee and revenue.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: So Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Potential for differ different fees charged. Yes.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Yeah. But no no current fee proposals

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: in there. Any questions at this point

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: about the bill with no fees and no revenue? Senator Beck. Haven't we done this thing, like, several times before, something similar to it?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: I know that inspection set and getting rid of inspections or reducing them has been discussed for a long time. I don't know the extent to which we've ever done a study. This one is somewhat unique in that it's asking for an implementation plan. Yeah. The yeah. I think I think this is saying if if we decide we wanted

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: to find out how it could make it

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: without creating power and the transportation fund and when it is sorry.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Some

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: of To your question, sir,

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: but I I would just say that I even if it hasn't been done before, the technology in the cars today Yeah. So, I mean, they're just a lot safer, and so maybe we just don't need to safety as much. Yeah. That's about my paper, know, as they say.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Well, you can stay. Great. Says there's nothing to report from his end.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Alright. Let me pull up the

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And this is the one we're supposed to pay. We're gonna go straight up without the bill that's introduced.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Yeah. So this is the substitute amendment. So my understanding is that the transportation committee intends to move to substitute this for the committee report. And so I'll walk you through the sections that have fees or elimination of the fee in them. So the first the first several sections here relate to identification cards. So what they're proposing to do is for individuals who have been sentenced to serve a period of six months or more in prison or individuals who've been detained for more than six months in a correctional facility, they're proposing to provide a pathway for them to get a no cost credential. Currently, we provide a no cost nondriver ID for an individual who has been sentenced to service six months or more. And this would extend that, and this was language was developed in concert with house corrections institutions who is sending a bill to senate that has identical language in it and then was also reviewed by your senate institutions committee. So skipping over the technical corrections in this section, we'd skip down a couple of pages to the existing language here, which provides the an individual who is sentenced to serve a period of imprisonment for six months or more and who is eligible shall upon proper application and submission of documentation required. And we've lest this trip anyone up, the non real ID identification cards, they are both real IDs, but there is a federal real, all caps, ID program. Yeah. And so if you don't have documentation establishing either your citizenship status or your legal presence in the country, you get a non real ID. If you can establish your citizenship or or choose to establish your citizenship or your legal status in the country, then we'll get a real ID. So we're not proposing to change anything about that program, but for the sake of clarity and ensuring we remain in conformance with the federal requirements, specifying you have to provide that documentation. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And this is an ID, not a driver's license, which also is a real ID?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Right. So this is the non driver ID piece, which is existing law. The only update in here is updating some of the language, but I'm just showing you this so you can have context for the next three changes. So the first change would be this new section here for individuals who've been detained for six months or more. The only difference between this and the individual who has served a sentence is when you have someone who served a sentence, you know when their release date is, so they provide them with the actual ID on release. Here, they provide them with they essentially help them assemble the paperwork and set things up so that they can go to a DMV location upon release and receive the no cost driver ID. But because you don't know, they may go to this may be an individual who's awaiting trial. They go to trial. They're acquitted. They're released right then.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. That's what I was detained is not incarcerated.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Exactly. So you could be detained for a long period of time while you're awaiting trial and then be released once you're acquitted or be sentenced to time served and released right away so you don't have a a date, but this would also entitle them to a fee of $0. Then with the next section is replacement licenses, and it it basically does the same thing into two sections. The first is the individuals who have been sentenced would be entitled to a replacement operator's license for a fee of $0. And then because there's a delay in how quickly they can implement it, we have a separate section for individuals who have been detained for six months or more in section three. Same thing, though. DOC and DMV work together to obtain the documents and process things so that the individuals are able to obtain the credential when they exit. And the idea is that you basically can get the highest credential you have beforehand, assuming you meet the requirements in the statute, and it hasn't expired for too long or something like that. And then the final piece here is the learner's permit. And so, replacement learner's permit for a fee of $0, And that's for incarcerating. This is for a period of imprisonment. And then and we then add h here in the next section, which is for the detainees. So that's the first five sections of the bill. It's basically eliminating a fee. Logan can talk to you about what we expect the fiscal impact be.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: There was a fee then. We're getting this.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Right. So for everybody except for the individuals who were currently entitled to a zero cost non driver ID, they have to go out and pay the cost of their new driver's license or new learner's permit, which would then it depends on on the one. This does not take away the fees for my enhanced driver's license, which is the one that you can use to cross the the international border. It's just the regular driver's license, either the state version or the federal Real ID compliant version, which you can use to board a plane.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Does it. Genshin over.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Real ID will not cross borders. You need the enhanced driver's license for that or a passport. Yeah. So Okay.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: Yeah. There's Alright. Go.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Like, so many things. There there are layers of complexity

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: in a lot of people. That they couldn't go over with their driver's license,

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: but you

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: could in Vermont. But I looked it up, and Vermont was one of something like two or three states. At that point, we wanted them that were doing a REAL ID, and maybe it's the enhanced REAL ID that

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: we the enhanced.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: As I as I understand the program, REAL ID is is intended to have identification that meets federal, complies with federal requirements for various purposes where there's a federal ID requirement, like boarding a plane. Yes. And then enhanced driver's license goes another step beyond that, similar to getting a passport. Okay. That's about the limit of my knowledge about all the differences.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: A good quote.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: I'm assuming the two, but yeah. The

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Didn't used to be important. You used to just drive over the border into Canada.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Once upon a time.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Once, and it wasn't that long ago. Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: So let me skip ahead to the next section here, section seven. This will affect revenues of the state. It is clean up language. So currently, the statute allows if you have a check that bounces when you go to get a replacement a license or registration or a replacement of those, and your check bounces and you don't make good within about thirty days, the department can suspend your license or registration. I don't

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: have a question. Yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: When my daughter died, I inherited her car. Shortly before she died, she wrote a check to keep the car registered. Mhmm. But then when she died, the bank froze the account. The check bounced, and they charged me $20 for a bounced check because I was now the owner. But, apparently, there was, like, a three week lapse in there. This was during COVID, and DMV didn't cash the check with the lacrity because when the check was written, there was still money in the account. The account was frozen upon death. I refused to pay the fee, but I paid for the registration. But it is there any requirement that DMV act precipitously, or can they sit on a payment for a month? In this day of phones and things, I just you know, people don't balance checkbooks anymore or look at checks. So it's possible to say, oh, that's paid, and I write another $200 check. So Two weeks later, and it bounces.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: So that is similar to a discussion that was had across the hall. So the the statute does not contain a requirement that DMV promptly deposit the checks or or so forth. But one of the concerns that came up with the electronic funds transfer and credit and debit charge language here is often that will show up in your account as pending. By the time they process it, other transactions may have occurred, or there may be a check that's pending, but it hasn't been deposited yet. So and the the DMV is here if you'd like them to chime in, but to paraphrase their testimony under their current practices, and obviously, this is different than COVID when there were other complications going on, but they're they're giving people about thirty days to make the payment.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: If if things bounce, they first try to settle off without assessing things. I don't know if they're gonna still be charging the bounced check fee. In that case, that would be a better question for them that the this old piece here about suspending the license wouldn't occur until they've basically reached a point where they say that the individual is not gonna pay.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: Okay. Yeah. Because I We've we've reached out my checkbook. But

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I have at least one child who just says, I look at my balance. Keeps saying, yeah. But how many other checks have you written or debits have you made? So yeah. Alright. And some gas stations apparently put a hold on if you use a debit credit report.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Yeah. PB chargers, medical companies, lots of them Lots of that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Sure that, yeah, the money is there. So that can Yeah. Tie things up. So as long as we're making we're dealing with the problem. There will always be something that calls for the hoist.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Right. It's it's not a perfect system, but there is there is flexibility in the way they they are handling just here to allow folks to deal with that check that didn't clear in time.

[Unidentified committee member]: So

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: penalties, I'm gonna skip over. Right? So skip over.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: You're gonna skip over the snuggler knot penalty? That's the best.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: That's your

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: sister. You better do that.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: So this this increases the the penalty for entering smugglers' notch with a prohibited vehicle from 1,000 to 10,000. And if you get stuck, it goes up to 20,000.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well, when the electric billboards haven't deterred them, maybe this will.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: So my understanding is we

[Unidentified committee member]: have

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: one recently. So there's we're down we're down from the prior several year, but there's still

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: and stuff often.

[Unidentified committee member]: There's there's

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: and other things, but Yeah. Yeah. Still a suggestion for someone.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yeah. You

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: have to be really determined to go through there.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: No. You're safe.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Ridiculous. So

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: I asked the question. Will the 10 and 20,000 cover the cost of getting that the truck out? I mean

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Well, it's a trucker basically.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: The trucker asked to pay for it, but if there's

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: My my understanding is that the removal costs can be quite high. I I couldn't give you an actual number, but for a stuck vehicle, my understanding is it could be quite a Okay.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: But the owner of

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: the vehicle is for it. Yeah.

[Unidentified (committee member/staff) — primary]: And not the stick. Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: So this is an additional penalty. The way the penalty applies is if it's a commercial vehicle, it's the owner of the vehicle, so the employer that owns it. If it's a vehicle for personal purposes, the operator is on the hook. So if you drive your camper into the notch and get stuck, you're on the hook for What? $20,000.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Last year, there was a farm trailer. I think the cattle trailer that got stuck in there. The first

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: I still think the best answer is if you will place this in dynamite.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It would be incredible cruelty if that trailer's falling.

[Unidentified committee member]: No.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: I mean room now. Oh, can't handle Get rid of the rocks That's a good off the date.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I mean, that's gotta see why smugglers came through there. Okay.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: Perfect.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And that should be a deterrent. It is one of the reasons I heard again, it was a was the maps or one of the apps listed that as the fastest way to get.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Yeah. Every There are trucker or truck appropriate GPS apps out there Yes. That will steer you around it. But if you're using regular Google Maps and it doesn't know that you're driving 40 foot box truck or, yeah, or pulling an 18. Yeah. Driving an 18 wheeler than it would continue to steer you through there. So it it depends on what the app is. So you could see an instance where someone with an RV is using Google Maps and it shows up that way. But, you know, at this point, there are signs. There's a chicane. And so

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Sign just you know? I mean, it's a sign. It only has so much, but I wouldn't think of an RV as can truck. I bet. And the waves. Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: So I would want to chance it, you know?

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: If you're I used to sell houses to people from from Baltimore who wanted to live in the country. And I could say, define country. How many miles do you want to drive to the grocery store? It's a very different concept

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: when you come Yes. Well, if you're seeing like flashing lights and they're saying, don't go. Would you would you chance it with your beautiful, expensive RV?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well, if I've gone all that way up to Stowe, I might. People sometimes that says I can go here.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: So saving time too. Like, that's a factor in the truck drivers. If they see that it'll save them an hour, they they wanna get home with the kids. Right. I like a long time.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: No. I looked at Google Maps,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: and it was, like, fifteen minutes difference in the estimated time. It wasn't I'm saying,

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: really? I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: was surprised at how little time they estimated. You

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: know, we

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It wasn't, like, a half hour, an hour. Because that probably doesn't account for traffic. Well,

[Unidentified committee member]: we could require a driver's license to have a huge textbook.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. We're having too much fun, and let's get through this.

[Unidentified committee member]: Right. So

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: the this section here is actually a fee that a state pays. It's not a fee that the public pays. So this relates to towing towing vehicles from public property.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: We did increase the amount a few years back. I agree Matt. There was testimony that it's still not enough. So and this is adding additional language. So the first increases the fee from $1.25 to $2.50. The second allows the agency of transportation if it's already reimbursed a towing service or pay the towing service for the fee to seek the reimbursement from the fund that we have set aside to pay these. Oh. So this it's basically allowing them to recoup some of their costs that they're paying at the time. And so we've received testimony that the state's increasingly paying for the tow and removal of vehicles that are abandoned on state properties, and it's has not been able to get recoup some of those costs and so the idea is to try to recoup some of the costs from this fund that we have available to pay them.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: But it is. Don't know. Basically, speed

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: The diesel fuel tax language here, don't worry. It's just technical corrections, not changing the tax. We're gonna get rid

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: of it.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: We unfortunately, this does not propose to do that. See the person.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Speak to the group.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: Have. We do.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: The let's see. With the snowmobiles here, this is just a penalty. It's not a fee. It's increasing the penalty for folks who aren't getting the right decal registration for running their snowmobiles in the state. And the the next one is a fee. Hold on. Oops. There we go. Here's the fee. So the fee here would provide for a nondomiciled commercial driver's license. So this is a person who's not a permanent resident of Vermont who seeks a Vermont commercial driver's license. This is a one year commercial driver's license, and it's setting the fee at $40. Two year fee is currently 72. So that gives you a sense it's a little bit more for the one year fee, and this is setting up a fee for those non domiciled commercial driver's licenses. And for those of you who have been tracking the national news around some of the potential federal regulations, those have not gone into effect. They're being held up right now, so they're not in this bill. So this is just addressing the fee piece. If the feds change If the feds change Yeah. We'll be back next year, but it likely won't be a fee. It'll probably be other parts of the program that will be addressed and looking on domiciled. The motorboat validation stickers, we're not actually changing the fees. They're in here just for technical corrections. What this is is bringing us into compliance with a federal requirement that the stickers be within six inches of the registration number. So we're coming into compliance with that.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Mhmm.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: The let's see. I think that's it for the fees in here. Scroll through very oh, there is one other fee. So limited use specialty vehicles. These are two types of vehicles. One is a home manufactured vehicle that is not for resale. So this could be a kit car. Could also be someone who rebuilds a car from existing parts or from newly manufactured parts or a combination of them. And the other is for ultra small manufacturers who manufacture fewer than 325 vehicles per year per year for sale in The US. These are commonly known as restomods. So an example of this is in Milton, we have a manufacturer who produces what looks like a second generation Corvette on the outside. On the inside, it is fully modern with carbon fiber, etcetera, super engine. These are subject to federal emissions requirements for the engine and so forth, but we didn't have a process for them to get registered. So this is proposing to register these two types of vehicles under this umbrella the same way we register antiques and exhibition vehicles. Wow. And it charges the same fee, which is a $26 per year registration fee for a total of 12 new vehicles per year. So it's a very small subcategory of vehicles that just haven't been captured. I

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: thought we did this a couple years ago. This seems like deja vu We

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: looked at proposals on this in the last few years.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Okay. Was it just a report that we did on this? We did. Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: We did have a report on this last year. I remember that. And so that came back

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: with Okay. Some

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: And this is what came out of that report.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Awesome. So the small manufacturing, those are not made to ride on a road.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: It it is a street legal car, but it's permitted for one day a week, not for regular transportation of passengers or property. So it's the kind of thing like you can take your old Model T out on the road to get a creamy on Sunday.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Right. The show or something. Drive it to the show. Yeah. But you can't use it as your daily Parade

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: vehicle.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Right. And so these, you can drive them on the road once a week to take them to a car show, to cruise down to the preemie stand in the summer. You can see what my mind's at after the one day.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Might be 33 is a high.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: I know. Know.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: It's killing me. But you you it's not supposed to be a daily driver. So the and these cars do have to pass safety inspections, and they have to be built with emissions compliant engines. They don't have to pass regular annual emissions inspections, though. You

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: know, the model t's, do they?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: No. There those old cars are not subject to modern emissions requirements. So we've kinda modeled this

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: This

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: a lot of that. New ones. Yeah.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: Okay.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: When Can I ask a question? For this, You skipped over this probably because it doesn't have

[Unidentified (committee member/staff) — primary]: a theme, but what are these things?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: The high vehicles or k vehicles? So k is short for Keijidosha, which is Japanese for light duty vehicle. They're yeah. They're the little mini trucks, or you've seen the mini the miniature vans too. Yeah. They even have miniature mid engine sports cars, little two seaters. So there's been confusion about whether these are legal in Vermont or not. Right. You can buy them for campuses. Right. Right. You can buy that or for farm use, that sort of thing. They're popular. They have to be you have to import vehicles that are at least twenty five years or older under federal law, but they're very popular or becoming increasingly popular because you can get, you know, a a small dump truck for under $15,000, which for a farm can be make a lot of sense. Yeah. And then also individuals, they're fuel efficient. They meet the same basic safety standards, although they weren't certified in The US as other small cars from twenty five to thirty years ago. So you have seat belts and airbags and so forth. So folks are increasingly buying them on the secondary market and then wanting to use them. So this is clarifying. They can be used as either a pleasure car or a farm truck in Vermont and registered as such, they're subject to those requirements.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: So these are not made anymore? Or they

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: They are still made, but you can't import the newer ones because unless they are certified to the federal motor vehicle safety standards. Oh. And so it's rare that they are. They're mostly sold for overseas markets.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Got

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: it. I was out of the country over the break last week, and I saw a number of them on the roads where I was. Oh. So they you know, for countries that have smaller roads, they become a very, like, practical vehicle if you're a contractor or construction

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Yeah. Something like that. I'm surprised you can't find new ones. I saw, like, five brand new ones, like, middle grade time. It was just, you know, a week or two. So they they may be ones that meet the safety standards, or they may be used for off highway use. So right. And it's used, not road map. Right. So they could be used by the grounds and maintenance folks. It's by new ones that can just stay on your property. Exactly. That makes sense. But you're you're not using them on the highway. Yeah. So that is that. I am overdue to get upstairs. Are there any other questions?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. We just have fees. Any questions? Fees, as far as we know, covered the cost?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: That's a question for Logan.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Logan, walk Logan up next, and go wherever you're scheduled.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: And if you do need any amendments, you can just email me, and I'll drop something up.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Great. Thank you for your time.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Please do not anticipate any further. And this is all the strike also. This is not the original bill.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yeah. For the record, we'll get my very good fiscal office. On your web page, there are both documents because the bill as it officially exists. I did a fiscal note for that bill. It's on there. But I'm gonna walk through the fiscal estimate for the proposed amendment from Senate Transportation. They are very similar except for, as the Chair Westman mentioned earlier, the fiscal note itself has that purchase and view section that has been taken out in their proposed amendment. So there'll be a slight difference, but other than that section, they're pretty much the same. So I'll go through this quickly. You can see there at the very top, there is some increase in expenses that would be incurred by the DMV of about $32,000 per year. That is what we'll get into is from that increased towing fee that could be charged. And then there's some other smaller de minimis impacts on state revenue, which I will go through. So section one through five is the first section. This is related to the free identifications for those certain individuals that are either detained or sentenced. So currently we offer the free non driver IDs for individuals who are sentenced to serve a period of imprisonment for six months or more. This section, as Dana mentioned, would expand those to be not only non driver IDs, but also the replacement operator's license and replacement, learner's permits. These sections will also expand that exemption to include individuals who are detained for six months or more. So on the second paragraph there is where we get into the numbers. So, in 2025, there were four sixty five free non driver IDs that were provided to sentenced individuals. And then between 2022 and 2025, there were an average of about 46 individuals who were detained for a period of six months or more and would qualify for this new free license. Currently, driver IDs have an application fee of $29 and then replacement operator license and replacement learner's permits are $24 And then the last paragraph in that first section, the potential impact would be from a loss of revenue. These individuals would no longer be paying the fee. But again, there's about 50 additional people who might be getting a pre license due to this change. Most of the people who qualify this are already getting a non grad graduate for free, so the estimated impact that these sections will have is really minor differences.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: If my driver's license didn't expire while I was being detained, I would need a free driver's license. Right?

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Seraphically, yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. So this would be if I couldn't get out and renew it because I was locked up, the state will make cost for that.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Right.

[Unidentified committee member]: Right.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Oh, okay. Just introduce? Sure.

[Andrew Collier (Department of Motor Vehicles)]: Andrew Collier, commissioner of the armed force vehicles. Just to add a little more color to everything I just mentioned, the cost for us to produce a non driver ID and a operator's license, if they're coming at a higher rate, is the same. It's approximately approximately $3.30 per deprecation card. So last Our production is the same those two items. Yeah. And then that's why the Enhance is a higher fee or not subsidizing. It's the the higher cost.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: What do we mean for our institution?

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: Cherry Corsohns. Oh. If I take them home, I'm dead.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So doesn't the governor's wife used to make goodies when he's in the governor. And you're also

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Okay. So

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: she makes great goodies.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. So

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Continuing on. Yeah. Section eight is the smuggles not penalty. I noted it here, but at the end, this is what what Amy told you, but we don't generally and it's hard to estimate revenue generated from We hope

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: we don't make it money. Yeah. Hopefully, is

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: the deterrent and it's zero, but I did wanna note it here. Section 15, that's the fee for towing. So as Damian mentioned, this would increase the amount of towing service can charge for towing a van motor vehicle from property. It's doubling that. So there's a small increase in sort of the cost that the state would have to incur, which we have these vehicle towed, estimated at around $32,000 depending on how many vehicles we get towed and such.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Remembering the discussion the last time we raised it, we were having trouble getting tow trucks because we weren't paying the golden rate. Yes. I'm holding down too. So I assume that's the same thing that's going on now. We're just getting up with the market. And if we aren't, it's probably a longer distance to pull get a former senator's car off the interstate when he couldn't get up his dirt road,

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: so his car didn't cross his place.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: State police did come and call him.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Can I ask a question? Doing this, I hear a thing. It says it would increase DMV expenses by roughly $32,000 a year. Do you mean revenue?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: No, no, no.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So, this is the fee that a towing service could charge the department, essentially. And then, as they mentioned, DMV could be reimbursed through this fund, but this is what towing service can charge. Before they were limited to only being able to charge a $125. I see. Now they can charge us $2.50 let's say a $2.50.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. The the state can pay a towing company. I'm gonna assume, and I stand to be corrected. If the car that's sitting there with the white handkerchief on the doorknob, when we find the owner, we will charge the owner for having that car removed?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: That's a

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: question I'm not sure

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: how that happens at practice.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: So this is referenced the abandoned vehicles. So when they go through the process of filling out and filing for an abandoned vehicle title, the tow company, they there's a checkbox where they

[Unidentified committee member]: can be reimbursed for towing

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: of that van vehicle, and that's where this would Yeah. This is outside of normal towing, if you will, I don't wanna say normal,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: but So normally, if you have to tow me out, I'm gonna I'm gonna pay the tow Correct. One way to the other. Okay. That makes more sense. Yeah. Alright. It's this little red car that's been sitting at the front for about five months. I don't know who's gonna take care of that, but it's buried in snow right now. Just drove it driven into the grass.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Section 19 is another civil penalty. Just put it here that it was mentioned as for the unregistered snowmobile penalties. Section 21 is that non domiciled commercial driver's license that Daniel mentioned, it's $40 a yearly fee. In 2025, there were 16 non domiciled CDLs issued. So this is, again, a de minimis impact, not a lot of revenue to be generated there. And then '28, the limited use specialty vehicles that as was mentioned, there's 12 maximum a year. So 12 times the $26 annual registration fee is again very small de minimis in that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So nothing is too in the in the transportation fund.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: We'll take our way to pay. I know.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We're gonna find some big. Okay. That's it.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Those are the sections.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Nothing of any real

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: No. So in the proposal that Senate Transportation is doing for their substitute amendment, again, if you look at the official fiscal note, it will have that purchase and use section in there, which is more substantial. We'll be hanging in here and the intent of the transportation committee, as you heard, to sort of amend their report to renew all of that. Oh, it's all just meeting. The whole is actually going to have taken out. You're taking out that after a later date.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: We're running five minutes ahead of the next day. I think you want to go and just give out.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'll jump on the agenda for after this, and I'm just gonna stick to the In case somebody wants to first adhere and yell, you can't charge me for getting stuck in smoke.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: They're trying to do that, but they're stuck in

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: some. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: The road may oh, the road is still closed with the seas. I don't think it's plowed. So it would be a real challenge today. Alright.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Just wanna clarify, I was talking about blowing up the rocks, not

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: the trees.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: How the cows are feeling? Okay. Questions for Logan. Are we comfortable with this one? Everyone can be meditating on who's going to report these bills. Has anyone tried to finish this one? He always was. Okay, the committee. We're going to go on. We're about three minutes ahead of schedule. I don't think we can deal with that. We'll probably check. This is X two zero four. That's an act relating to elective ratepayer assistance and utility disconnections. We did hear from PUC who said they'd already done the study and it was on our reports page that we did find it. Basically, they concluded that we really don't have a problem with people not being able to pay. We don't have a large number of defaults on electric. Which is the same thing? That you get a notice, the facilities will generally work out a payment plan, think it's three notices. There is if if electricity can't be turned off if you have any kind of a medical device that you're dependent upon, which leaves out a lot of people. It can't be turned off during severe cold weather. The one addition we had thought to make was even we were told that the utilities do not turn off your electricity when it's 98 degrees out because they do understand that that could be physically dangerous for people that are depending on air conditioning, but we we had discussed perhaps putting that in. Other than that, I learned this morning that the house has a similar bill that's headed our way. They did basically they put it in the rules that you can't turn it off during extreme heat and oh, they wanted to track how many disconnects there were a year just so we knew if we started to see it an uptick. So that one is coming. I'm assuming they're gonna meet somewhere in the hall and well, we're out the difference. But that's where we are. We did not hear from the utilities. So today we're gonna hear from the utilities who are on the receiving end this. Let's start with Andrea. I

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: don't see you in a while. Missed to see you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Some of is your regular NPS.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: I know. We haven't seen each other a lot. No.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We haven't messed with utilities in a while. I'm sure you're hoping to be done.

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Sorry. It's gonna bad. I am in the Zoom, and I can't share a screen if that's okay. I have some slides. Okay. If that makes sense. Good afternoon for the record. Andrea Cohen with Vermont Electric Cooperative. Yes, we are here today on S204, and I can share some slides if that's okay and see if that works. I was hoping to just give you a little background on this whole disconnect process and how we go about that, Probably similar to most Maybe

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: I guess,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'm looking, but I think my two newer members may not even know who you are. You might just tell us a little bit about For my electric,

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: I didn't come to my background, but Well, no. Just the about your organization. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Let's see. Share screen. Share window.

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: That's better. Okay. For the record, Cohen from Monoelectric Cooperative. For those of you who do not know from Monoelectric Cooperative, we're the second largest utility in the state of Vermont. We cover about 78 towns in the northern part of the state over in the islands all the way across. Are familiar with, I You think everybody's familiar with us. I'll just jump in and share a little bit. Let me start the slideshow. So, we're talking about utility disconnections. I'll start by saying VC, as well as utilities, do not like to disconnect power. These are our community members, our neighbors, our family members. We're in these communities.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Disconnecting terror is the last

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: thing we ever wanna do. Unlike some other commodities or essential services, interestingly, you're paying your electric bill often monthly. It's gone by, it's thirty days, then you have another thirty days, then you have to, you know, by the time you're kind of getting into trouble with us, frankly, you've got other problems in your life. It's not only your electric bill that's causing stress. I think one of my takeaways I want to share with, we don't have a lot of time today, but this affordability challenge is real and it's hard and it's getting worse for folks. And frankly, more regulations are We're not going to regulate ourselves out of this. This isn't actually maybe the opposite, but sometimes the more regulations actually add costs or cost shift to other folks. So, we really see this as a partnership with you. We're going be really honest and straightforward about what adds cost pressures, what doesn't. We're always gonna come in and share that with you, but we share the goal of reducing this problem, the affordability issue. And VEC territory has seven of the top 11 towns with the largest energy burden. This is that Efficiency Vermont report you've seen. We have some of the lower income folks in the state in our service territory, and we also have a really old demographic. This is from our annual member survey. 57% of our members are over 65 years of age. That is a lot of fixed income folks. We are laser focused on affordability and we do not want to disconnect this power for these folks. And we bend over backwards. We do whatever we can to help them get assistance and supports and programs and whatnot. So, this is something we're always looking at. On the member survey, every year we do a member survey, the cost of energy is the most important thing that our members report. They say, you do nothing but please focus on that. You can see readily forced prioritization compared to renewability and carbon free and all the good stuff we're trying to do and we're committed to do. We always cannot recite at a low cost energy being important. To your earlier comment, Senator, we disconnect about 100 people a month in our service territory. We're back to pre COVID. There was a moratorium

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: that was

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: all in and talk to you about that. We're kind of back to where we were before. Things are back to kind of normal. Just because these folks are disconnected doesn't mean they don't get reconnected quickly and often do. I have other

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: That's just disconnect. It doesn't show us who gets reconnected. Right. And there's a

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: lot of churn. Folks that are, again, having disconnection challenges, they've had other challenges. Sometimes this is the kind of part of this household situation is not sustainable. Let's figure something else out. Again, if they're not able to pay their bill, they've got some other challenges too. So, we don't have to go through all this given the time and the number of witnesses, but the point of we track this really closely and process is highly regulated. We do not just go through folks power off. They get notices, they get more notices, they get reminders, they have opportunities for payment arrangements and long term payment plans and all that is very, very regulated. And then we go beyond that. We have member service reps that know these people well. And Joe will call and they know Joe's wife just got out of the hospital and they will make additional arrangements. So, is a daily part of our work that we do. We manage eight fifty payment arrangements a month. 90% of those are successful. So, Joe says, I'm gonna get a check on Friday. I can give you another $50. That's noted in the account. If Friday comes and goes, we'll call you on Monday. But 90% of those are successful, meaning they don't end up with a disconnection. 90% of the disconnections often are in fact reconnected within one day. That says to us, somebody figured out a way, either got some supports or whatever and was able to get the power right back on.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: What does it cost you a

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: month to bail these notices? The

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: notice is actually the first part of the cycle that's just terrible because we don't wanna cost you that. So, what we do is if you're behind and you get a disconnect notice, you're actually paying the cost of that notice. So now you're behind and now you have additional fees, right? And if we have to roll the trucks to go out, you have to incur that cost. You wanna really avoid, you know, the best thing is paying your bills so you're not

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: getting additional Or funds, things like

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: at least, if somebody, if it's day 25, you haven't sent the notice out, if somebody reaches out to you and goes, Hey,

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: I can give you $50 this week, $50 next week, whatever it is, you're not going to send that

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: disconnection Right. See we work with them to avoid additional.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And then anyone on medical equipment.

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: So the medical to home is another thing, and I get that. So why do we work these things so hard? You know, we're we're calling people every day saying, Joey, eventually, we had a payment arrangement. You didn't pay what? Because if if you don't pay, your neighbor's paying more. Right? We're kind of a closed system. And often, neighbor can't afford to pay anymore either, you know, but they're prioritizing things differently or whatever. So our goal is to keep the arrearages down and the write offs down because if not, somebody else is gonna have to pay more. So, we feel like we're doing our members a service by making sure people are paying their bills. Just a point reference, just as a reminder, we often like to say we're not really the problem, even though we're regulated. So, we get pulled in a lot for more regulation. But if you look at the annual energy cost examples, green is the electric, the heating costs, and the transportation costs are more. So, when we talk about energy burden, electricity matters, of course, but, you know, it's putting gas in the car, heating the home if you're not using electricity that fall. That graph was done before this week. I did not do this graph. This is the Energy Action Network. I'm just thinking gas prices. Oh, can you imagine? Imagine. Definitely thought of.

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: Yeah. I'm sorry if you

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: said this earlier and it came in a bit late. I'm under the impression that that Vermont Gas and otherwise, they don't shut off in the wintertime, so they won't shut off gas service. I think that might be true or not. But in the wintertime, will you sometimes terminate service even if they electricity because that used used for heat sometimes?

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: It is highly regulated. There's a whole bunch of rules all about disconnection in winter. So we cannot disconnect on real cold days, there's a whole another process for that. If it's a walk, just because it's winter, but it's daylight today, we may be able to do a disconnection. But it has a lot to do with the temperature. So speaking about how, you know Go ahead.

[Unidentified (committee member/staff) — primary]: Thank you, madam chair. And I have

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: to leave at 03:30, so I

[Unidentified (committee member/staff) — primary]: just wanted to get this in before

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: you I'm sorry to interrupt. No. It's fine. So overall, the bottom line is, are you supportive of the bill as it is right now, or do you have concerns about it? The bill that you have that is short managed. Yeah. I mean, because this I mean, we prefer no additional regulation because we never know what happens when they go into rule making and all of sudden things get, you know, wacky and but what we're doing now for a process for high heat, I think if they actually that is what was enrolled because they'll hear that a lot of utilities are already not disconnecting high heat if they're not our own procedure. They're basically codifying what they already That

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: is so much better than what That was our understanding.

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: The other options Yep. Might be that are coming to you. Oh, they are. So

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Okay. So

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: thank you for that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Some of that. Maybe there's been national coverage about huge increases. Yeah. And I'm wondering if anyone's tracking are those the unregulated electric markets? Well, I'll explain what we're doing, and and then I

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: have another slide just as a quick reference to other states. I mean, it's Vermont. It is not Arizona. We have a few times over the summer recently that we've had advisories. What's happened over the past few years, DPS was proactive and they'd say, Wow, it's gonna be really hot. Maybe you guys shouldn't disconnect. And I'm like, You're right. That's okay. We won't disconnect today. Then we decided we shouldn't wait for the call from DPS. Let's be proactive. Excuse me. So, we've decided at BEC that if there's a summer heat advisory from the National Weather Service, and those are regional, they're not like all of Vermont, they might say, Memorial County, you know, If there's a heat advisory in our service territory, we will not disconnect on those things. So, we're proactively doing that. That's our procedure. It's working fine. If that's the kind of thing that you're anticipating and not way more complicated than that, it would be great if that was known because

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: What we're anticipating.

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Compared to other states, I just Googled this the other night. Again, let's remember it's Vermont. I just chose Orleans County, which is in our service territory. We have one or two lead advisories a year. There's that many super hot days that it might be dangerous. Phoenix, Arizona has dozens here. Are not Phoenix. Arizona has don't have any cold, we

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: don't

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: cold. Right. And we're not Georgia and we're not D. C. So, it's just remember where we are and how much of a problem it might be or not.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: The advantage of air conditioners in Vermont is relatively new. So,

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: last line is just, yes, affordability is a real and increasing concern, but regulations are not gonna help us help people pay their bills. And I feel like we're meeting any current concerns about high need disconnects. If you were to want to do new regulations, just please make them not complicated or cumbersome or causing everybody to spend more time than we need to than what we're doing already as a voluntary process. And if you need more information about any of this, we're very happy. We all track this really closely. We're regulated. We do monthly reports on all this and we can always share more in a way that is helpful to you. Thank you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. Meeting. Discussion, questions? Standing.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: I think we have other speakers, but I'm looking at the amendment, and I'm just wondering for air conditioning or does does can gas use for producing air cooling? We already have gas included in this. I'm just Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No. I have to request that we remove gas. Gas

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: That makes sense.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Is not used for cooling. It is used for heating. But today, I don't know, maybe someday we'll have a hydrogen cooler, but then at this point, I don't think so. I think that's just somebody took the language and, Right. Move. Right. So that will be a simple scrutineer's amendment. Scribble. Thank you. You. Okay. Ken Nolan is, I hope, still on Zoom. There he is. Welcome, Ken, and just introduce yourself for the record, and the floor is yours.

[Ken Nolan (General Manager, Vermont Public Power Supply Authority)]: Great. Thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, Ken Nolan. I'm the general manager here at Vermont Public Power Supply Authority. For the committee members who may not know, VEPSA or Vermont Public Power is a state created entity who works with the 14 smallest utilities in the state. At this point, we have 11 municipal utilities that are full members. We provide full service to and then Burlington Electric, Stowe Electric and Hyde Park are strategic members. We provide very targeted services to them as well. My testimony today is going to be relatively short. I agree with most of what Andrea just said. Do, since the question was asked directly, I'll start by answering it directly. I think we're in the same position. We'd prefer no new legislation on this front. Anytime a rulemaking starts in front of the Public Utility Commission, you don't know where it's going. It can get very complicated very quickly, which in our view has counterproductive actions to it. Having said that, when we look at H753 coming over versus S204, we much prefer S204. We understand your focus on the extreme heat situations, understand the concern there. We think that's, to the extent there's legislation needed, that's a good place to have a conversation. We're much more concerned when you get into discussions about the doctor's notes and how those are implemented in particular. As general matter, I talk about the same types of issues every time I'm talking about an energy bill. We're very concerned about cost shifting. And when you have customers who don't get disconnected and run up high, sometimes can be very high bills, that increase costs both in borrowing costs for the utility to operate without the revenue coming in, and to the extent those expenses get written off eventually, that's a cost shift to other customers. More directly, we see many cases where the inability to disconnect or force a conversation with a customer about how to create a payment plan or reduce their usage or things of that nature actually can become a financial burden on them. We had our board meeting today and talked about this bill and one example, extreme example for sure, but one example that came up was a utility that has a customer who it's a residential home, but they're running a business out of their home. Under the PUC rules, that customer is considered residential as far as the disconnect rules go, but they owe the utility $20,000 and they've been getting a doctor's note for month after month, gone through the winter and can't be disconnected. So they're now coming into the spring with a $20,000 bill that they're trying to figure out how to deal with. So we'd be very concerned about the more prescriptive no disconnect periods you add into the process here, the more you tend to cause customers to ultimately have financial difficulty without the utility being able to work with them and address it. We're also concerned with complexity. I think Andrea mentioned that as well. The winter rules are extremely complex. They take a lot of administrative overhead to operate and make sure that you comply with them. We much prefer to be in a position where we can work with the customer, try to find a way for them to pay their bill and move forward. The more prescriptive it is, more complex it is, the harder that is to do. We do I pulled the municipal utilities and as a group, they follow a similar practice to VEC, where they don't disconnect if there's an alert from the DPS or the National Weather Service for high heat. So that's voluntarily that's happening in the background now. But it's happening in a way where the utilities can operate it effectively with their administrative overhead and are better positioned to work with the customer. So I guess in closing, I'd just say, we're okay with this bill. We prefer this over $7.53 on the house side. But we'd want to make sure that if you're going to move forward with codifying this, that we do it in a way that doesn't add complexity and put customers in a more difficult spot because they're accruing larger bills. I'll stop there and happy to answer any questions.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Any questions, committee? Okay, so basically we're hearing, I think from both of you, that if we have to do something, this is probably the best something you've seen out there, but you'd prefer since you're already doing this that we do nothing.

[Ken Nolan (General Manager, Vermont Public Power Supply Authority)]: That is correct. That is our position.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Alright. Any questions, Mr. Gulick? Okay. Thank you. Lewis Oliver, the other way out. Thank you. A seasoned veteran.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yeah. That's

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: that's a kind way to put it. Thank you. Lewis Porter, Washington Electric Co op. I'm not gonna go through my testimony that I sent you all. You can read it if you're having trouble falling asleep tonight.

[Lewis Porter (Washington Electric Co-op)]: But Washington Electric Co op's a small rural electrical cooperative similar to Vermont Electric Co op.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Around here, you're not small.

[Lewis Porter (Washington Electric Co-op)]: You it's not fair. We cover actually, we cover the rural parts of 41 towns. So by territory, we're not all that small, but 12,000 members. Similar to Andrea and Ken, we don't think the bill's necessary. We follow similar practices to the two of them in high heat situations. Certainly, the DPS reaches out, we will not disconnect if they ask us not to. In addition, if we know that there's a a heat warning out there, we will voluntarily choose not to disconnect. My concern is that anytime something goes into a rulemaking process and is formalized with the force of the statute and rule, it gets complicated and bureaucratic, and that's appropriate because you're using the power of the state behind it. It's appropriate that that be spelled out and difficult and complicated. It's okay. But I think this is a case where you're adding complexity and difficulty unnecessarily by making this go through a formal rulemaking process. And anytime disconnects become more difficult, more cumbersome, there'll be fewer of them. There'll be longer before we get to that point. And the the

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: amount of

[Lewis Porter (Washington Electric Co-op)]: bad debt, the amount of bad bills we'll have will increase, which as Ken pointed out is bad for the individual member, also bad for the rest of the membership because the cost that those bills represent get paid by somebody, and the somebody is the the rest of the people in that utility who who do not have that bad bill. So I'll stop there. Happy to answer any questions. I would urge you to not do anything on either of the bills. As Ken and Andrea said, I I prefer your version to the house version.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: That's Okay.

[Unidentified committee member]: Very good job.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And I'm not sure which house bills are coming. I had a visit this morning very quickly, if I was with the chair of the house, who said they had a bill almost exactly like this, except they were going to asking the PUC to keep account. So, we were suddenly, you know, we started to see significantly more you know, shutoffs than disconnects than we've been seeing. And I suppose we could request that they do that without putting it into law.

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: We we report now to the department on our disconnects.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Agree ahead. So it's no They must have

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: It's it's no problem. I included my in my testimony that didn't give the history of our disconnect numbers, and you'll see we're not out of we're not out of the realm. In fact, we're disconnecting fewer now than we did pre COVID. There was that COVID period where we was a moratorium on disconnects, and we saw disconnects obviously went to zero. Our rear edges nearly doubled for Washington Electric Co op.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: The smaller utilities have a smaller base. You also tend to have higher costs because you're small. Okay. So that will that will put more of a direct impact, you know, have a cushion.

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: Exactly right.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. Committee. Questions? Yeah, okay. Right. Candice, you got a new tune. These guys are all singing in a choir.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Mess it all up, don't I'm sad.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: What's the pollution in the hall? No, not at all.

[Unidentified (committee member/staff) — primary]: Candace Morgan from Green Mountain Bauer. Thank you for the time today. We echo a lot of what you've heard from the other utilities in terms of this being a pretty, I think, straightforward bill should you choose to act on anything. We also obviously follow any guidance from the Department of Public Service when they ask us to pause on disconnections during a high need advisory? I also, I think your language was,

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: I

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: can't remember if the version I saw had a date by which the PUC needed to update the rule, or if it was just the next time. The rule 3.3 was updated not that long ago to implement some other legislative changes, so, yeah, the points that others have raised, is always, as just Camden always, and the chair, and everyone else, rulemaking is always an interesting exercise, right? Unpredictable. Unpredictable. We don't wanna, you know, kind of create new paths for more complicated things, but we would be supportive of the bill should you all choose to move it as well. I think it does represent a pretty straightforward consideration for just creating that point in which we would not be able to disconnect. I think what's important to remember and remind you all of is that in the winter, in addition to there being a threshold at which no disconnect can happen because it's just too cold, there's a lot of additional work that has to happen, a notification with the customer and other things, and this would not be setting up a similar process that you'd hope would be that it would just have that higher heat threshold. So we would want to just keep it in that lane versus creating more hurdles to jump through. But while I was here, I just also wanted to share with the committee, we're also seeing similar to what Lewis reported, overall lower numbers of disconnects than we did right before the pandemic as well. And I think that that shows a lot of really, it's the result of a lot of constant work of our customer care team with our customers, payment arrangements, other work that we're doing every day to try to avoid that final step. And keeping people current really does help them long term. Things are not getting sent to collections and also the rest of our customers aren't covering those costs, so we don't want to create any unnecessary rate pressure that we don't have to in that space. One other thing just to mention to the committee also, we have an energy assistance program at GMP, which is paid for by all of our customers. It's a fee, a line item on your GMP bill, and that helps provide a 25% discount for eligible customers. And also, we just recently went to the Public Utility Commission and got approval to allow for up to two arrearage forgivenesses customers who are enrolled in that program. They used to be that you could have an arrearage forgiveness at the time of enrollment, but we were noticing that not everyone was coming in with an arrearage, but we wanted to have the flexibility to work with them if they had one during the time that they were on that program. It's been really helped us get some more customers caught up by being able to implement that additional or arrearage for maintenance as well. I think that was some of main points that I wanted to hit, but I'm happy to answer any questions.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Committee. Alright. So you do have resistance trouble. You do this. And I assume that with everyone else that if you didn't, it won't be a charge. That's how you make your money is a charge on is raising everyone else's rights. I mean, there's a surcharge on there. Surcharge.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: And it's paid for by all customers, including customers in the program. Right? And so it is Rate increase. Exactly, right? And I think we have found the balance at GMP in terms of what that cost is to all customers and being able to provide that support. It's 185% of the federal poverty level or under that someone can be eligible for the program. It's not a The income threshold is

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: I think it's about 10

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Or just about 11,000 of our customers who are enrolled on it right now. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yep. That's just so we have a different number. Alright. Any questions, committee? Okay. Committee, we have three votes scheduled next. Would you I'm very hesitant to say, you like to take a break, or would you like to move forward?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: I just wanna Yeah. So I'm fine with the DMV and the other one. As for this one, I don't see the language into the vision between gas out of there. So you're just

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We haven't taken gas out of there. That somebody got me in the hall today. I think we could treat that as a scrivener's error. Just get something walking into a scrivener's error. We've been asked to remove gas from the the heat.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: I don't

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: know much about this. Because you don't do air.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: That was a

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: During air conditioning with So, anyway, this is the net first one on there. I think what we've heard is if we really feel we have to do something, this is probably the least evil thing we could do. We still They're already doing it and they would prefer we do nothing. I don't think we need to put it in law to ask the PUC to come in and report to us in person, not a report on disconnect trends, so we are tracking

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: that. I don't know that we need to put

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: it in. And this is Maria Royal. Mhmm. She's the drafter on this one. Is she available? No. She's all booked up. All booked up. So I guess if we do this, nothing much is gonna change.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: I guess as soon as.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: You go back. Yeah.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Sounds like the utilities themselves kinda already have a plan in place. Or

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. I've got is these two don't think we have No.

[Unidentified committee member]: The only question is have we heard anything from, quote, the other side? Have we heard any complaints? Have you heard any complaints that the process wasn't working well? I haven't heard any. Don't know

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: about that. Haven't and believe I told you I talked to the sponsor and the constituent that asked for this actually had been paying utilities through her rent and her landlord didn't pay the bill and she lost, the big loss was the food in her refrigerator.

[Unidentified committee member]: Have you heard anything from PSV in terms of things that already were related to that?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Sent the report, and they didn't think it was necessary to do anything. Yeah.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: I was gonna ask, did the public service department,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: do

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: they keep track of that? Because they're supposed to be the consumer Somebody answering

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: said they have to report their disconnects either to public service.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Yeah. So did they tell us?

[Unidentified (committee member/staff) — primary]: I don't remember their testimony on this bill.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: We did not get that in. We ended the PUC. Maybe we should have the public service department in and ask them. But till tomorrow. Yeah. That's true. We do

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: have another build coming from the house if we change our mind. We don't have to do anything. There is a vehicle coming.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: That's That's what I was gonna say. So just to

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: If there yeah. If there's a vehicle coming, then we could wait.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We could wait and strip whatever people don't like out of that. I what I think there may be several because the one I was told about this morning just put in the summer disconnect, no disconnect during heat and asked PUC, I think maybe it was the Public Service Department, to keep track of disconnects. And so when that was representative James, but it was one of those, I've got you for a minute Mhmm. To let you know what's coming. So okay. I'm not see seeing any great angst past this. Okay. See, I'll often wait until the next one. I'm sorry. And we'll see if we have developed any more angst since then. I know nationally there is a That's great. There is an issue. There's a huge issue with electric rates. Ours are going up, but probably not as fast as some others because we are still a regulated utility, and we seem to be doing a lot of dependence on hydro and solar. I know the grid has a lot of natural gas, and I'm just assuming that natural gas is going to do some of the same things that fuel oil and gasoline are doing. But we'll see you know, that's beyond our control. Okay. So we're gonna do nothing with that for now. That gets us to two eleven, motor vehicle inspections in which there are no fees, no revenues, everything's been stripped out. There's a stud. It must be ice cream. Twist. Okay. Yeah. So it's eleven.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: This has no fee, no rev, no rev.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: Why did we have anything?

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: Because the original bill

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: The original bill had

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: The work fee and revenue in that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It had an impact because it was going to two year inspections, and that would have had a revenue impact, but they took that out because all the numbers they got weren't correct. And so this one is a study that they just did, we just did a whole set up due to start, I believe, next year for mileage that you were going to get your odometer read when you went in for your annual inspection. And if we do away with the annual inspection, what do

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: we do with that?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Right. So

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: would someone like a motion? I move that we pass S two eleven draft 3.1 or approve or recur or whatever? The committee on transportations S-two

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: 11 draft 3.1. S, sent to us by transportation. Okay, Senator Hardy has moved that we report s two eleven three point one favorably as sent to us since there are no fees in it. Is there any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Okay. That one carries. We would like to report that one.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Sure. Do you want it?

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: We'll do that. I'll just say there's no pee.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: That's a

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: hard one.

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: I love it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Did the good sample. And just for the record, Martine did both. Oh, Martine did both. Martine is up there? I did, I said aye. Oh, I didn't even Okay, we can't hear you. Sorry about that. Now

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: we're good, 700. So,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: we

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: So you want me to do it?

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: Sure. No.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We then have s $3.26, which does have fees. So

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: on this logistically, I just wanna be prepared that we were walked through a strike all amendment from the committee members. The bill we have, we didn't walk through, so we can vote on that bill. I don't know what the differences are, but that's I

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: think I don't know how to

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: do it. Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: They are going to stand up and ask to do a substitute amendment on the floor. I think we just stand up and say we were informed they were going to do that, we looked at the substitute amendment. The amendment really doesn't change. It strikes out the whole purchase and use section, but the fees that are here are the fees that are in the original bill,

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: so So

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: weirdly, are we voting on the bill? We're voting

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: on the fees that remain in the bill, not anything to do with purchase and use. Are they they haven't voted it out of committee yet, though?

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: They did.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: They voted to fill out, and what senator Westman told me, is that DMV gave them all kinds of wrong numbers. There's a new administration over there. And when they they found that out after they had vote voted the bill out, and so they immediately did a substitute amendment, struck out I'm not sure what they're doing with purchase and use,

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: but I told them he couldn't have our money and he had fun.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Thank you. It was gross vehicle, was really dumb.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: But that's gone. That whole section got struck because the numbers they were going on weren't correct.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: The

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: rest of the bill, and there's a few fees in there.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: It's the licensed ones.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: The licensed

[Unidentified committee member]: No available one.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: The Smuggler Dodge.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Locked up for six months, you can get a free this, you may have been gone.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: No, I remember, I was here for that part. Yeah. But I just wondered the status of it, they just have, they're doing a substitute amount. They do a substitute amount. So us voting on it, we're not, are we voting on the substitute amount? Yes. But

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: the fees are the same.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: According to the bloomer we're sitting right here, I don't think we're voting on the substitute amendment for this action because we have the committee bill,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: the bill that came to the committee. We have voting on the, and I can we will stand up and say the fees are the same

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: because we have the actual bill not Yes.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Right. Right.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Yeah. And could you the sub sub sub subammonial.

[Unidentified (committee member/other) — primary]: That's the

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: one we

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: plan That on your

[Unidentified committee member]: is the that is the substitute.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We went over the sub bill.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: People were voting on the bill that came out of their committee.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Right. And the but they other than striking that section on whatever they were doing with purchase and use, which probably would have gotten our attention, And it had to do with truck trailers and

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: It was the weight of vehicles because if you go over a certain weight,

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: your cap that you're purchasing used to extend.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: So that one might have gotten our attention a little more, but we're voting on what remains. So

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: So this motion is for the bill in committee? The bill they passed out.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. The fees as the

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: bill which I move that we approve last what is it? $3.03 26.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: B six.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: That's into oh.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Oh, yeah. We could do yeah. We could do it with without the that section. What what section is it?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: I

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: move three twenty six. Well, I don't

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Damian get no. Damian gave us the strike all.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: We could move the bill without a favorable or unfavorable, and then say we voted on the amendment. It's the floor amendment. It just really confused things.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well, if they do a strike all amendment, that's gonna go first.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: To do?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. Because they're gonna get up to the bill, they're gonna move to substitute with the new bill, takes out, It's yeah, that's our second

[Unidentified committee member]: not intended to bring up the issue of finances. Yes. Approval of what's left.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And we will say we had in our possession the original bill, the part we went but what we actually looked at was the substitute. The fees are the same.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Does anybody know what the differences are? Like, is there just one section that's

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: That's just one section. I'm trying to figure out what the section is, and then we can go on it without that section.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I will move it without that section. Purchase and use. Why did

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: they do a strike call? It was just one section over there. But it's strike Everybody is Six. They really used to do,

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: like, section.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: They're just on six piece of bills.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: I love that they're.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: To do the Zorro side through the page.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: I move that we approve S-three 26 as recommended by the Committee on Transportation except for section 18. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'll take that to

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: it. John Blumer says.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: John Blumer says no, we'll go meet in the corner and do what John Blumer tells us to Alright. Then he's probably listening and will be through that door. He is on third out

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: of it. Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Okay. We know what we're voting on. We are voting to approve the fees that are the regular increase, the towing fees so we can actually get a tow truck to come, the nonresident trucker fee, the extending the free driver's license learning permit or ID to people who have been detained. They already have done for people who are incarcerated, but you can be detained up to six months before going to trial and then either acquitted or filed guilty and sentenced the time served.

[Unidentified committee member]: And they get your

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: license back.

[Unidentified committee member]: You get your license back. The one thing that was on my mind, probably should have asked, I didn't want to complicate things further, a lot of people are convicted of a crime, and part of the conviction is you can't drive. Right. And so when is that person's license, if that person has that kind of restriction, are we paying the fee for them to get a license they can't get now? Or are we waiting for the court process to end at the point at which they're eligible, which could be two years later or whatever, do we pay it then?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Well, right now, I remember in your testimony, if you're incarcerated, the day you leave, get what you're entitled to get. If you are part of your probation, if you can't drive two years, then you're gonna get a real ID, which is the non driving license.

[Unidentified committee member]: And I think that should be referred to as a non driver ID.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. This is a federal term.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Fake ID?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. This is fake real ID. Anyway, if your driver's license hasn't expired Mhmm. Then you're not getting a new one. You know, if you you're in you've you've got a two year license or you paid I think you get a five year license now, these two, and you got it, and you were in jail for six months, and you've still got six months to go on your license. It's only if you couldn't renew it because you were locked up.

[Unidentified committee member]: I'm just wondering, I'm sure there's gotta be an administrative process in here somewhere. Yeah. And the fact that there was no mention whatsoever, what happens if you can't get a driver's license because, you know, for a period of time, now you may get it two months from now, does the reimbursement kick in then, or does the reimbursement just end on the date you're released and you keep it or not? It's still very unclear to me.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You will get, they said, if you're incarcerated, the day you leave, you get what you are due. Mhmm. So we're not gonna send you out without any ID that's can't cash a check, can't do anything without a government form of ID anymore. So you'll get a real ID, which pretty much might let you cash a check if you have a bank account, and it will get you on an airplane, won't get you over the border. If your driver's license has expired, you get a driver's license, I think we're gonna have to trust the Department of Corrections, it's not giving you a driver's license if your probation says you can't drive. You're getting a real ID. But if your license expired and you can drive and you were a truck driver before we locked you up, you'll probably get your license.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Detention

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: couldn't. It's it's what the bill does is it expands the present system to people who are detained that we already do for people who are our superintendents. And you can be detained for quite a while. Okay.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: We got a motion, right? Yep, I moved it a little while ago.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Senator Hardy moved that we approve it minus section 18 because it's our understanding that has been removed and that the fees in both bills are the same.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Just to belabor the point.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Please. Yeah. Please.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: Go for it.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: We could have just had the finance committee amendment address that whatever they're bringing forward as a floor amendment.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: But Yeah. We could have taken it out. We could have taken

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: it out, but I I think they were so sounded like this happened by a minute.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Thank you for that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Don't take over with us. Nightcroping. Sanity does not rule at the end of a day.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: For sure. Still emotional.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Is there any further discussion?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Chittenden? No, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No further amendments. Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I was saying that. We heard you. We heard you on calling that seven zero zero. Senator Chittenden or Beck, who would like to Happy

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: to. But if you want I think it's yours.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: That's That's

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: our agenda for today. Would you like to go offline? Nope. Because I wanted to talk about I don't have yesterdays here.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Yep. Since I'm Yeah. I have one more thing on this, madam chair.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Should should we take a straw poll on their floor amendments as well? Is that that necessary?

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: No. Is that

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We voted for the fees. That's our only

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: We voted for the They

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: don't change fees on the floor.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: It's alright.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yesterday, I've got a couple. What we'll be discussing yesterday? Three twelve, which was the Michigan Green Investment Tax Credit. Yes. And plus 61. We are still we're getting we can't we haven't been able to get the tax department for tomorrow. And we can't get Pepsi.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: And we can't get

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Pepsi So by the end of the that's sitting there. The other one, got $2.82, which is that taxes on higher income earners for the school construction fund. I'm gonna have Patrick come in. It seems like it gets more and more complicated. And after the childcare bill yesterday, I'm wondering if the votes are even here to go forward with that one. We'll hear from Patrick, but just I have

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: an amendment that I at least wanna have some time to Okay. Talk about. I think you also do.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: As builder,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I some members of my committee had talked to Patrick,

[Unidentified (committee member/staff) — primary]: that's all I heard. Yeah.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: When I mentioned it to you that I had talked about.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And that it might get interesting.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: So all I want to say is I don't support the bill as is and so I saw it was on the agenda as I told you that I wanted to draft some contours or something I could support. And so that's what I I do have if we wanna discuss it and have me bring it forward.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Yeah. And I have something too that just to for discussion purposes. And, I mean, I think it would be I would love to see

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: something go forward, but I know that it's working on it. And this end of the table, is there anything that's gonna make this palatable? No. Bill, are you guys talking about? Sorry.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: 282?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: 283. No. Tom,

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: well done.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'm in favor. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm in favor. That. And so we've got three no's, two yes's, at this point maybe.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Well let's look at

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: the variations. Yeah, at I'm gonna the variations and see what we can come up with. I'm just trying to assign time. Sales and use tax exemption on fuel use in residence. Oh, okay. I'm going to take that up because it came to us and we haven't done it, which is basically we're gonna the proposal is to tax fuel oil for essentially second homes or

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: because you got the homes different, yes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah. I know, and I'm pretty sure what I'm going to hear from the tax department is until the listeners are finished their work, we don't even know who they are or where they are, and it will be very difficult. But we'll see what they say.

[Unidentified committee member]: So this would be what to put a what what sort of a tax? Is it just sitting up sales tax, is it going to that

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Are that relating to some libraries or department bloggers? When did that one

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: You got

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yesterday, maybe? Some of Yesterday. Okay. This is going to cave.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: It doesn't exist.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Has to go

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: appropriations. Alright. She

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: may okay. That's $3.12 again. We'll see if we can get that out. We're trying to get tax and veg Pepsi in here. We can't get them out. We can't get them out. Alright. So committee, think about about what you wanna do with that one. Does

[Unidentified committee member]: that have to go this week?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yes. Yes. Because it came here originally. Alright. It didn't come to us from another committee. So it cross out this week.

[Unidentified committee member]: What are the what are

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: the rules if it doesn't get out of this senate, but we wanna include it in a discussion that like, on the miscellaneous tax bill?

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Oh, you could Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: We could do that.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: As long as it's germane. The nice thing about miscellaneous tax Yeah. Is it's germane to anything that has a tax. Our tax exemption or it's pretty broad, which is why it gets decorated a lot. And where things are going on, if we do any changing to tax codes, that's where I put it. If we can't reach agreement on February, that's where we'd go. We don't have two twenty on here, so we need to put that on because I'm understanding there is an agreement in the works.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Happy to say a few things on that. So working on an excess spending threshold alternative to the allowable study book gap, so a soft gap. Just been playing

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: gassy gap.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Well, in my version of two eighty two that you'll see tomorrow, there is something about the excess spending threshold. I combined them.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Okay. It's the it's never been introduced or

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: No. It's not. It's not in the introduced, but I was sort of looking at our conversation about two twenty and the conversation about two eighty two when I tried to put them together.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: So you'll see. I mean,

[Unidentified (committee member/staff) — primary]: the drought isn't ready yet. So Ipsea denied bark.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: No. Like I did. This year, Bill. Okay.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Or very fine sausage. But that sometimes is where the best builds come from. So, yeah, I think tomorrow we'll be busy. Next, we're actually doing pretty well getting through the bills. Most of these have come to us. We've got two eighty two and 02:20, yeah, that were hours that we've been working on that we need to get out of here. We have several that have come to us from other committees we'll need to get out and there will be an onslaught on Friday and Monday bills being sent over here.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: I'm fine talking about two eighty two next week if we Pardon? We can talk two eighty two next week if you're We're missing the deadlines.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We miss we missed the deadline.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: I can't do it. Yes.

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: K.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: But I'm gonna give it one last shot. I've gotta see what it looks like. I'm not sure, but I'd like to get some school construction money because we're not gonna go anywhere with consolidation without some construction help.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: You know what I had about school construction is kind of outside the conversation here, what we have Caledonia adding and adding and adding. Is it the the 1% local option tax? Doesn't the the state's portion greatly exceed on an annual basis the pilot payment? Great reason.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: We reduced it last year, the percentage that goes in the state, so I don't I don't think it does anymore.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: No. It's we we took it yes. Well, we got a whole lot of new towns

[Sen. Richard "Rich" Westman (Chair, Senate Transportation)]: this year. Right.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: If how much they'll put in. Yeah. I know that there's a discussion there. Was John laughing at us? Excuse me.

[Logan (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: Were you

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: playing with the notion of the taxes

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: out the whole Eastern vote on the transportation bill that we are our jurisdiction is like

[Unidentified committee member]: the roads.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We have the bill. We know there's a strike all. Right. So we voted on the bill minus section 18, which is what we understand what it was. Right?

[Unidentified committee member]: Well, that's that's true.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: But they don't get out of these.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: This is not

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: Just what they're they know what a common conglucistics, what they're so sensitive.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: They they do. Are you alive?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: They do,

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We're still alive, but we can go on

[Unidentified (committee member/staff) — primary]: a lot. Care. I just need to know. So, technically, it's

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: favorable. That's what we did.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: The motion, excluding section 18, but we didn't amend it to remove 18. We just

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: voted

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Council)]: favorably all of

[Sen. Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: it